Sunday, January 13, 2013

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a review Friday into the design and manufacture of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, following five incidents in five days involving the aircraft and two Japanese airlines.

On Monday, an electrical fire broke out aboard a Japan Airlines 787 at Boston’s Logan International Airport, when a battery pack which powers the auxiliary power unit, for when the plane is on the ground, caught fire. The fire was discovered by maintenance workers after passengers and crew disembarked following their flight from Tokyo’s Narita Airport.

The next day, a separate Japan Airlines 787, also at Logan International Airport, heading to Tokyo, suffered a fuel leak that spilled around 40 gallons, which was spotted by the crew of the aircraft taxiing behind them. “That Japan Air may know it, but they’ve got fuel or something spilling out the outboard left wing. Quite a bit,” said the pilot of aircraft behind them on local air traffic control frequencies.

Wednesday, in Japan, an All Nippon Airways 787, the launch customer for the aircraft, cancelled a flight after a brake problem was reported.

Earlier Friday, two All Nippon Airways suffered separate incidents in Japan. An oil leak was noticed in the engine after one aircraft had landed in Miyazaki, coming from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Another flight, flying between Haneda Airport and Matsuyama said the pilot’s side window in the cockpit suffered a crack.

The FAA in a statement said “In light of a series of recent events, the FAA will conduct a comprehensive review of the Boeing 787 critical systems, including the design, manufacture and assembly.” Further adding, “The purpose of the review is to validate the work conducted during the certification process and further ensure that the aircraft meets the FAA’s high level of safety.”

According to the statement, “The review will also examine how the electrical and mechanical systems interact with each other.” The Boeing 787 relies more on electrical, as opposed to mechanical, systems than past aircraft from the manufacturer including having electronics operate hydraulic pumps and using electric brakes. Large portions of the plane’s structure use lightweight carbon fiber composite instead of more traditional metal airframe.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “The safety of the traveling public is our top priority […] This review will help us look at the root causes and do everything we can to safeguard against similar events in the future.”

“We are confident that the aircraft is safe. But we need to have a complete understanding of what is happening,” said newly sworn-in FAA Administrator Michael P. Huerta. “We are conducting the review to further ensure that the aircraft meets our high safety standards.”

Boeing released a statement saying, “[The company] is confident in the design and performance of the 787. It is a safe and efficient airplane. The airplane has logged 50,000 hours of flight and there are more than 150 flights occurring daily.”

Friday, November 3, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Beaches—East York (Ward 32). Four candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Donna Braniff, Alan Burke, Sandra Bussin (incumbent), William Gallos, John Greer, John Lewis, Erica Maier, Luca Mele, and Matt Williams.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

A court in England, UK has jailed a policeman for ten months after he was convicted of defrauding his car insurance company.

Police Constable Simon Hood, 43, arranged for a friend who dealt in scrap metal to dispose of his Audi TT, then claimed it had been stolen.

Hood had been disappointed with the car’s value when he tried to sell it two years after its purchase in 2008. He arranged for friend Peter Marsh, 41, to drive the vehicle to his scrapyard in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Marsh then dismantled the vehicle with the intent of disposing of it, but parts were later found wrapped in bubblewrap at Ace Tyre and Exhaust Centre.

Marsh picked up the TT from outside nearby Gorleston police station. Records show mobile phone conversations between the conspirators that day in March, both before and after the vehicle was reported stolen. The pair denied wrongdoing but were convicted of conspiring to commit insurance fraud after trial.

The fraud was uncovered after Hood told former girlfriend Suzanne Coates of the scheme. It was alleged before Norwich Crown Court that he had confessed to her in an effort to resume their relationship. Coates said that after the pseudotheft, Hood told her “he didn’t want to look for it. He said it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack, which I thought was a bit strange.”

Shortly afterwards Hood suggested they should become a couple once more, she said; she challenged his version of events regarding the car: “He said he did it but I couldn’t tell anyone. He said he did it with Peter. Peter had a key and took the car away and it was going to be taken to bits and got rid of so it was never found.”

Hood was defended by Michael Clare and Marsh by Richard Potts. Both lawyers told the court that their clients had already suffered as a result of the action in mitigation before sentencing. Clare said Hood had resigned from the police after fifteen years of otherwise good service and risked losing his pension. “It is not a case where his position as a police officer was used in order to facilitate the fraud,” he pointed out. “His career is in ruins.” Hood is now pursuing a career in plumbing.

Potts defended Marsh by saying that he, too, had already suffered from his actions. His own insurers are refusing to renew their contract with him when it expires and his bank withdrew its overdraft facility. His business employs 21 people and Potts cited Marsh’s sponsorship of Great Yarmouth In Bloom as amongst evidence he supported his local community.

Judge Alasdair Darroch told Marsh that he did accept the man was attempting to help his friend. He sentenced Marsh to six months imprisonment, suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 250 hours of community service. He was more critical of Hood:

“As a police officer you know the highest possible standards are demanded by the public. You have let down the force. You knew throughout your career that policemen that get involved in serious dishonesty get sent to prison.”

Monday, January 14, 2008

A construction worker died after falling thirty feet from a New York hotel yesterday, police say.

The accident occurred at the Trump SoHo construction site in SoHo, New York. Witnesses at the scene reported that a load being lifted by a crane collided with the building, possibly causing scaffolding to collapse.

Police indicated that the dead worker had fallen at least 30 feet. A second worker sustained injuries after falling several storeys into some netting. The injured worker was lowered to street level by crane and transported to hospital as a large number of ambulances and fire engines gathered on the scene.

The Trump SoHo building is a 46 storey, 400 unit hotel condominium. According to its website, the building is a joint venture between the Trump Organization, the Sapir Organization, and the Bayrock Group LLC. The site is scheduled to open in Spring 2009.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

In big cities, finding land for new parks is less of an expedition than an all-out land-rights battle with property owners. But some cities across the U.S. have found a slightly easier way to add to their greenspace. By utilizing the state’s air rights to the space above freeways that run below at ground level, cities can acquire 5 or 10 acres of parkspace essentially for free, such Freeway Park which occupies 5.5 acres above a freeway in downtown Seattle.

Of course, this free “land” is actually nothing more than open air above a freeway, requiring cities to pay the high construction costs of capping the roadway with land.

Such projects are currently being planned in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Dallas and San Diego. A recent article in Governing Magazine looks at more than two dozen highway deck parks that have been built or are under construction in the U.S. The article finds that even though the price of constructing parks on top of freeways can rise upwards of $500 per square foot, property values and local development boom once they are completed.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

A woman in the tiny farming community of Saint-Rémi, Quebec, south of Montreal visited the local cemetery Saturday and received a rude shock. Graffitied on former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Eliott Trudeau’s family crypt were “FLQ“, the initials of the Front de libération du Québec and the French words for “traitor” and “bastard” in black spray-paint.

“It’s very sad,” said Pierre Sauriol, whose organization maintains the graveyard. “He made errors and good decisions like everyone, but he was one of the prime ministers of Canada, and he should rest in peace.”

Trudeau, who served as Canada’s prime minister from 1968-79 and again in 1980-84, was a controversial figure in the history of Quebec.

During the FLQ crisis in October 1970, Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act after a British diplomat, James Cross and a provincial cabinet minister, Pierre Laporte were kidnapped, leading to arrests of any individuals the police thought to be separatists, and to their detentions without bail. Laporte was later strangled to death by the FLQ.

Trudeau, who died in September 2000, is entombed in the grey-stone mausoleum with his parents and 11 other family members.

Mr. Sauriol said this was the first time vandals have left their mark on the crypt.

Police believe the tomb was vandalized sometime on Friday night or early Saturday morning.

The Trudeau crypt, which stands taller than any monument in the cemetery, was cordened off Saturday using orange police tape tied to tombstones.

Provincial police are searching the area in the hope of finding any clues. They have also measured and taken photos of the graffiti, which was applied to every wall of the structure. The letters “FLQ” on the front of the crypt covered a pair of names on a plaque posted by the door. As of now, there have been no arrests or suspects.

The crypt is located a few metres from a major road and many residents from the town of 6,000 slowed to see the damage as they passed by in their vehicles.

Trudeau’s family could not be reached for comment but the head of a prominent nationalist group gave his opinion on the matter, calling the vandalism “extremely deplorable.”

“It isn’t acceptable,” said Jean Dorion of the Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montreal. “Of course we disagree with the Constitution that has been imposed forcibly on Quebec – this is not acceptable. But it’s not a reason to desecrate a burial place.”

Environment Minister John Baird, who is responsible for Parks Canada, said in a statement that his department would remove the offensive graffiti.

“It is important to protect the historic resting places of former prime ministers, and these places should at all times be given the respect and honour they deserve,” Baird said.

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Last month, a study conducted by archæologist Dr. Naomi Martisius and other researchers concluded Neanderthals living in Europe tens of thousands of years ago were more sophisticated than previously thought. The now-extinct species used to carefully select bones from a particular animal species to manufacture their bone tools, the research showed. The research was published on May 8 in Nature’s Scientific Reports journal.

Dr Martisius and her team used five bone tools discovered from Neanderthals’ sites in southwest France for this research. Four of these bone tools were found in a site called Abri Peyrony and the other one was from Pech-de-l’Azé I. These tools were just a few centimetres in size and were about 50 thousand years old, Dr Martisius told Wikinews. Microscopy analysis of these bone tools called lissoirs (smoothers) suggested Neanderthals used these tools for working animal skin to leathers.

The study stated the fauna of the sites were primarily medium-sized ungulates such as reindeer, in one layer nearly 90%. Despite the overabundance of medium-sized ungulates, Neanderthals used ribs of large bovids for making lissoirs. Dr Martisius told Wikinews this was likely due to the physical characteristics of the bovid ribs, which were “thicker” and “stronger” as compared to the “thin and flimsy ribs” of reindeers. In order to check the origins of the bone tools, the researchers used a technology called non-destructive Zooarchæology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS).

Instead of damaging the bone artefacts in order to discover its origins, the researchers collected collagen from the plastic containers in which these artefacts were kept. Collagen is a type of protein. These bone artefacts were kept in plastic containers: some were kept for about five years, some for just a few months. During this time, the collagen proteins from bone tools were stuck to the walls of its plastic containers. The collagen samples collected from the walls of the containers are broken into smaller molecules called peptides by using a chemical enzyme called trypsin.

After the trypsin has broken collagen fibres into peptides, it is analysed using a technology called Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) Time-of-Flight mass spectrometer (ToF MS). The assisting matrix is a coloured compound. The acidic peptide is combined with the matrix, vapourised, and peptides are released. Some of them are positively-charged particles which travel across a vacuum tube in an electric field. Depending on the weight of the peptides, these molecules reach the end of the vacuum tube at different instances of time, forming a spectrum. These graphs are like unique fingerprints of a species: they are different for different species of animals. Looking at the database of such graphs, taxonomic identifications of the collagen proteins came be made.

All four bone tools from Abri Peyrony gave positive results and showed that the bones were made from large bovids, even though reindeer were more abundant during that time. One of the advantages of using bovid ribs over reindeer’s thin ribs was the bovid ribs would be more resistant to breaking during flexion, Dr Martisius said.

Dr Martisius said such non-destructive ZooMS analysis was previously conducted, but for tools no older than a few centuries. She said such an analysis had never been previously conducted for artefacts so ancient.

Wikinews caught up with Dr Martisius to discuss this research in-depth.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Victoria Wyndham was one of the most seasoned and accomplished actresses in daytime soap opera television. She played Rachel Cory, the maven of Another World‘s fictional town, Bay City, from 1972 to 1999 when the show went off the air. Wyndham talks about how she was seen as the anchor of a show, and the political infighting to keep it on the air as NBC wanted to wrest control of the long-running soap from Procter & Gamble. Wyndham fought to keep it on the air, but eventually succumbed to the inevitable. She discusses life on the soap opera, and the seven years she spent wandering “in the woods” of Los Angeles seeking direction, now divorced from a character who had come to define her professional career. Happy, healthy and with a family she is proud of, Wyndham has found life after the death of Another World in painting and animals. Below is David Shankbone’s interview with the soap diva.