Hi All,
Well I took the weekend off. Sorry if you were looking forward to some good news on Saturday and Sunday, but with only this past weekend, and next weekend left to spend with my husband before I go to Korea, we spent some quality time together.
Anyway, today there are quite a few good stories. Also I want to mention that when searching "Times of India" news I noticed a couple articles that are good for the US, but not for India. One article noted that the currency of India fell against the dollar (a good sign that our economy is going to be just fine, as most economies, including india have recently been posting their currency as rising against our dollar). Another article noted that the golden age of india as a new up and coming economic power may be ending, and may not come to fruition much past its current state. As neither of these qualifies for my blog, I just thought I'd mention them.
Today I want to mention the good news article about the new sins that the vatican has noted. Although I don't completely agree with all of the "new" sins, I think this is a great article because it has brought "new" sins, such as polluting, and doing drugs into the forefront. I think this is a very bold move for a religion. I also think that it is very important to recognise that we all have to protect the earth, and our bodies, in order to better help each other to live. It is for this reason that I have included this article as a good news article.
I hope you enjoy the posts today!
Today's Top 5:
1. Colorful Idea Sparks Renewable Electricity from Painting Solar Cells (Science Daily)
2. TA medics saved life of Afghan knife boy (IC Wales)
3. Vatican Lists New Sinful Behaviors (CNN)
4. Japan Developing New Form of Flu Vaccination (Yahoo)
5. SoCal Thrift Store Worker Returns $30g
Honorable Mentions:
1. Rescued Solicitor Helps Buy Lifeboat (Independent IE)
2. Cleaning Up for 50 Years (Independent IE)
3. Medic Stationed in Afghanistan Becomes 2nd Woman to Be Awarded Silver Star Since WWII (Fox News)
Top 5:
1. Colorful Idea Sparks Renewable Electricity from Painting Solar Cells
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080306223745.htm
ScienceDaily (Mar. 10, 2008)
— Researchers at Swansea University are developing a new, eco-friendly technology that could generate as much electricity as 50 wind farms.
Dr Dave Worsley, a Reader in the Materials Research Centre at the University’s School of Engineering, is investigating ways of painting solar cells onto the flexible steel surfaces commonly used for cladding buildings.
“We have been collaborating with the steel industry for decades,” explains Dr Worsely, “but have tended to focus our attention on improving the long-term durability and corrosion-resistance of the steel. We haven’t really paid much attention to how we can make the outside of the steel capable of doing something other than looking good.
“One of our Engineering Doctorate students was researching how sunlight interacts with paint and degrades it, which led to us developing a new photovoltaic method of capturing solar energy.”
Unlike conventional solar cells, the materials being developed at Swansea are more efficient at capturing low light radiation, meaning that they are better suited to the British climate.
A research grant from the Welsh Assembly Government’s Welsh Energy Research Centre (WERC) enabled Dr Worsley to work with leading metals group Corus to investigate the feasibility of developing an efficient solar cell system that can be applied to steel building products.
The success of the study led to the award of a three-year project worth over £1.5 million by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
Swansea University is now leading a partnership with Bangor University, University of Bath, and the Imperial College London to develop commercially viable photovoltaic materials for use within the steel industry.
Paint is applied to steel when it is passed through rollers during the manufacturing process, and it is hoped that the same approach can be used to build up layers of the solar cell system. The researchers’ aim is to produce cells that can be painted onto a flexible steel surface at a rate of 30-40m2 a minute.
Dr Worsley believes that the potential for the product is immense.
He said: “Corus Colours produces around 100 million square metres of steel building cladding a year. If this was treated with the photovoltaic material, and assuming a conservative 5% energy conversion rate, then we could be looking at generating 4,500 gigawatts of electricity through the solar cells annually. That’s the equivalent output of roughly 50 wind farms.”
Dr Worsley will be working closely with Corus to research practical, cost-efficient methods of mounting the system on steel structures, with a view to the eventual commercialisation of the product.
He said: “This project is a superb example of the value of collaboration between universities and industry, and it is definitely important for Wales. We have a genuine opportunity to ensure that Wales remains at the forefront of this technology worldwide, driving the industry and revolutionising our capacity to generate electricity.
“I think it shows great vision from the Welsh Assembly Government that they funded the initial feasibility study. Even if we are only mildly successful with this project, there is no doubt that we will be creating an exciting hi-tech steel product that will preserve the long term future of the Welsh steel industry.”
Adapted from materials provided by Swansea University.
2. TA Medics Saved Life of Afghan Knife Boy
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/03/10/ta-medics-saved-life-of-afghan-knife-boy-91466-20594460/
Mar 10 2008
by Our Correspondent, Western Mail
A WELSHMAN has revealed how he and fellow medics helped save an Afghan boy stabbed in the head with a knife.
Doctors at the British military field hospital at Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, operated to remove the three-inch blade.
The 10-year-old boy was stabbed when he tried to protect his father during a row with a customer in his shop in Kandahar. The man lunged for the his father and stabbed the boy. The knife went behind his eye and penetrated the front of his brain.
The boy’s father took him to a military base in Kandahar and pleaded with doctors to save him. Territorial Army medics there used a portable digital X-ray machine, which produced an image in two minutes, before flying him to Camp Bastion for the operation at a field hospital.
The boy, who has not been named, amazed medics by walking into the field hospital with the knife embedded in his head on July 14 last year.
Surgeons of 212 Field Hospital operated the same night, before handing over to 208 Field Hospital, who administered the aftercare.
Major Stephen Gallacher, 49, senior A&E nurse of 208 Field Hospital, said, “It was an horrendous sight. I just didn’t think he would survive.
“But he was soon off the life-support machine and was up and about within days. It was just amazing.”
Major Gallacher, a father-of-four from Caernarfon, added, “We knew how the knife was sitting because we had the X-ray.
“The knife had come in at an angle and gone down behind his eye and had penetrated the front of his brain.
“To have simply pulled the knife out would have been a disaster because you wouldn’t have known what damage was behind it.”
He said the portable X-ray machine gave a faster result than similar machines in UK hospitals.
3. Vatican Lists New Sinful Behaviors
Drugs, pollution, genetic manipulation are now included
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/03/10/vatican.updates.sins.ap/index.html
Updated 10:40am 10 March 2008
ROME, Italy (AP)
A Vatican official has listed drugs, pollution and genetic manipulations as well as social and economic injustices as new areas of sinful behavior.
The Vatican has updated the list of mortal sins to relate to the age of globalization.
Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti said in an interview published on Sunday by the Vatican's daily newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, that known sins increasingly manifest themselves as behavior that damages society as a whole.
Girotti, who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican body that issues decisions on matters of conscience and grants absolutions told the paper that whilst sin used to concern the individual mostly, today it had a mainly a social resonance, due to the phenomenon of globalization.
Catholic teaching distinguishes between lesser, so-called venial sins, and mortal sins.
When asked to list the new areas of sinful behavior, Girotti denounced "certain violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments, genetic manipulations."
He also mentioned drugs, which weaken the mind and obscure intelligence; pollution; as well as the widening social and economic differences between the rich and the poor that "cause an unbearable social injustice."
Girotti said the Catholic Church continued to be concerned by other sinful acts, including abortion and pedophilia.
He said Church authorities had reacted with rigorous measures to child abuse scandals within the clergy, but he also claimed that the issue had been excessively emphasized by the media.
His comments came at the end of a week-long Vatican conference on confession.
A recent survey said that 60 percent of Italian Catholics do not go to confession.
Traditionally the Catholic church has had a list of seven deadly sins, that of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride established by Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century.
The terms entered the popular vocabulary after the publication of Dante's "Divine Comedy."
The deadly sins are in contrast with venial sins - relatively minor sins that can be forgiven.
A person that commits a mortal sin risks burning in hell unless absolved through confession and penitence.
Now the Vatican says it is time to modernize the list to fit a global world.
On hearing the Girotti's suggestion, some priests thought it was a good idea.
Father Antonio Pelayo, a Spanish priest and Vatican expert noted that it is time for both sinners and confessors to get over their obsession with sex and think about other ways humans hurt each other in the world in which they live.
"There are many other sins that are perhaps much more grave that don't have anything to do with sex - that have to do with life, that have to do with the environment, that have to do with justice," he told AP Television.
Father Greg Apparcel, a local priest said that the Pope may have been talking About this aspect of sin as a response to the recent "Italian confession" survey.
Apparcel also hinted that the announcement may have a wider agenda ahead of the Holy Father's trip to the United States and his speech to the United Nations.
"There is some sound going around that perhaps he is going to speak about ecology and environment, and if he does, this is kind of preparation for that," he said.
4. Japan Developing New Form of Flu Vaccine
1 hour, 13 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080310/sc_nm/influenza_dc
TOKYO (Reuters)
A group of Japanese researchers has developed a substance that could potentially help make flu vaccines effective for multiple strains of the disease, including strains of the bird flu virus, Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases said on Monday. The substance faces a lot more testing but investors seized on media reports of it on Monday, pushing the shares of a chemical firm involved in the project, NOF Corp, up nearly 21 percent.
Traditional flu vaccines create antibodies which act against flu viruses, but since virus surfaces frequently mutate, different vaccines have to be made every year.
The group found that when a peptide derived from the influenza virus is induced into mice, it could act against cells infected by multiple strains of influenza, including bird flu.
Part of the research was reported in the Journal of Immunology in 2006, and the group presented its findings last month at Japan's National Cancer Center. The only tests so far have been on mice.
The next step is to develop a vaccine that works against multiple strains of flu and is proved safe for humans, said Tetsuya Uchida, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases.
"It usually takes about five years to develop vaccines for clinical use. But bird flu is an emerging issue and we would like to develop this as soon as possible," Uchida said.
The findings could also potentially be applied to create drugs to treat AIDS, tumors and other diseases, he said.
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
5. SoCal Thrift Store Worker Returns $30g
Sun Mar 9, 6:13 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/money_found
POMONA, Calif. - A thrift store worker in Southern California says she didn't think twice about returning $30,000 she found in donated clothing.
ADVERTISEMENT Barbarita Nunez was sorting clothes on Tuesday at the Veterans Thrift Store when she found a small box. Inside was an envelope of cash. Nunez said at first she thought the money was fake. But just in case, she gave it to her supervisor.
The money turned out to belong to a woman who had recently died. It was returned to her family, who gave Nunez a cash reward.
Nunez said she will send some of the reward to Mexico so her mother can have an eye operation and will use the rest to buy a digital camera.
Honorable Mentions:
1. Rescued Solicitor Helps Buy Lifeboat
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/rescued-solicitor-helps-buy-lifeboat-1312134.html
By Brian McDonald
Monday March 10 2008
A solicitor who cheated death when the small boat in which she and some friends were travelling overturned, has thanked her rescuers with a new lifeboat.
Clifden-based solicitor Emer Joyce was given the honour of launching the new RNLI rescue craft, Grainne Uaile, at a ceremony in Clifden at the weekend.
She had been travelling in a wooden currach to the island of Inishturk, off the Connemara coast, to celebrate the New Year with five friends in 2006 when their boat capsized.
Two of the party swam to safety, but four others were clinging to the upturned currach when they were rescued by Clifden lifeboat crew. Ms Joyce and her friends subsequently raised €30,000 towards the new rescue craft.
- Brian McDonald
2. Cleaning Up for 50 Years
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/cleaning-up-for-50-years-1312138.html
Monday March 10 2008
Allison Bray
For five decades, spotless streets, tidy hedges and freshly painted buildings have been a common trait in the official Tidy Towns of Ireland.
Yesterday, Environment Minister John Gormley urged people from every corner of the country to show their civic pride and get involved in this year's competition which is marking its 50th anniversary.
The first winner of the competition was the village of Glenties in Co Donegal; while Aughrim, Co Wicklow, won the prestigious title last year.
To mark the 50th anniversary, An Post will be unveiling a commemorative stamp, while organisers will also be publishing a special souvenir magazine showcasing entrants over the past five decades.
The archived material includes photos similar to these of multiple winner Glenties, or the 1989 winner Ardagh, Co Longford, depicting an idyllic town square with an immaculately kept green adorned with hanging flower baskets.
Much has changed since its inception in 1958 when it was launched by Bord Failte as a means to boost tourism, drawing just 52 contestants. Now an average of 700 competitors vie for the title each year.
Where the focus was initially on boosting tourism, it's now very much geared towards encouraging community development with an environmental focus.
Sponsors SuperValu are also running a special competition this year, 'Recognition of Real Heroes', which will applaud local volunteers who have made outstanding contributions to their local communities.
This year's winners will be featured on a special RTE television show in September.
3. Medic Stationed in Afghanistan Becomes 2nd Woman to Be Awarded Silver Star Since WWII
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336259,00.html
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Monica Lin Brown
CAMP SALERNO, Afghanistan — A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second female soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor.
Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said.
After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.
"I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there," Brown told The Associated Press on Saturday at a U.S. base in the eastern province of Khost.
Brown, of Lake Jackson, Texas, is scheduled to receive the Silver Star later this month. She was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia on April 25, 2007, when a bomb struck one of the Humvees.
"We stopped the convoy. I opened up my door and grabbed my aid bag," Brown said.
She started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers had scrambled out.
"I assessed the patients to see how bad they were. We tried to move them to a safer location because we were still receiving incoming fire," Brown said.
Pentagon policy prohibits women from serving in front-line combat roles — in the infantry, armor or artillery, for example. But the nature of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no real front lines, has seen women soldiers take part in close-quarters combat more than previous conflicts.
Four Army nurses in World War II were the first women to receive the Silver Star, though three nurses serving in World War I were awarded the medal posthumously last year, according to the Army's Web site.
Brown, of the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, said ammunition going off inside the burning Humvee was sending shrapnel in all directions. She said they were sitting in a dangerous spot.
"So we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit," she said. "I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of."
For Brown, who knew all five wounded soldiers, it became a race to get them all to a safer location. Eventually, they moved the wounded some 500 yards away and treated them on site before putting them on a helicopter for evacuation.
"I did not really have time to be scared," Brown said. "Running back to the vehicle, I was nervous (since) I did not know how badly the guys were injured. That was scary."
The military said Brown's "bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered under fire saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat."
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, of Nashville, Tenn., received the Silver Star in 2005 for gallantry during an insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq. Two men from her unit, the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond, Ky., also received the Silver Star for their roles in the same action.
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