As your faithful scribe, I welcome you all to another edition of Overnight News Digest.
I am most pleased to share this platform with jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, rfall, JLM9999 and side pocket. Additionally, I wish to recognize our alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, Interceptor7, and ScottyUrb along with annetteboardman as our guest editor.
Neon Vincent is our editor-in-chief.
Special thanks go to Magnifico for starting this venerable series.
Lead Off Story
The Soma Mining Disaster Becomes The Worst In Turkey's History
At least 274 coal miners were killed in a mine in the western Turkish province of Manisa’s Soma district on May 13 after a fire broke out following an explosion at a power distribution unit.
“We are moving toward the worst mining disaster in Turkey,” Yıldız said at 10:22 a.m. on May 14 while 120 workers are feared to be still trapped inside, according to reports.
Until the Soma disaster, the deadliest accident in Turkish mining history occurred in a facility in the Black Sea province of Zonguldak’s Kozlu district in 1992 due to a pit gas explosion that left 263 people dead.
The government declared three days of national mourning and clashes erupted in the evening in Istanbul, Ankara, but also in Soma, the epicenter of the sorrow and rage.
Here are the live updates:
23.00: Clashes between police and smaller groups on the Asian side of Istanbul rekindled.
22.30: Energy Minister Taner Yıldız announced that the death toll had climbed to 274. Özgür Özel, an MP from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), claimed that around 350 workers died.
22.00: With the death toll standing at 245, with around 120 workers still trapped in the mine, protests throughout Turkey have slowed. The ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) local office in Soma has been attacked and damaged, but the mourning-turned-rage has also given way to calm again in the mining town
harriyetdailynews
World News
Qatar Government Admits Almost 1,000 Fatalities Among Migrant Workers
The major report commissioned by Qatar into its treatment of migrant workers produced more than 60 suggested reforms – and one telling confirmation: that hundreds of workers have died, many of them from unexplained sudden illness, over the past two years, at a rate of more than one a day.
The report by the international law firm DLA Piper calls for changes to the much-criticised kafala system that ties workers to their employers. It also contains the Qatari government's own figure on the numbers of migrants who have died on its soil: 964 from Nepal, India and Bangladesh in 2012 and 2013. In all, 246 died from "sudden cardiac death" in 2012, the report said, 35 died in falls and 28 committed suicide.
But the real purpose of the 135-page report, commissioned in the wake of Guardian revelations about appalling working conditions in Qatar, was to make recommendations for reform. The document was welcomed by human rights campaigners as a major step forward, particularly given early fears that DLA Piper's independence could be compromised by its work for Qatar-owned news network al-Jazeera.
But they also warned that its recommendations must be followed by action to a clear timetable and were disheartened that little reference was made to the report in Wednesday's announcement.
"The verdict from DLA Piper is clear. The sponsorship system is not fit for purpose and the exit permit isn't justifiable," said James Lynch of Amnesty International. "Rather than rejigging and renaming the system, the government should commit now to genuine deep-rooted reform, and a wider programme of measures tackling access to justice, health and holding private sector accountable for abuses against migrant workers."
The report made 62 recommendations across nine key areas.
guardian
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Report Highlights Child Labor On U.S. Tobacco Farms
You may have to be at least 18 to buy cigarettes in the U.S., but children as young as 7 are working long hours in fields harvesting nicotine- and pesticide-laced tobacco leaves under sometimes hazardous and sweltering conditions, according to a report released Wednesday by an international rights group.
The Human Rights Watch report details findings from interviews with more than 140 children working on farms in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, where a majority of the country’s tobacco is grown. The group acknowledges that most of what it documented is legal under U.S. law but aims to highlight the practice and urge both governments and tobacco companies to take further steps to protect children from the hazardous harvesting of the cash crop that has built businesses, funded cities and influenced cultures.
“The U.S. has failed America’s families by not meaningfully protecting child farmworkers from dangers to their health and safety, including on tobacco farms,” said Margaret Wurth, children’s rights researcher and co-author of the report. “Farming is hard work anyway, but children working on tobacco farms get so sick that they throw up, get covered by pesticides and have no real protective gear.”
Children interviewed by the group in 2012 and 2013 reported vomiting, nausea and headaches while working on tobacco farms. The symptoms they reported are consistent with nicotine poisoning often called Green Tobacco Sickness, which occurs when workers absorb nicotine through their skin while handling tobacco plants.
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According to the report, U.S. agriculture labor laws allow children to work longer hours at younger ages and in more hazardous conditions than children in any other industry. With their parent’s permission, children as young as 12 can be hired for unlimited hours outside of school hours on a farm of any size. And there’s no minimum age for children to work on small farms.
japantimes
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Factories Burned In Anti-China Protest In Vietnam
Mobs burned and looted scores of foreign-owned factories in Vietnam following a large protest by workers against China’s recent placement of an oil rig in disputed Southeast Asian waters, officials said Wednesday.
The unrest at industrial parks near Ho Chi Minh City is the most serious outbreak of public disorder in the tightly controlled country in years. It points to the dangers for the government as it tries to manage public anger at China while also itself protesting the Chinese actions in an area of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam.
Vietnam has sent ships to confront the rig which are engaged in a tense standoff with Chinese vessels protecting it.
The rioting Tuesday into Wednesday in Binh Duong province followed protests by up to 20,000 workers at the industrial parks. Smaller groups of men attacked factories they believed were Chinese-run, but many were Taiwanese or South Korean, the provincial government said in a statement.
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The Singapore government, which operates two industrial parks hit by rioters, called on Vietnam “to act immediately to restore law and order ... before the security situation worsens and investor confidence is undermined.”
wapo
U.S. News
11,000 Flee As New Wildfire Erupts In Southern California
More than 11,000 homes and businesses were ordered to evacuate on Wednesday and power was cut off to many residents as a wind-lashed wildfire roared out of control in San Diego County, authorities said.
The so-called Poinsettia Fire, which erupted shortly before 11 a.m. in the seaside California community of Carlsbad, some 25 miles north of San Diego, quickly became a top priority for crews battling flames across the region.
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Local television images showed what appeared to be a number of homes burning, and San Diego Gas and Electric reported that an estimated 2,000 residents in and around Carlsbad were without power.
Meanwhile a second fire, called the Tomahawk, broke out on the Camp Pendleton Marine Base north of San Diego and had left more than 100 acres charred by mid-afternoon, prompting evacuation of military housing and a naval weapons station.
The new fires erupted just hours after crews aided by diminished overnight winds, made substantial headway against the so-called Bernardo Fire, which had forced thousands to flee their homes in and around San Diego for several hours in the afternoon and evening on Tuesday.
chitrib
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California’s Thirst Shapes Debate Over Fracking
Enemies of fracking have a new argument: drought.
Fracking a single oil well in California last year took 87 percent of the water consumed in a year by a family of four, according to the Western States Petroleum Association, an industry lobbying group. That amount — a modest one by national standards, argues the oil industry — has become an increasingly delicate topic since a drought was officially declared early this year in the state.
The drought, combined with a recent set of powerful earthquakes, has provided the momentum for about a dozen local governments across California, the third-largest oil producing state, to vote to restrict or prohibit fracking in their jurisdictions, as concerns over environmental effects and water usage have grown.
At the same time, a bill that would declare a statewide moratorium on fracking has been gathering support in the State Senate, a year after a similar effort failed.
“There will be a statewide moratorium, whether it comes this year, next year or the year after that,” said Kathryn Phillips, the director of Sierra Club California, a leading opponent of fracking. “Even if we don’t get a moratorium, just the threat of a moratorium discourages investment.”
nyt
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Increase In Earthquakes May Be Tied To Groundwater Pumping
For years, scientists have wondered what are the forces that keep pushing up California's mighty Sierra Nevada and central coast ranges, causing an increase in the number of earthquakes in parts of Central California..
On Wednesday, a group of scientists offered a new intriguing theory: that the quakes are being caused in part by pumping of groundwater in the Central Valley.
“These results suggest that human activity may give rise to a gradual increase in the rate of earthquake occurrence”- Study Authors
“These results suggest that human activity may give rise to a gradual increase in the rate of earthquake occurrence,” said the study published in the journal Nature Wednesday, written by scientists at Western Washington University, University of Ottawa, University of Nevada, Reno and UC Berkeley.
Using new GPS data, the scientists found a surprising observation that the mountains closest to California's thirsty Central Valley were growing at a faster-than-expected rate compared to ranges further away -- a rate of 1 to 3 millimeters a year, enough to lift them by less than half a foot over the last 150 years.
latimes
Science and Technology
Dean Kamen's DARPA-Funded Prosthetic Arm Gets FDA Approval
For eight years now, the DEKA prosthetic arm -- a DARPA-funded project aimed at improving the lives of amputees -- has been moving slowly toward FDA approval. Now, right on schedule, the mind-controlled, robotic prosthetic has been approved up by the Food and Drug Administration.
Nicknamed the "Luke" arm by its creators, the DEKA arm now has the distinction of being the first FDA-approved arm that can move multiple joints at once by receiving commands from electromyograms, or EMG, electrodes on remaining parts of the arm. In a study from 2012, the arm was also succesfully "mind-controlled" through the use of neural implants. As part of a "fast-track" review, the FDA reviewed a study of the arm, which "found that approximately 90 percent of study participants were able to perform activities with the DEKA Arm System that they were not able to perform with their current prosthesis, such as using keys and locks, preparing food, feeding oneself, using zippers, and brushing and combing hair."
The company won't start producing the arm and delivering it to amputees until they find a manufacturer, but this looks like a major milestone in the field of prosthetics.
popsci
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New Implanted Devices May Reshape Medicine:
Researchers Create Transistors That Wrap Around Tissues
Researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Tokyo have created electronic devices that become soft when implanted inside the body and can deploy to grip 3-D objects, such as large tissues, nerves and blood vessels.
These biologically adaptive, flexible transistors might one day help doctors learn more about what is happening inside the body, and stimulate the body for treatments.
The research, available online and in an upcoming print issue of Advanced Materials, is one of the first demonstrations of transistors that can change shape and maintain their electronic properties after they are implanted in the body, said Jonathan Reeder BS'12, a graduate student in materials science and engineering and lead author of the work.
"Scientists and physicians have been trying to put electronics in the body for a while now, but one of the problems is that the stiffness of common electronics is not compatible with biological tissue," he said. "You need the device to be stiff at room temperature so the surgeon can implant the device, but soft and flexible enough to wrap around 3-D objects so the body can behave exactly as it would without the device. By putting electronics on shape-changing and softening polymers, we can do just that."
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The polymers respond to the body's environment and become less rigid when they're implanted. In addition to the polymers, the electronic devices are built with layers that include thin, flexible electronic foils first characterized by a group including Reeder in work published last year in Nature.
sciencedaily
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Restoration Of Large Damage Volumes In Polymers
Abstract:
The regenerative power of tissues and organs in biology has no analog in synthetic materials. Although self-healing of microscopic defects has been demonstrated, the regrowth of material lost through catastrophic damage requires a regenerative-like approach. We demonstrate a vascular synthetic system that restores mechanical performance in response to large-scale damage. Gap-filling scaffolds are created through a two-stage polymer chemistry that initially forms a shape-conforming dynamic gel but later polymerizes to a solid structural polymer with robust mechanical properties. Through the control of reaction kinetics and vascular delivery rate, we filled impacted regions that exceed 35 mm in diameter within 20 min and restored mechanical function within 3 hours. After restoration of impact damage, 62% of the total absorbed energy was recovered in comparison with that in initial impact tests.
sciencemag
Well, that's different...
Recurring Theme:
An unnamed "gangland" bomber was killed in March in Dublin, Ireland, when the payload exploded prematurely. The detonation occurred on the morning of March 30, which marked the daylight saving time change in Ireland, and police concluded that, most likely, the bomber had forgotten to set the timer ahead that morning, which would have given him up to 60 more minutes to plant the bomb and leave.
newsoftheweird
Bill Moyers and Company:
Time to Get Real On Climate Change
A geneticist [David Suzuki] who has made science exciting to millions of TV viewers warns that we’re burning up the planet, but there’s still a chance we can make it.