2008: April 30th Good News (31 Cent Icecreams to Honor Fire Fighters, Human protein may block HIV, more...)

Good morning all,

I'm so glad it's not morning here...I'm about to go to bed. I would like to point out just one article before I get there though. The article is the one about Baskin Robbins offer of 31 cent Ice Cream on the 30th of April. This is in honor of our nation's Fire Fighters. I wanted to bring it to your attention so that if there is a Baskin Robbins nearby you, you could get in on the icecream, AND support a good cause. :)

Anyway, here are the top articles for today. I hope you enjoy them! I'll see you tomorrow. :)

Today's Top 5:
1. China Rescues 167 Children from Slavery (Yahoo News)
2. Scientists Identify 14 New Species in Brazil (Times Online UK)
3. Tiny Chess Set Built Between Heartbeats (Times Online UK)
4. City to Try Using Mushrooms to Clean up Dioxin-laden Site. (San Fransisco Chronicles)
5. 31 Cent Ice Cream to Honor Nation's Firefighters! (firehouse.com)



Honorable Mentions:
1. Human Protein May Offer Novel Target for Blocking HIV Infection: Successful In Lab (Science Daily)
2. Floyd Inflatable Pig is Recovered (BBC)
3. Microsoft Device Helps Police Pluck Evidence from Cyberscene of Crime (Seattle Times)
4. New Solar Energy System Makes it Possible to Produce Wholesale Electricity at a Cost Competitive with Fossil Fuels (Earth Times) 5.

Today's Top 5:
1. China Rescues 167 Children from Slavery http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080430/wl_nm/china_slavery_dc;_ylt=Aj1IFxyDttsabZU.WK4dwlxn.3QAWed Apr 30, 1:08 AM ET BEIJING (Reuters) -

Chinese police have rescued 167 village children sold to work as slave laborers in a city in the booming southern province of Guangdong, newspapers said on Wednesday. The children, all from the ethnic Yi minority, came from poor families in the Liangshan region of the southwestern province of Sichuan more than 1,000 km (600 miles away).
"In all, 167 child laborers have been rescued so far, 107 boys and 60 girls," the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po paper said.
The China Daily said there had been several arrests and printed a picture of one young girl crying after being rescued from a factory in Dongguan, an industrial city in the Pearl River Delta between Hong Kong and the provincial capital, Guangzhou.
China announced a nationwide crackdown on slavery and child labor last year after reports that hundreds of poor farmers, children and mentally disabled people were forced to work in kilns and mines in Shanxi province and neighboring Henan.
(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)

2. Scientists Identify 14 New Species in Brazil
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3843133.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093
Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter
A picture gallery of some of the new species is located at:
http://www.conservation.org/fmg/pages/galleryplayer.aspx?galleryid=29

A legless lizard and a miniature woodpecker are among 14 species new to science discovered in a remote region of Brazil. The animals were identified during an expedition to the Cerrado, an area of wooded grassland rated among the world’s top 50 homes for wildlife.
Scientists found that the new lizard, from the Bachia genus, was perfectly adapted to its surroundings, being able to slither, snake-like across the sandy soil. The expedition carried out by Conservation International in partnership with researchers from Brazilian universities also found eight previously unknown species of fish, two reptiles, a horned toad and a fat-tailed mouse oppossum.
All were located in and around the 716,000-hectare (1.77 million-acre) Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station. The woodpecker had a striking red head and at about 12cm long is one of the smallest in the world.
Dr Nogueira described the discovery of new species as better than finding buried treasure. He said it was likely that there were more new species in the region but habitat was being destroyed so fast that they could become extinct before being identified. “The area we were looking in is large and it is likely there are other unknown species, especially fish — they are a very diverse group — and reptiles.”
Several species of animal known to be struggling for survival were identified in the area including the hyacinth macaw. Other endangered creatures spotted were marsh deer, the three-banded armadillo, the Brazilian merganser, and the dwarf tinamou. Overall, scientists identified 440 species in 29 days tramping through the region.
“It’s very exciting to find new species,” said Cristiano Nogueira, a biologist with Conservation International who led the expedition. “We gathered valuable data on the richness, abundance, and distribution of wildlife in one of the most extensive, complex, and unknown regions of the Cerrado.
“Protected areas such as the Ecological Station are home to some of the last remaining healthy ecosystems in a region increasingly threatened by urban growth and mechanized agriculture.” Researchers taking part in the project are convinced the 14 new species have never been described.

3. Tiny Chess Set Built Between Heartbeats
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/games_and_puzzles/chess/article3842965.ece April 30, 2008

TYUMEN A microscopic chess set no bigger than a match head could be the smallest board game in the world. The board is 3.5 mm by 2.5 mm and the gold and silver pieces are 0.15 mm and 0.3 mm high.
The set is one of the most remarkable works of the Russian micro-miniaturist Vladimir Aniskin, who has spent a decade perfecting his craft. He uses powerful microscopes and equipment that he designed himself and says that he must work between his heartbeats to create the tiny pieces.
“While working I hold my creation in my fingers,” he said. “Even one’s heartbeat disturbs such minute work, so particularly delicate work has to be done between heartbeats.”
The chess took six months to complete and he has about another 40 works to his name. His first was a grain of rice inscribed with 2,027 letters. “The rice grain took three months, camels in an eye of a needle took two months and camels in a horse hair also took two months,” he said. “Even with these simpler jobs it is still time-consuming.”
Mr Aniskin, 30, works at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science in Tyumen, specialising in developing microphobes for aerodynamic investigations.


4. City to Try Using Mushrooms to Clean up Dioxin-laden Site.Alternative is to bury soil, locally or 200 miles away
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/30/BA8C10CKCU.DTL
Annie Correal, New York Times
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

(04-30) 04:00 PDT Fort Bragg California -- On a warm April evening, 90 people crowded into the cafeteria of Redwood Elementary School to meet with representatives of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.
The substance at issue was dioxin, which contaminates the site of a former lumber mill. And the method of cleanup being proposed was a novel one: mushrooms.
Mushrooms have been used to clean up oil spills, in a process called bioremediation, but they have not been used to treat dioxin.
"I am going to make a heretical suggestion," said Debra Scott, who works at a health food collective and has lived in the area for more than two decades, to whoops and cheers. "We could be the pilot study."
Fort Bragg is in Mendocino County, a stretch of coast famous for grand seascapes, organic wineries and trailblazing politics: The county was the first in the nation to legalize medical marijuana and to ban genetically modified crops and animals.
Fort Bragg changingFort Bragg, population 7,000, never fit in here. Home to the country's second-largest redwood mill for more than a century, it was a working man's town where the only wine tasting was at a row of smoky taverns. But change has come since the mill closed in 2002.
The town already has a Fair Trade coffee company and a raw food cooking school. The City Council is considering a ban on plastic grocery bags. And with the push for mushrooms, the town seems to have officially exchanged its grit for green.
The mill, owned by Georgia-Pacific, took up 420 acres, a space roughly half the size of Central Park in Manhattan, between downtown Fort Bragg and the Pacific Ocean. Among several toxic hot spots discovered here were five plots of soil with high levels of dioxin that Georgia-Pacific says were ash piles from 2001-2, when the mill burned wood from Bay Area landfills to create power and sell it to Pacific Gas & Electric.
Debate remains about how toxic dioxin is to humans, but the Department of Toxic Substances Control says there is no safe level of exposure.
Kimi Klein, a human health toxicologist with the department, said that although the dioxin on the mill site is not the most toxic dioxin out there, there is "very good evidence" that chronic exposure to dioxin causes cancer and "it is our policy to say if any chemical causes cancer there is no safe level."
Town could lose millionsFort Bragg must clean the dioxin-contaminated coastline this year or risk losing a $4.2 million grant from the California Coastal Conservancy for a coastal trail. Its options: haul the soil in a thousand truckloads to a landfill about 200 miles away, or bury it on site in a plastic-lined, 1.3-acre landfill.
Alarmed by the ultimatum, residents called in Paul E. Stamets, author of "Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World."
Typically, contaminated soil is hauled off, buried or burned. Using the mushroom method, Stamets said, it is put in plots, strewn with straw and left alone with mushroom spawn. The spawn release a fine, threadlike web called mycelium that secretes enzymes "like little Pac-Mans that break down molecular bonds," Stamets said. And presto: Toxins fall apart.
In January, Stamets came down from Fungi Perfecti, his mushroom farm in Olympia, Wash. He walked the 3-mile coastline at the site, winding around rocky coves on wind-swept bluffs where grass has grown over an airstrip but barely conceals the ash piles. It was "one of the most beautiful places in the world, hands down," he said.
Quick to caution against easy remedies - "I am not a panacea for all their problems" - he says he has hope for cleaning up dioxin and other hazardous substances on the site. "The less recalcitrant toxins could be broken down within 10 years."
At least two dioxin-degrading species of mushroom indigenous to the Northern California coast could work, he said: turkey tail and oyster mushrooms. Turkey tails have ruffled edges and are made into medicinal tea. Oyster mushrooms have domed tops and are frequently found in Asian food.
Mushroom fans see growthLocal mushroom enthusiasts envision the site as a global center for the study of bioremediation that could even export fungi to other polluted communities.
"Eventually, it could be covered in mushrooms," said Antonio Wuttke, who lives in neighboring Mendocino and describes his occupation as environmental landscape designer, over a cup of organic Sumatra at the Headlands Coffee House.
The proposal is not without critics, however.
"There still needs to be further testing on whether it works on dioxin," Edgardo R. Gillera, a hazardous substances scientist for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, said. "There has only been a handful of tests, in labs and field studies on a much smaller scale. I need to see more studies on a larger scale to consider it a viable option."
On April 14, at a packed City Council meeting, an environmental consultant hired by the city voiced skepticism, citing a study finding that mushrooms reduced dioxins by only 50 percent. Jonathan Shepard, a soccer coach, stood up and asked: "Why 'only'? I think we should rephrase that. I think we should give thanks and praise to a merciful God that provided a mushroom that eats the worst possible toxin that man can create."
Jim Tarbell, an author and something of a sociologist of the Mendocino Coast, says the enthusiasm for bioremediation shows a change in the culture at large.
"We are trying to move from the extraction economy to the restoration economy," Tarbell said. "I think that's a choice that a broad cross-section of the country is going to have to look at."
At the meeting, Georgia-Pacific promised to finance a pilot project. Roger J. Hilarides, who manages cleanups for the company, offered the city at least one 10-cubic-yard bin of dioxin-laced soil and a five-year lease on the site's greenhouse and drying sheds for mushroom testing. And the City Council said it would approve the landfill but only if it came with bioremediation experiments.
So, sometime this year, Stamets is scheduled to begin testing a dump truck's load of dioxin-laced dirt in Fort Bragg.
"One bin. Ten cubic yards. That's a beginning," said Dave Turner, a council member. "I have hope - I wouldn't bet my house on it - but I have a hope we can bioremediate this."


5. 31 Cent Ice Cream to Honor Nation's Firefighters:Baskin-Robbins Stores Make Donation to Nationall Fallen Firefighters Foundation http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?sectionId=46&id=59306
Posted: 04-29-2008
Updated: 04-29-2008 12:38:05
PMFirehouse.Com
NewsBaskin-Robbins

Firefighters across the nation will be visiting with citizens and residents at many of the Baskin-Robbins throughout country on April 30. Career and volunteer firefighters and paramedics and civilian members will participate in conjunction with the 31 Cent Scoop Night at Baskin-Robbins to help to honor America's firefighters. Participating Baskin-Robbins stores will reduce prices of small ice cream scoops to 31 cents on Wednesday, April 30, from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m.
This promotion will result in a donation of $100,000 by Baskin-Robbins to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation remembers America's fallen heroes and assists their families. The NFFF organization provides firefighters with training to prevent deaths in the line of duty and offers the public information to prevent fires in our communities.
Baskin-Robbins has also selected 31 members of the fire service to honor as America's Firefighting Heroes. They were nominated for going above and beyond the call of duty. "These firefighters have helped save lives and guarantee the safety of our neighborhoods," according to the Baskin-Robbins Web site.



Honorable Mentions:
1. Human Protein May Offer Novel Target for Blocking HIV Infection: Successful In Lab
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080428175345.htmScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2008)

A research group supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has uncovered a new route for attacking the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that may offer a way to circumvent problems with drug resistance. In findings published April 28 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers report that they have blocked HIV infection in the test tube by inactivating a human protein expressed in key immune cells.
Most of the drugs now used to fight HIV, which is the retrovirus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), target the virus's own proteins. However, because HIV has a high rate of genetic mutation, those viral targets change quickly and lead to the emergence of drug-resistant viral strains. Doctors have tried to outmaneuver the rapidly mutating virus by prescribing multi-drug regimens or switching drugs. But such strategies can increase the risk of toxic side effects, be difficult for patients to follow and are not always successful. Recently, interest has grown in attacking HIV on a new front by developing drugs that target proteins of human cells, which are far less prone to mutations than are viral proteins.
In the new study, Pamela Schwartzberg, M.D., Ph.D., a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of NIH; Andrew J. Henderson, Ph.D., of Boston University; and their colleagues found that when they interfered with a human protein called interleukin-2-inducible T cell kinase (ITK) they inhibited HIV infection of key human immune cells, called T cells. ITK is a signaling protein that activates T cells as part of the body's healthy immune response.
"This new insight represents an important contribution to HIV research," said NHGRI Scientific Director Eric D. Green, M.D., Ph.D. "Finding a cellular target that can be inhibited so as to block HIV validates a novel concept and is an exciting model for deriving potential new HIV therapies."
When HIV enters the body, it infects T cells and takes over the activities of these white blood cells so that the virus can replicate. Eventually, HIV infection compromises the entire immune system and causes AIDS. The new work shows that without active ITK protein, HIV cannot effectively take advantage of many signaling pathways within T cells, which in turn slows or blocks the spread of the virus.
"We were pleased and excited to realize the outcome of our approach," Dr. Schwartzberg said. "Suppression of the ITK protein caused many of the pathways that HIV uses to be less active, thereby inhibiting or slowing HIV replication."
In their laboratory experiments, the researchers used a chemical inhibitor and a type of genetic inhibitor, called RNA interference, to inactivate ITK in human T cells. Then, the T cells were exposed to HIV, and the researchers studied the effects of ITK inactivation upon various stages of HIV's infection and replication cycle. Suppression of ITK reduced HIV's ability to enter T cells and have its genetic material transcribed into new virus particles. However, ITK suppression did not interfere significantly with T cells' normal ability to survive, and mice deficient in ITK were able to ward off other types of viral infection, although antiviral responses were delayed.
"ITK turns out to be a great target to examine," said Dr. Schwartzberg, noting that researchers had been concerned that blocking other human proteins involved in HIV replication might kill or otherwise impair the normal functions of T cells.
According to Dr. Schwartzberg, ITK already is being investigated as a therapeutic target for asthma and other diseases that affect immune response. In people with asthma, ITK is required to activate T cells, triggering lung inflammation and production of excess mucus.
"There are several companies who have published research about ITK inhibitors as part of their target program," Schwartzberg said. "We hope that others will extend our findings and that ITK inhibitors will be pursued as HIV therapies."
NHGRI researchers received support for this work from the NIH Intramural AIDS Targeted Antiviral Program. Chemical compounds used in the research were synthesized at the NIH Chemical Genomics Center, which was established through the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research and is administered by NHGRI. The Boston University group originally participated in the research while at Pennsylvania State University, where they received support from Penn State Tobacco Formula Funds, and where Dr. Henderson received support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

2. Floyd Inflatable Pig is Recovered
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7374994.stm
Page last updated at 12:31 GMT,
Wednesday, 30 April 2008 13:31 UK

A giant inflatable pig which floated away during a Roger Waters concert at the weekend has been recovered in tatters in California.
The pig, which measured the width of two buses, was found by two families on their driveways in La Quinta.
They will split the $10,000 (£5,090) reward offered by the Coachella music festival, from where the pig was lost.
The inflatable pig bore the image of a ticked ballot box for US presidential hopeful Barack Obama on its underbelly.
Prototype pig
The animal's flanks carried the slogans "fear builds walls" and "don't be led to the slaughter", with a cartoon of Uncle Sam holding two meat cleavers.
Former Pink Floyd star Waters said "that's my pig" as it drifted away during Sunday's gig.
The inflatable appeared at the Coachella festival in California Coachella spokeswoman Marcee Rondan said: "It wasn't really supposed to happen that way."
The pig was tethered to the ground with ropes and floated away as Waters was playing one of the versions of Pink Floyd song Pigs.
Pink Floyd had used inflatable pigs during their concerts in the past, and the lost animal was the same prototype as all the others, according to Ms Rondan.
The two families who found what was left of the inflatable have also decided to share four life tickets to the Coachella festival that were offered as part of the reward.


3. Microsoft Device Helps Police Pluck Evidence from Cyberscene of Crime
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoft/2004379751_msftlaw29.html
April 30, 2008
By Benjamin J. Romano
Seattle Times technology reporter

Looking for answers on Microsoft's COFEE device Microsoft has developed a small plug-in device that investigators can use to quickly extract forensic data from computers that may have been used in crimes.
The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is a USB "thumb drive" that was quietly distributed to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith described its use to the 350 law-enforcement experts attending a company conference Monday.
The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.
It also eliminates the need to seize a computer itself, which typically involves disconnecting from a network, turning off the power and potentially losing data. Instead, the investigator can scan for evidence on site.
More than 2,000 officers in 15 countries, including Poland, the Philippines, Germany, New Zealand and the United States, are using the device, which Microsoft provides free.
"These are things that we invest substantial resources in, but not from the perspective of selling to make money," Smith said in an interview. "We're doing this to help ensure that the Internet stays safe."
Law-enforcement officials from agencies in 35 countries are in Redmond this week to talk about how technology can help fight crime. Microsoft held a similar event in 2006. Discussions there led to the creation of COFEE.
Smith compared the Internet of today to London and other Industrial Revolution cities in the early 1800s. As people flocked from small communities where everyone knew each other, an anonymity emerged in the cities and a rise in crime followed.
The social aspects of Web 2.0 are like "new digital cities," Smith said. Publishers, interested in creating huge audiences to sell advertising, let people participate anonymously.
That's allowing "criminals to infiltrate the community, become part of the conversation and persuade people to part with personal information," Smith said.
Children are particularly at risk to anonymous predators or those with false identities. "Criminals seek to win a child's confidence in cyberspace and meet in real space," Smith cautioned.
Expertise and technology like COFEE are needed to investigate cybercrime, and, increasingly, real-world crimes.
"So many of our crimes today, just as our lives, involve the Internet and other digital evidence," said Lisa Johnson, who heads the Special Assault Unit in the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
A suspect's online activities can corroborate a crime or dispel an alibi, she said.
The 35 individual law-enforcement agencies in King County, for example, don't have the resources to investigate the explosion of digital evidence they seize, said Johnson, who attended the conference.
"They might even choose not to seize it because they don't know what to do with it," she said. "... We've kind of equated it to asking specific law-enforcement agencies to do their own DNA analysis. You can't possibly do that."
Johnson said the prosecutor's office, the Washington Attorney General's Office and Microsoft are working on a proposal to the Legislature to fund computer forensic crime labs.
Microsoft also got credit for other public-private partnerships around law enforcement.
Jean-Michel Louboutin, Interpol's executive director of police services, said only 10 of 50 African countries have dedicated cybercrime investigative units.
"The digital divide is no exaggeration," he told the conference. "Even in countries with dedicated cybercrime units, expertise is often too scarce."
He credited Microsoft for helping Interpol develop training materials and international databases used to prevent child abuse.
Smith acknowledged Microsoft's efforts are not purely altruistic. It benefits from selling collaboration software and other technology to law-enforcement agencies, just like everybody else, he said.



4. New Solar Energy System Makes it Possible to Produce Wholesale Electricity at a Cost Competitive with Fossil Fuels http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/new-solar-energy-system-makes,370859.shtml
Posted : Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:49:35 GMT
Author: DC-SUNRGI
Category : Press Release
WASHINGTON - (Business Wire)

A new patents pending solar energy system will soon make it possible to produce electricity at a wholesale cost of 5 cents per kWh (kilowatt hour). This price is competitive with the wholesale cost of producing electricity using fossil fuels and a fraction of the current cost of solar energy.
XCPV (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics), a system that concentrates the equivalent of more than 1,600 times the sun’s energy onto the world’s most efficient solar cells, was announced today by SUNRGI, a solar energy system designer and developer, at the National Energy Marketers Association’s 11th Annual Global Energy Forum in Washington, DC. The technology will enable power companies, businesses, and residents to produce electricity from solar energy at a lower cost than ever before.
“Solar Power at 5 cents per kWh would be a world-changing breakthrough,” said Craig Goodman, president, National Energy Marketers Association. “It would make solar generation of electricity as affordable as generation from coal, natural gas or other non-renewable sources, without requiring a subsidy.”
“In a little more than a year we were able to develop and successfully test XCPV,” said Robert S. (Bob) Block, co-founder and SUNRGI principal. “We expect the SUNRGI system to become available for both on- and off-grid power applications, worldwide, in twelve to fifteen months.”
What differentiates SUNRGI’s XCPV system from any other solar energy system includes: a proprietary, integrated low profile technology for concentrating sunlight; a proprietary technology and methodology for cooling solar cells; a low cost, modular system optimized for mass-production; less land area or “roof top” requirements than typical solar energy systems; a technology roadmap for continuous improvement; low-cost field installation; and, a custom-designed system for easy operation and maintenance.
ABOUT SUNRGI
SUNRGI, with offices in Reno, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, is in the business of designing and developing solar energy systems. It was formed by five experienced, entrepreneurial, inventive individuals with the goal of creating a renewable energy source that would be available at fossil fuel prices. Its work has led to the development of an entirely new solar energy category: Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics or XCPV. Visit http://www.sunrgi.com.