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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 28, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 104
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Home invaders
target
residence of elderly couple By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
An elderly couple were robbed at their home in La Uruca on Monday night. Burglars wearing ski masks ended up taking $12,000 and 3 million colons in cash, along with collectible watches and other jewelry, according to a report from the Judicial Investigating Organization. They broke in around 8 p.m. while Fernando León Ortiz, 79, and his wife Ana Isabel Arías Ramos, 69, were in a bedroom. The bandits were carrying firearms and tied the couple up while searching for the valuables. They found two safes that contained the money and jewelry. Once the robbers fled, the couple was able to call 911 for help. Officers arrived to conduct an initial investigation and realized the gates around the house had been opened during the day for pool maintenance. At least three persons were involved, said Xinia Zamora of the Judicial Investigating Organization press office. Another increase ordered in gasoline price at pump By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The nation's regulatory agency said that fuel prices will be going up again due to the increase in the rate of exchange with the U.S. dollar. The math at the Autoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos finally caught up close to reality because the dollar exchange rate has been constant for several weeks. The agency said that super gasoline would increase eight colons to 786 a liter. That is $5.31 for a U.S. gallon. Plus goes up four colons to 760 or $5.14 a U.S. gallon. Diesel goes up 12 colons to 689 a liter or $4.55 a U.S. gallon. There is a slight increase of two colons a liter in liquid petroleum gas that many Costa Ricans use for cooking and heating water. In the computations, the Autoridad used a dollar exchange rate of 558.09 colons. For the early May price setting the exchange rate was 510.13 colons to the U.S. dollar. The new exchange rate still is a bit behind the actual rate of 560 colons to the U.S. dollar.  Ministerio de
Gobernación,
Policía
These are the LoDex explosivesy Seguridad Pública photo Industrial
explosives
turn up on Sarchí street By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Police officers early Tuesday found four packets of explosives on the sidewalk in Sarchí. Police are calling them sausages because they are long and thin material wrapped in a plastic cover. They resemble long, thin carrots. The Fuerza Pública officers speculated that the explosives are for industrial use and may have fallen off a passing truck. The explosive was identified as the LoDex brand. That product is made in Australia. Such explosives usually are highly stable unless they are fitted with an ignition device.  Children's
museum goes batty
over Batman this weekend By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Can Batman be 75 years old? The Museo de los Niños says that the Dark Knight is, indeed, and that the birthday celebration will be two days this weekend. The museum, nicknamed the Castillo de los Sueños, becomes the Baticueva or Bat Cave on Saturday and Sunday for what is being called Baticon 2014. Museum officials said they expected thousands, and many will be wearing appropriate Batman garb, including that made famous by a string of creative villains. Eduardo Salazar, one of the organizers, points out that Batman represents the values of justice. The museum says it plans to exhibit a number of models and as many as 1,500 figures of Batman produced by Mattel and Súper Héroes of D.C. Comics. For older youngsters and adults there are forums on the history of Batman, the movies, and the history of the comics. Batman, of course, is Bruce Wayne, the Gotham City millionaire who fights crime as his alter ego. He is among the first comic superheroes, a contemporary of Superman. The sponsor of the event is the Club Batman Costa Rica, the museum said. There is an admission which includes access to the entire museum. The time is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Interamericana open By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Interamericana Norte, Ruta 1, is open to all traffic now at Kilometer 77 at Cerro Cambronero, but there are workmen in the area, so motorists are being asked to be cautious, the highway agency said. This is the location of another slide and washout caused by excess water. The highway connected the Central Valley with the Pacific coast. The Consejo Nacional de Vialidad has been working at the site since problems developed Saturday. The road was closed to all traffic for a time and then opened to just light traffic through Tuesday afternoon.
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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 Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 28, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 104 | |
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| Teachers give government officials a two-day deadline to fix
payroll |
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By
Michael Krumholtz
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff Teachers are giving the government two days to solve the salary issue, per a proposal their unions turned into the ministers of Educación and Trabajo at a Tuesday meeting. The document states that within 48 hours the government must have a backup plan in place to pay teachers their full salaries. Most of the other demands listed remain consistent from the proposal that was supposed to be turned in last Friday. These call for full salary compensations and a complete investigation of the payroll software Integra2. Costa Rica's chief of staff, Melvin Jiménez, said Tuesday before the meeting that the government hoped to have a deal made with teachers by the afternoon. Instead, they will enter another day of strikes. Monday marked the second payday of the month and reports came out late that night that thousands of teachers were still receiving errors from Integra2, even though that day the education ministry guaranteed it would pay 36 million colons to more than 77,000 workers. Jiménez said the root of the technical problems are still a mystery and that the digital payment software is subject to the same errors of all computer programs. “This system has problems like any computer system could in any public sector or in any place in the world,” he said. A payroll mechanism that the government paid $1.2 million marks an expensive malfunction. When pressed about this economic hiccup, Jiménez said officials are working on fully solving the problem so that a disaster won't be repeated in the future. He added that authorities are not just worried about the technical aspects but |
 A.M. Costa Rica/Michael Krumholtz
Melvin Jiménez and Ana
Helena Chacón field questions.also believe there are informational problems with the pay system. “In order to begin the correction process we need to fully understand the problem,” he said. “Unfortunately we cannot be so quick with this decision. We need to find out a long-term solution and also find who is responsible for this defect.” Minister of Educación Sonia Marta Mora Escalante was scheduled to meet with the press alongside Jiménez, but instead had to attend the meeting with teacher union representatives. President Luis Guillermo Solís was also absent Tuesday at the informational session following the meeting of his cabinet. |
| New product regulations sought to keep 33 GNC stores open |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Authorities are quickly trying to find a solution to keep GNC stores in Costa Rica, said Vice President Ana Helena Chacón Tuesday. Last week the company that specializes in nutritional supplements announced it would close its 33 stores here because the health ministry has suddenly barred some of its products that are registered in the United States. Initially, the health ministry cited GNC for having counterfeit products, meaning certain items had health registration numbers that corresponded to different products. Vice President Chacón said the case is now being chalked up to a processing error, as many of these products have been sold in the country for years without consequential evidence of health concerns. Ms. Chacón said the government is seeking new regulations that could allow certain GNC products into Costa Rica and expects a |
resolution within
a week. She denied that the ministry was making an exception to the
laws for GNC's benefit. In a statement Thursday, the president of the Cámara de Comercio de Costa Rica blamed the health ministry for not providing flexible laws that encourage foreign investment. He urged them to immediately change parts of the regulation that classify these pre-approved products. “The Ministerio de Salud's actions against this company are surprising,” said the chamber president, Francisco Llobet, “when there is complete inaction against other companies that distribute smuggled counterfeits or tampered products, including medicines, without any sanitary control.” Representatives from the ministry responded with a release of their own, saying medical products for sale must be listed under the health registry per law. It added that the ministry did not close the GNC stores and that the company decided to shut down their operations here after being told of the registry issues. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 28, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 104 | |||||
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| NASA rocket probe takes a peek at the place where stars are
born |
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| By the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration news staff In deep space, floating between the stars, lies an abundance of atoms, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, that over millions of years will grow into new stars and new planets. Early Saturday morning a NASA Black Brant IX sounding rocket carried a payload for a 15–minute flight to observe this star nursery more comprehensively and in better detail than has been done by a single instrument ever before. Principal investigator Kevin France at the University of Colorado at Boulder reports that good data was received and the mission was a success. "These atoms are the raw materials, the very building blocks for the next generation of stars and planets," said France. "We're making detailed measurements of how many atoms have transitioned into molecules, which is the very first step toward star formation." The sounding rocket payload, the Colorado High-resolution Echelle Stellar Spectrograph or CHESS, launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. CHESS is equipped with a spectrograph, which can parse out just how much of any given wavelength of light is present. CHESS looked at the ultraviolet light from a bright star – light that is blocked by the atmosphere and can't be seen from the ground. As this light courses toward Earth, it bumps into the interstellar atoms and molecules along the way, each of which can block certain wavelengths of light. Scientists know which wavelength is blocked by what, so by measuring what light is missing, they can map out the atoms and molecules that are present in space. The CHESS spectrograph provides such detailed and comprehensive observations that it can measure not only what atoms and molecules are present, but how fast they are moving and how turbulent the gas is. Together, this information helps characterize how mature a given cloud of dust is. "Carbon, for example, will appear differently over time," said France. "Early on the cloud will have carbon with a missing electron, called ionized carbon. As the gas gets denser, the carbon atoms gain back their electrons, so you have neutral carbon. As you |
 National Aeronautics and Space
Administration photo
The Colorado High-resolution
Echelle Stellar Spectrograph, or CHESS, sounding rocket gets ready for
a six-minute flight to observe far beyond the solar system to peer
where new stars are born.get even denser clouds, the carbon binds to oxygen creating carbon monoxide molecules – and at that point you can probe the cloud conditions that precede the collapse into a star." Using something like CHESS to see whether there is ionized or neutral carbon, or even carbon monoxide molecules tells more about how old the cloud is and can help scientists learn how stars form from these clouds. It's still not known exactly how long it takes before a cloud collapses to begin making a star, for example. It might be anywhere between 1 to 100 million years. By flying such newly-developed instruments on a relatively inexpensive sounding rocket, scientists do more than just gather solid science data. They also have the chance to test and improve their instruments, perhaps to someday fly long-term on a satellite in space. CHESS is supported through the NASA Sounding Rocket Program at the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 28, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 104 | |||||||
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| Obama outlines his plan for leaving Afghanistan By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
President Barack Obama says 9,800 U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan after this year, but all could be withdrawn if Afghan leaders do not sign a joint security agreement. The president laid out his plans Tuesday for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan and bringing America's longest war to what he called a responsible end. He told reporters in the White House Rose Garden that this is the year the United States will conclude its combat mission in Afghanistan and hand over security responsibility to Afghan forces. “At the beginning of 2015, we will have approximately 9,800 U.S. service members in different parts of the country, together with our NATO allies and other partners. By the end of 2015, we will have reduced that presence by roughly half.” Obama said U.S. troops at that point will work only in Kabul and at Bagram air base, near the Afghan capital. By the end of 2016, he said, U.S. forces will be withdrawn with only a normal embassy presence remaining, similar to that left in Iraq, where Obama withdrew troops in 2011. There are about 32,000 troops left in Afghanistan. Those who remain will continue training Afghan forces and support counter-terrorism operations. The U.S. sent forces into Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the governing Taliban, which had harbored al-Qaida -- the group responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. “I think Americans have learned that it's harder to end wars than it is to begin them. Yet this is how wars end in the 21st century. Not through signing ceremonies, but through decisive blows against our adversaries, transitions to elected governments, security forces who are trained to take the lead and ultimately full responsibility,” said Obama. The drawdown plan has drawn criticism from some members of Congress. The head of the House Armed Services Committee, Buck McKeon, said Obama is putting poll numbers over security, called the timeline arbitrary and suggested the plan leaves Afghanistan vulnerable to the kind of chaos that has plagued Iraq since U.S. troops departed. The president still may order a full withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan this year, if the new Afghan leadership does not sign the bilateral security agreement. Senior administration officials say the fact that both run-off candidates in Afghanistan's presidential elections have pledged to sign the agreement gave Obama confidence to announce the withdrawal plan on Tuesday. The announcement came a day before the U.S. leader delivers a speech in which he will outline the direction of U.S. foreign policy after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Australian experts restate missing jet ran out of fuel By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Australia has concluded that the Malaysian passenger jet missing since early March likely crashed into the Indian Ocean after running out of fuel. The Australian report Tuesday said the conclusion was based on analysis of the final brief data exchange between the jet with 239 people aboard and a satellite monitoring air traffic. The report came as Malaysia released 45 pages of raw satellite data collected by Britain's Inmarsat telecommunications company used to calculate the suspected crash site, believed to be off the western coast of Australia. Flight 370 had been headed from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared in the early hours of March 8, but weeks of intensive air and sea searches have found no trace of the Boeing 777. Relatives of the missing people had demanded the release of the satellite data, so independent analysts can try to determine whether searchers have been looking in the right location. But some air safety analysts said the newly released information is still incomplete. A relative of a missing passenger, Steve Wang, also found the new information lacking. "Well, since I have already looked at the report, it only contains the data, but what we want is the full version of the Inmarsat report including the data, and also the way how you calculate. The method and the formula you use. That is also very important, because only simply data means nothing. Only data cannot lead to the conclusion, only data cannot lead to the ending. There must be other analyzing and we want to see the full version of the report," he said. A Malaysia-led international investigation team used the data to determine the plane crashed in the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Australia. The plane disappeared without any distress calls, about half an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian officials believe someone with knowledge of flight systems intentionally diverted the jet. Dealer in horns of rhinos gets stiff sentence in U.S. By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
An antiques dealer from China has been sentenced to nearly six years in U.S. federal prison after admitting he was the mastermind of an international smuggling ring that specialized in rhinoceros horns and elephant ivory. Thirty-year-old Zhifei Li was sentenced to 70 months in prison for smuggling more than $4.5 million in goods. The sentence is one of the longest ever imposed in the United States for a wildlife smuggling offense. The U.S. Attorney's Office says Li, operating through his business Overseas Treasure Finding, paid three antiques dealers in the United States to help him. Officials say Li's crew smuggled 30 rhinoceros horns and other objects made from rhino horn and elephant ivory to China. Li was arrested last year as part of Operation Crash, an effort to investigate and prosecute those involved in the black market trade of rhinoceros horns and other protected species. All species of the rhinoceros are protected under U.S. and international law, and trade in rhino horns and elephant ivory has been regulated since 1976. Family fatally stones woman who married without OK By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A pregnant woman was stoned to death outside a Pakistani court for marrying the man she loved without the consent of her family. Farzana Parveen, who was 25, had married Mohammad Iqbal a few months ago against the wishes of her family. Police said nearly 20 members of the woman's family, including her father and brothers, attacked the couple with sticks and bricks in broad daylight Tuesday before a crowd of onlookers in front of the high court of Lahore. Her lawyer said Ms. Parveen's father had filed an abduction case against her husband and the couple were on their way to court to contest it. Iqbal told police his wife was three months pregnant. Arranged marriages are the norm among conservative Pakistanis, who view marriage for love as a transgression. Hundreds of women are killed every year in Muslim-majority Pakistan in so-called honor killings carried out by husbands or relatives as a punishment for alleged adultery or other alleged illicit sexual behavior. Mrs. Clinton takes new step and writes book on choices By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Hillary Clinton writes in a new book that she is proud of what she accomplished as secretary of State. Mrs. Clinton's book, "Hard Choices," comes out June 10, as speculation grows about her potential run for president in 2016. In the author's note, released Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton acknowledges she wishes she could go back and revisit certain choices from her time as the United States' top diplomat. But she says the government needed to do better after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Iraq and Afghan wars and the economic recession, and she believes it did. Critics have characterized Mrs. Clinton's four years at the State Department as lacking major achievements. Republicans have also questioned her handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in the Libyan city of Benghazi. In her author's note, Mrs. Clinton says she has listened to both her heart and head in making the big decisions of her life. The former Democratic U.S. senator and first lady says she wrote "Hard Choices," which focuses on her time at the State Department, for "Americans and people everywhere who are trying to make sense of this rapidly changing world" and for "anyone anywhere who wonders whether the United States still has what it takes to lead." Mrs. Clinton says for her, "the answer is a resounding 'Yes.'" She writes, "Talk of America's decline has become commonplace, but my faith in our future has never been greater. While there are few problems in today's world that the United States can solve alone, there are even fewer that can be solved without the United States." She adds that everything she has done and seen has convinced her that America remains the 'indispensable nation. Once her memoir is released, Mrs. Clinton will embark on a tour to promote it, visiting cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. New Mars probe to focus on interior geology of planet By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. space agency, NASA, recently gave the green light for the construction of a new Mars lander that will examine the deep interior of the Red Planet. The new Mars mission is called the Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigation Geodesy and Heat Transport, which is why everyone knows it by its acronym: InSight. The mission’s spacecraft is scheduled to launch from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base in March 2016 and due to arrive on Mars later that year, in September. Bruce Banerdt, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is the InSight’s principal investigator. He said that some of the technology the lander will use to study the interior of Mars is similar to what geologists have been using to study the Earth. “The idea behind it is to use some geophysical instruments, mostly a seismometer and a heat-flow probe to better understand the interior structure of Mars, both its composition, layering, what’s going on inside, stuff like that,” said Banerdt. InSight’s study of the interior of Mars may not only provide a fresh look into the creation of our Earth but also other Earth-like planets located within and beyond the solar system. “We really want to understand how the terrestrial planets, the rocky planets, formed early on in the solar system, and how that formation sort of led to the kinds of conditions we have on the surface,” said Banerdt. Unlike the popular Curiosity and Opportunity rovers that are traveling across Mars, the InSight will be sent to a location near the Red Planet’s equator and remain stationary to conduct its research. Banerdt said that the new Mars lander will map out the geography of the deep Martian interior. “And by that I mean how thick is the crust, what’s the crust made out of? And then how big is the core, what is it made out of? What are the thermal characteristics of everything in terms of the heat flow, energy production? Things like that,” said Banerdt. The spacecraft will carry a bevy of sophisticated new instruments to carry out its mission. The space agencies of Germany, France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are providing two of the most important tools for the mission. Among InSight’s instruments is a seismometer that will measure and analyze seismic waves that shake the ground, mostly due to quakes. Another tool aboard the Mars lander is a heat-flow probe that will burrow itself down about 4.5 to 5 meters beneath the planet’s surface. The device will measure small increases in temperature as it tunnels further into the crust of Mars. Banerdt said this tool will allow his research team to figure out how much heat is coming from the planet’s interior. “This heat flow is what drives a lot of the geology: it drives volcanism; on Mars, it can drive uplift of mountain ranges; and so the amount of heat coming out of it is a basic parameter that we need to learn in order to find out how active a planet is,” said Banerdt. And, one important tool that will be used to conduct InSight’s research isn’t really an instrument, but rather, a radio on the spacecraft that will send out signals that will be tracked here on Earth by project scientists. Following the signal produced by the radio sitting on the rotating planet will allow the research team to watch Mars rotate on its axis and actually watch that axis wobble a little bit. “The size of that wobble tells us about the distribution of material inside the planet. So by using an analysis of this wobble, we can tell the details of the core. Because that’s what really drives the magnitude of these wobbles - it’s the size of the core, its density, and whether it’s solid or liquid,” said Banerdt. The new Mars lander will also be equipped with a weather station and camera that will provide further information about the Red Planet. InSight’s mission is expected to last for about one Mars year or two Earth years. By better understanding what’s behind the interior of Mars, Banerdt said that scientists will be able to get a better idea of what the Earth might have looked like very early in its history. U.S. tells remaining citizens to leave Libya immediately By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The State Department is telling all U.S. citizens in Libya to leave immediately because of what it calls an unpredictable and unstable security situation. A travel warning issued late Tuesday says the Libyan government has not adequately built a military and police force, and that many military-grade weapons are in the hands of civilians. It says this includes anti-aircraft weapons that could be aimed at civilian aircraft. The warning says foreigners in Libya are generally presumed to be associated with the U.S. government and may be the targets of kidnappers or killers. Earlier Tuesday, a Pentagon official said the aircraft carrier "USS Bataan" is being deployed to the Mediterranean in case an evacuation of Americans from Libya is needed. Armed groups stormed the Libyan congress last week and Islamist militants have warned the U.S. not to interfere.  Voice of America photo
Mary F. CalvertPhotog who loves hot spots documents trials of women By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The murder of French photographer Camille Lepage in Central African Republic highlights the dangers of capturing the devastation of war on film. But the risks have not stopped Mary F. Calvert from traveling the world, documenting stories she believes are underreported. The award-winning American photojournalist believes her most meaningful images are the ones she has taken of women in the most difficult moments of their lives. Her assignments over 25 years have taken her all over the globe to capture images as diverse as intimate portraits of U.S. presidents to colorful images of monks in Bhutan. But an experience in Ethiopia marked a turning point in her career. She was doing a story on women with obstetric fistula. The condition is caused by prolonged obstructed labor, which creates a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder leaving a woman incontinent of urine or feces or both. Meeting those women, Ms. Calvert says, "changed everything for me.” “These were women that had this terrible condition where they were incontinent, they had to live away from their families, nobody wanted to be near them; they were shunned from society,” she said. “But if they made it to this hospital and they got a surgery that took 20-30 minutes and only cost about $400 American, it gave them their lives back." She recalls thinking that telling these stories was what she was meant to do. So Ms. Calvert embarked on what she refers to as triage journalism, giving priority to underreported stories of women in crisis, from opium addiction in Afghanistan to sexual violence in Congo. “Every news story I read, every clip I saw on the Internet, it was as if I could hear these women screaming from the bottom of a very deep well and I knew that I had to do the story,” she said. Ms. Calvert notes that it is more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in Democratic Republic of Congo. "There is a terrible epidemic of rape. Rape is used as a tool of war. It’s cheaper than bullets and it’s guaranteed to destroy every community it’s unleashed in.” Ms. Calvert describes a meeting she witnessed between a young rape victim and the head of the sexual violence victim’s department of the Bukavu police department. "She started interviewing her about how she’d been raped in her neighborhood. And my hands were just shaking because I thought this is an amazing thing to be witnessing." And then there was a knock at the door. "A police officer brought in the perpetrator," she said. "And that’s one of those situations that comes along very rarely for a photographer.” Ms. Calvert says that while the Democratic Republic of Congo was a frightening place to be, she was inspired by the people she met there. “I met many, many people who had had terrible things done to them and yet they got up every day and they went on with their lives,” she said. “It really changed the way I look at everything that I have in the U.S. and how fortunate we are. I have to value that more." Ms. Calvert has twice been a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the recipient of dozens of other awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Award in International Photography. That prestigious prize honored her for her photos from India, documenting the prevalent practice of doctors aborting female fetuses because of a cultural preference for male babies. “In the last 20 years they’ve lost about ten million girls to sex selection,” she said. “You know there’s an old Punjabi saying that says, ‘Having a daughter is like watering your neighbor’s garden,’ and that really struck me at a very deep level.” Ms. Calvert is aware of the risks she’s taking every time she ventures into hostile territory with her camera. “I have been in some dangerous situations from Afghanistan to Congo," she said, "and I always tell myself ‘I am going into this situation for a few hours, a few days, maybe four or five weeks, and the people I’m photographing live here. This is their every day.’ And I tell myself ‘You can handle it for a little while because they have to handle it for their whole life.’” Ms. Calvert said she hopes the images she has captured of women in crisis will help raise awareness about their plight wherever in the world they may be.  Technische Universität München/A.
Heddergott
Simulating brain controlled
flying at the Institute for Flight System Dynamics Pilots control
simulator
by just using thoughts By
the Technische Universität München news staff
Pilots of the future could be able to control their aircraft by merely thinking commands. Scientists of the Technische Universität München and the TU Berlin have now demonstrated the feasibility of flying via brain control with astonishing accuracy. The pilot is wearing a white cap with myriad attached cables. His gaze is concentrated on the runway ahead of him. All of a sudden the control stick starts to move, as if by magic. The airplane banks and then approaches straight on towards the runway. The position of the plane is corrected time and again until the landing gear gently touches down. During the entire maneuver the pilot touches neither pedals nor controls. This is not a scene from a science fiction movie, but rather the rendition of a test at the Institute for Flight System Dynamics of the Technische Universität München. Scientists working for Florian Holzapfel are researching ways in which brain controlled flight might work in the EU-funded project "Brainflight." "A long-term vision of the project is to make flying accessible to more people," explains aerospace engineer Tim Fricke, who heads the project. "With brain control, flying, in itself, could become easier. This would reduce the work load of pilots and thereby increase safety. In addition, pilots would have more freedom of movement to manage other manual tasks in the cockpit." The scientists have logged their first breakthrough: They succeeded in demonstrating that brain-controlled flight is indeed possible – with amazing precision. Seven subjects took part in the flight simulator tests. They had varying levels of flight experience, including one person without any practical cockpit experience whatsoever. The accuracy with which the test subjects stayed on course by merely thinking commands would have sufficed, in part, to fulfill the requirements of a flying license test. "One of the subjects was able to follow eight out of 10 target headings with a deviation of only 10 degrees," reports Fricke. Several of the subjects also managed the landing approach under poor visibility. One test pilot even landed within only few meters of the centerline. The scientists are now focusing in particular on the question of how the requirements for the control system and flight dynamics need to be altered to accommodate the new control method. Normally, pilots feel resistance in steering and must exert significant force when the loads induced on the aircraft become too large. This feedback is missing when using brain control. The researchers are thus looking for alternative methods of feedback to signal when the envelope is pushed too hard, for example. In order for humans and machines to communicate, brain waves of the pilots are measured using electroencephalography electrodes connected to a cap. An algorithm developed by scientists from Team Physiological Parameters for Adaptation of the Technische Universität Berlin allows the program to decipher electrical potentials and convert them into useful control commands. Only the very clearly defined electrical brain impulses required for control are recognized by the brain-computer interface. "This is pure signal processing," emphasizes Fricke. Mind reading is not possible. The researchers will present their results end of September. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 28, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 104 | |||||||||
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 Ministerio
de
Gobernación,
Policía
y Seguridad Pública photo These
are some of the tools used.
Man in
Pérez Zeledón faces
claim he beheaded dogs By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A man in Pérez Zeledón is accused of breaking into the home of his stepfather and stealing the family's three dogs that he later beheaded. The man was detained in the mountains at San Antonio de Pejibaye de Pérez Zeledón by police officers who arrived too late to save the pets. The man is accused of taking a chain saw, a machete and other machinery from the stepfather's home and using them for his grim task. The Fuerza Pública said that the man was under an order not to approach the home because of a previous allegation of domestic violence. Police were notified by the stepfather who believed his stepson had entered the home and took the tools and animals. The detained man, identified by the last names of Naranjo Jiménez., was remanded to the flagrancy court on allegations of theft, violation of a domestic violence order and violence toward animals. |
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| From Page 7: Software firm president to head tech chamber By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Luis Carlos Chaves is the new president of the Cámara de Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación. Chaves is the president and co-founder of Avantica Technologies, a software development firm. Prior to founding the firm in 1993 he was the chief information officer with Banco Cuscatlán. His company is based in Costa Rica and has two offices in the United States and one in Perú. The firm just announced a partnership with Rent Your CIO, to create a new venture called Custom Business Software, a Houston-based software development company that offers tailored solutions specifically designed to fit its customer’s business processes and make them more profitable and productive. At the same Monday session in the Hotel Aurola Holiday Inn when the elections were held, the chamber also hosted government officials to outline the organization's vision for the future. The presidency became vacant when Alexander Mora. accepted the post of minister of Comercio Exterior. He attended also with Gisela Kopper, the minister of Ciencia, Tecnología y Telecomunicaciones, and Allan Ruiz, vice minister of Telecomunicaciones. |
