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UN: Afghan civilian deaths down but trend eroding

A damaged bus which was hit by a remote control bomb is lifted by a crane on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012. A militant detonated a remote-control bomb Tuesday morning, killing at least eight Afghan civilians who were traveling in a bus just northwest of the Afghan capital, police said. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

A damaged bus which was hit by a remote control bomb is lifted by a crane on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012. A militant detonated a remote-control bomb Tuesday morning, killing at least eight Afghan civilians who were traveling in a bus just northwest of the Afghan capital, police said. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

(AP) ? Afghan civilian deaths dropped 22 percent in the first six months of 2012 compared with a year ago, largely due to a decrease in the number killed by insurgents' homemade bombs and suicide attacks, the United Nations said in a report released Wednesday.

It was the first time the U.N. data have shown such a sustained reduction in civilian deaths since it started counting in 2007. Even so, U.N. officials cautioned that fighting started to pick up in May and that civilian casualties are already spiking again.

"The drop in civilian casualties is a trend that seems to be hollow, as the percentage drop in civilian casualties has dropped consistently over the last three months as the fighting season has intensified," said James Rodehaver, the head of human rights for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan.

In May, the United Nations said that civilian deaths had dropped 36 percent in the first four months of 2012 compared with 2011, but did not provide a detailed analysis of the figures and cautioned that much of the reduction was likely due to a particularly harsh winter that decreased fighting overall.

The 22 percent drop reported Wednesday shows that the positive winter trend has already started to erode.

This spring and summer have been particularly violent, with insurgent attacks up significantly in May and June compared with last year, according to data from NATO forces in the country. June marked the highest number of militant attacks in one month since September 2010, according to the data. The U.N. report did not break out the May-June period in its report.

Overall, 1,145 civilians were killed in Afghanistan between January and June of this year, according to the report. That's down from 1,462 in the first six months of 2011. Injuries to civilians caught up in the crossfire also dropped.

The lower civilian toll this year appeared to be due to a shift by insurgents toward more targeted attacks, hitting Afghan officials or Afghans working with international military forces, and fewer indiscriminate bombings, according to the report. It was unclear if this was because of pressure from international forces or a strategy change on the part of the insurgency.

"Some factors reflect improvements in the security environment while others indicate that anti-government elements may be refocusing their efforts or holding ground in some areas," the report said.

Homemade bombs killed 327 civilians between January and June, down from 444 in the first six months of 2011. Insurgents also killed fewer civilians in suicide bombings that in the year before.

While civilian deaths caused by NATO and Afghan forces have been decreasing for years, this is the first time the U.N. data ? the most widely used on the subject ? showed a decrease in insurgent-caused casualties.

But even with the reduction, the Taliban and other militants are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths in the country. About 77 percent of the deaths between January and June can be attributed to insurgents, according to the report.

And insurgent-placed homemade bombs continued to be the deadliest weapon for civilians, accounting for 29 percent of all such deaths in the period.

In the latest such incident on Tuesday, a remote-controlled roadside bomb struck a bus traveling northwest of Kabul, killing at least nine passengers.

Meanwhile, civilian deaths from targeted killings and assassinations increased to 255 from 190 in 2011, the U.N. said. The Taliban have targeted not just officials but also civilians who associate with the Afghan government or the international military. The group has called some of these collaborators and said they do not consider them civilians.

The U.N. stressed that bombings and indiscriminate attacks continue, along with targeting of places frequented by women and children. In one particularly disturbing trend, insurgent attacks against schools increased compared with a year ago.

"Additional measures must be taken to protect civilians and ensure protection of their fundamental human rights," the U.N. said in the report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-08-08-AS-Afghan-Civilian%20Casualties/id-fae7cdbb274a48fe879582cabab77945

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Robotic power tool keeps your woodcutting on track

Will Ferguson, reporter

When it comes to woodworking, a board cut a few millimetres too long or too short can make the difference between a work of art and a pile of firewood. For a lot of us, this small margin of error can turn the making of even the simplest picture frame or birdhouse seem akin to painting the Mona Lisa.

A new smart tool, however, could give even the most ham-fisted hobbyist the guidance he or she needs to give the garage workbench another go.

Alec Rivers of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab developed a smart wood router that compensates for an operator's unsure hand by following a pre-programmed plan. He is presenting the device this week at the Siggraph Conference in Los Angeles.

The device can automatically cut out accurate shapes ranging from a picture frame to a map of the US. Rivers says the user is responsible only for getting the tool within six millimetres of the proposed design or plan.

The router then takes over, adjusting the position of the cutting bit on the tool to keep the cuts within the plan. Before one starts to cut, Rivers says the user moves the device over the raw material, allowing an on-board camera to scan a two-dimensional map of the project's surface.

The user then loads the desired design he or she wants to cut onto the tool. He says developers want to sell pre-existing plans in an app format.

Rivers says the device is not only easy to use but can be adapted for a host of other users ranging from drawing a simple picture to cutting steel for a navy destroyer. "We hope this is just the beginning of a new market," he says

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User:LeeAyer566 - TreebankWiki

From TreebankWiki

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Source: http://www.treebankwiki.org/index.php5/User%3ALeeAyer566

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First images from Mars rover reveal unexplored landscape

After a successful landing, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is beaming back images of its landing site, the Red Planet's Gale crater.

By Tariq Malik,?SPACE.com / August 6, 2012

This is one of the first images taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT). It was taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens on the left Hazard-Avoidance camera on the left-rear side on the rover at one-half of full resolution.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Enlarge

After a spectacular landing on Mars, NASA's huge Curiosity rover is beaming back the first clear views of its new crater home and the photos already have scientists buzzing.

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One?new Mars photo from Curiosity?shows the landing site, called Gale crater, covered with what appear to be tiny pebbles as they appeared just after the rover's landing today (Aug. 5). Part of the 96-mile-wide (155 kilometer) crater's rim is visible rising above the horizon, in the distance.

"Curiosity's landing site?is beginning to come into focus," said rover project manager John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement. "In the image, we are looking to the northwest. What you see on the horizon is the rim of Gale Crater."

Grotzinger said he's already wondering what fluke of Martian geology created the tiny rocks in Curiosity's camera view.

"In the foreground, you can see a gravel field," Grotzinger said. "The question is, where does this gravel come from? It is the first of what will be many scientific questions to come from our?new home on Mars."

One of Curiosity's six wheels is also visible in the new photo, which is actually a larger, clearer version of a tiny thumbnail image earlier sent back by the rover. The new image was taken by one Curiosity's navigation cameras and is about 512 pixels wide and tall, but still only shows half the resolution the camera is capable of.

Curiosity will snap color photos of Mars at much higher resolutions later this week once the rover raises its camera-tipped mast, mission scientists said.

NASA's?Mars rover Curiosity?is a 1-ton robot designed to explore the Red Planet like never before. The rover carries an instrument-laden robotic arm and tool kit to seek out any evidence that Mars has ever been habitable for microbial life.

The $2.5 billion rover will spend two years exploring Gale crater and is expected to climb a 3-mile (5 km) mountain in the crater's center. NASA launched Curiosity rover, which is also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, in November 2011. The mission is overseen by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

Visit?SPACE.com?for?complete coverage of NASA's Mars rover landing.?You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter?@tariqjmalik?and?SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.?

Copyright 2012?SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/LlGaId0577c/First-images-from-Mars-rover-reveal-unexplored-landscape

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Sorry, Team USA ? you didn't actually win gold

Dominic Ebenbichler / Reuters

Venus and Serena Williams of the U.S. hold their gold medals during the presentation ceremony for the women's doubles tennis.

By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

Today and tonight, during final-event leaps, heaves and sprints in the hurdles, pole vault, and gym, athletes will be competing for, living and dying for ... silver.?

Not second place, mind you. But, technically, as the winners' national anthems ring out this evening, each grinning champion will be wearing, nuzzling or even kissing carefully dressed-up medallions made almost completely out of sterling silver.?

Those cherished, sacrifice-four-years-of-your-life-to-achieve, historic golds? Oh, there's gold on there -- as a thin plating meant to cloak the 92.5 percent of the first-place prize that's comprised of silver.?

London 2012 organizers have proudly, purposely produced the heaviest gold meals in Olympic history -- each tipping the scales at 400 grams, or twice the heft of the golds handed out during the 2008 Beijing Games. But they are hardly the most valuable Olympic medals ever.

Due to that flashy gold coating, totaling 6 grams -- worth $302 in today's market -- and the remaining 394 grams of sterling silver -- valued at $318 -- the winning coins would fetch about $620 if melted down as pure metals, according to Lear Capital, a precious metals company in Los Angeles.

It's true: the London golds aren't worth their weight in gold.?

"The London (organizers), they made this coin larger than any other Olympics ever have. But you can make a gold coin fairly large if you?re just going to plate whatever?s underneath it with gold," said Kevin DeMeritt, founder of Lear Capital. "So it?s a beautiful coin .... But most of the coin is silver which really doesn?t add up to a whole lot when silver is $26 an ounce and gold is $1,600 an ounce."

Lear has crunched the metal/medal math, comparing the London golds with the top prizes doled out at Barcelona in 1992 (which would be worth $484 today), at Stockholm in 1912, the last Games during which gold medals were all-gold ($1,207 today) and at Paris in 1900 ($2,667 today).?

Now, don't feel a bit bad for athletes like Michael Phelps, who owns 18 career golds, or for the collective 2012 American team which together has scooped up?28 top medals as of Monday morning.

For starters, most of those hard-fought keepsakes will continue to gain value as sports collectables, should any ever choose to sell them. U.S. Olympic hockey player Mark Wells, a member of the famous 1980 squad, earned $310,700 for his gold medal when it was auctioned two years ago.?

Along with their neck-worn medals, American Olympians also earn honorariums from the U.S. Olympic Committee to reward their achievements: $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze. And there's now a bill, introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio R-Fla., to waive the taxes that Olympic athletes must pay on those gratuities.?

All the compensation and potential tax-cuts aside, each London gold medal still remains worth about a third as much as an autographed pair of LeBron James' kicks, $1,729.

And in future games, those top medals may become even less precious, DeMeritt predicted.?

Take, for example, the Russians, hosts of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

"Who knows?" DeMeritt said. "Maybe they'll just use copper (worth $3.35 a pound) and then plate it with gold."?

Should Olympic gold medals be 100 percent gold?

Source: http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/06/13105189-um-how-do-we-break-this-to-you-team-usa-you-didnt-actually-win-gold?lite

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Nanoparticle discovery opens door for pharmaceuticals

ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2012) ? What a University of Central Florida student thought was a failed experiment has led to a serendipitous discovery hailed by some scientists as a potential game changer for the mass production of nanoparticles.

Soroush Shabahang, a graduate student in CREOL (The College of Optics & Photonics), made the finding that could ultimately change the way pharmaceuticals are produced and delivered.

The discovery was based on using heat to break up long, thin fibers into tiny, proportionally sized seeds, which have the capability to hold multiple types of materials locked in place. The work, published in the July 18 issue of Nature, opens the door to a world of applications.

Craig Arnold, associate professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University and an expert in laser material interactions who did not work on the project, said no one else in the field has been able to accomplish this feat.

With a new non-chemical method of creating identical particles of any size in large quantities, "the possible applications are up to your imagination," Arnold said.

The most immediate prospect is the creation of particles capable of drug delivery that could, for example, combine different agents for fighting a tumor. Or it could combine a time-release component with medications that will only activate once they reach their target-infected cells.

"With this approach you can make a very sophisticated structure with no more effort than creating the simplest of structures," said Ayman Abouraddy, an assistant professor at CREOL and Shabahang's mentor and advisor. Abouraddy has spent his career, first at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now at UCF, studying the fabrication of multimaterial fibers.

The technique relies on heat to break molten fibers into spherical droplets. Imagine water dripping from a faucet. Glass fibers are perhaps best known as the cylindrical cables that transmit digital information over long distances. For year, scientists have been looking for ways to improve the purity of glass fibers to allow for faster, disruption-free transmission of light waves.

Shabahang and fellow graduate student Joshua Kaufman were working on just such a project, heating and stretching glass fiber on a homemade tapering machine. Shabahang noticed that instead of the desired result of making the center of the cable thinner, the material actually broke apart into multiple miniature spheres.

"It was kind of a failure to me," Shabahang said.

However, when Abouraddy heard what had happened he knew right away that this "mistake" was a major breakthrough.

While at MIT, Abouraddy and his mentor, Yoel Fink, a professor of materials science and current director of MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics, said they were told by a theoretician that molten optical fiber should align with a process known as Rayleigh instability, which explains what causes a falling stream of fluid to break into droplets.

At the time, the MIT group was focused on producing fibers containing multiple materials. The team produced fibers by heating a scale model called a "preform" and stretching it apart much the way taffy is made. The process is known as thermal drawing.

Shabahang's experiment shows that by heating and then cooling multimaterial fibers, the theoretical became reality. Uniform particles that look like droplets are produced. Moreover, Shabahang demonstrated that once the spheres form, additional materials can be added and locked into place like LEGO building blocks, resulting in particles with sophisticated internal structures.

Especially significant is the creation of "beach ball" particles consisting of two different materials melded together in alternating fashion, similar to the stripes on a beach ball.

Kaufman, Shabahang and Abouraddy contributed to the Nature article in addition to Guangming Tao from CREOL, UCF; Esmaeil-Hooman Banaei from the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, UCF; Daosheng S. Deng, Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT; Xiangdong Liang, Department of Mathematics, MIT; Steven G. Johnson, Department of Mathematics, MIT; and Yoel Fink from MIT.

Some of the funding for the project was made available by the National Science Foundation, the Oak Ridge Associated Universities through a Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Central Florida. The original article was written by Barbara Abney.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Joshua J. Kaufman, Guangming Tao, Soroush Shabahang, Esmaeil-Hooman Banaei, Daosheng S. Deng, Xiangdong Liang, Steven G. Johnson, Yoel Fink, Ayman F. Abouraddy. Structured spheres generated by an in-fibre fluid instability. Nature, 2012; 487 (7408): 463 DOI: 10.1038/nature11215

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.

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Using wastewater as fertilizer

ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2012) ? Sewage sludge, wastewater and liquid manure are valuable sources of fertilizer for food production. Fraunhofer researchers have now developed a chemical-free, eco-friendly process that enables the recovered salts to be converted directly into organic food for crop plants.

Phosphorus is a vital element not only for plants but also for all living organisms. In recent times, however, farmers have been faced with a growing shortage of this essential mineral, and the price of phosphate-based fertilizers has been steadily increasing. It is therefore high time to start looking for alternatives. This is not an easy task, because phosphorus cannot be replaced by any other substance. But researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart have found a solution that makes use of locally available resources which, as unlikely as it might seem, are to be found in plentiful supply in the wastewater from sewage treatment plants and in the fermentation residues from biogas plants: a perfect example of the old saying "from muck to riches." The new process was developed by a team of scientists led by Jennifer Bilbao, who manages the nutrient management research group at the IGB. "Our process precipitates out the nutrients in a form that enables them to be directly applied as fertilizer," she explains.

Mobile pilot plant for field tests

The main feature of the patented process, which is currently being tested in a mobile pilot plant, is an electrochemical process that precipitates magnesium-ammonium phosphate -- also known as struvite -- by means of electrolysis from a solution containing nitrogen and phosphorus. Struvite is precipitated from the process water in the form of tiny crystals that can be used directly as fertilizer, without any further processing. The innovative aspect of this method is that, unlike conventional processes, it does not require the addition of synthetic salts or bases. Bilbao: "It is an entirely chemical-free process."

The 2-meter-high electrolytic cell that forms the centerpiece of the test installation and through which the wastewater is directed contains a sacrificial magnesium anode and a metallic cathode. The electrolytic process splits the water molecules into negatively charged hydroxyl ions at the cathode. At the anode an oxidation takes place: the magnesium ions migrate through the water and react with the phosphate and ammonium molecules in the solution to form struvite.

Energy-saving, chemical-free process

Because the magnesium ions in the process water are highly reactive, this method requires very little energy. The electrochemical process therefore consumes less electricity than conventional methods. For all types of wastewater tested so far, the necessary power never exceeded the extremely low value of 70 watt-hours per cubic meter. Moreover, long-duration tests conducted by the IGB researchers demonstrated that the concentration of phosphorus in the pilot plant's reactor was reduced by 99.7 percent to less than 2 milligrams per liter. This is lower than the maximum concentration permitted by the German Waste Water Ordinance (AbwV) for treatment plants serving communities of up to 100,000 inhabitants. "This means that operators of such plants could generate additional revenue from the production of fertilizer as a sideline to the treatment of wastewater," says Bilbao, citing this as a decisive advantage. Struvite is an attractive product for farmers, because it is valued as a high-quality, slow-release fertilizer. Experiments conducted by the Fraunhofer researchers have confirmed its effectiveness in this respect: crop yields and the uptake of nutrients by the growing plants were up to four times higher with struvite than with commercially available mineral fertilizers.

The scientists intend to spend the next few months testing the mobile pilot plant at a variety of wastewater treatment plants before starting to commercialize the process in collaboration with industrial partners early next year. "Our process is also suitable for wastewaters from the food-industry and from the production of biogas from agricultural wastes," adds Bilbao. The only prerequisite is that the process water should be rich in ammonium and phosphates.

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

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/1j6RqaTmrZE/120807101237.htm

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TouchPad gets an early taste of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean courtesy of CyanogenMod 10 (video)

TouchPad gets a taste of Android 41 Jelly Bean courtesy of CyanogenMod 10 video

Want the latest version of Android on your device? Sure, we all do, and despite HP having put the TouchPad out to pasture long ago, the modder community isn't giving up hope. One brave soul over at Xda Developers who goes by the handle Jscullins can (and should) be thanked for bringing bargain tablet lovers a dose of CyanogenMod 10. It's still a preview build lacking, among other things, sound and video acceleration, but if you absolutely have to get a buttery smooth UI on your tablet right now hit up the source link for the download. Or, you could just check out the video of it in action after the break courtesy of Liliputing. It's probably safer.

Continue reading TouchPad gets an early taste of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean courtesy of CyanogenMod 10 (video)

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TouchPad gets an early taste of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean courtesy of CyanogenMod 10 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Iran Space Agency to launch a monkey into space

Iran isn't a country with a high profile in space tourism ? but that could soon change. On Wednesday, the Iran Space Agency (ISA) announced its intention to launch a live Rhesus monkey into space. But can it bring the animal back?

A previous attempt to launch a craft carrying a monkey failed last October, stalling Iran's space ambitions. Now the mission is back on track, with a launch planned for mid-August, after the Islamic month of Ramadan endsd.

It is not the first time Iran has shown interest in launching animals into orbit. In 2010, the ISA's Kavoshgar-3 rocket carried worms, a mouse and two turtles as passengers. More significantly, the animals were reportedly safely returned to Earth.

It would be a major advance in Iran's space programme if the country is able to successfully return a monkey to Earth. "This would show its capability to return scientific payloads from orbit," says Bhupendra Jasani of King's College London, who studies the military use of space. "However, to launch a human may take some time."

Iranian forays into space exploration have surprised international onlookers due to their speed and secrecy. Iran has launched three domestically made satellites in as many years, and a fourth is to be launched in the next few months. Iran is the ninth country to put domestically built satellites into orbit, and the sixth to send animals into space.

Military milestone?

Some countries are wary of an Iranian space presence, concerned that the technology used to carry satellites, animals and potentially humans into space could also be used to transport weaponry. A successful round-trip for the monkey could have "worrying implications", says Jasani. "This launch would be a major milestone in a military sense. Iran, like many other spacefaring nations, is developing a space programme not only for the sake of prestige but also for national security reasons."

Iran has repeatedly denied that there are any military intentions behind their space programme, instead stating reasons including earthquake monitoring, imaging and improvement of telecommunications. Their space programme remains ambitious, with the aim of launching a human into space by 2020, and landing an astronaut on the moon by 2025.

Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation, which promotes ideas about the use of outer space, says it is interesting to compare Iran's space programme with that of North Korea. "The world community hasn't tried to stop Iran's rocket program like they have North Korea's because overall Iran is doing things that demonstrate it is serious about having a space programme. Although North Korea says they have a space programme, their actions lead many to conclude that it's really just a way to legitimise their development of ballistic missile technology."

Weeden says Iran's motivation is more likely to be to improve its national image rather than develop military capability in space.

"I think prestige is the most likely because it's the main reason why most countries pursue human spaceflight. You can demonstrate your country's technical and scientific prowess with robotic satellites, but those are hard to show off because they stay in space. A living, breathing organism is much easier for the public to identify with and, if you can bring it back down safely, much easier to publicise."

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