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Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for more details |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |
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José, Costa Rica, Friday, May 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 91
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 U.S. and Tico
football teams
meet Saturday in bowl game By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Kickoff is a 1 p.m. Saturday at a stadium in Desamparados when the Costa Rican national football team meets visitors from the United States. The opponent is the North East All*Stars, a semi-pro team from Boston, Massachusetts. The stadium is Cuty Monge where the American football teams frequently play. The event is the fourth Tropic Bowl, and a map of the stadium location is included on the game's Web page. Organizers are the American Football Federation of Costa Rica and Athletes Without Borders, a U.S. organization. The event also is a social one. Players of both teams will meet tonight. During this weekend Athletes Without Borders will host a number of youth events including American football clinics and health and wellness seminars, an announcement said. The youth events are culminated with the Junior Tropic Bowl, an exhibition game played prior to the Tropic Bowl. General admission to the game is free. Nosara sets June 1 for event to raise money for animals By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Nosara is going to the dogs again June 1. The event is the Fourth Annual GoDogGo Show that is a fundraiser for Nosara Animal Care The location is Campo Alegre's tennis courts, 300 meters south of the Nosara Yoga Institute, Playa Guinoes, Said organizers: "The GoDogGo Show is a fun-filled day for families and friends to celebrate the dogs of Nosara. There are planned events in which every dog can shine, and if you don’t’ see an event that captures your dog’s unique talents, you can name your own event. To add to the fun, there will be a raffle, vendors selling yummy food and drinks, music, and some fun surprises. "To participate, all dogs must be registered before 9:00 am on the day of the show. It is highly recommended that you use the registration form on the web site to pre-register for all events in which you wish to participate.  Biodigest and settling pond Biodigester cut power bill for pig producer 85 per cent By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Want to cut the electric bill by some 85 percent. All that is needed are 9,000 pigs. That is how Granja Porcina Toledo in Guápiles did it, according to a recent presentation. Costa Ricans love pork, but raising pork generates a lot of waste. Granja Porcina Toledo installed a biodigester to handle the waste and produces methane that is fed to an electrical generator. The firm cut its monthly electrical bill form 1.2 million colons, more than $2,200, to 200,000, less than $400. The generator runs eight hours a day. The project was outlined at the Universidad Técnica Nacional in Atenas during a seminar sponsored by the Programa Recursos Digitales para el Desarrollo Económico Sosteniblede Centroamérica with the support of the Fundación Hivos de Holanda.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, May 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 91 | |
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| The following news story and photos are
from a late edition of A.M. Costa Rica Thursday. |
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 Casa Presidential photo
New president greets the crowd after
receiving the sash of office.
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| Solís
promises transparent and frugal administration |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Posted
at 2:30 p.m. Thursday
Luis Guillermo Solís accepted the presidential sash today and
promised a transparent government that would end impunity and fight
corruption.The president made no major proposals, but restated many of the themes that marked his campaign. He promised a frugal government that would defend the rights of the minorities, promote foreign investment and tourism while maintaining an open door. He said his government would support the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, which he referred to as the country's emblematic institution and the cornerstone and the torch that should continue illuminating with growing efficiency and devotion the road of Costa Rica toward development. Solís noted that there are enormous challenges ahead, but he said the country can confront them with success because the people have a great reserve and courage. The new president spoke at noon in an Estadio Nacional filled with an enthusiastic crowd of about 15,000 persons. The weather was threatening. There was a theme of humility. For example, Solís said that he would not consider that he has received a blank check but that he was a custodian for the people and if he did not fulfill the job he received the legitimate owners, the people, could reclaim the power. The inauguration had some creative touches. The pabellón nacional, the official flag of the nation, was carried in from the depths of the stadium and carried away at the end of the ceremony by school girls, Melissa Cai Shi of Colegio Metodista and Mariana Blando Reyes of Liceo Franco Costarricense. They were accompanied by six students, one of whom suffers from down's syndrome. Others represented various ethnic groups typical of the country. The speech by Solís was nearly 3,700 words, and took the expected 25 minutes to deliver. He linked his new administration to the history of the country and said it was one more wave in the ocean of history. But he said that the time now is extraordinary because many Costa Ricans are disappointed with the governments and with the traditional politics and that they have presented a resonating demand for change to sweep away the old forms of administering the power. This demand is to construct a society of growing opportunities for the greatest number, he said. Many of his comments were met with applause or cheers from the audience. Solis said it as a contradiction that the growing national economic model concentrates the riches in few hands and creates conditions of inequality and poverty far from the vision of well being that for decades has directed the public policies. At the same time he chided unnamed individuals and the unions for failing to negotiate in good faith. The emphasis by Solis on social welfare is not unexpected. He had been president of the Partido Liberación Nacional, and his political party, Acción Ciudadana, shares many of the same values. He broke with his former party over corruption. He promised in his speech that the presidential office would operate as a palace of crystal that would allow the citizenry to examine and scrutinize the daily work of administering the state. He said corruption is bankrupting the public finances and the time has come to end the impunity, irresponsibility and the arbitrariness of |
public employees. But this is not only the job of the government, he said as he called on the civil society and the media to aid in the oversight of how public officials do their jobs. He promised that the new administration would not go soft on tax evasion in all its manifestations, noting that he is inheriting a fiscal deficit of 6 percent of the gross domestic product. He said the country has the capacity to reach in a maximum of two years the agreements necessary to resolve perhaps the greatest challenge: to eradicate extreme poverty. His administration, he said, will begin immediately to increase the national production, combat social inequalities and rescue the agriculture sector. Social inequalities affect more the women and the young, he noted. He promised to reduce electrical rates, push for a national development bank and promote other programs orientated to increasing the productivity and improve the competitivity of the business sector, help the tourism industry and local development with a policy of attracting investments. The development bank is the subject of a bill in the legislature, but it has been controversial. Solis said that the generation of riches is for the general welfare and, if this is not shared adequately, riches cause grave social problems. He also said he wanted to increase the investment in education from the current 7.23 percent of gross domestic product to 8 percent. To economize on education is very expensive, he said. Today the Costa Ricans demand that the administration exercise a government of transparency, report on its actions, encourage citizen participation, promote the welfare of animals, defend liberty of conscience, defend the environment and respect the rights of minorities, he said. Solís received the presidential sash from Laura Chinchilla, who remained in the audience with her husband to hear the veiled critical comments about her four years in office.. The wife of Solís and their 8-year-old daughter also were on the platform, as were heads of state from Latin America and the Spanish prince of Asturias. When the ceremony ended, Solís and his family walked around the stadium waving to the crowd. Later he and the heads of state and other special guests rode to the Antigua Aduana where a formal luncheon was prepared. |
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 Casa Presidential
photo
Luis Guillermo Solis waves from the head
table moments before taking the oath
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, May 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 91 | |||||
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| Handshake grip reported to be a good indicator of true age |
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By
the Stony Brook University news staff
A strong handshake can say a lot about a person. It can indicate power, confidence, health, or aggression. Now scientists at Stony Brook University in New York and the Institute for Applied Systems Analysis say that the strength of a person’s grasp may also be one of the most useful ways to measure people’s true age. In a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers Warren Sanderson and Serguei Scherbov show that hand grip corresponds to other markers of aging such as people’s future mortality, disability, cognitive decline and ability to recover from hospital stays. For their new research, Sanderson and Scherbov reviewed findings from over 50 published studies that focus on people around the world and of all ages. Since the measure is already commonly used, data is readily available. “Hand-grip strength is easily measured and data on hand-grip strength now can be found in many of the most important surveys on aging worldwide,” says Sanderson. The study also demonstrates how such a test could be used as a measure for aging to compare different population groups. The study used data from one such survey, the United States Health and Retirement Survey, to show how this could be done. Scherbov says, “We found that based on this survey, a 65-year-old white women who had not completed secondary education has the same handgrip strength as a 69-year-old white women who had completed secondary education. This suggests that according to a handgrip strength characteristic their ages are equivalent and 65 year-old women ages four years faster due to lower education attainment “ |
 A.M.
Costa Rica graphic
In
a growing body of research, Sanderson and Scherbov have begun to
define new measures of aging based on people’s characteristics, such as
their longevity, health, disability status and other important
demographic factors.
Previous research by Sanderson and Scherbov has shown that measuring age simply by the number of years people have lived does not measure variations in the aging process correctly. Using new characteristic-based approaches such as the one in this paper, the researchers can identify differences in the aging process between population groups that may not otherwise become apparent. Scherbov says, “Our goal is to measure how fast different groups in a society age. If some group is getting older faster than another, we can ask why that might be and see whether there are any policies that could help the faster aging group.” |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, May 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 91 | |||||
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 Voice of America/ Anjana Pasricha
Alphonso mangoes are on sale
this week in a supermarket in Delhi, India.Mango mania hits
India
after EU issue ban on fruit By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
India and the European Union are involved in a trade spat over a recent ban on mangoes imposed by the EU. But many at home are ecstatic as local markets become flooded with the king of fruits, sending prices plummeting. Purnima Dhir in New Delhi had stocked up on vegetable and fruits on the weekend. But after reading reports that prices of the prized Alphonso mango have crashed, she rushed back to a supermarket to pick up a variety whose high rate usually keeps it out of reach for middle class households. “I am absolutely delighted. We can have our fill of it, I can’t believe it,” she said. Alphonsos are flooding local markets after the European Union imposed an 18-month ban on Indian mangoes along with a few other vegetables after finding fruit flies in some consignments. As the ban went into effect on May 1, prices of the famed Alphonso mango tumbled to their lowest in nearly two decades. They are selling at about $2.50 to $4 per kilogram, half their usual price. The succulent mango is one of the few compensations of the scorching summer heat in the Indian plains. It comes in many varieties. But the top slot is occupied by the Alphonso mango, grown in a coastal belt of western Maharashtra state. Crowned as the King of mangoes, Alphonso’s texture and aroma have hugely raised its demand in countries ranging from Japan to Europe and led to spiraling prices at home. That has forced most Indians to satisfy their mango craving with more affordable varieties. But even as ecstatic consumers take advantage of the Alphonso glut, the European ban is a blow to exporters in Mumbai, the hub of the mango trade. A director at the Agriculture Produce Market Committee in Mumbai, Sanjay Pansare, is concerned that the issue could affect a lucrative market in the long run. “We are not worried about the prices, what we are worried is we are going to lose the European market, that is the main problem,” Pansare explained. Exporters are already adding up their losses. Bharat Pawar is the manager of Shree Ganesh Fruit Stall in Mumbai. He said at least half his export orders have been cancelled. He is now selling in the local market. The ban has drawn criticism among authorities in New Delhi. They have asked the European Union to reconsider the ban and even threatened to take the issue to the World Trade Organization. India says an elaborate examination and certification procedure has been put in place to address Europe’s concerns. And while Indians gorge on Alphonsos, its disappearance from European markets has also led to protests in Britain, home to a large Asian population. After a British lawmaker of Indian origin, Keith Vaz, called the ban Euro nonsense and called for a reversal, Prime Minister David Cameron promised to discuss the issue after a new Indian prime minister takes office later this month. Indeed, the mango is accustomed to being the stuff of diplomacy. New Delhi has often given the prized fruit to foreign leaders. And in 2006 India and the U.S. struck what is known as a mango for bikes deal. New Delhi reportedly allowed the import of Harley Davidson motorcycles in exchange for Washington lifting an 18-year ban on mango imports. China facing challenges from rising terror attacks By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
In a little more than two months, China has seen three violent attacks at major train stations. Authorities say extremist terrorists carried out at least two of the attacks in a widening security threat that has heightened concerns among the public. The violence comes amid government pledges to get tougher on terrorism. Dozens fled and six were injured when a knife-wielding attacker struck at Guangzhou’s main train station earlier this week. Authorities say they shot the assailant after he refused to respond to warning shots, and it appears he was acting alone. So far, there has been no link between this week’s incident and two other attacks, one in Kunming in early March and another in the capital of China’s restive region of Xinjiang just last week. Authorities say religious extremists carried out the attacks in Kunming and Urumqi and that the suspects were members of Xinjiang’s mainly Muslim Uighur minority group. Last week’s attack in Urumqi came just shortly after China’s President Xi Jinping visited Xinjiang and just as he was pledging to take decisive action against terrorists. The deadly bomb and knife attack killed three and injured nearly 80 people. Han Lianchao, a visiting researcher at Washington, D.C.’s Hudson Institute, said with the attack in Urumqi coming so soon after Xi's visit to Xinjiang, it poses a significant challenge to the government. He notes that Xi's claims that he would not hesitate to use iron-fists to deal with terrorists did little to stop the attack. Hao added that the symbolic value of the attack was far greater than the physical damage. A new policy paper on national security, released this week, says China was hit with 10 terrorist attacks last year alone. While most occurred in Xinjiang, the list also included an attack on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In the wake of the Guangzhou attack this week, authorities carried out patrols at train stations in Shanghai and Beijing. Analysts say the threat appears to be spreading and it is fueling the discussion. Over the past few months, Xi has increasingly put more emphasis on the issue of terrorism in his speeches, and he held the first meeting of his newly formed national security commission. The body is the first of its kind for China and is seeking to take what authorities say is a more comprehensive approach to threats at home and abroad. In places such as Xinjiang, the government so far has relied heavily on economic progress as a cure-all for the problem, but critics say religious oppression and government policies toward minorities are a key source of local discontent. But in a recent speech, when Xi pledged to send terrorists scurrying into the streets, he also spoke about the need to address social conflicts as a means of preventing such problems in the future. Some analysts say this could mark a departure from the government’s past approach in places such as Xinjiang, where authorities have routinely used increased police presence and religious oppression in response to unrest. Gardner Bovingdon, a China ethnic minorities analyst at Indiana University, said, “When Xi Jinping says he wants to do something else, I think he’s put down a rhetorical marker, but the real question will be does he follow that up with some concrete policies, some changes in policy direction from the ones that we’ve seen? And I fear that he will not.” James Nolt, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute said while every country worries about terrorism, he does not yet see any substantial difference between Xi and his predecessors. “That sort of thing is always a national security concern and I don’t see any change in policy that really represents a very large shift in resources or change in the type of policy," said Nolt. "It is just being talked about more because there has been incidents in the news recently.” Chinese analysts say violent terrorism is the biggest threat to domestic security and are looking to Xi’s newly formed national security commission to play a guiding role in establishing clearer legal and policy guidelines. China’s new report on national security says that while the military played a leading role in handling domestic security in the past, a more comprehensive approach spearheaded by the commission is needed now to deal with the growing complexity of the problem. Illegal kids test system, and young lawyers help By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Isik Basirir was 15 years old when she left her family's home in Turkey and moved to New York to live with an older sister. However, when she overstayed her tourist visa, she joined the ranks of hundreds of thousands of undocumented youths living in the shadows in the U.S. "My sister obtained a green card, I guess a couple of years after I got here, but she didn't have her citizenship back then, so she wasn't able to sponsor me," Ms. Basirir said. "We went to private lawyers, to ask if there's anything we could do. But they always said ‘no,’ like there's no way." She finally found her way to the Safe Passage Project, begun in 2006 by Lenni Benson, a professor at New York Law School. The program trains and matches volunteer pro bono attorneys with children who need representation in immigration court or who are facing deportation. Ms. Benson says the need is stark: although U.S. immigration law grants children special legal protections, it does not entitle them to lawyers to help secure those rights. At a recent fundraiser for the project, Ms. Benson told of a case involving a toddler named Ian. "Last month, there was a 3-year-old sitting in that deportation chair," she said. "You have a government prosecutor, you have a judge on the bench, and you have the child sitting with a translator and, in this case, a grandmother. And if the Safe Passage Project were not there, there would be no one standing up for that 3-year-old, or helping that grandmother navigate the court system." In the past, Ms. Benson said in an interview, children and youths under 18 were rarely pursued by immigration authorities. That changed about seven years ago, she said, and the policy has accelerated under the Obama administration. "Children apprehended at the border are no longer simply being released or put on a back shelf," she said. "They're put into deportation proceedings." The great majority of those in legal jeopardy are Central American teenagers who crossed the Mexican border into the U.S., often to reunite with a parent or other family member already in the U.S. Under treaty law, only Mexican youths may be returned immediately. Federal authorities place other children with family members in the U.S., if any can be found, in foster care, or in immigration detention centers for juveniles. "If they apprehend a parent and child together, they will keep them together, and they do have a few detention centers where they can keep them together. But if a parent has a criminal record or is seen as a national security problem, they might be separated," Ms. Benson said. In Westchester County, just north of New York City, Ms. Benson said, "there are 350 kids in detention every day. Some are there for a few days, and some for months." "On the positive side, the federal government wants to interview children to make sure that they're not being trafficked," she said. "Sex trafficking, labor trafficking, young people are particularly vulnerable. So, our asylum officers and border patrol officers are trained to try to identify victims of trafficking." Yet the system often fails even children who have been trafficked, she said. "We might identify that, and then put them into federal detention. We don't necessarily have an easy way for them to get released into a long-term foster care placement and get immigration status." "Most of the young people we've met, there's a reason they don't want to go home: not just dire poverty, but real danger in their communities," Ms. Benson added. Some youths, like 16-year-old Ousmane Barry, ended up in the U.S. before they were old enough to choose. His parents brought him from Guinea eight years ago. They are both now dead, and he lives with an aunt and uncle in the Bronx. "Life is good over here. Soccer is good, too," he joked at a recent practice. Barry's coaches say he is unusually talented, and can look forward to a college athletic career, perhaps even a professional one. That would not have been likely, however, before Safe Passage Project lawyers won him legal residency earlier this year. "It means a lot, because now I can travel outside the country and come back in, and go, like I want to visit my country. I could go there and come back," Barry said. "There's an irony in my work," Ms. Benson said. "I don't want the government to put children into removal proceedings, but because they are being pushed into deportation, we're able to help find them pro bono counsel, and the promise of these protections is made real. If they weren't being put into removal, they'd live undocumented, and they would grow up with nothing." Yet Safe Passage and similar projects lack the resources to help more than a few children facing deportation, and the numbers are surging. In New York alone, more than 5,000 current immigration cases involve juveniles. And the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service predicts that more than 60,000 minors will be apprehended at the Mexican border in 2014. U.S. restates requirement to educate illegal children By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The Obama administration has issued updated guidelines to ensure that U.S. public schools carry out federal laws giving children of illegal immigrants the right to an education. Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday the Supreme Court ruled 30 years ago that laws denying children the right to go to school based on immigration status violate the fundamental conceptions of justice. But Holder said he continues to hear troubling reports that some school districts take actions he says raise barriers to children of immigrants. Holder says public schools have an obligation to enroll students regardless of immigration status, race, color or national origin. He says the Justice Department will vigilantly enforce laws to ensure that the schoolhouse door is open to all. The updated guidelines include giving schools more flexibility when accepting documents from parents proving the children live close to the nearest public school.  Voice of America/ R. Poch
An ancient Khmer statue that is
being returned to Cambodia by Christie’s auction house. Cambodia gets
two statues
looted from there years ago By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Cambodia has officially received two 10th Century artifacts looted from the country more than four decades ago. Sotheby's auction house agreed to return one of the statues after it was sued by the U.S. attorney in New York on Cambodia's behalf. Christie's auction house is voluntarily sending back the second one. At a ceremony in New York this week, Cambodian Cabinet Minister Sok An said the return of the artifacts should serve as an example to others. “The Royal Government of Cambodia appeals to all museums and art collectors around the world to follow the examples of returning plundered treasure to their rightful owners as part of the worldwide campaign for the protection of cultural heritage," he said. The Sotheby’s statue was reportedly stolen in 1972. The company tried to put it up for auction in 2011, but it was pulled at the last minute after a protest from the Cambodian government. The U.S. attorney initiated a case, leading to a settlement in late 2013. Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, called on people in the art world to do their part to combat the trade of stolen artifacts. “Everyone who collects and curates and cares about art needs to be a part of the solution, not the problem," said Bharara. "It my fervent hope that every stakeholder in the art world will be vigilant, will heed red flags and support doing what’s right when it comes to reuniting stolen artifacts with their rightful owners.” The case against Sotheby's led to the Norton Simon Museum, in Pasadena, California, to agree to a voluntary return of a statue on display there, as well. Thousands of artifacts have been taken over the years from the Cambodia's northwestern Ankor area, which spans more than 400 square kilometers and includes dozens of temples that are hundreds of years old. Real wolves and Wall Street studied for their similarities By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Economists are learning about the workings of the financial world by studying packs of wolves and schools of fish. That's according to Simon Levin, a Princeton University scientist and winner of this year's Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Levin has been honored in Los Angeles for his work at the intersection of biology and business. Levin is a trained mathematician who uses math to study biological systems. He says individuals in groups show similar behavior, whether they're wolves in the wild or traders on Wall Street. “Individuals are competing for limited resources, enter into cooperative arrangements, exploitative arrangements, parasitic arrangements, so they really are the same sort of phenomena," Levin said. "So with some colleagues, I began looking at economic systems two decades ago." In early 2008, Levin co-authored an article called “Ecology for Bankers” in the journal Nature, accurately predicting the financial collapse sparked by the problems in the housing mortgage market. He says the complex financial and banking systems were showing signs of strain that, in the world of biology, would signal a coming crisis. “The systems were becoming more and more interconnected, and when ecological systems become so interconnected, they run the risk of collapse," he said. He is now turning his attention to threats in the natural world as the oceans and climate systems face increasing strains caused by human activity. “So we study fish schools, We study bird flocks. Of course, we study groups of animals like wolves or wildebeest to understand how they are organized and to understand how they’ve dealt with the problems of collectives," said Levin. Levin says complex systems need resilient responses to cope with emerging threats, and that is a challenge in an interconnected world, where global links create added stresses on fragile organizations. “So we need a system that first of all has generalized responses that buy us time and secondly has adaptive responses specific to the particular threats. I think that's how we have to be dealing with threats to our society, whether it's to the financial system or bioterrorism," he said. Levin says there are no easy answers with threats in complex global systems, from climate change to financial crisis, but he says humans have an advantage over animal cousins because risks can be studied and effective responses devised. 2D transistors produced with limitless possibilities By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Just when it looked like electronic components could not get smaller, scientists in the United States announced that they have created the first transistor that - for all practical purposes - has only two dimensions. Such transistors could someday be used for building flexible high-resolution displays that need very little energy. An atom is only about one-tenth of a billionth of a meter wide, so a layer of any material that thin may be considered two-dimensional. Two groups of scientists at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago and at the University of California report they have successfully built transistors only a few atoms thick, with materials that have better electronic properties than silicon. Computer processors, memory chips, TV screens and other electronic devices contain billions of silicon-based transistors. These tiny electrical switches have certain limitations, such as rigidity. According to Dimitris Ioannou, an electrical engineering professor at George Mason University outside Washington, the traditional transistor has been refined as much as it can be, so researchers have been looking for new materials with important advantages, such as transparency and flexibility. “If the layers are very thin the transistor can become flexible, so it doesn’t have to be rigid, like it would be in a silicon chip. So people can think of applications like wearable electronics, like, you know, television screens and other things," said Ioannou. These new transistors can also carry higher current and switch much faster, which is important for high-definition screens. Ioannou says the achievement could have far-reaching consequences. "This is the first time every layer is a single layer, more or less, and that’s the novelty of it. Now, how good and how useful it will be, it’s still in research phase, but it certainly is an advance," he said. Scientists say there is no good method for printing a large number of these new transistors on the same substrate, but this proof-of-concept shows that someday it may be possible. More action sought to help keep drinking water safe By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Two leading U.N. agencies are calling for greater action to provide safe drinking water and basic sanitation to more than three billion people. A joint report by the World Health Organization and U.N. Children’s Fund says more must be done to close the gap between the billions who have access to improved water and sanitation and those who do not. Significant progress has been made since 1990. The United Nations reports almost two billion people now have access to improved sanitation and 2.3 billion people have access to safe drinking water. Of these, 1.6 billion have water piped into their homes. That is the good news. But the bad news, says Maria Neira, World Health's director of public health, environmental and social determinants of health, is that more than 700 million people still need access to good drinking sources. Half of these people live in Sub-Saharan Africa. “And, more than one-third of the global population, some 2.5 billion people, they do not use an improved sanitation facility, And, of them, one billion-they still practice open defecation,” she said. The Children’s Fund is mounting a huge campaign with the government of India called "Take The Poo To The Loo." The cartoon characters prancing about in this video are very amusing. But there is nothing funny about some 600 million people in India defecating out in the open. Children’s Fund Senior Statistics and Monitoring Specialist Rolf Luyendijk says a number of governments are making a real push to get the poorest members of their societies to move away from open defecation to fixed-place defecation. “The way they are doing that is through trying to bring about a change in social norms that it is socially unacceptable that people practice open defecation," he said. "So, that it is frowned upon …it is making it almost unacceptable in a community to still practice that and that approach has been very successfully used currently in more than 80 countries.” The report notes poor sanitation and contaminated water are linked to the spread of diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, and typhoid. It notes diarrhea alone is responsible for 842,000 deaths a year due to inadequate water and sanitation. More than half of the global population lives in cities. The report says urban areas are still better supplied with improved water and sanitation than rural ones. But it notes the gap is closing. As of now, the report says, 116 countries have met the Millennium Development Goal target for cutting in half the number of people who lack safe drinking water by 2015. It says 77 countries have met the target for sanitation targets.  Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Rick
Wherley
This is a view of the palate of
the new, small predator from Bolivia. Small predator
is linked
to skull found in Bolivia By
the Case Western Reserve news service
A Case Western Reserve University student and his professor have discovered an ancient kitten-sized predator that lived in Bolivia about 13 million years ago. It is one of the smallest species reported in the extinct order Sparassodonta. Third-year undergraduate student Russell Engelman and a Case Western Reserve anatomy professor, Darin Croft, made the finding by analyzing a partial skull that had been in a University of Florida collection more than three decades. The researchers report their finding in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. "The animal would have been about the size of a marten, a catlike weasel found in the northeastern United States and Canada, and probably filled the same ecological niche," said Engelman, an evolutionary biology major. The researchers refrained from naming the new species mainly because the specimen lacks well-preserved teeth, which are the only parts preserved in many of its close relatives. The skull, which would have been a little less than 3 inches long if complete, shows the animal had a very short snout. A socket, or alveolus, in the upper jaw shows it had large canines that were round in cross-section much like those of a meat-eating marsupial, called the spotted-tailed quoll, found in Australia today, the researchers said. Although sparassodonts are more closely related to modern opossums than cats and dogs, the group included saber-toothed species that fed on large prey. This small Bolivian species probably fed on the ancient relatives of today's guinea pigs and spiny rats, the researchers said. "Most predators don't go after animals of equal size, but these features indicate this small predator was a formidable hunter," Croft said. The specimen had not been studied in detail after being collected. It was provisionally identified as belonging to a particular group of extinct meat-eating opossums, due in part to its small size. Further adding to the identity challenge, almost all small sparassodonts have been identified by their teeth and lower jaws, which this skull lacks. Croft wanted to study the skull because its age is nearly twice that of the oldest known species of meat-eating opossum. The specimen was found in a mountainous site known as Quebrada Honda, Bolivia, in 1978, in rock layers dated 12 million to 13 million years ago. Structurally, extinct meat-eating opossums and sparassodont skulls share a number of similarities due to their similar meat-eating diet, Engelman said. "No single feature found in the skull was so distinctive that we could say one way or the other what it was," Croft said, "but the combination of features is unique and says this is a sparassodont." One key was that a particular bone of the orbit, the boney socket of the eye, does not touch the nasal bone in an opossum but does in a sparassodont. The short snout was a kind of red herring. While jaguar-sized sparassodonts had them, the smaller members of the order had fox-like faces. And this species was smaller than most of those. These smaller sparassodonts also have gaps between their teeth that are absent in most larger species. The skull shows no gaps. Overall, the animal's features are a mixture of those found in different species of sparassodonts, but are not characteristic of in any one subgroup within the order. That puts this species near the bottom of the family tree, the researchers said. Croft, who regularly collects from the same site where the skull was found, will return there this summer to gather evidence he hopes will show whether this species lived in an open grassland, forest or mixed habitat. He also hopes to find the lower jaw, which may enable direct comparisons with known species and provide enough foundation to name the animal. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, May 9, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 91 | |||||||||
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 U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration photo
After seven years on the deep
seafloor, this sunken shipping container had been colonized by a
variety of deep-sea animals. Lost shipping container shown to effect on sea life By
the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute news staff
Thousands of shipping containers are lost from cargo vessels each year. Many of these containers eventually sink to the deep seafloor. In 2004, scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute discovered a lost shipping container almost 1,300 meters (4,200 feet) below the surface of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. In the first-ever survey of its kind, researchers from institute and the sanctuary described how deep-sea animal communities on and around the container differed from those in surrounding areas. In February 2004, the cargo vessel Med Taipei was traveling southward along the California coast when severe winds and seas dislodged 24 shipping containers, 15 of which were lost within the boundaries of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Four months later, during a routine research dive using the remotely operated vehicle Ventana, scientists discovered one of these containers on the sea floor. In March 2011, a research team led by Andrew DeVogelaere of the sanctuary and Jim Barry of the institute completed another remote dive at the container. During this dive, they collected extensive video footage, as well as samples of sea floor sediment at various distances from the container. They then compared the animals found on the container, on the nearby sea floor, and on the surrounding seafloor out to 500 meters, a third of a mile, away from the container. In early May, 2014 they published their findings in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin. Josi Taylor, the lead author of the recent article, said that she was surprised to see how little the container had corroded in the seven years since it sank to the sea floor. Apparently, the near-freezing water and low oxygen concentrations in the deep sea slowed the processes that might degrade sunken containers in shallower water. The animals growing on the sunken shipping container were quite different from those growing on the surrounding sea floor. As expected, the hard surface of the container acted somewhat like a rocky reef, attracting animals such as tubeworms, scallops, snails, and tunicates. Such animals require hard surfaces on which to attach, and were not found on the muddy sea floor around the container. Surprisingly, several types of animals found on nearby rocky reefs, such as sponges, soft corals, and crinoids, a distant relative of sea stars, had not colonized the surface of the container. The researchers believe the container is having indirect ecological impacts, some of which may take years or decades to develop. For example, higher numbers of sea floor predators near the container might explain some of the changes in the types of other animals found on the nearby sea floor. Such indirect ecological effects might also explain why the diversity of sea floor animals was lower near the container. |
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