Sunday, November 30, 2008

Jørn Utzon, the Danish architect who designed the Sydney Opera House, has died at the age of 90. Mr Utzon died from a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Copenhagen.

“He had not been doing well these past few days, since Thursday. He had been undergoing a series of operations recently,” Mr Utzon’s son, Kim, told the Associated Press.

The first design for the Sydney Opera House was created by Utzon in 1957. Mr Utzon left Australia and returned to Denmark in 1966 due to disputes with the NSW government over cost blowouts and design differences. The building was finished 1973. Utzon never returned to Australia to see his building completed.

Relations between New South Wales and Utzon improved in the late 1990s and in 1999 the Sydney Opera House Trust asked for Mr Utzon to advise on changing the building’s interior to match his original design.

Mr Utzon was awarded the Pritzker prize for architecture in 2003. The selectors said the Opera House was one of the most iconic buildings of the 20th century saying that Utzon’s design “proves that the marvellous and seemingly impossible in architecture can be achieved”.

Kim Williams, chairman of the Opera House Trust, said the building would dim the lights on its sails on Sunday as a sign of respect. Mr Williams said he had met Mr Utzon at his home in Denmark recently, where they shared emotions and tears.

“We spoke for 40 minutes and when we left, he embraced me and he whispered in my ear ‘no tears’,” he said.

“He hasn’t been able to come back himself, but through his son he has been keeping up with all the developments here at the Opera House, really on a daily basis.”

Premier of NSW Nathan Rees said NSW was “deeply saddened” by the death of Mr Utzon, who gave Australia a “masterpiece” which was now UNESCO World-Heritage listed.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Mr Utzon had left an impressive legacy.

“Joern Utzon was a visionary architect whose legacy includes one of the world’s most spectacular and inspiring buildings, the Sydney Opera House,” said the Prime Minister in a statement.

“Standing proudly on the edge of Sydney Harbour, the Opera House is one of the most internationally recognised symbols of our nation.”

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A recent study based on satellite radar altimetry indicates drastic thinning of Arctic ice during the winter of 2007. It was found that the ice thickness had been fairly constant for the five previous winters. The researchers were able to highlight widespread ice thinning in areas covered by both old and young ice. This thinning constitutes the most severe since records started being taken in the early 1990s.

The study by scientists of University College London has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The work provides the first definitive proof for overall decrease in Arctic ice volume, claim the authors.

The researchers have found that last winter’s ice thickness represented a decrease of an average of 26 centimeters below the 2002-2008 winter average. The greatest decline of 49 centimeters was in the western Arctic, which could explain the region’s becoming relatively ice-free this summer, allowing it to be open to shipping for the first time in 30 years. The record low of ice thickness during summer happened when the weather was not abnormally warm.

Katharine Giles, the lead author, points out that the study used satellite data sets, which had a number of advantages over other methods. Previous studies have used measurements from drilling, or submarine and airborne surveys. These studies could be severely limited by time and space. The present study utilized continuous, all-weather, day-and-night radar altimeter data from the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite. The study measured ice thickness from October to March, 2007, over more than half of the Arctic.

There has been considerable uncertainty over the causes of ice loss in the Arctic. It has been debated that ice could have been piled up against the coast, thus reducing the sea ice extent. Measurements of the ice thickness, as in the present study, give definite proof for ice melting. “So this means melting; it doesn’t mean that the ice has just been pushed up against the coastline,” remark Seymour Laxon, co-author of the paper.

The conclusions of the study can help predict what could happen with the ice cover in future. Deflection of sunlight by the Arctic ice cap could be reduced, leading to larger areas of water, which can absorb heat. Warmer temperatures will in turn promote more ice melting. “About five years ago, the average projection for the sea ice disappearing was about 2080”, said Dr Laxon. “But the ice minimums, and this evidence of melting, suggests that we should favor the models that suggest the sea ice will disappear by 2030-2040, but there is still a lot of uncertainty.”

Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Internet group Project Chanology today held protests critical of the Church of Scientology. The protests marked what would have been the 49th birthday of Lisa McPherson, who is claimed to be a victim of the Church of Scientology’s practices. Lisa died in 1995 during a running of what Scientologists refer to as an Introspection Rundown, a procedure intended to help Church members deal with a psychotic or deeply traumatic event.

Protests were planned throughout the day in 14 countries and over 50 different cities. The estimation of total protesters world wide for Feb. 10, 2008 is 9,250 people.

Wikinews had correspondents at a number of protest locations to report on the events. This article was updated throughout the day with reports from around the globe.

Monday, August 14, 2006

In its August 10 edition, The Economist magazine asserts that Saudi Arabia can continue producing oil at its current production levels for 70 years, without having to look for another drop. Further, the magazine claims that the nation could find “plenty more if they look”, calling for privatisation of national oil companies to help increase oil production.

The language is provocative – the world has plenty of oil, and only requires sufficient investment and exploration to find it. This is a line that The Economist has held for some time, certainly since before its now infamous March 1999 issue proclaiming that we were “drowning in oil” and featuring a prediction of US$5 per barrel. That issue was followed by an embarrassing retraction in December of that year, as oil started its steady climb. It now sits above US$70 per barrel.

However, petroleum geologists and energy investment specialists maintain a different view of oil reserves. They say that there is a limit to what is in the ground, and further to that, a limit to how much of it we can retrieve even with advancing technology. Just how much is down there can’t be said with any certainty, for a variety of reasons. A big one is the suspicious reserves figures given by producers in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia. Since OPEC starting using a quota system based on reserves, the estimated reserves for member nations has magically risen, and even continued rising in the face of increased extraction from those reserves.

Amongst those who deal with the physical realities of oil fields, forecasts of a peak in production vary between 30 years, as the USA’s Energy Information Administration suggest, and now, as suggested by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas and other more pessimistic forecasters. A peak in production would then be followed by decline. Certainly, in the petroleum world, there is no serious suggestion of sustaining the current level of oil production for 70 years.

Thursday, November 17, 2005A masked man, believed by officials to be Noordin Mohammad Top, a key figure in militant Islamic terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, threatened Western countries in a video broadcast on Indonesia‘s Metro TV on Thursday. The man specifically named the US, Australia, the UK and Italy as targets of his group’s next attack.

The video was found in a house the Indonesian police raided last week, where Top narrowly escaped being captured. A similar raid on a house in East Java resulted in the death of his associate, Azahari Husin.

The masked man on the video said that “as long as you keep your troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and intimidate Muslim people, you will feel our intimidation and our terror.” He continued, “America, Australia, England and Italy. You will be the target of our next attack.”

The man focused especially on Australia, saying: “We especially remind Australia that you, Downer and Howard, are killing Australia, leading it into darkness and misfortune and mujahideen terror.” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer dismissed the message by saying that no democratic country should be intimidated by “a fanatic like Noordin Top”.

Noordin Mohammad Top is a Malaysian senior operative of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group which is seen as the regional arm of international Islamic fundamentalist campaign Al-Qaeda. Police have been trying to catch Top, an expert in recruiting suicide bombers, and Azahari, Jemaah Islamiyah’s bombmaker, since the 2002 Bali bombing in which 202 people were killed.

The video also showed three young suicide bombers who killed 20 people in attacks on restaurants on the island of Bali on October 1. One of the men, Muhammad Salik Firdaus, said on the film: “My brother and wife, God willing, when you see this recording I’ll already be in heaven.” Bali police Chief I Made Mangku Pastika said that three men were currently being questioned over their role in the bombings and that they were “certainly also linked to the Bali bombs.”

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Yesterday, UK singer Ed Sheeran won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for his song Thinking Out Loud from his album × ahead of Kendrick Lamar’s Alright; Wiz Khalifa’s, featuring Charlie Puth, See You Again; Little Big Town’s Girl Crush; and Taylor Swift’s Blank Space. Girl Crush won the Grammy Award for Best Country Song.

Welsh singer Amy Wadge co-wrote the song. Sheeran during the ceremony said they wrote the song on a couch in his house. In remarks to the Western Mail, Wadge said the album was already complete when they wrote the song.

Thinking out Loud remained #2 on Billboard Hot 100 for almost two months, and topped the UK rankings last year. Its video song has 969 Million YouTube views and has more than four million likes. The song also won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Solo Performance.

US singer Stevie Wonder announced the winner for the Song of the Year, and the envelope was written in Braille script. He joked about it saying “You can’t read it, you can’t read Braille!”

Along with Ed Sheeran’s first Grammy, Canadians The Weeknd and Justin Bieber won Grammy awards for the first time.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

A 54-year-old German farmer who lost both arms in a farming accident six years ago has become the first patient to receive a complete double arm transplant. The patient, whose name has not been released, underwent the operation at the Klinikum rechts der Isar, part of the Technical University of Munich (Technische Universität München), last week; he is said to be recovering well.

The operation lasted 15 hours and was performed by a team of 40 specialists in Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, Orthopedics and Anesthesiology, under the direction of the head of the Plastics and Hand Surgery department, Prof. Hans-Günther Machens, Dr. Christoph Höhnke (Head of Transplants, Senior Physician; Plastics and Hand Surgery) and Prof. Edgar Biemer, the former Chief of Plastic Surgery at the Clinic.

In a press statement released by the clinic, it was revealed that the patient had been thoroughly physically checked and had psychological counselling prior to the surgery to ensure he was mentally stable enough to cope with the procedure. Since completion of the surgery, the patient has been on immuno-suppressant drugs to prevent rejection of the new limbs.

Following the surgery, the press release from the clinic’s press manager, Dr. Tanja Schmidhofer, included the following statement:

Without the immuno-suppressant drugs given to the patient, the risk of there being a Graft-versus-Host Reaction or GvHR, would have been significant due to the upper arm containing a large amount of bone marrow, consisting of ICC’s or Immuno-Competent Cells, which would have triggered a near total rejection of the new limbs. A GvHR is a condition which results in the cells from the transplant attacking the immune system of the body.

Indications from the clinic suggest that the double attachment went well, although it could be up to 2 full years before the patient is able to move the arms.

The donor arms came from an unnamed teenager, who is believed to have died in a car accident.