Ivory Coast crisis: 'Nearly 450,000 refugees'

Pro-Gbagbo forces have shot Abidjan protesters this week

More than 450,000 people have fled their homes because of the crisis in Ivory Coast, the UN refugee agency says.

Dead bodies were being eaten by dogs in the streets of the main city, Abidjan after recent fighting, a UNHCR spokeswoman told the BBC.
Alassane Ouattara, widely recognised as the winner of last year's poll, has gone to regional powerhouse Nigeria to get help ousting his rival.
Laurent Gbagbo refuses to cede power.
There are growing fears that the situation could descend into civil war.
Former rebel forces who support Mr Ouattara still control the north while most of the army remains loyal to Mr Gbagbo.
Some 9,000 UN peacekeepers are in the country, monitoring a ceasefire line between the two forces.
However, the UN envoy to Ivory Coast has suggested that Mr Gbagbo may be losing control of some of the security forces.
Mr Ouattara flew to the Nigerian capital after the African Union endorsed him as the rightful winner of November's election.
The AU suggestion he share power with Mr Gbagbo - an option vehemently rejected by Mr Gbagbo's allies.
'Desolate scenes' Some 370,000 people have fled their homes in Abidjan, while a further 77,000 have crossed into neighbouring Liberia, according to the UNHCR.
It said the "unfolding tragedy" in Ivory Coast had been overlooked while international attention has been focused on North Africa.
"We're seeing a lot of desolate scenes like dead bodies still littering the streets of [Abidjan district] Abobo where's there's been a lot of violence for weeks," UNHCR spokeswoman Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba told the BBC.

"The dead bodies [are] being eaten by dogs - these dogs are becoming dangerous so the humanitarian situation is really, really difficult right now," she said.

Mr Gbagbo accuses the UN of being biased against him and has banned their aircraft from flying over territory he controls.
This could make it difficult for Mr Ouattara to return to Abidjan when he leaves Nigeria.
It is the first time Mr Ouattara has left the hotel since the results were declared in December.
He has called for West African nations to take military action to oust Mr Gbagbo but there appears to be little appetite for this.
Last year's long-delayed elections had been supposed to reunify the country - once the richest in West Africa - which has been divided since a 2002 civil war.
The UN-backed electoral commission says Mr Ouattara won presidential elections in November, but the Constitutional Council overruled it, citing rigging in the north, where pro-Ouattara forces are in control.

source: BBC

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Posted in: Society

Business and Human Rights

Globalization has significantly changed the world we live in, presenting new and complex challenges for the protection of human rights.

Economic players, especially companies that operate across national boundaries (trans-national companies), have gained unprecedented power and influence across the world economy.

This has not always benefited the societies in which they operate.

Amnesty International's research has highlighted the negative impact companies can have on the human rights of the individuals and communities affected by their operations.

Companies cause harm by directly abusing human rights, or by colluding with others who violate human rights. Despite this potential to cause significant harm, there are few effective mechanisms at national or international level to prevent corporate human rights abuses or to hold companies to account.

This means those affected by their operations – often already marginalized and vulnerable - are left powerless, without the protection to which they are entitled, or meaningful access to justice. 

Global standards on business and human rights

Governments have the primary obligation to secure universal enjoyment of human rights and this includes an obligation to protect all individuals from the harmful actions of others, including companies.

However, frequently governments fail to regulate the human rights impact of business or ensure access to justice for victims of human rights abuses involving business.

Until now most companies’ engagement with human rights responsibilities has been through voluntary codes and initiatives.  While some voluntary initiatives have a role to play, such voluntarism can never be a substitute for global standards on businesses' mandatory compliance with human rights.

These global standards should address the human rights responsibilities and obligations of both states and companies.  As a minimum requirement, all companies should respect all human rights, regardless of the sector, country or context in which they operate.

What is Amnesty International doing?

Amnesty International’s work on economic players, including trans-national companies and international financial organizations, has developed in recognition of the power and influence they exert over states and international institutions, and the impact they have on human rights.

Through research and analysis, Amnesty International aims to highlight human rights abuses in which companies are implicated and how governments fail to prevent these abuses or hold companies to account when they occur.

The organization is campaigning for global standards on business and human rights and stronger legal frameworks at both national and international level to hold companies to account for their human rights impact.

Amnesty International asks companies to promote respect for human rights, including by:

• Using their influence in support of human rights,
• Including a specific commitment to human rights in their statements of business principles and codes of conduct,
• Producing explicit human rights policies and ensuring that they are integrated, monitored and audited across their operations and beyond borders,
• Putting in place the necessary internal management systems to ensure that human rights policies are acted upon.

Amnesty International also calls on companies to make respect for human rights an integral component of their business operations, including through their dealings with other companies, partners, associates, subsidiaries, suppliers and government officials.

At the heart of Amnesty International’s concerns is the individual whose human rights may come under threat from the actions or inactions of economic players. 

We strive to bring their voice to the debate in the hope that meaningful long-term solutions are firmly rooted in the real-life experience of those who fall victim to human rights abuses by corporate actors.  

Give one reason Amnesty International should be working on this?

More than 7,000 people died when toxic gas leaked from a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984, and a further 15,000 people died in the following years.

Around 100,000 people continue to suffer from chronic and debilitating illnesses caused by the gas leak. Stockpiles of toxic waste were left in the abandoned site and neither the company nor the Indian government have, even to this day, cleaned up the site to prevent further contamination.

Despite the devastating impact on people’s lives, no-one has been held to account for the gas leak and the ensuing contamination.

The lack of effective regulation and accountability systems has meant court cases drag on and corporations and their leaders continue to evade accountability for thousands of deaths, widespread ill-health and ongoing damage to livelihoods.

With no effective national or supra-national legal options, more than two decades on, the survivors of Bhopal are still waiting for meaningful justice.

Unless effective regulation of companies’ impact on human rights is secured nationally and beyond borders, and a system that guarantees accountability for human rights abuses and allows victims effective access to justice is established, the serious failures of justice witnessed in the Bhopal case and elsewhere will continue to occur.

Key facts

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls upon every individual and every organ of society – which includes companies – to protect and promote human rights.
• In August 2003, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights approved the UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Trans-national Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights (also known as the UN Norms). This document represents the most authoritative and comprehensive set of standards on business and human rights issued to date.
• In August 2005, the UN Secretary General appointed Professor John Ruggie to be Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on business and human rights.

This work is part of Amnesty International's Demand Dignity campaign, which aims to end the human rights violations that drive and deepen global poverty. The campaign will mobilize people all over the world to demand that governments, corporations and others who have power listen to the voices of those living in poverty and recognise and protect their rights. For more information visit the Demand Dignity section.
From: Amnesty International

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Posted in: Politics

Huge blast at Japan nuclear power plant

A huge explosion has rocked a Japanese nuclear power plant damaged by Friday's devastating earthquake.

A pall of smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima. Four workers were injured.
Japanese officials say the container housing the reactor was not damaged and that radiation levels have now fallen.
A huge relief operation is under way after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which are thought to have killed at least 1,000 people.
One report suggests the number of dead is much higher, with as many as 10,000 people missing in one town alone.
The offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami which wreaked havoc on Japan's north-east coast, sweeping far inland and devastating a number of towns and villages.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

---

The term "meltdown" raises associations with two nuclear accidents in living memory: Three Mile Island in the US in 1979, and Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986.

In both, excess heat in the reactor caused fuel to melt - and in the first, wider melting of the core. The question is whether the same thing has happened in Fukushima.

It appears that the reactor was shut down well before any melting occurred, which should reduce considerably the risk of radioactive materials entering the environment.

However, the detection of caesium isotopes outside the power station buildings could imply that the core has been exposed to the air.

Although Japan has a long and largely successful nuclear power programme, officials have been less than honest about some incidents in the past, meaning that official reassurances are unlikely to convince everyone this time round.

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared a state of emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini (also known as Fukushima 1 and 2) power plants as engineers try to confirm whether a reactor at one of the stations has gone into meltdown.

The emergency declaration is an automatic procedure after nuclear reactors shut down in the event of an earthquake, allowing officials to take rapid action.
Evacuation zone expanded Television pictures showed a massive blast at one of the buildings of the Fukushima-Daiichi plant, about 250km (160 miles) north-east of Tokyo.
A huge cloud of smoke billowed out and large bits of debris were flung far from the building.
The Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the plant's operator, said four workers had been injured.
The Japanese government's chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said the concrete building housing the plant's number one reactor had collapsed but the metal reactor container inside was not damaged.
He said radiation levels around the plant had fallen after the explosion.
Officials ordered the evacuation zone around the plant expanded from a 10km radius to 20km. BBC correspondent Nick Ravenscroft said police stopped him 60km from the Fukushima-Daiichi plant.
Plans are being made to distribute iodine, which can be used to combat radiation sickness, to residents of the evacuation zone.
Japan's nuclear agency said earlier on Saturday that radioactive caesium and iodine had been detected near the number one reactor of the power station.

Japanese broadcaster NHK screened a before and after image showing the damaged Fukushima plant

  The agency said this could indicate that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting.

Air and steam, with some level of radioactivity, was earlier released from several of the reactors at both plants in an effort to relieve the huge amount of pressure building up inside.
Mr Kan said the amount of radiation released was "tiny".
Cooling system failure Nuclear reactors at four power plants in the earthquake-struck zone automatically shut down on Friday.
In several of the reactors at the two Fukushima plants the cooling systems, which should keep operating on emergency power supplies, failed.
Without cooling, the temperature in the reactor core builds, with the risk that it could melt through its container into the building housing the system.
Pressure also builds in the containers housing the reactor.
Tepco said it was pumping water into the Fukushima-Daiichi's number one reactor in a bid to cool it down.
The reactors the plant are Boiling Water Reactors (BWR), one of the most commonly used designs, and widely used throughout Japan's array of nuclear power stations.

Analysts say a meltdown would not necessarily lead to a major disaster because light-water reactors would not explode even if they overheated.

But Walt Patterson, of the London research institute Chatham House, said "this is starting to look a lot like Chernobyl".
He said it was too early to tell if the explosion's aftermath would result in the same extreme level of radioactive contamination that occurred at Chernobyl.
The explosion was most likely caused by melting fuel coming into contact with water, he told the BBC.
The 8.9-magnitude tremor struck in the afternoon local time on Friday off the coast of Honshu island at a depth of about 24km, 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.
It was nearly 8,000 times stronger than last month's quake in New Zealand that devastated the city of Christchurch, scientists said.
Some of the same search and rescue teams from around the world that helped in that disaster are now on their way to Japan.
As relief workers begin to reach the earthquake zone, the scale of the damage is being revealed.
One of the worst-hit areas was the port city of Sendai, in Miyagi prefecture, where police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found in one ward alone.
The town of Rikuzentakada, in Iwate prefecture, was reported as largely destroyed and almost completely submerged. NHK reported that soldiers had found 300-400 bodies there.
Chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said it was believed that more than 1,000 people had died.
But Fuji TV said as many as 10,000 people were unaccounted for in the town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi.
A local official in the town of Futuba, in Fukushima prefecture, said more than 90% of the houses in three coastal communities had been washed away by the tsunami.
"Looking from the fourth floor of the town hall, I see no houses standing,'' Kyodo news agency quoted him as saying.

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Posted in: Society

A man sleepless for more than 35 years

Stories about a Vietnamese man who has been sleepless for over 35 years have been widely published in the mass media. He is 65-year-old Thai Ngoc, now living in Que Trung Commune, Nong Son District in the central province of Quang Nam.

Continuing to work at sleepless nights Ngoc spent days at his farm and his wife has to bring food for him. Working days and nights, Ngoc turned a bare hill into an 8ha farm with many timber and orchard trees planted This buffalo helps Ngoc in farming work on the 0.5ha rice field. Ngoc built this 400m2 fish pond on his sleepless nights . . Stories about a Vietnamese man who has been sleepless for over 35 years have been widely published in the mass media. He is 65-year-old Thai Ngoc, now living in Que Trung Commune, Nong Son District in the central province of Quang Nam. Spending sleepless nights with curious cameramen To prove, or disprove Thai Ngoc's claim, camera crews from around the world have arrived at his doorstep to document his every move, 24 hours a day. The filmmakers had to trudge over to the remote district of Nong Son in Central Vietnam and would stay 3 to 5 days. At night, Ngoc lit up the lamps and continued to do the farm work, i.e. harvesting rice, ploughing the soil, growing potatoes, tending soya bean plants, etc. When the farming work was over, he made baskets and other household utensils. Due to his sleeplessness, Ngoc's productivity is actually double compared to a normal person. Surprisingly enough, Ngoc has a normal daily diet and rarely gets sick. People who are curious about his sleeplessness were not able to stay awake all the time while observing him. Ngoc confided: "Before 1975 I discovered I wasn't sleeping and it never crossed my mind if this condition had adverse affects on my health. To me, sleeping or being awake is the same, and I can work during the daytime or at night." Needless to say, the film crews covering him were totally exhausted after their filming. The compensation paid to him for the filming was not much and Ngoc used it to invest in his farms.   A few medical scientists invited Ngoc to go abroad for some research and treatment, but Ngoc refused. "If I got sick due to sleeplessness and could not be cured at home, then I would accept such invitations. But I am quite okay, feeling healthy and working without becoming tired. Thanks to this phenomenon, I have been able to convert an 8ha bare forest into a green productive area," Ngoc said. Forests tended with a human love Ngoc has divided his farms into different plots and on each plot he grows much needed trees,  such as the acacia which is used for making paper, trees to be used for making wood products, such as Do bau (Aquilaria Agallechea), Cho (Parashorea stellata Kury), Sao den (Hopea odorata Roxb), etc. His effort resulted in afforesting the land and protecting rare and valuable trees which are near extinction in Vietnam. Ngoc also built fish ponds during his sleepless nights. He said that on the cloudless, moonlit nights he can work without a lamp as compared to cloudy nights when a kerosene lamp is needed. "I am so sad when there is no work to do at night," Ngoc confided. "I just lay down to rest my back and just bide my time smoking and drinking tea until sunrise.” Ngoc added that he has another farm, about 4km away from his house at the foot of Duong Lui Mountain, where he also grows timber. Not far from his house lives a couple well into their 80's and for the past 30 years Ngoc has made regular visits to their home, watching over them and assisting with the farm work. Thanks to Ngoc's sleepless nights, not only his farms, but also this couple's fields have been protected from damage caused by wild boars. Ngoc is one of a very few people in the world with this sleepless disorder. For almost half of his lifetime, Ngoc has been awake and it isn't known how long this can continue. One certain thing that has been acknowledged by many people, i.e., Ngoc has spent his sleepless time doing useful work for his community and co-villagers. Ngoc's wife tends to chores around the house and their four children have all grown up and lead normal lives. Ngoc said: "People from television corporations who came to document me thought that I am sleepless due to some mental illness. They brought me to the psychiatrist hospital in Da Nang for medical checks-up. The doctors said I had no signs of the mental disease. Some were still doubtful of the doctors' results, so they tried to test my memory. They marked things like a knife, a glass, a banana, etc. each with a number, and showed them to me to see for a while, then hided them away from my sight. Then, they asked me the number tag on each thing. To their surprise, I could tell them the correct thing and its number as well. Finally they believed that I had no impact from sleeplessness and filmed me. A television crew from Thailand, after filming me, paid me 30 million VND and asked for their exclusive filming for 18 months. I refused their request. I never think of trading my sleeplessness! Some others offered me an overseas trip which I denied. What will I do abroad on my sleepless nights? Otherwise, at home, I can do useful things for my farms, help my co-villagers, and guard against wild beasts destroying the fields and catching animals and poultry."   By Vu Cong Dien - vietnam.vinanet.vn

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Posted in: Society

Malaysia donates 50,000 USD to flood victims

The Malaysian government has provided 50,000 USD in support for central province residents affected by storms and floods in late 2010.

Malaysian Ambassador to Vietnam Dato Lim Kim Eng presented the donation to Vice President cum General Secretary of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee Vu Trong Kim on March 10 in Hanoi .

Addressing the presentation ceremony, Vice President Kim thanked and spoke highly of good deeds performed by the government and people of Malaysia , which, he said, contribute to highlighting traditional solidarity and friendship between the two countries’ people as well as further affirming the solidarity among ASEAN member countries.

He pledged to promptly hand over the donation to the victims.

For his part, the Malaysian diplomat said this was the second time the Malaysian government has offered its support for Vietnam ’s central province residents who were hit by storms and floods in 2010. He said he hoped that the assistance would help the victims develop production.

VNA/VNP

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Posted in: Society

UNICEF helps Vietnam prevent injuries

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Health Environment Management Agency under the Vietnamese Ministry of Health co-organised a conference in Hanoi on March 10, on the creation of a plan for inspection of accidents leading to injury in the 2011-2015 period.

The inspection system will be carried out in three phases, with the first phase from 2011-2012 to focus on three kinds of accidents – road, labour and child injury accidents – at 20 pilot hospitals at central, municipal and provincial level, according to a ministry representative.

The second phase, spanning the 2012-2013 period, will expand the system to 40 hospitals in cities and provinces, and the third phase from 2014-2015 will select three of the project’s localities to apply outcomes and implement intervention programmes.

Earlier, an action plan to prevent accidental injury conducted by the Ministry of Health during the 2008-2010 period had reaped good results, with over 80 percent of the centrally-run cities and provinces organising information work and raising knowledge about how to prevent accidental injuries. At the same time, 30 percent of the centrally-run cities and provinces had set up emergency aid networks and emergency assistance and 30 percent of the staff received training courses on ways to implement the programme.

Ten communes were recognised as safe communities at international level and 42 others in 13 provinces at national level.

VNA/VNP

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Posted in: Society

UN suspends Libya from Human Rights Council

Protest in Zawiya. (Source: AFP/VNA)

The 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly Mar. 1 adopted a resolution to suspend the rights of membership of Libya in the UN Human Rights Council.

The resolution expressed "deep concern about the human rights situation" in Libya, which has been a member of the Human Rights Council since May 2010.

By adopting the resolution, the 192-member General Assembly approved an unprecedented membership suspension in the Human Rights Council, which was set up nearly five years ago.

Earlier on Feb. 25, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution calling on the UN General Assembly to consider suspending Libya 's right to membership in the Geneva-based rights forum.

On Feb. 26, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1970 imposing sanctions on Libya  including an arms embargo against the country and a travel ban and asset freeze against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his key family members.

Resolution 1970 also referred the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, thus granting the court formal jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed in Libya./.

source: nytimes.com

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Posted in: Politics

Man Utd boss Sir Alex Ferguson fears resurgent Arsenal

Is this a new dawn of old rivalries between Ferguson and Wenger?

A rejuvenated Arsenal have "rearranged the pecking order", says Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

The Gunners have replaced defending champions Chelsea as the main title challenger and trail leaders United by three points with a game in hand.
"Last season Arsenal faded to leave Chelsea and ourselves in a two-horse race," Ferguson said.
"But Arsene Wenger and his players have rearranged the pecking order to come storming through to lie in second."
United and Arsenal will put their Premier League aspirations on hold for a week as they go head-to-head on Saturday with an FA Cup semi-final spot at stake.
Despite Chelsea's recent victory over Ferguson's team, the Blues remain nine points adrift of top spot in the Premier League with just 10 games left in the campaign.
But with United suffering their second successive league defeat with a 3-1 loss at Anfield on Sunday, Ferguson is now preparing for a dramatic title run-in with old rivals Arsenal breathing down their necks.
The Gunners have not finished in the top two for six years but looked set to reignite their title credentials last season before fading badly in the closing stages as Chelsea pipped United by one point.
"I think most pundits expected to see something similar this season, plus a challenge from Spurs and Manchester City to make it even more difficult for Arsenal to get back up to the top," the 69-year-old Scot added.
"But clearly they represent the main danger to us achieving our ambitions in a revival of the rivalry of a few years ago, and I am sure they regard us as the major threat to their hopes."
Wenger's team are looking to win their first Premier League title for seven years.
Ferguson was speaking for the first time since his media blackout that followed the defeat by Liverpool at the weekend.
It was a result that gave hope to those teams looking to catch United in the race for the Premier League crown and Ferguson conceded his team were second best.
"I have no excuses for the poor performance at Liverpool, who were the better team and deserved their win," Ferguson said.
"I was disappointed because we didn't perform to the level I expect and which, to be fair, we generally achieve."

Source BBC

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Posted in: Entertainment

Yemen: Police Fail to Stop Attacks on Protesters

Mourners take part in the funeral of an anti-government protester in Sanaa, Yemen, March 11, 2011.

© 2011 Reuters

Yemeni authorities should take immediate steps to ensure that security forces prevent assaults against anti-government protesters and arrest those responsible. In city after city in Yemen, security forces have stood by or fled, and failed to protect people exercising their right to peaceful assembly. In some cases it appeared that too few police were deployed to halt the attacks.

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Posted in: Politics

Mideast uprisings lesson for Vietnam: freed dissident

 Uprisings in the Middle East should serve as a lesson to Vietnam's ruling Communist Party, a prominent dissident said Monday, calling for democracy the day after his release from four years in prison.

"I think what has been happening in the Middle East is a very good lesson for Vietnamese people at this moment," Nguyen Van Dai, a 42-year-old human rights lawyer, told AFP by telephone in Hanoi.
"And it's also a good lesson for the Communist Party because they should democratise my country before Vietnamese people go to the streets to ask them," he said, after completing his sentence for spreading propaganda against the state.
He and another lawyer were arrested on March 6, 2007 for writing and distributing texts critical of the government, responding to questions from foreign news media and using their positions as lawyers to voice their views.
Dai said he was able to follow news of the Middle East uprisings from the prison cell near Hanoi where he was held with about 45 other people. They received a newspaper and had a television with sound but no picture, he said.
"I think it's very good for the people in the Middle East" that some governments have heeded the voices of their people, Dai said.
Popular uprisings this year have shaken governments throughout the Arab world, toppling long-ruling regimes in Egypt and Tunisia and creating jitters among authoritarian governments further afield, including in China.
In the interview, Dai reiterated his support for a multi-party system -- which Vietnamese authorities re-affirmed in January they are "determined" not to allow.
"I think the multi-party system is better for my country," Dai told AFP.
He said he was not worried about speaking out in the one-party state: "The Vietnamese constitution gives me the right."
Last week veteran Vietnamese dissident Nguyen Dan Que was arrested, official media reported, after he called for a Middle East-style uprising.
At the time, a foreign diplomat said that, apart from Que's appeal, there has been "nothing really" in the way of calls in Vietnam for popular unrest inspired by the Middle East turmoil.
Under his sentence, Dai is restricted from leaving his neighbourhood without official permission even though he is free from prison.
Amnesty International says more than 20 activists in Vietnam have been jailed over the last 12 months. 
Source: MSN News

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Posted in: Society

The Limits of Safeguards and Human Foresight

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

 HERE’S the truly scary thing about the 8.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Honshu Island and its resulting tsunami: Japan is a country that is lauded for doing preparedness right. 

Japan is a rich, high-tech nation with much rough experience of seismic rumblings: those factors have led it to plan, and plan well, for disaster, with billions spent over the years on developing and deploying technologies to limit the damage from temblors and tsunamis.

Those steps almost certainly kept the death count lower than it might otherwise be — especially in comparison with the multitudes lost in recent earthquakes in China and Haiti. Last Friday, however, showed the limits of what even the best preparation can do.

“I’m still in shock,” said Ivan G. Wong, the principal seismologist of URS Corporation in Oakland, Calif., contemplating Japan’s efforts to resist earthquake damage and its parallels to building standards in this country.

“This is really the best analogue we have for the United States,” he said, and “I’m just flabbergasted by the amount of damage we’re seeing.”

Mr. Wong noted that the Pacific Northwest is at considerable risk of a strong earthquake from the Cascadia fault, which lies off the coast under the seabed. And while the coastal zone of the Northwest does not have as much residential and business development as that slammed by the Japanese tsunami, the earthquake risks farther inland along the Pacific Northwest could well end up sustaining severe damage, he said. Nearly a thousand Oregon schools built in the last century have poor earthquake resilience, and many vulnerable dams protect urban areas in the region. Oregon is moving to shore up its schools, but the program is not slated for completion until 2032. The federal government is working to address dam issues, but the pace is deliberate, he said.

“Steps are being taken, but there’s a lot of dams, there’s a lot of fixing that needs to be done,” Mr. Wong said. “We’re decades away from being able to fix all our dams.”

The sobering fact is that megadisasters like the Japanese earthquake can overcome the best efforts of our species to protect against them. No matter how high the levee or how flexible the foundation, disaster experts say, nature bats last. Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, warned that an earthquake in the United States along the New Madrid fault, which caused strong earthquakes early in the 19th century, could kill tens, or even hundreds of thousands of people in the more densely populated cities surrounding the Mississippi River.

All technology can do in the face of such force is to minimize damage to communities and infrastructure, he said, and “on both of those fronts, we’re never going to be perfect.”

Given the limits of steel and concrete to resist the forces of nature, much depends on people’s own preparedness to face up to disaster — but that mental infrastructure is in even poorer shape than the nation’s roads and bridges. People in the Midwest might have storm cellars to shield them from tornadoes, and those in coastal cities like New Orleans might keep a hatchet in the attic in case they have to chop their way onto their roof after a hurricane. But in most of the country, simple plans that include having a quick-grab case of supplies, medications and important family papers, as well as a plan for reuniting family members who have been separated in a disaster, are distressingly rare, Dr. Redlener said.

Dr. Redlener, the author of “Americans at Risk,” about why the United States is not prepared for megadisasters and what we be done about it, said the biggest problem is a failure to go so far as even Japan has to protect its citizens from natural disasters.

“We seem to not have the ability or the willingness to do that right now,” he said. “At a time when states are facing $175 billion in deficits and the federal government is trying to deal with very compelling issues of long-term debt and deficits, the likelihood of our being able to mobilize the resources to significantly improve disaster readiness is limited.”

And yet there are few issues as important. In a telephone press conference on Friday, W. Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Service, said, “The lesson that you learn from this is that earthquakes don’t come with a warning. And that’s why being prepared is so critical.”

Even preventable disasters, however, get short shrift because of our aversion to long-term planning and commitment, said Russell Schweickart, the former Apollo astronaut. Mr. Schweickart has spent years trying to get citizens of earth to focus the risks that many people might think of as pretty far out: asteroid impact.

Mr. Schweickart and others, however, estimate that asteroid impacts like the one that flattened 800 square miles of forest in the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908 happen every few hundred years, and should be taken seriously. Mr. Schweickart is chairman of the B612 Foundation, which advocates monitoring near-earth asteroids to find the ones that might someday strike this planet. With proper research and financing, he noted, it should be possible to divert a space rock and avoid disaster.

“The good news is, you can prevent it — not just get ready for it!” he said in an interview. “The bad news is, it’s hard to get anybody to pay attention to it when there are potholes in the road.”

Moments like the Japanese quake, Dr. Redlener said, are often referred to as “wake-up calls” that could lead to change. But after so many examples and teachable moments that lead to so little change, he argued, “it’s more like a snooze alarm” that jolts us for a moment; in no time at all, he said, we “drift back into a level of complacency.” 

NYtimes.com

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Posted in: Experimental Society,Society

Wi-Fi 802.11n: Still Evolving

By Jay Botelho, director of product management at WildPackets, NetworkWorld
This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

Similar Articles:

With 802.11n ratification a distant memory, news reports regarding this giant leap in WLAN capability have also waned. But while 11n has quietly receded into the background, WLANs have crept out of our data-only world and taken flight as full-fledged network platforms.
Platforms, after all, enable the development of compelling applications, right? So, what's more compelling than being able to stream video between your home office server and your 56" LED TV without wires? Or walking into your company headquarters while on your mobile phone and having your call automatically transition from the cellular network to the WLAN to take advantage of significantly better signal strength? It's all thanks to 802.11n -- complex technology that enables conveniences we will soon come to depend on.
ROUNDUP: 802.11n Wi-Fi essentials for enterprise IT
Though ratified, 802.11n is still evolving -- not the specification itself, but the equipment capable of taking advantage of it. For the most part, technology is just now beginning to catch up to the capabilities outlined in 802.11n, with still years before there's parity between available equipment and the maximum capabilities 802.11n can offer. Let's take a look at a few of the key technological advances in 802.11n and see how current technology stacks up.
MIMO
MIMO, or multiple-input, multiple output, is probably the first thing that comes to mind when people think about what's new in 11n. It is the most visible and the most talked-about of the advanced technologies. MIMO uses complex radio frequency (RF) technology that allows multiple data streams to be transmitted over the same channel using the same bandwidth that is used for only a single data stream in 802.11a/b/g.
Two streams deliver twice the data. Three streams deliver three times the data. This is also why 11n access points (APs) have more antennas than the older a/b/g models. At least one antenna is required per data stream, but keep in mind that not every antenna must be used for data, so the maximum number of data streams is limited by, but not necessarily equal to, the number of antennas on the AP.
This is one area where technology is just catching up with theory. The 802.11n specification allows for up to four data streams. Most currently available equipment takes advantage of only two data streams, but equipment is finally coming to market that uses up to three data streams. APs using four streams are still rare.
To take full advantage of the increased throughput the wireless clients must also be capable of operating at the same number of data streams as the APs, and wireless client adapters are a bit further behind the APs, making three-stream capable wireless adapters still somewhat hard to come by from commercial channels.
Channel bonding
Channel bonding does exactly that, it takes two existing 802.11 channels and groups them together to form a single channel, with twice the bandwidth. Two times the bandwidth is essentially equal to two times the throughput, so this is another significant feature in 11n.
In the 5GHz band, the channels that are bonded together are adjacent channels, for example channels 36 and 40 in the U.S. In the 2.4GHz range, where the channels are closer together, the bonded channels are spaced several channels apart, so when channel bonding is used in the 2.4GHz band, a significant portion of the available 2.4GHz spectrum is used to service the one bonded channel.
Channel bonding is already widely used. Though effective in both frequency ranges, its use is sometimes not recommended in the 2.4GHz band because it uses so much of the existing spectrum and can cause interference with neighboring 802.11b/g infrastructures. To be safe, reserve the use of channel bonding to the 5GHz channels.
Block acknowledgements
Block acknowledgements are a tried and true method of wired networking. Block acknowledgements allow more data to be sent before the receiving party must acknowledge receipt of the data. This reduces protocol overhead and effectively increases data throughput. Though the throughput gains are not nearly as large as those achieved with MIMO or channel bonding, the efficiencies achieved with block acknowledgements are certainly worth mentioning. Block acknowledgements are also already widely used in shipping 802.11n-capable hardware.
Aggregation
Aggregation assembles data into more efficient packages for transmission across the network. This efficiency comes in several forms. For very small amounts of data, 11n combines data that would originally have been sent using multiple data packets into a single data packet. For large data sets that can't fit into even the maximum allowed data packet, 11n decomposes the data into multiple packets, but treats the packet stream as if it was a single packet, and then uses the block acknowledgement feature. Though these approaches are quite different, the end result is the same -- reduced protocol overhead, which effectively increases data throughput.
Aggregation is a sophisticated 11n technique, but the user need not worry about it. The use of aggregation, and the specific type required, is determined by the hardware itself and is transparent to the end user. Aggregation has been available in shipping 11n hardware for a while, but support for both aggregation techniques has been inconsistent from manufacturer to manufacturer, though this is changing and most new hardware is now supporting both types of aggregation.
Short guard interval
A guard interval is a period of time that is inserted between data transmissions to prevent overlap between the transmissions. Though necessary, a guard interval is essentially wasted time, which means wasted bandwidth. 802.11n introduces efficiencies, which allow for the reduction of the guard interval, cutting the time in half, hence a "short" guard interval.
This efficiency can lead to up to an 11% improvement in overall performance, but keep in mind that the short guard interval can only be used when a 11n AP is communicating with a 11n client. If the wireless network includes a mix of 11n and non-11n wireless clients, the performance improvements of the short guard interval are reduced since the "long" guard interval will be used with all non-11n clients. Support for this capability is growing rapidly in commercially available hardware.
Beam forming
Beam forming is arguably the most complex new technology introduced with 802.11n. In its simplest form, beam forming allows the transmitting device, whether AP or wireless client, to alter the transmission pattern from its antennas to "direct" the data towards the receiving party. It requires the AP and clients "learn" where each other are before employing any beam forming, and if clients are actively moving about (after all, isn't mobility one of the hallmarks of 802.11?) then beam forming becomes more or less useless.
Given its complexity, it's safe to assume that most 802.11n hardware has yet to take advantage of this part of the 802.11n specification. This is changing, however, and some enterprise-grade systems are beginning to include beam forming as part of the feature set. However, the jury is still out as to how effective, and how widely supported, beam forming will become.
Though fully specified, 802.11n is still an evolving technology. Given that, it will take the theoretical maximum throughput from 54Mbps to 600Mbps, it would be unfair to think that leap would be made overnight. WLAN systems capable of 300Mbps are widely available today, with some supporting 450Mbps beginning to hit the market. It will be a bit longer before we're at the 600Mbps mark, and by then even newer specifications that are currently under development will be driving WLAN capabilities much further!
WildPackets Inc. develops hardware and software solutions that drive network performance, enabling organizations to analyze, troubleshoot, optimize and secure their wired and wireless networks.
Read more about anti-malware in Network World's Anti-malware section.

pcworld.com

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Last Vietnamese workers return home from Libya

Vietanmese workers at at Dejerba Zarzis Airport, Tunisia, preparing to return to Vietnam

The last Vietnamese nationals to be evacuated from Libya will return to Vietnam on a special Vietnam Airlines aircraft Wednesday (March 9).

Doan Xuan Hung, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is currently in Djerba, Tunisia, said that as of Monday, 2,415 Vietnamese workers had reached Tunisia, while another 831 were at the Djerba Zarzis airport, waiting to return to Vietnam.

The International Organization of Migration is also expected send two flights to bring the workers home Tuesday, he said.

A group of officials from the Vietnamese Embassy in Libya, meanwhile, will stay on in Djerba for another couple of days to give support to any lost workers, Hung said.

So far over 10,000 Vietnamese workers have been evacuated from turmoil hit Libya by air and sea, he added.

Hung also said that Vietnam has received great help from the Tunisian government and people in the evacuation process.

Reported by Viet Phuong- thanhnien.com.vn

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Posted in: Society

Japan quake: 'Explosion heard' at nuclear power plant

An explosion has been heard from a Japanese nuclear power plant hit by Friday's devastating earthquake.

Reports said smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima and several workers were injured.
Japanese officials fear a meltdown at one of the plant's reactors after radioactive material was detected outside it.
A huge relief operation is under way after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 600.
Hundreds more people are missing and it is feared about 1,300 may have died.
Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared a state of emergency at the Fukushima 1 and 2 power plants as engineers try to confirm whether a reactor at one of the stations has gone into meltdown.
Japan's NHK TV showed before and after pictures of the Fukushima plant. They appeared to show that the outer structure of one of four buildings at the plant had collapsed.
Cooling systems inside several reactors at the plants stopped working after Friday's earthquake cut the power supply.
Japan's nuclear agency said on Saturday that radioactive caesium and iodine had been detected near the number one reactor of the Fukushima 1 plant.
The agency said this may indicate that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting.
Air has been released from several of the reactors at both plants in an effort to relieve the huge amount of pressure building up inside.
Mr Kan said the amount of radiation released was "tiny".
Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate the area near the plants.

BBC

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Posted in: Society

Novel Role Found for Calcium Channels in Pacemaker Cell Function

ScienceDaily — Pacemaker cells in the sinoatrial node control heart rate, but what controls the ticking of these pacemaker cells? New research by Angelo Torrente and his colleagues of the M.E. Mangoni group's, reveals, for the first time, a critical functional interaction between Cav1.3 calcium ion (Ca2+) channels and ryanodine-receptor (RyR) mediated Ca2+ signaling.

A mouse pacemaker cell initiates local Ca2+ releases in the diastolic phase. Red spots are the regions with maximal [Ca2+]i released. (Credit: Image courtesy of A. Torrente/CNRS France 2011)

The study also sheds light on a long-standing debate regarding the relative contributions of the 'funny current' generated by ion channels and the RyR dependent spontaneous diastolic Ca2+ release theory in determining heart rate.
The investigation by the research team compared pacemaker cells in normal mice with mutants that lacked the L-type Cav1.3 channels to contrast how they handled calcium. They found that the absence of Cav1.3 channels in sinoatrial node (SAN) cells reduced the frequency of Ca2+ transients, which determine the rate of cardiac muscle contraction. The Cav1.3 channels were also found to be important regulators of ryanodine-receptor dependent local calcium release in the diastolic pacemaker phase. Overall, their results show that local calcium release in SAN cells is tightly controlled by the Cav1.3 channels.
Defects in calcium channels controlling heart muscle function are known to cause heart failure, and this study reveals that Cav1.3 mutant mice also suffer from bradycardia and other cardiac arrhythmias.
"Our results clarify the role of Cav1.3 channels in pacemaker generation, and are a step towards using it as a target for drug therapy to treat heart dysfunction related to the sinoatrial node," says A. Torrente of CNRS in Montpellier, France, who was the lead author on the study.
Not only Cav1.3 channels are critical to the heart pacemaker cell function, they appear to be important to several other cellular mechanisms as well. In both humans and mice, Cav1.3 mutations have been linked to sinoatrial node dysfunction and deafness (or SANDD) syndrome. Cav1.3 channels are believed to play a role in pancreatic β-cell stimulation, and they may also serve as pacemaker channels in the central nervous system, playing a pathophysiological role in Parkinson's disease.
"A better understanding of these channels in SAN could help us to comprehend the mechanism of calcium release in many other tissues and disease conditions as well," says Torrente.
Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by American Institute of Physics, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

 From: sciencedaily

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Posted in: Health

China activist Chen Guangcheng 'beaten'

A prominent Chinese activist and his wife are reported to have been beaten following the release of a video showing their house arrest.

Chen Guangcheng and his wife, Yuan Weijin, were badly injured by security officials, according to the group Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
It says the beating came after the release of a secretly shot film showing Mr Chen as a prisoner in his own home.
He said he has been under surveillance since his release from jail last year.
Mr Chen - a blind man who is one of China's best-known activists - was imprisoned after claiming the authorities had carried out forced abortions.
'Not life threatening'

Damian Grammaticas: "For five months the blind activist says

 he has lived under this 24 hour surveillance"

Chinese Human Rights Defenders told the BBC that a trusted source informed the organisation about the attack.
"The person said the beating was related to the video that was released," said the defenders' spokeswoman Wang Songlian.
"The beating was not light, but not life-threatening either."
She added that the source had said Mr Chen and his wife had not been allowed to get medical treatment.
The BBC could not independently verify the claims made by the organisation.
The film showing Mr Chen under house arrest was released by the US-based campaign group China Aid
In it the activist said: "I've come out of a small jail and entered a bigger one."
His phone has been cut off, and men and vehicles block access to his house. Anyone who tries to help him is threatened, he said.
"I cannot take even half a step out of my house. My wife is not allowed to leave either. Only my mother can go out and buy food to keep us going," said the activist, who used to offer legal advice to local people.
Mr Chen has been held ever since he completed a four-year prison term in September.
He had accused local officials of coercing up to 7,000 women in his province, Shandong, into forced abortions or sterilisations.
He was convicted though of damaging property and disrupting the traffic.
Last month the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton highlighted Mr Chen's case, calling for his release together with the jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and another detained lawyer Gao Zhisheng.

From: BBC

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Posted in: Politics

Scientists Develop High-Tech Crop Map

ARS and St. Petersburg State University have partnered on AgroAtlas, a new website that offers geographic distributions of 100 crops; 640 crop diseases, pests, and weeds; and 560 wild crop relatives in Russia and neighboring countries such as this map showing the distribution of the Russian wheat aphid. (Credit: Image courtesy of USDA/Agricultural Research Service)

ScienceDaily — AgroAtlas is a new interactive website that shows the geographic distributions of 100 crops; 640 species of crop diseases, pests, and weeds; and 560 wild crop relatives growing in Russia and neighboring countries. Downloadable maps and geographic information system (GIS) software are also available, allowing layering of data, such as that relating major wheat production areas to concentrations of Russian wheat aphids.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) plant geneticist Stephanie Greene, the impetus behind developing AgroAtlas was to promote world food security, particularly in Newly Independent States -- countries of the former Soviet Union striving to broaden their agricultural base. Greene works in the National Temperate Forage Legume Genetic Resources Unit operated at Prosser, Wash., by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency.
Greene leads the AgroAtlas project with Alexandr N. Afonin, a senior scientist with St. Petersburg State University in Russia. The Internet-based map is the successful result of a proposal they submitted in 2003 for funding under a program coordinated by the ARS Office of International Research Programs (OIRP) in Beltsville, Md., and supported by the U.S. Department of State.
In September 2010, the two researchers joined their colleagues to host the first of a series of 10-day workshops in St. Petersburg teaching the use of GIS software to scientists and students from former Soviet states. OIRP also awarded scholarships supporting travel and lodging expenses for 20 students to learn about AgroAtlas and GIS software. They, in turn, were to return to their institutes to train others.
Demonstrations of AgroAtlas include showing where in Crimea, a major wine-producing region, U.S. wine grapes can be successfully grown, as well as the distribution of major wheat diseases in the North Caucasus region according to agroclimatic zones. Greene notes AgroAtlas also has potential to aid in the detection and identification of insect pests, pathogens or weeds that have entered -- or could enter -- the United States from Russia or neighboring countries.

from: sciencedaily

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Posted in: Science

Japan quake: Nuclear meltdown feared at Fukushima reactor

Pressure in several reactors of the Fukushima nuclear power plant is much higher than normal

Japanese officials fear a meltdown at a nuclear power plant hit by Friday's earthquake after radioactive material was detected outside it.

Japan's nuclear agency said this meant fuel from one of the reactor's cores may have started melting.
Japanese media reported an explosion and smoke at one of the Fukushima plants.
A huge relief operation is under way after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 400.
Another 784 people are missing.
Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared a state of emergency at the Fukushima 1 and 2 power plants as engineers try to confirm whether a reactor at one of the stations has gone into meltdown.
Cooling systems inside several reactors at the plants stopped working after Friday's earthquake cut the power supply.
Japan's nuclear agency said on Saturday that radioactive caesium and iodine had been detected near the number one reactor of the Fukushima 1 plant.
The agency said this may indicate that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting.
Air has been released from several of the reactors at both plants in an effort to relieve the huge amount of pressure building up inside.
Mr Kan said the amount of radiation released was "tiny".
Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate the area near the plants.

From BBC

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Posted in: Society

Sacked star Charlie Sheen sues sitcom makers

Sheen claims that producer Chuck Lorre (left) harassed him

Actor Charlie Sheen has filed a $100m (£62m) legal action against the makers of Two and a Half Men after being fired from the US sitcom.

In court papers filed on Thursday, Sheen claims producer Chuck Lorre spent years "harassing and disparaging" him.
Mr Lorre, the action alleges, "believes himself so wealthy and powerful that he can unilaterally decide to take money away from the dedicated cast and crew".
Mr Lorre's attorney called the claims "recklessly false and unwarranted".
A spokesman for Warner Bros, also cited in the papers filed at Los Angeles Superior Court, declined to comment on the action.
Prior to his sacking, Sheen had a contract with the studio that ran to the end of the 2012 TV season, earning him $2m (£1.2m) per episode.
In his 30-page submission to the court, the 45-year-old claims he was only fired after he began publicly criticising Warner Bros and Mr Lorre.
The studio, he alleges, was "quite happy to line its coffers" while he received treatment for substance abuse and only acted because of Mr Lorre's "egotistical desire to punish" him.
"Charlie Sheen is not only seeking payment of his own compensation for the series, he is also pursuing claims for the benefit of the entire cast and crew [of Two and a Half Men]," court papers also stated.
On Thursday, police searched Sheen's home for guns that might be in violation of a temporary restraining order obtained last week by his estranged wife, Brooke Mueller.
A police spokeswoman said an antique gun had been retrieved and that the actor co-operated with the search.

From: BBC

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Posted in: Entertainment

Victoria Beckham is expecting a girl, David Beckham confirms

Looks as if Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise finally face a mother-daughter style force to reckon with -- or they will, when Victoria Beckham gives birth to what is confirmed to be her first girl.
The Spice Girl turned serious fashion designer will have a mini-Posh to complement her three adorable boys with soccer star David Beckham.
"Obviously, we're very lucky to be expecting again, and this is the first time I'm going to say it: It's a little girl," David revealed Friday at a luncheon for his stateside sports club, the L.A. Galaxy.
"We're still in shock. Obviously, having three boys, you kind of expect another one, so finding out a little girl is in there is surprising, but, obviously, we are over the moon," he said.
As far as the household sentiment, Beckham added, "Our three boys are happy and excited, and Victoria is doing well."
Very well indeed: Her fashion empire couldn't be more successful, including a recent blockbuster release of two handbags.
Here's to fabulous Bonpoint dresses, Stella McCartney outwear and (we pray) a baby Birkin for little Miss Beckham.

latimes.com

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Posted in: Entertainment

Tablet Camera Tests: iPad 2 vs. Motorola Xoom vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab

All three of the leading tablets available feature front and rear cameras, but some are better than others. Check out our lab test results.

By Tim Moynihan and Tony Leung, PCWorld

Odds are, if you ask anyone waiting in line for an iPad 2, they'll list plenty of reasons why they're lusting after Apple's latest camera-equipped tablet.
According to our lab tests, image quality isn't going to be one of them. In this case, megapixels did matter, and the iPad 2's 0.69-megapixel sensor turned out iPod Touch-esque results. On a bright note, the new iPad does shoot decent video, and it even outscored a dedicated video-capture device in that realm. Not too shabby.
We put the first generation of camera-equipped tablets through PCWorld Labs' subjective testing for image and video quality, and although some tablets fared much better than others in terms of photo quality and footage, they were all outscored by the output of the iPhone 4.
Of course, that's not a dealbreaker for prospective tablet buyers. While cameras are useful things to have on a tablet, they're mainly in the mix for a few reasons, and none of them overlap entirely with the contents of your camera bag: videochats, augmented-reality apps, and immediately shareable pics and video while you're out and about.
The cameras in these first- and second-generation tablets are serviceable for any of those tasks, and for anyone who routinely overlays effects and filters on their on-the-go photos (via Instagram, Camera Bag, or Hipstamatic, for example), the lacking source-image quality may not make much of a difference.
In any event, here's a look at how the iPad 2, Motorola Xoom, and Samsung Galaxy Tab handle their business in the realm of capturing photos and video. We test each camera that comes through our doors in a consistent way: we print unmarked 8-by-10 sample images, put them in front of a panel of judges, and rate each sample image for exposure quality, color accuracy, sharpness, and distortion. The panel of judges also watches sample video clips shot with each device in bright indoor lighting and low-light conditions; those clips are also rated for overall video quality and audio quality.
You can get a detailed explanation of our subjective tests here, in the "How We Tested" section.
For these tablet image- and video-quality tests, we used a test pool of the Apple iPad 2, Motorola Xoom, and Samsung Galaxy Tab. We also included sample images from three other devices in our evaluations as a basis of comparison: the Apple iPhone 4, the Apple iPod Touch, and the Canon PowerShot S95 point-and-shoot camera. For our video tests, we also included test footage from the Cisco Flip Video UltraHD in our comparative evaluations.

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Posted in: Computer,Entertainment

Intelligent Microscopy: Software Runs Experiments on Its Own

ScienceDaily — Scientists at EMBL Heidelberg created new software that rapidly learns what researchers are looking for and automatically performs complex microscopy experiments. The work is published in Nature Methods.
The sight of a researcher sitting at a microscope for hours, painstakingly searching for the right cells, may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to new software created by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. Presented in Nature Methods, the novel computer programme can rapidly learn what the scientist is looking for and then takes over this laborious and time-consuming task, automatically performing complex microscopy experiments when it detects cells with interesting features.

Micropilot detected cells at particular stages of cell division (each row shows one cell), and then instructed the microscope to remove fluorescent tags from proteins in half the cell’s nucleus (left), and record what happened next (middle and right). (Credit: EMBL)

Called Micropilot, the software brings machine learning to microscopy. It analyses low-resolution images taken by a microscope and, once it has identified a cell or structure the scientists are interested in, it automatically instructs the microscope to start the experiment. This can be as simple as recording high-resolution time-lapse videos or as complex as using lasers to interfere with fluorescently tagged proteins and recording the results.
The software is a boon to systems biology studies, as it generates more data, faster. In a mere four nights of unattended microscope operation, Micropilot detected 232 cells in two particular stages of cell division and performed a complex imaging experiment on them, whereas an experienced microscopist would have to work full-time for at least a month just to find those cells among the many thousands in the sample. With such high throughput, Micropilot can easily and quickly generate enough data to obtain statistically reliable results, allowing scientists to probe the role of hundreds of different proteins in a particular biological process.
Jan Ellenberg and Rainer Pepperkok, whose teams at EMBL designed Micropilot, have used the software to deploy several different microscopy experiments, investigating various aspects of cell division. They determined when structures known as endoplasmic reticulum exit sites form, and uncovered the roles of two proteins, CBX1 and CENP-E, in condensing genetic material into tightly-wound chromosomes and in forming the spindle which helps align those chromosomes. This software will be a key tool for the European systems biology projects Mitosys and SystemsMicroscopy, for which Ellenberg and Pepperkok are developing technology.
The Micropilot software is available as open source code at: http://www.embl.de/almf/almf_services/hc_screeing/micropilot/.
Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), via AlphaGalileo.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Christian Conrad, Annelie Wünsche, Tze Heng Tan, Jutta Bulkescher, Frank Sieckmann, Fatima Verissimo, Arthur Edelstein, Thomas Walter, Urban Liebel, Rainer Pepperkok, Jan Ellenberg. Micropilot: automation of fluorescence microscopy–based imaging for systems biology. Nature Methods, 2011; DOI: 10.1038/NMETH.1558 

source: sciencedaily

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Posted in: Computer,Science