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Articles Posted by BenLurkin

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  • India: Three die as kite string slits their throats

    08/17/2016 7:43:01 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 26 replies
    BBC ^ | 08/17/2016
    Three people, including two children, have died after their throats were slit by glass-coated strings used for flying kites on India's Independence Day. ... Glass-coated strings are used to bring down competitors' kites, but they also end up injuring and killing people. Many Indians fly kites to celebrate festivals and important occasions like the Independence Day, which is celebrated on 15 August. But every year, there are reports of people dying or getting wounded from the kite strings - locally known as manja - treated with powdered glass or metal to sharpen them. ... The Delhi government has now banned...
  • Turkey to Release 38,000 Prisoners to Make Room After Coup Attempt

    08/17/2016 7:36:30 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 14 replies
    Wall Street Journal ^ | Aug. 17, 2016 8:15 a.m. ET | Thomas Grove
    Turkish authorities have been hard-pressed to find room for the 35,000 people that have been detained since the coup attempt last month that killed more than 270 people. Currently 23,400 people are in custody in connection to coup allegations, a Turkish official said Wednesday. ... Human rights groups and opposition politicians have voiced concerns over the wave of detentions immediately after the coup attempt. Soldiers and officers sympathetic to it were rounded up and detained, handcuffed in their underwear in sports halls and stadiums. ... In the letter, the parliamentarians said they had asked that a delegation be set up...
  • Ford pledges to have a fleet of fully autonomous cabs on the road 'by 2021'....

    08/16/2016 3:51:15 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 20 replies
    dailymail.co.uk ^ | 16 August 2016 | Mark Brigg
    Ford intends to have a fully driverless vehicle — no steering wheel, no pedals — on the road within five years. The cars will initially be used for commercial ride-hailing or ride-sharing services; sales to consumers will come later. Ford CEO Mark Fields announced the new goal Tuesday at the company's Silicon Valley campus in Palo Alto, California, sparking rumours it could sell the cars to Uber - which is already testing its self driving systems using the firm's vehicles in Pittsburgh. ... Nair says Ford will continue developing driver-assist systems, like automatic emergency braking or lane departure warning. But...
  • Men Armed With Rifles, Dressed In Tactical Gear Arrested After Pursuit

    08/16/2016 2:20:43 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 59 replies
    CBSLA ^ | 08/16/2016
    LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Police Tuesday arrested two men who were allegedly seen dressed in full tactical gear threatening to ambush officers. Two armed black men were seen about 12:45 a.m. dressed in military garb walking on Century Boulevard between Yukon Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard in Inglewood, according to police. While the men carried “assault-type gear”, officers monitored their activity but took no action for the safety of several bystanders watching, according to Inglewood Police Lt. Greg Held. The men were reportedly walking the neighborhood in a Black Lives Matter-type protest. The men were taken into custody for questioning shortly...
  • Sea ice strongly linked to climate change in past 90 000 years

    08/16/2016 1:44:10 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 31 replies
    Phys.org ^ | 08/16/216
    Expansion and retreat of sea ice varied consistently in pace with rapid climate changes through past 90,000 years, a new study in Nature Communications shows. "The Arctic sea ice responded very rapidly to past climate changes. During the coldest periods of the past 90,000 years the sea ice edge spread relatively quickly to the Greenland-Scotland Ridge, and probably far into the Atlantic Ocean." says first author Ulrike Hoff, a researcher at Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate (CAGE). ... Hoff and colleagues studied the past distribution of sea ice, in the so far longest existing sea ice record...
  • Google wants to help you vote. Could it affect the election?

    08/16/2016 1:22:02 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 6 replies
    Washington Post ^ | 08/16/2016 | Brian Fung
    One of the things that make Google so powerful is that the sheer amount of data the search engine gathers allows us to explore what people as a whole are interested in. Now the company is using all that data to make it easier for Americans to vote. Google says it will provide what it calls an "in-depth" search result when users look for information on how to cast a ballot — a search that's seen triple-digit growth in contested states such as Arizona since the last presidential election. The new search function can tell you the registration deadlines and...
  • Alleged Stalker Posts Videos Of Him Picking Up Women In Downtown L.A., Sparking Outrage

    08/16/2016 8:58:45 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 15 replies
    CBS2LA ^ | 08/15/2016 | Rachel Kim
    A self-proclaimed pickup artist who roams the streets of downtown Los Angeles has many people on alert. One of the videos Dan Cilley posted on YouTube shows him aggressively approaching women saying things like “Can I get an image of your butt? Are you 18 years old? Sorry if I creeped you out or anything. I don’t want to touch you or do you want to touch me?” In the footage, he’s the admitted “Downtown L.A. predator – that’s what people call me.” ... Blair Besten is the executive director of Historic Core Business Improvement District, which works with police...
  • Man arrested on suspicion of arson in wildfire that has devastated Northern California community

    08/16/2016 7:28:20 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 11 replies
    Los Angeles Times ^ | 08/15/2016 | Paige St. John and Hailey Branson-Potts
    Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin said late Monday that Damin Pashilk, a resident of nearby Clearlake, had been arrested and booked on multiple counts of arson in connection with the Clayton fire and other fires in the area during the last year. ... t’s unclear how arson investigators linked Pashilk to the blaze, or how the fire ignited. Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott said Pashilk had been under investigation for about a year. Pashilk, 40, faces 17 counts of arson in connection with the Clayton fire and other recent fires. He was being held in the county jail, according to...
  • Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy Linked to Childhood Behavioral Problems, Study Finds

    08/15/2016 5:15:49 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 24 replies
    abc ^ | DR. ANISH GHODADRA Gillian Mohney
    The researchers studied acetaminophen use in nearly 7,800 women living in Bristol, England, and then surveyed these women seven years later about their child’s behavior. They found that compared to women who did not take the drug during pregnancy, acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with a variety of behavioral issues in children. Compared to the children of women who did not take the drug, children of women who did take acetaminophen had a 42 percent increased risk of conduct problems, a 31 percent increased risk in hyperactivity disorders and a 29 percent increased risk in emotional problems in their...
  • Study: Long-term health effect of atomic bombs is overstated

    08/15/2016 3:36:53 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 71 replies
    pulseheadlines.com ^ | 08/14/2016 | By Marioxy Betancourt
    Former studies have found that radiation exposure increases cancer risk. It has also been found that the average lifespan of survivors from the atomic bombing was only reduced by a few months. Such findings refute any popular conception about health risks caused by exposure to radiation. Scientists have not found health effects or any radiation-associated mutations on children of the survivors. Jordan suggested it would be possible to find subtle effects through more detailed tests on survivors’ genomes. Even then, the biologist believes that the children of survivors will face small health risks linked to atomic bombs. “Most people, including...
  • Suspected shooter in Queens slaying of Imam and friend taken into police custody, believed to be...

    08/14/2016 10:58:59 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 35 replies
    nydailynews.com ^ | 08/15/2016 | Ellen Moynihan, Ross Keith, Rocco Parascandola, Stephen Rex Brown.
    A man suspected of gunning down a Queens imam and his friend outside a mosque was taken into custody Sunday night by cops who believe the killer was an experienced shooter, sources said. An NYPD Regional Fugitive Task Force was doing “brief surveillance” on a suspect in Queens when he rammed an unmarked cop car, sources said. He was taken into custody for questioning, according to the sources. Police officials could not confirm whether a suspect was in custody.
  • Cause of massive fire at St. Clair Power Plant under investigation

    08/14/2016 10:18:19 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 21 replies
    voicenews ^ | 08/14/2016 | Pamela Binsfeld
    Authorities are investigating the cause of a massive fire that raged for more than 10 hours at the St. Clair Power Plant in East China Township Thursday and Friday. The fire broke out at the DTE plant on Recor Road at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Fire crews extinguished the blaze at about 4:45 a.m. Friday and continue to monitor the facility for rekindling. All employees were evacuated from the building with no injuries reported. DTE teams invoked emergency procedures and shut down all generating units at the site while working with first responders to control the situation, the energy company...
  • Nigerian military denies killing Chibok girls

    08/14/2016 9:59:00 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 4 replies
    Hours after a faction of the Boko Haram sect released a new video showing the abducted Chibok girls and claiming that some of the girls were killed by air strikes launched by Nigerian Troops, the Nigerian Defence Headquarters has denied it. In a statement issued, the Defence Headquarters said it was examining the latest video from Boko Haram group purporting to show some of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls. The new video released by the Abubakar Shekau faction of Boko Haram shows a masked armed man standing in front of several girls, who, he claimed, were the over 200 girls who...
  • Biohybrid Robots Built From Living Tissue Start to Take Shape

    08/14/2016 9:50:25 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 3 replies
    .livescience.com ^ | 08/11/2016 | Victoria Webster, Case Western Reserve University
    Researchers fabricate biobots by growing living cells, usually from heart or skeletal muscle of rats or chickens, on scaffolds that are nontoxic to the cells. If the substrate is a polymer, the device created is a biohybrid robot — a hybrid between natural and human-made materials. If you just place cells on a molded skeleton without any guidance, they wind up in random orientations. That means when researchers apply electricity to make them move, the cells' contraction forces will be applied in all directions, making the device inefficient at best. So to better harness the cells' power, researchers turn to...
  • The Latest: Sketch released of suspect in killing of imam

    08/14/2016 9:35:12 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 69 replies
    foxnews ^ | 08/14/2016
    Police say witnesses described the shooter of 55-year-old Imam Maulama Akonjee and 64-year-old Thara Uddin as a man with a medium complexion, last seen wearing a dark shirt and blue shorts. Police released a sketch early Sunday of a dark-haired, bearded man wearing glasses
  • MIT and Microsoft Research made a 'smart' tattoo that remotely controls your phone

    08/13/2016 10:21:38 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 22 replies
    the verge ^ | August 13, 2016 12:19 pm | Lauren Goode
    The technology, which is described on MIT's website and will be presented in full at a wearables symposium next month, is called DuoSkin. The researchers say you can design a circuit using any graphic software, stamp out the tattoo in gold leaf (which is conductive to electricity), and then apply other commodity materials and components that would make the tattoo interactive.
  • SpaceX Falcon 9 Set for Post-Midnight Blastoff and Landing on Aug. 14 – Watch Live

    08/13/2016 8:22:40 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 8 replies
    universetoday.com ^ | 13 Aug , 2016 | Ken Kremer
    Scarcely three weeks after the mesmerizing midnight launch and landing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that delivered over two tons of science and critical hardware to the space station for NASA, the innovative firm is set to repeat the back to back space feats – with a few big twists – during a post midnight launch this Sunday, Aug.14 of a Japanese telecom satellite. In less than 24 hours, a freshly built SpaceX Falcon 9 is set to transform night into day and launch the JCSAT-16 communications satellite from Space Launch Complex 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station...
  • Mystery object in weird orbit beyond Neptune cannot be explained

    08/12/2016 10:46:17 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 59 replies
    newscientist.com ^ | Shannon Hall
    The TNO orbits in a plane that’s tilted 110 degrees to the plane of the solar system. What’s more, it swings around the sun backwards unlike most of the other objects in the solar system. With this in mind, the team that discovered the TNO nicknamed it “Niku” after the Chinese adjective for rebellious. To grasp how truly rebellious it is, remember that a flat plane is the signature of a planetary system, as a star-forming gas cloud creates a flat disk of dust and gas around it. “Angular momentum forces everything to have that one spin direction all the...
  • DNC Email Hack Just Got A Lot Bigger

    08/11/2016 9:38:12 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 101 replies
    dailycaller.com ^ | 08/11/2016 | Ted Goodman
    According to The New York Times, the hack extended well beyond the DNC, and may have affected hundreds of other Democratic party officials and organizations, including the Democratic Governors Association. The FBI briefed staff members of the House and Senate intelligence committees last week on the investigation into the email hacks against the DNC in July. The FBI told staff it has no doubt that the Russian government was behind the hack, according to The New York Times, citing an anonymous staff member briefed on the matter. The FBI said that it has no direct evidence that Democratic nominee Hillary...
  • Police: Whittier Couple Tried To Enter Mexico With Body Of 2-Year-Old In Duffel Bag

    08/10/2016 12:57:01 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 4 replies
    cbs2la ^ | 08/10/2016
    According to police, the pair tried to cross the border, but when they were stopped by Mexican Customs agents, Becerra fled and left Hartley with the duffel bag. An X-ray of the bag revealed a body inside, and further examination determined that it was a 2-year-old child, police said. ... Becerra was later taken into custody by Mexican authorities, and both were turned over the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. San Diego police homicide detectives, after interviewing the couple, determined the incident that may have led to the child’s death may have occurred in Whittier, according to officials.