Solar Storm Calamity Missed by Just One Week 

Where were you on July 23, 2012? Notice anything unusual? Sun a shade brighter maybe, or ??? Well, if you didn't notice anything, you weren't alone. It seems just about everybody missed a rather large solar flare that, it turns out, was the most powerful one that we know about in at least the last 150 years. The storm it created went galloping through space and right through the path of our little Earth. We had been in the exact spot it rampaged through exactly a week earlier. Yes, if this storm had happened just one week earlier, our little planet would have been in the direct path.

But we missed it. This time. And, you might ask, what would have happened? “If the eruption had occurred one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire,” said Daniel Baker, professor of atmospheric and space physics at the University of Colorado. Scientists have concluded that it would have been comparable to the largest known space storm they know about that occurred back in 1859, known as the Carrington Event, and it would have been twice as bad as the 1989 solar storm that knocked out power across the entire province of Quebec in Canada.

The iconic Carrington Event of Sept. 1859, is named after English astronomer Richard Carrington who actually saw the instigating flare with his own eyes.  In the days that followed his observation, a series of powerful CMEs hit Earth head-on with a potency not felt before or since.  Intense geomagnetic storms ignited Northern Lights as far south as Cuba and caused global telegraph lines to spark, setting fire to some telegraph offices and thus disabling the 'Victorian Internet."

“I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did,” said Baker. The National Academy of Sciences has said the economic impact of a storm like the one in 1859 could today cost the modern economy more than two trillion dollars and cause damage that might take years to repair. 

"If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces," says Baker. "In my view, the July 2012 storm was in all respects at least as strong as the 1859 Carrington Event. The only difference is, it missed." This time, yes, but what about tomorrow?

Court Releases "Bunga Bunga" Berlusconi 

Former Italian Prime Minister (and billionaire) 77-year-old Silvio Berlusconi has been acquitted (cough, cough, does money talk?) in an appeal against his original seven-year conviction for paying for sex with a teenage prostitute, Moroccan-born nightclub dancer nicknamed Ruby the Heart Stealer, at his notorious “bunga bunga” parties, and for abusing his office by having her released from police custody. Apparently he also put pressure on officers in a police station in Milan to let her go when she was later arrested on a theft charge. He told them she was the grand-daughter of Hosni Mubarak, the then Egyptian leader, and that her detention could cause an international incident.

Berlusconi escaped additional corruption charges that he was involved with former Panamanian President  Ricardo Martinelli in about $24 million in kickbacks paid for Panama's overpriced purchases of Italian radar systems, helicopters, and electronic mapping services.

Another interesting part of the case involved Martinelli and several fellow politicians and officials, as well as several unidentified women, spending weekends at a posh resort (Berlusconi's?) in Italy. Sources familiar with the case claim they have video recordings of Martinelli using cocaine and engaging with prostitutes.

Shortly after the Berlusconi acquittal was announced in court, he left the residence by car, but said nothing to journalists. The court in Milan now has 90 days in which to release the reasoning behind its decision. It's not clear if the Milan judges have also requested bribes to cement the acquittal, but perhaps it's too early to tell at this point.

CDC Transports Anthrax in Ziplock Bags

The Ziplock people must be so proud. Our own CDC, alias the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - you know, the people who work for you with these cherished words proclaiming their mission to work for you ...

Well, Monday they found that some folks at the CDC were transferring some dangerous stuff (anthrax) around in Ziploc bags, storing it in unlocked refrigerators in an unrestricted hallway, and misplacing containers of the stuff. 

And, let's see, some other CDC employees failed to note that the anthrax they shipped to other labs last month wasn't dead, it was still alive. Oops! Oh, and they also failed to post warning signs about possible anthrax exposure for a couple of days, allowing people to just wander into the room "without approval." Seems it took the CDC's on-site clinic five days to examine some lab workers that might have been exposed, and others were told that rather than visiting the clinic, they should just keep "an eye out for signs of anthrax infection."

Huh? Yes, alright, they probably will ask, do you feel OK? Well, if you do, you're probably fine. If you don't, you probably inhaled some of our live samples of anthrax, samples that can kill you in minutes, literally like it destroys the tissue in your brain like acid and you, well, die.

A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee has a hearing scheduled for Wednesday about the anthrax incident last month at the CDC, and it sounds like they'll have plenty to talk about.

World's First Air-Conditioned City

What if you had a a ton of money and liked where you lived but there was one problem, it was always sunny and unbearably hot just about all the time, like maybe 110 to 115 F. (43 - 46C) in the daytime? Why not cool everything off by building an air-conditioned city? 

Sure, no problem. It seems Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of the United Arab Emirates has decided to build the world's first temperature-controlled city on Earth right there in the middle of the desert in Dubai. The ambitious project is not only going to feature a mall, an indoor family theme park, and a "network of temperature-controlled openable promenades." According to developer Dubai Holding, the 7 kilometer (4.35 mile) expanse of covered walkways will allow week-long stays without the need for cars or exposure to Dubai's harsh desert climate.

The project will be built in phases in alignment with the gradual growth of family tourism in Dubai.” The "Mall of the World will be the world’s largest mall occupying 8 million sq. ft. connected to 100 hotels and serviced apartments buildings with 20,000 hotel rooms. There will also be a temperature-controlled covered retail street network spreading over 7 km, the largest indoor family theme park in the world, a wellness district catering to medical tourists. Around 180 million visitors are expected to visit the mall annually. "The objective is to create an integrated city with a plethora of best-in-class options within pleasant environments," says the Prime Minister.

Neither a budget nor a completion date have been announced as of yet. The Mall of the World might seem like an outlandish, capitalistic fantasy, but Dubai is no stranger to extravagance. Among other things, the city is famous for containing the world's tallest building and throwing a record-breaking fireworks display.

The Prime Minister says, “We announced recently that we plan to transform Dubai into a cultural, tourist and economic hub for the two billion people living in the region around us; and we are determined to achieve our vision.

Fidget a Little & Save Your Heart

I ran across this yesterday and normally don't put things like this in here, but it struck home and I wanted to share it. It seems they've figured out what is probably obvious to just about everybody that the longer you sit working at a desk, watching TV or driving, the higher your risk is for a heart attack. You probably already knew this, but did you realize that there’s actually something you can do while you sit that will help save your cardiovascular system.

Fidget. What a great word. While you sit, just move around a bit. Don’t use the remote control for the TV, get up to change channels. Stand up and stretch while you are at work. Shift positions. Pace.

A study at the University Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, shows that every moment you sit motionless increases the danger for your heart. “We also found that when sitting for prolonged periods of time, any movement is good movement, and was also associated with better fitness,” says researcher Jacquelyn Kulinski. “So if you are stuck at your desk for a while, shift positions frequently, get up and stretch in the middle of a thought, pace while on a phone call, or even fidget.”

I have this thing about the Mayo Clinic. There are some really good clinics and hospitals around the world, but to me the absolute best and the final authority about anything medical, I trust the Mayo Clinic above everybody else. To me, what they say is gospel. So the Mayo Clinic did some studies about this same thing, and their conclusion is, "sedentary behavior appears to have an inverse association with fitness. These findings suggest that the risk related to sedentary behavior might be mediated, in part, through lower fitness levels."

The scientists also recommend taking short walks during the day, climbing stairs instead of using an elevator or escalator, working at a treadmill desk and meeting with people while you walk instead of sitting down.

Pay attention to the experts. It all makes sense. Remember, it's your life.

Cardboard Box with Smallpox Virus Found in Maryland

You probably know that smallpox was this horrible disease that killed something like 300–500 million people during the 20th century. As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year. Well, they finally were able to eradicate the disease in the 1980's and just to make sure they had some of the virus left over for a "just in case" scenario, they stored a few samples away in super-secure laboratories in Atlanta and Russia. 

Well, oops, it seems somebody forgot about a cardboard box full of the stuff in an old storage room near Washington. A government scientist was cleaning the room out last week when he came across a box of decades-old vials of smallpox packed away and forgotten by everybody.

The six glass vials of freeze-dried virus were intact and sealed with melted glass, and the virus might have been dead, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. Officials said this is the first time in the US that unaccounted-for smallpox has been discovered. By the way, it was the second recent incident in which a government health agency appeared to have mishandled a highly dangerous germ. Last month, a laboratory safety lapse at the CDC in Atlanta led the agency to give scores of employees antibiotics as a precaution against anthrax.

The smallpox virus samples were found in a building at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, that has been used by the Food and Drug Administration since 1972, according to the CDC. The scientist was cleaning out a cold room between two laboratories on July 1st when he made the discovery, FDA officials said.

Officials said labeling indicated the smallpox had been put in the vials in the 1950s. But they said it's not clear how long the vials had been in the building, which did not open until the 1960s. 

No one has been infected, and no smallpox contamination was found in the building. Smallpox can be deadly even after it is freeze-dried, but the virus usually has to be kept cold to remain alive and dangerous. In an interview Tuesday, a CDC official said he believed the vials were stored for many years at room temperature, which would suggest the samples are dead. But FDA officials said later in the day that the smallpox was in cold storage for decades.

The samples were rushed to the CDC in Atlanta for testing, after which they will be destroyed.
In at least one other such episode, vials of smallpox were found at the bottom of a freezer in an Eastern European country in the 1990s, according to Dr. David Heymann, a former World Health Organization official who is now a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Heymann said it is difficult to say whether there might be other forgotten vials of smallpox out there. He said that when smallpox samples were consolidated for destruction, requests were made to ministers of health to collect all vials. "As far as I know, there was never a confirmation they had checked in with all groups who could have had the virus," he said.

Smallpox was one of the most lethal diseases in history. For centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected, including Queen Mary II of England, and left most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the pus-filled lesions. The last known case was in Britain in 1978, when a university photographer who worked above a lab handling smallpox died after being accidentally exposed to it from the ventilation system. Global vaccination campaigns finally brought smallpox under control. After it was declared eradicated, all known remaining samples of live virus were stored at a CDC lab in Atlanta and at a Russian lab in Novosibirsk, Siberia. The labs take extreme precautions. 

Scientists who work with the virus must undergo fingerprint or retinal scans to get inside, they wear full-body suits including gloves and goggles, and they shower with strong disinfectant before leaving the labs. The US smallpox stockpile, which includes samples from Britain, Japan and the Netherlands, is stored in liquid nitrogen. There has long been debate about whether to destroy the stockpile. Many scientists argue the deadly virus should be definitively wiped off the planet and believe any remaining samples pose a threat. Others argue the samples are needed for research on better treatments and vaccines. At its recent annual meeting in May, the member countries of the WHO decided once again to delay a decision.

Boeing Loses Plane Fuselages in Montana River

Here's something you don't see every day. Sure, there are train wrecks every week or two that spill all kinds of stuff down ravines and into city streets, etc. But when's the last time you spotted a few airplane fuselages dumped out of a crashed train? It seems, a Burlington Northern freight train had a little problem near Rivulet, Montana last Saturday and dumped some of its cargo down a ravine and into the Clark Fork River. The cargo, as you might guess from the above image, consisted of six single-aisle 737s, fuselage panels for a long-range 777, and a few wing parts for a jumbo 747.

Most of those pieces are manufactured by Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kan., where the shipment originated, and were destined for the Boeing Renton and Everett, Washington final assembly lines that piece together the majority of its commercial aircraft. Boeing said an investigation into the accident was under way. The company has "deployed experts to the scene to begin a thorough assessment of the situation," a spokesman said. "Once we determine the extent of damage we will assess what, if any, impact there will be to production."

It seems that major aircraft makers like Boeing and Airbus spread their jetliner factories across multiple regions and countries, necessitating a finely tuned logistics network to move aircraft components around the world. Both also use cargo ships and specially modified cargo jets to speed body, wing and tail sections to final assembly lines in sites as disparate as China to Charleston, S.C. And Boeing uses Burlington Northern to ship their parts, even though this time they probably didn't expect them to land in a Montana river. 

Boeing shipment trains are common on that route through Montana, and that area of track has a speed limit of 35 miles an hour. Neither of the two or three personnel who were on board the train were injured.

Nigerian Teens Create Fuel from Urine

No, you're not going to be able to pee in your gas tank to get that extra mile, but here's an idea: Four teenage girls figured out a way to use a liter of urine as fuel to get six hours of electricity from their generator. Some teenagers in Nigeria displayed their invention this week at a science fair in Lagos, an annual event meant to showcase ingenuity.

Here’s how the urine-powered generator works:

• Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen.

• The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, and then into a gas cylinder, which looks similar to the kind used for outdoor barbecue grills.

• The gas cylinder pushes the filtered hydrogen into another cylinder that contains liquid borax, in order to remove moisture from the gas. Borax is a natural mineral, commonly used in laundry detergent.

• The hydrogen is pushed into a power generator in the final step of the process.

The idea of using urine as fuel is not new. The girls have come up with a practical way to put the idea into action, though. Their method for using urine to power a generator is one the average household can appreciate. Power generators are used far more often in Africa than here, where they are relegated more to emergency use, as in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. But power outages happen multiple times a day in Lagos, so all those who can afford a backup generator have one.

Gerardine Botte, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio University, is among those working on practical ways to make urine into a more useful hydrogen source, essentially by turning power into a byproduct of wastewater treatment. She says it takes more energy to extract hydrogen from urine than you end up getting in return as electricity. The energy equation gets even more skewed by the inefficiency of the generator used in the girls’ project. Botte says. “With this project, they’re doing both: using less energy to reutilize water sources.” So, when put in the context of wastewater treatment, the concept of using urine as a hydrogen source to produce energy has great potential.

Since wastewater treatment plants already collect the raw material needed – urine – extracting hydrogen from it makes sense, Botte says. Doing so could regain some of the vast amounts of energy already being spent all over the world to treat waste. “You will never get more energy out than you put in,” she says. “But it is a unique and elegant way to treat urine waste, which will allow you to co-generate electricity.”

To give you a sense of how much energy it is possible to recapture from this method of treating urine, Botte says “At Ohio University, where there are about 22,000 students, if we would collect the urine and produce hydrogen, we would be able to produce enough electricity to perhaps power about 100 to 150 residential houses for a year, continuously.”

As the technology evolves, it could be applied to vehicles someday. Gasoline-powered internal combustion engines can be converted relatively easily to run on hydrogen, which raises the question of whether there is potential for pee-powered cars in the future.

Facebook Experimented with Your News Feeds

Yeah, it was legal, but ???? Big Brother has a new face, and it's name is Facebook. Just in case you haven't heard, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Facebook altered the News Feeds for hundreds of thousands of their users as part of a "psychology experiment" devised by the company's on-staff data scientist. By scientifically altering News Feeds, the experiment sought to learn about the way positive and negative effect travels through social networks, ultimately concluding that "in-person interaction and nonverbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion."

To test the hypothesis, the researchers identified 689,003 different English-language Facebook users, and began removing emotionally negative posts for one group and positive posts for another. According to the paper, "when a person loaded their News Feed, posts that contained emotional content of the relevant emotional valence, each emotional post had between a 10 percent and 90 percent chance (based on their User ID) of being omitted from their News Feed for that specific viewing." The posts were still available by visiting a friend's timeline directly or reloading the News Feed. The researchers also state that they did not alter any direct messages sent between users.

As the researchers point out, this kind of data manipulation is written into Facebook's Terms of Use. When users sign up for Facebook, they agree that their information may be used "for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement." While there's nothing in the policy about altering products like the News Feed, it's unlikely Facebook stepped outside the bounds of the Terms of Use in conducting the experiment. Still, for users confused by the whims of the News Feed, the experiment stands as a reminder: there may be more than just metrics determining which posts make it onto your feed.

All of a sudden, Twitter looks a lot more palatable.