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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Michael Rasmussen of Denmark has won stage 16 of the 2007 Tour de France in a time of 6h 23′ 21″.

Rasmussen increased his overall lead by 35″ over Alberto Contador of Spain, who finished third.

After a rest day, the riders faced the third-longest, 218.5 km, and arguably the Tour’s hardest, stage. The first challenge was the brutal Port de Larrau (14.7 km climb at 8.1%), which is just 79km into the stage. The race dips into Spain for some 50 kilometres at the summit, the fourth country visited in this year’s Tour. From there, there was little reprieve for the riders, hitting the Alto Laza and the Col de la Pierre St Martin (14.2 km climb at 5.2%) before descending to the start of the difficult, and very steep, first-category Col de Marie-Blanque (9.3 km climb at 7.4%). The riders then climb the infamous Col d’Aubisque (16.7 km climb at 7%), which will reward out-and-out climbing ability and punish the legs of all the major contenders.

The entire Astana Team withdrew from the Tour prior to this stage due to Alexander Vinokourov testing positive for blood doping. Some riders staged a protest against doping at the start.

Another doping scandal hit the Tour today. Cristian Moreni of Italy tested positive for testosterone in a test conducted after Thursday’s stage 11. Moreni was questioned by police. Cofidis team manager Eric Boyer told Reuters: “He accepted his wrongdoing and did not ask for a B-sample.”

Like Astana did, Cofidis has withdrawn its entire team from the Tour. François Migraine, the team president and CEO of the sponsoring insurance company, Cofidis, said: “It’s the only thing to do in such circumstances.”

Monday, September 24, 2007

Doug Anderson is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Whitby-Oshawa riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Friday, October 14, 2005

The Ubuntu Foundation released its third version of the popular GNU/Linux operating system distribution yesterday. Codenamed “Breezy Badger”, the release improves on its predecessor, Hoary Hedgehog, with updated versions of packages such as OpenOffice.org, new computer management tools, special installation modes for computer manufacturers, and a “thin client” mode for large networks of homogenous computers. The new version also improves support for laptop computers, portable media players, Bluetooth devices, PowerPC processors, and other hardware.

Because the software in the GNU/Linux operating system comes with permission for everyone to modify and redistribute it, there are many versions (called “distributions”) of the operating system available. Ubuntu builds on the popular Debian GNU/Linux distribution. Like Debian, it is made almost entirely of free software.

Users quickly swarmed the Ubuntu Foundation’s servers trying to download the new version. The servers are currently responding slowly; moderators at the Ubuntu Forums suggested that users download with BitTorrent if at all possible, which is much less prone to such slowdowns.

Although its first release was only a year ago, Ubuntu Linux has quickly become one of the most popular Linux distributions. It is intended to be user-friendly without being insecure by design, a charge sometimes leveled against other beginner-friendly distributions like Linspire. The distribution is offered for free, and CDs are available for order via the Internet without charge (including shipping).

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

As gas prices have risen in the United States, the regional transport authority for southeastern Pennsylvania, SEPTA, has seen a sharp increase in ridership, which has caused overcrowding on the trains.

“As fuel prices have continued to rise, SEPTA ridership has steadily increased and is the highest in 18 years,” said SEPTA General Manager Joseph Casey. Monthly ridership was 22 percent higher last month than a year ago.

“They have crushed loads on their rail lines, already where people are standing, and there’s not enough seats,” said Rich Bickel, the director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

“At peak times some railcars are standing room only and commuter parking lots are nearly full. All Regional Rail lines are running near full capacity and the train station parking lots are at about 90 percent capacity or more,” SEPTA spokesperson Felipe Suarez said.

While SEPTA awaits new Silverliner V trains from Hyundai Rotem, which begin arriving in 2009, it had hoped to lease eight rail cars from New Jersey Transit, at an agreed-upon rate of US$10,000 per month. However, due to problems with insurance and liability indemnification, the deal fell through, according to Casey.

SEPTA has entered a new agreement to purchase the eight rail cars from NJ Transit. The transit authority will pay US$670,000 for the cars and assorted supplies plus one additional inoperative car which will be used for spare parts. The rail cars will be operated using a SEPTA provided locomotive as they are not self-propelled.

The cars are being disposed of by NJ Transit because it has switched from single-floor cars to double-decker cars.

SEPTA is expecting to raise US$3.1 million by selling rail that has been out of service since 1981 at auction.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

A fire in the Borrabbin National Park between Southern Cross and Coolgardie Western Australia, has so far burnt out 29,000 hectares and killed three truck drivers when the convoy they were travelling in was engulfed by the flames. Great Eastern Highway the primary road for all traffic from Perth heading to the East Coast of Australia has been closed. An alternate route is in place, police are diverting traffic at Norseman. The diversion adds 250 km(160 mi) for the journey to Perth.

The three truck drivers died on Sunday night after they joined a convoy that was released from Coolgardie after being told that the road was safe. Kieran McNamara director general of the Department of Environment and Conservation(DEC) admitted that it had been caught out by its decision to reopen the road at 8pm (wst) on 30 December.

Mr McNamara said “The decision was made with the advice from people at the firefront, and with the latest weather forecasts, and was judged to be the right decision and the safe decision at the time and in those circumstances… Regrettably and with hindsight, that’s not how it’s turned out.”

The driver of another truck in the convoy that was destroyed escaped with burns to his hands and was rushed through the fire front by firefighters to Yellowdine, another driver was rescued uninjured and return to Coolgardie, a spokesman for Whiteline transport the owners of this truck were thankful their driver survived unharmed saying the cost of the vehicle lost was about AU$400,000 plus cargo. Police confirmed that four trucks were destroyed by the fire.

Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia reported that they were fighting the fire without using water. All efforts were focused on building fire breaks with heavy machinery to contain the fire, that 90 volunteer fire fighters on the scene were there to defend the bulldozers.

The fire is still burning on a 150 km (90 mi) front, DEC spokesman says fire fighters are hoping to bring the fire under control with an expected cool change on Wednesday. The Weather Bureau has forecast temperatures to return above 40°C(105°F) by Thursday.

Local Police say that Great Eastern Highway will remain closed until the fire is under control and the damaged vehicles have been removed from the scene, at this stage its not expected to occur before Sunday.

Sunday, April 23, 2017

More than fifteen people were killed near the police station in Yerpedu, Andhra Pradesh, India after a heavily loaded truck lost control on Friday afternoon at about 1:45 P.M. IST (0815 UTC).

People, mostly from the village of Munagalapalem, were gathered to protest local illegal sand mining. The truck hit an electric pole, and destroyed nearby shops and vehicles causing a short-circuit and fire. Tirupati Urban Superintendent of Police R Jayalakshmi said the truck crushed some people under its wheels; six people were killed that way according to Renigunta deputy superintendent KS Nanjndappa. Other people died due to the short circuit and the fire. More than fifteen people were injured including the police station’s chief inspector and the sub-inspector. Reportedly at least ten were in a critical condition.

The driver fled after the accident. Victims were taken to hospitals in Tirupati, and Chennai and Vellore in Tamil Nadu. N Chandrababu Naidu, Andhra’s Chief Minister, said via Twitter, “State Cabinet has announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh [0.5 million] to the families of the deceased.”

Saturday, August 16, 2014

A team of researchers from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has confirmed that near-Earth asteroid (29075) 1950 DA is primarily held together by van der Waals forces rather than gravity. They have shown that the rotation rate of the 1.1 km asteroid is higher than could be possible if only gravity and friction were responsible for holding it together. Cohesive forces prevent large scale shedding of material and breakup of the asteroid. Their study was published Wednesday in Nature.

The researchers found that the bulk density 1.7±0.7 g/cm³ of the asteroid is approximately two times lower than the value required for self-gravity to balance out the centrifugal forces caused by rotation. As Ben Rozitis, a planetary scientist and a co-author of the study, told Space.com: “I was expecting to find a high-density metallic asteroid, as such an asteroid wouldn’t require cohesive forces to hold itself together under its fast rotation. Instead we found the opposite! […] We knew from previous work that this asteroid was rotating faster than it should be, and we wanted to know why”.

Spectral observations of 1950DA indicated that it is either an E- or M-type asteroid in the Tholen classification. However, its low optical albedo and low radar circular polarization ratio (a very smooth surface at centimetre to decimetre scales) showed that it cannot be an E-type asteroid.

Unusually for an M-type asteroid (which are mostly metallic), 1950DA has low radar albedo. It would have been puzzling, if it was not for the Rosetta observations of 21 Lutetia, which is also an M-type asteroid with very similar low radar albedo. Researchers have used for 1950DA the same meteorite analogue which was earlier found to fit best 21 Lutetia: enstatite chondrite with grain density of 3.55 g/cm³. It allowed to calculate macro-porosity of 51±19%, indicating that 1950DA is a rubble-pile asteroid.

Taking into account thermal-infrared measurements of thermal inertia, presence of a fine-grained regolith is implied, primarily around 1950DA’s equator. Negative ambient gravity near the equator of the asteroid (48±24% of its surface) requires existence of cohesive forces to prevent loss of material. This is similar to an effect noticed between the fine grains of regolith on the Moon. Lunar regolith was found to be highly cohesive because of van der Waals forces between grains by the Apollo 17 expedition in 1974.

As Ben Rozitis explained: “We found a low-density rubble pile that traditionally would be unable to hold itself together unless cohesive forces were present. It’s exciting because we’ve provided the first evidence that cohesive forces are important for small asteroids, which had only been predicted up until now.”

The balance between cohesion and negative gravity requires small grain sizes consistent with the grain size distribution on 1950DA, and similar to that of another rubble-pile asteroid, (25143) Itokawa. Unlike Itokawa, 1950DA does not have large boulders on the surface; they may have been lost as 1950DA’s rotation accelerated due to YORP effect. This effect results in a change of the rotation rate of an asteroid (either faster or slower), and is caused when the Sun heats up an object unevenly, due to asymmetric surface topography. As the heat escapes, the rotation rate is slowly changed due to an uneven rate of cooling. The researchers find that a rubble-pile asteroid may have a high rotation rate, if it is held together by cohesive forces between the grains. But as the spin rate increases due to YORP effect, the centrifugal force may cause the rubble pile to eventually separate as it happened with P/2013 R3.

The findings may have implications for asteroid impact avoidance. A very small impulse may break one potentially hazardous object into several pieces. As Ben Rozitis said: “You’d want to avoid interacting with the asteroid directly. An alternative is to use a ‘gravity tractor,’ or a heavy spacecraft placed near the asteroid, which uses the force of gravity to pull the asteroid off course”. Bong Wie, an aerospace engineer at Iowa State University in Ames, noted: “I just hope that an asteroid on a collision course with Earth will not be spinning rapidly and it will not be a rubble-pile asteroid”.

According to Daniel Scheeres, an aerospace engineer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, understanding such cohesive forces may also be important for future asteroid mining. Ben Rozitis clarified: “Mining missions intend to visit small asteroids about 10 meters (33 feet) or less in size, as it is thought that they are predominantly solid bodies. However, cohesive forces enable such small asteroids to be rubble piles instead. A small rubble-pile asteroid would be harder to interact with and collect, as it can easily deform or break up when subject to external forces.”

The study was supported by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and the NASA.