Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Realising how visual a medium tattooing is, tattoo artist Kat Von D of TV series LA Ink set a world record while raising funds to fight childhood blindness. In 24 hours, Von D tattooed 400 people with an “LA” logo, in her West Hollywood, California tattoo shop.

The December event at High Voltage Tattoo drew 1000 people in line, although only 400 could get the image emblazoned on them, for a $20 donation. Most learned of the event through her MySpace profile. In all, the funds raised will help 32,000 children’s eyesight, through Vitamin Angels.

Vitamin Angels is the only organization in the world solely dedicated to eradicating vitamin A definciency among children, with the goal of warding off youth blindness by 2020. The year 2020 is chosen because perfect vision is described as “20/20“.

First in line at the event was Jose Flores, who had camped out in front of the store since 7:15 the previous evening. Doors didn’t open until 10 am, and Flores didn’t get the tattoo until Von D was done with her friends and family, including internet celebrity Jeffree Star.

A Guinness World Records official was scheduled to attend, but was caught in a snow storm.

Katherine Von Drachenberg told the Los Angeles Times that, as a teenager, she “be at the mall and parents would grab their kids and be like, ‘Honey!’ It was like that scene in Pretty Woman, where the women on Rodeo Drive think Julia Roberts is going to shoplift. Now people just come up to me more out of curiosity — everyone from grandmas to soccer moms.”

The record setting event was filmed for LA Ink, a series that airs Tuesday nights on TLC in the United States. The series is a spin-off of Miami Ink, a series featuring Von D’s previous place of employ, before she set off on her own.

The series’ second season started last night, however that particular episode will air March 4.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

An international group of 73 scientists using 4 projects (PLANET led by Jean-Philippe Beaulieu and Martin Dominik, RoboNet led by MichaelBode and Keith Horne, OGLE led by Andrzej Udalski, and MOA led by Phil Yock) from 32 institutions in 12 countries have discovered the smallest Earth-like planet yet.

The new planet is about 25,000 light years away and is close to the center of the Milky Way.

The discovery was announced in the journal Nature. The journal also states the planet was found using a method called gravitational microlensing, which detects small planets with a mass like that of Earth.

Gravitational microlensing is where a light from a distant star is bent and magnified by the gravitational field of a foreground star. The presence of a planet around the foreground star causes light from the distant star to become momentarily brighter.

However, scientists say that the cold temperatures on the planet make the chance of finding any life on it “unlikely.”

“We may predict with reasonable probability that microlensing will discover planets with masses like that of Earth at a similar distance from their stars and with comparable surface temperature,” said study co-author Bohdan Paczynski from Princeton University.

So far the planet only goes by OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, and takes about ten years to orbit its parent star, a red dwarf, a star that is smaller and much cooler than our own Sun.

Scientists say the new planet, which is about five and a half times the mass of Earth, could either have a rocky core and a thin atmosphere, or be a small ice/gas world like Neptune , but in either case, its “very large orbit and cooler parent star, makes it a very cold world.”

The predicted surface temperature is -220° Celsius (-364° F), which means that should it have a rocky core, the planet may more closely resemble a massive version of Pluto with a surface of frozen liquids and gas. Otherwise the planet would be a liquid mass, wrapped in clouds of ice crystals and gas, much like Neptune.

“This is very exciting and important,” said Professor Michael Bode from Liverpool John Moores University, a principal investigator for the RoboNet project which helped to collaborate on the research. “This is the most Earth-like planet we have discovered to date, in terms of its mass and the distance from its parent star. Most of the other planets that have been discovered are either much more massive, much hotter or both.”

This is the third planet in two years that scientists have found using gravitational microlensing.

In the past, more than 150 planets outside our solar system were found using a technique known as the radial velocity method. This method observes a wobble in stars caused by the planet’s gravitational effects.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

The following is the eighth in a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2012 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after a brief mention of some of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail, a Green Party presidential candidate who announced his 2012 plans to Wikinews four years ago speaks to Wikinews once again, the candidate leading the California American Independent Party presidential primary discusses his campaign, and Wikinews explores whether Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky will be selected as the Republican Party vice presidential nominee.

Friday, April 11, 2008

New ‘deadly’ sexual enhancement products have been found in Singaporean markets and can cause serious side effects on users.

The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) announced the presence of the illegal drugs, known as Power 1 Walnut, Santi bovine penis erecting capsule, Zhong Hua Niu Bian and fake Cialis, which have been discovered over the past 3 months. Santi bovine penis erecting capsule has been found to contain high amounts of glibenclamide, a potent drug used to treat diabetes. The tablets also contain sildenafil and tadalafil – potent western medicines used to treat erectile dysfunction. Zhong Hua Niu Bian also contains sildenafil and glibenclamide.

High consumption of the tablets can be potentially deadly as the glibenclamide in the capsules can lead to drastically reduced blood sugar levels which can lead to seizures, stroke, coma or death. Consuming half of a Power 1 Walnut capsule has led to unconsciousness and frothing at the mouth.

Consumption of Power 1 Walnut has led to the death of a middle age man last week who fell into a coma. Currently, one death and two cases of coma have been reported from the total of 89 hospitalised cases linked with the consumption of the illegal drugs. It has been revealed that patients obtained the drugs by purchasing them from illegal peddlers located in various parts of Singapore.

The HSA has advised people to stop consuming the drugs and to report on any cases of consumption to them.

[edit]

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The Supreme Court of the United States on Wednesday April 18 has upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The 5-4 vote reflected the change in vote count resulting from the retirement of Justice O’Connor and the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.

The Intact dilation and extraction procedure, also known as partial birth abortion, involves removing an intact late-term fetus from the womb via the cervix. While it is a relatively rare operation – 0.17% of all abortions in the US in 2000, it has become a focal point in the abortion debate.

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act bans the procedure in cases where the fetus is terminated during the operation, unless it is performed to to save the life of the mother.

Justice Kennedy wrote in the opinion of the court: “respondents have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases.” Further, he said, “Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception. For these reasons the judgments of the Courts of Appeals for the Eighth and Ninth Circuits are reversed.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas stated that he joins “the Court’s opinion because it accurately applies current jurisprudence, including Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992).”

In dissent Judge Ginsburg wrote: “Today’s decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.”

Justice Kennedy’s words also recall the complicated issues of standing related to such cases. An issue in Roe v. Wade was the impossibility of any individual having standing in a court proceeding regarding abortion rights, since court proceedings take more than the 9 months of pregnancy, retiring any individual plaintiff’s standing before an appeals process can take place. The criterion of “a large fraction of relevant cases” may effectively deny standing to any plaintiffs who wish to litigate particular restrictions in some relevant future cases.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Many media outlets traditionally deliberately spread hoaxes on April Fools’ Day, including notable quality sources such as National Geographic and Science.

The popular British tabloid The Sun wrote that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is to undergo stretch surgery to make him taller than his wife, Italian artist and model Carla Bruni. The report claimed the 5 foot 5 inch leader would be made 5 inches taller in one year using a method by Israeli professor Ura Schmuck. The Sun noted that during his visit to Britain last week, Sarkozy had high-heel shoes while his wife wore a pair of flat pumps.

The Guardian on the other hand ran an article that suggested that Carla would head an initiative by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to bring more glamour, good taste and sophistication to the U.K. general population. This would involve collaboration with Marks & Spencer for high-street fashion and Jamie Oliver for meals and wine.

BBC News had real-looking footage of flying penguins fronted by documentary host Terry Jones, which were actually an advertisement for its new iPlayer.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

A team of scientists from Australia and US has found a solution for a challenging problem in climate research. Climate models predicted more greenhouse gases would weaken the equatorial Pacific trade winds.However, over the past two decades, observations showed this Walker circulation was getting stronger, accelerating sea level rise in the western Pacific, and consequent changes in global climate.The researcher team reports, “The answer to the puzzle is that recent rapid Atlantic Ocean warming has affected climate in the Pacific”.Their study, “Recent Walker circulation strengthening and Pacific cooling amplified by Atlantic warming”, was published on Sunday in Nature Climate Change.

While previous research supposed natural variability alone accounted for cooling in the eastern Pacific, this study highlights a previously overlooked climate feedback: as the Atlantic warms, it alters the winds over the Pacific, depressing the ocean temperature there.As coauthor Shayne McGregor of the University of New South Wales explains, “the main cause of the Pacific wind, temperature, and sea level trends over the past 20 years lies in the Atlantic Ocean […] We saw that the rapid Atlantic surface warming observed since the early 1990s, induced partly by greenhouse gases, has generated unusually low sea level pressure over the tropical Atlantic. This, in turn, produces an upward motion of the overlying air parcels. These parcels move westward aloft and then sink again in the eastern equatorial Pacific, where their sinking creates a high pressure system. The resulting Atlantic–Pacific pressure difference strengthens the Pacific trade winds.”

Coauthor Malte Stuecker of the University of Hawaii Meteorology Department reports that “Our study documents that some of the largest tropical and subtropical climate trends of the past 20 years are all linked: Strengthening of the Pacific trade winds, acceleration of sea level rise [three times faster than the global average] in the western Pacific, eastern Pacific surface cooling, the global warming hiatus, and even the massive droughts in California”. His colleague cauthor Fei-Fei Jin adds, “We are just starting to grasp the scope of the impacts of this global atmospheric reorganization and of the out-of phase temperature trends in the Atlantic and Pacific regions”.Work earlier this year by coauthor Matthew England, University of New South Wales, showed the stronger winds have churned up the waters of the Western Pacific Ocean, so more heat flows from the winds into the water. This appears to explain why global surface temperatures have recently risen more slowly.

Coauthor Axel Timmermann of the University of Hawaii notes a further amplifying effect: “Stronger trade winds in the equatorial Pacific also increase the upwelling of cold waters to the surface. The resulting near-surface cooling in the eastern Pacific amplifies the Atlantic–Pacific pressure seesaw, thus further intensifying the trade winds […] It turns out that the current generation of climate models underestimates the extent of the Atlantic–Pacific coupling, which means that they cannot properly capture the observed eastern Pacific cooling, which has contributed significantly to the leveling off, or the hiatus, in global warming.”As Professor England said, “It will be difficult to predict when the Pacific cooling trend and its contribution to the global hiatus in surface temperatures will come to an end. […] However, a large El Niño event is one candidate that has the potential to drive the system back to a more synchronized Atlantic/Pacific warming situation.”