Headlines – Page 33 – The Speaker News Journal

Ten-Year-Old CG Girl “Sweetie” Used to Collect Identities of 1,000 Online Sex Predators From Chatrooms

June 10, 2015June 30, 2014 by Heidi Woolf

Amsterdam-based advertising agency Lemz created a CG 10-year old to enter chatrooms and collect 1,000 identities of participants in a form of child sex tourism called webcam child sex tourism. The advertising team spent 10 weeks of 10-hour days hunting for predators. This week, the children’s charity Terre des Hommes, which was partly responsible for the Sweetie campaign, won the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity for the project.

Sweetie is a computer model who looks and moves like a real girl, according to Lemz. Sweetie is animated by capturing the movements of a real person with a camera and motion sensors and applying them to the model. Every movement the real person makes–down to blinking–is replicated in Sweetie. “Men think she’s sitting in front of a webcam in the Philippines, but she’s actually operated by Terre des Hommes from a warehouse in the capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam. While Sweetie is chatting we track down the men.”

“As a marketer, the model I used to understand this problem was one of supply and demand,” said Lemz’s Mark Woerde. “It was clear to me that the demand-side needed to be stopped in order to stop growth of the ‘supply’ of child victims.”

Lemz began researching online predators before they conceived of Sweetie. The team went online after reading an article about webcam child sex tourism. The team entered a random chatroom and claimed to be an adult male from Holland.

An 8-year-old Filipino boy contacted them and “almost immediately offered to take off his clothes if [Woerde] sent him some money.” Woerde immediately closed his laptop and cried, he later said.

After days thinking about the Filipino boy she had encountered, Woerde decided to imitate that child to catch predators in the act and convince them to identify themselves. “We would turn the vulnerability of these children into a weapon against their abusers,” stated Woerde.

Lemz’s art directors worked with artists and animators at Motek Entertainment and Brekel 3D to create Sweetie. Four Lemz staff members then spent 10 weeks of 10-hour days in chatrooms as Sweetie, collecting names, locations and webcam footage until 1,000 such predators were netted.

The predators netted by Sweetie resided in 71 countries and all but 1 were male.

Lemz then delivered their research to Interpol as evidence. Lemz also began a global PR campaign.

Woerde said that she hoped the “campaign has also shown people in all creative industries, including advertising, that the world needs their skills and gifts to solve real global problems.”

“If catching them is so easy webcam child sex tourism can be stopped,” claimed Lemz in their promotional video. “What we need now is pro-active policing… If we can trace 1,000 men in two months, police forces can trace more than 100,000 in a year.”

Stop webcam child sex tourism! Lemz PR Campaign to Catch Online Webcam Child Sex Predators

By Heidi Woolf

South Sudan Crisis Could Not Have Been Predicted, Says UN Envoy, Preparing Step Down From Leadership in South Sudan

October 17, 2014June 30, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

The speed, the scale and the scope of what has unfolded in South Sudan during the last six months could not have been predicted, said Hilde Johnson, the UN head in the world’s youngest nation, who spoke at a press conference in New York Monday about her upcoming withdrawal from the leadership of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).

At the press conference, Johnson referred to the situation in South Sudan as “bleak” and stressed the need to put the welfare of South Sudanese above all other concerns, as well as to bring to justice those responsible for crimes committed during the conflict.

“Although I knew it would be rocky and difficult and challenging and we would be under significant pressure,” said Johnson, “I did not expect what happened in the last six months – the speed, the scale and the scope of what has unfolded before our eyes.

“Yet, the events took a life of their own, and the took an ethnic turn, and I think that is one of the reasons why we saw [what] we saw,” said Johnson, referring to the ethnic Nuer-Dinka killings that have been reported to characterize a large part of the fighting.

Hilde Johnson — HIlde Johnson at the New York press conference

Johnson led an UNMISS that was focussed on building the nation. Since the fighting broke out last December, the UN mission has changed. It is now focussed more on peacekeeping and protecting South Sudanese lives. Johnson said this was “a very different from the mandate I took office on.”

The change was “not something we chose to do,” said Johnson. The UN was obliged to do so in order to save lives, which, Johnson said, had been saved.

The 12,000 UN peacekeepers and other workers who would compose the UN force decided on by UNMISS in January has not yet been realized, but Johnson made another statement that the force would now be possible after the May 27 Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) meeting.

The country of South Sudan came into being in 2011 by seceeding from Sudan through a near-unanimous UN-backed referendum.

The conflict that has now lasted six months in South Sudan and caused thousands of deaths and over one million displaced began as a political scuffle between the supporters of South Sudan’s president Salva Kiir and supporters of former Vice President Riek Machar, who was removed by Kiir last summer as part of what Kiir has said was a paring down of government.

Currently, humanitarian action in South Sudan is focussed on assisting people through the rainy season, in which the country’s scant roads are often impassable and human resources are scarce.

Humanitarian agencies face the task of assisting 3.8 million South Sudanese–and another 3 million are at risk–according to UNOCHA estimates.

Johnson served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of UNMISS since 2011, when UNMISS was first established. Johnson announced that she was stepping down earlier this year.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Duke University Scientists Create Method to Measure the Effects of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation on the Brain, Offering Hope of Improvements in TMS Therapy

October 17, 2014June 30, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Neuroscientists and engineers at North Carolina’s Duke University have pioneered a method with which the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on the brain can be measured. The Duke team has made it possible to measure the response of a single neuron to an electromagnetic charge–something that has not before been possible. The work offers the potential to improve and initiate novel TMS therapy approaches.

“This report focused on the innovative methodology that allowed us to record from single neurons,” Duke professor of biomedical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and neurobiology and lead researcher on the team, Warren Grill, told The Speaker. The team was able to record an increase in a neuron’s firing rate in the wake of the short, rapidly varying magnetic field created by TMS. The increase in firing lasted approximately 100 ms after the TMS pulse, according to Grill.

The report, “Simultaneous transcranial magnetic stimulation and single-neuron recording in alert non-human primates,” was authored by Jerel K Mueller, Erinn M Grigsby, Vincent Prevosto, Frank W Petraglia III, Hrishikesh Rao, Zhi-De Deng, Angel V Peterchev, Marc A Sommer, Tobias Egner, Michael L Platt, in addition to Grill, was published in Nature and was supported by a Duke Institute for Brain Sciences Research Incubator Award and by a grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a widely-used procedure wherein electromagnetic coils are held up to the skull and short electromagnetic pulses are run through the coil. It has long been understood that neurons react to TMS, and the procedure has been used to treat psychiatric disorders, substance abuse and other health conditions. Although preferable to other treatment methods because TMS is noninvasive, its mechanisms have always been poorly understood, making improvements difficult.

In part, the barrier to understanding the mechanisms of TMS is due to the difficulty of measuring neural responses during the procedure. The neural response is electric,and the current charging the TMS bears an overwhelmingly stronger electric charge.

Grill said of the difficulty in understanding TMS without measuring its effects, “Nobody really knows what TMS is doing inside the brain, and given that lack of information, it has been very hard to interpret the outcomes of studies or to make therapies more effective. We set out to try to understand what’s happening inside that black box by recording activity from single neurons during the delivery of TMS in a non-human primate. Conceptually, it was a very simple goal. But technically, it turned out to be very challenging.”

Although thousands of times smaller than the charge of the TMS, the neural response can be measured by the research team’s hardware. The team also overcame the obstruction posed by the recording device, which also emitted an electric current.

“Studies with TMS have all been empirical,” said Grill. “You could look at the effects and change the coil, frequency, duration or many other variables. Now we can begin to understand the physiological effects of TMS and carefully craft protocols rather than relying on trial and error. I think that is where the real power of this research is going to come from.”

The Duke team’s research is open to anyone with a lab, according to the researchers. “[A]ny modern lab working with non-human primates and electrophysiology can use this same approach in their studies,” said Grill. The team said they hope others would pursue this line of research, and contribute to improvements in TMS therapy.

“This research will allow us first to quantify and understand the effects of TMS on neurons, and subsequently to design novel approaches, including stimulation waveforms and stimulation coil design to amplify or modify those effects,” Grill told us.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Nature

Fracking Can Be Banned by Local Communities, Says New York’s Highest Court

October 17, 2014June 30, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

$fracking$

Local communities have the power to use local zoning laws to ban heavy industry, such as oil and gas production and fracking, according to New York’s Court of Appeals Monday. The state’s highest court ruled in a 5-2 decision that the towns of Dryden and Middlefield could ban such industry within municipal borders.

“Today the Court stood with the people of Dryden and the people of New York to protect their right to self determination,” said Dryden Deputy Supervisor Jason Leifer. “It is clear that people, not corporations, have the right to decide how their community develops.”

The ruling effects more than just Dryden and Middlefield. More than 170 New York municipalities and many communities in Colorado, Ohio, Texas, New Mexico, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and California have passed or are attempting to pass measures against fracking, and the ruling is considered to significantly empower those citizens to establish bans or moratoriums on unwanted industry.

“Heavy industry has never been allowed in our small farming town and three years ago, we decided that fracking was no exception,” said Dryden Town Supervisor Mary Ann Sumner. “The oil and gas industry tried to bully us into backing down, but we took our fight all the way to New York’s highest court. And today we won.”

Communities have faced daunting odds in their attempts to assert self determination when industry interests are at stake.

“This decision by the Court of Appeals has settled the matter once and for all across New York State and has sent a firm message to the oil and gas industry,” said Deborah Goldberg, managing attorney at Earthjustice, who worked on the case. “For too long the oil and gas industry has intimidated and abused people, expecting to get away with it. That behavior is finally coming back to haunt them, as communities across the country stand up and say ‘no more.’ Earthjustice is proud to have stood with, and fought on behalf of, one such community.”

“Town by town, New Yorkers have taken a stand against fracking. Today’s victory confirms that each of these towns is on firm legal ground,” said Helen Slottje, an Ithaca-based attorney whose legal research inspired New York’s fracking ban. “The oil and gas industry tried to take away a fundamental right that pre-dates even the Declaration of Independence: the right of municipalities to regulate local land use. But they failed. The anti-fracking measures passed by Dryden, Middlefield and dozens of other New York municipalities are fully enforceable.”

Dryden began its organized opposition to oil and gas projects in 2009 when it began to learn about the technique the companies planned to use to extract oil and gas–fracking. Dryen residents organized under the Dryden Resource Awareness Coalition (DRAC) and convinved the town board to prohibit oil and gas development activities, including fracking.

An interested oil and gas company sued the town weeks later. Dryden argued that they had the right to make local land use decisions under the provisions of the New York State Constitution, including where oil and gas interests were involved. In 2012, a trial court agreed, and a mid-level appeals court also found for the residents in 2013.

“Today’s ruling shows all of America that a committed group of citizens and public officials can stand together against fearful odds and successfully defend their homes, their way of life and the environment against those who would harm them all in the name of profit,” said Leifer.

Dryden – The Small Town that Changed the Fracking Game

By James Haleavy

Two Days After News Australia Has Highest Number of Citizens Fighting Jihad with ISIS, Extraordinary, Unseen Months-Old Government Video Emerges Threatening Asylum Seekers

October 17, 2014June 25, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Two days after news headlines told the world that Australia had the highest number per capita of nationals fighting Jihad overseas, a hard-line government statement threatening asylum seekers, recorded months ago but never shown to the public, has found its way to the news.

Last Thursday, it was reported that Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had said that 150 Australians were fighting in Iraq and Syria for the Sunni extremist group ISIS in that group’s attempt to establish a Sunni caliphate across the Middle East.

Additionally, the recent ISIS recruitment video “There Is No Life Without Jihad,” released this month, was reported to feature two Australians.

In addition to those already in the Middle East, Bishop had cancelled the passports of several Australian nationals on advice from intelligence agencies. Bishop also said that Australian citizens were not only participating in the conflict in Syria and Iraq, but were taking “leadership roles in radicalising others in these conflicts.”

“In Syria it seems that over a period of time they have moved from supporting the more moderate opposition groups to the extreme,” Bishop said, “and that includes this brutal extremist group ISIS.”

“We are concerned that Australians are working with them, being radicalised, learning the terrorist trade and if they come back to Australia of course it poses a threat.”

At the time, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison had said that Australia’s Abbott government was trying to find ways to cancel visa and revoke citizenship for dual nationals that have taken part in these conflicts, pointing out, “It is a crime to fight with terrorist organisations and this [ISIS] is a listed terrorist organisation.”

Prime Minister Tony Abbot also publicly spoke on the subject, saying that the government would do what it could to protect Australia from extremists returning to Australia.

“The best thing we can do for Australians at home is to ensure that jihadis do not come back to this country,” said Abbot.

“We will do everything we humanly can to stop jihadist terrorists coming into this country and if they do return to this country, we will do everything we reasonably can to ensure that they are not moving amongst the Australian community.

“We will ensure we stop the jihadists as well because the last thing we want is people who have been radicalised and militarized by experience with these Al Qaeda offshoots in the Middle East returning to create mischief here in Australia.”

In the video released Wednesday by The Guardian, which had been recorded in September but had never been shown to the public, Morrison spoke of detention centers on the Papua New Guinean (PNG) islands of Manus and Nauru, where asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other nations were being held.

“There are new rules in place under this government so I urge you to think carefully about your next decision and to make a decision to get on with the rest of your life and to not remain here and take the option to go back to the country from which you’ve originally come.”

Australia is a signatory to the Refugee Convention, under which the country cannot legally return asylum seekers to their origins if they are subject to persecution. Australia has been criticized for infringing upon the rights of asylum seekers by Human Rights Watch, who claimed that residents of Manus had been offered repatriation despite their testimony that they feared certain death if returned to their country of origin.

In the video, Morrison tells asylum seekers that certain detainees would never be resettled in Australia under the governments “PNG solution.”

The PNG solution detains all arriving asylum seekers who come by boat to be processed and resettled off of the Australian mainland.

“You will not be getting what you got on that boat for,” said Morrison, “and anyone else who tries to come will not get what they got on that boat for.

“You have been brought to this place here because you have sought to illegally enter Australia by boat. The new Australian government will not be putting up with those sorts of arrivals. ” Morrison spoke of the asylum seekers, saying that if they had valid claims, they would still “never be resettled in Australia,” and if they did not have claims, they would be detained in the camp until they return, and that the government would not change its position.

“If you choose not to go home then you will spend a very, very long time here and so I urge you to think carefully about that decision and make a decision to get on with the rest of your life.

“You have been told a lie by people smugglers. They have taken advantage of you. They have ripped you off. And I understand you will feel very angry about that. But the facts will not change. You are where you are because you have sought to come to Australia illegally by boat. You should tell anyone else you know who seeks to follow you that they should not do it, or they shall find themselves in a similar circumstance or much, much worse. You should tell anyone in Australia who may have supported you… that the new government will be looking for them.”

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Grandson of Faygo Soda Suing the Family Business Over Ageism

October 17, 2014June 24, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Two years after being terminated at Faygo, a soda pop company known for making old-fashioned soda, the grandson of founder Hugh Rosenthal is suing his grandfather’s company, claiming he was fired merely because of his age.

Rosenthal was fired 2012 when he was marketing director and was 66. He was the third generation of Rosenthals to work at Faygo. He began as director of marketing in 1992.

When Rosenthal was fired two years ago in July, he filed a discrimination charge the same day with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Last April, the EEOC granted Rosenthal the right to sue, and he filed suit in the US District Court last week.

Rosenthal first learned that he was losing his job in late 2011 when he saw a job ad for Faygo on Careerbuilder.com. He learned that he was to train his replacement, after which his employment would end, according to Rosenthal’s lawsuit.

“My first reaction was that I was betrayed by my friends,” said Rosenthal. “I had been going to lunch with these guys for 20 years every day. Then I was angry. My work record was as good as a work record could be. … There was no legitimate business reason to let me go.”

The reasons Faygo provided for letting Rosenthal go “were inaccurate, untrue,” and “manufactured,” according to Rosenthal’s suit, although the suit does not list the reasons.

Faygo contends that Rosenthal was an independent contractor–and so not protected by the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), under which Rosenthal is suing the company.

Rosenthal’s suit seeks lost wages and damages. “I’m hoping Faygo comes to their senses and says, ‘OK, we’re sorry. We shouldn’t have terminated you,’” Rosenthal said.

The ADEA was signed in under former US President Lyndon B. Johnson, and forbade age discrimination of people over 40. Since 1986 it has also prohibited mandatory retirement in many sectors.

Case law relevant to Rosenthal’s suit includes Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Lab (2008), in which it was decided that employers bear the burden of proving that a lay-off was not based on age.

The ADEA contains remedies for reinstatement, or back pay and damages if reinstatement is not feasible or the employers violation was intentional.

Faygo was started in Detroit, Michigan in 1907 as the Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works by two Russian brothers. The first uses of the soda flavors grape, strawberry and fruit punch were inspired by the brothers cake frosting recipes. The company was turned over to the sons of the founders in the 1940s. Faygo was sold out of the family in 1987 to National Beverage Corp.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Meridian

Battle Creek Enquirer

Detroit News

Azerbaijan, Leader of Council of Europe, Called on to Address Its Human Rights Abuses

October 17, 2014June 23, 2014 by Sid Douglas

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Human Rights Watch has called on the current leader of Europe’s leading human rights body, Azerbaijan, to end persecution of government critics and independent groups. Azerbaijan took over the leadership of the Council of Europe

in Early May amid much criticism due to the country’s human rights record and ongoing human rights violations, which have been documented by international rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

In particular, Azerbaijan is criticized for its treatment of news media, government critics and independent groups. Abuse of over 40 activists, journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders has been documented by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. Most of these people are now in prison. Azerbaijan uses charges such as drug and weapons possession, incitement to violence, hooliganism, tax evasion and treason against these citizens, as reported by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups, although Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly denied politically motivated persecutions.

“It’s sheer irony that Azerbaijan presides over a body whose standards it so flagrantly violates. The Council of Europe’s leadership should not miss this opportunity to urge Aliyev to free people who are behind bars for nothing more than speaking their minds and to allow independent groups to operate,” stated Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director.

In January the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution that stated, “The combination of the restrictive implementation of freedoms with unfair trials and the undue influence of the executive results in the systemic detention of people who may be considered prisoners of conscience,” and one month before the election of Azerbaijan to the chair, the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner Nils Muiznieks issued a statement that read, “Unjustified and selective criminal prosecution of people expressing dissenting views, including journalists, bloggers and activists, continues unabated. This is unacceptable. All those who are detained because of the views they expressed must be released.”

The chairmanship of the Council of Europe is a six-month rotating position.

By Sid Douglas

Top photo credit: Council of Europe

The Speaker

Human Rights Watch

Teleportation Accomplished by Netherlands Physicists

January 26, 2021June 23, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Teleportation Accomplished by Netherlands Physicists (4) — Micro chip pedestal

Physicists at Delft University, Netherlands have teleported information. The teleportation took place over a distance of three meters (10 feet), and used a procedure called quantum entanglement. The team achieved this teleportation with 100 percent reliability and without altering the pieces of matter. Teleportation of this nature has never been accomplished before outside of fiction.

Teleportation Accomplished by Netherlands Physicists (6) — Optical element forest

The Delft team transported the information contained in one qubit to another qubit three meters away. The team accomplished this by trapping electrons in diamonds at very low temperatures, set upon and wired to microchip pedestals and surrounded by a forest of optical elements. The team then shot lasers–which were guided through the optical elements–at the diamonds to create cubits within the diamonds. The cold diamonds served as prisons for the qubits. The researchers then caused a spin state in one qubit, and recorded a correlating alteration of the spin state in the qubits contained in the second diamond. The team recorded the spin states by placing low-temperature microscopes near the diamonds.

Teleportation Accomplished by Netherlands Physicists (2) — Ronald Hanson

“We use diamonds because ‘mini prisons’ for electrons are formed in this material whenever a nitrogen atom is located in the position of one of the carbon atoms,” said lead researcher for the project Ronald Hanson. “The fact that we’re able to view these miniature prisons individually makes it possible for us to study and verify an individual electron and even a single atomic nucleus. We’re able to set the spin [rotational direction] of these particles in a predetermined state, verify this spin and subsequently read out the data. We do all this in a material that can be used to make chips out of. This is important as many believe that only chip-based systems can be scaled up to a practical technology.”

Phrased according to the report, the team “prepar[ed] the teleporter through photon-mediated heralded entanglement between two distant electron spins and subsequently encode[d] the source qubit in a single nuclear spin.”

The report, “Unconditional quantum teleportation between distant solid-state qubits,” was completed by Delft’s Kavli Institute of Nanoscience’s W. Pfaff, B. Hensen, H. Bernien, S. B. van Dam, M. S. Blok, T. H. Taminiau, M. J. Tiggelman, R. N., Schouten, M. Markham, D. J. Twitchen, R. Hanson, and was published in Science Magazine.

Teleportation in fiction usually refers to a means of moving an object from one location to another without having to travel through the intervening space. Such teleportation is considered impossible according to the laws of physics In the Delft University report, an object is not transported, but a piece of information is. The Delft team transported the state of one electron to another without traversing the intermediate space–teleportation.

Teleportation Accomplished by Netherlands Physicists (3) — Small register of quantum bits under each dome

A qubit is a mechanical system, not a material. A qubit is composed of two states. For example, a photon–a single piece of light, is not a qubit–it is a particle of energy–but the process of polarizing a photon–making it rotate–is a qubit.

What is meant by quantum teleportation of a qubit is a process whereby the information of the qubit–its exact state –is transmitted from one to another qubit. How the information is transmitted through space is known as quantum entanglement.

Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which the quantum state of two particles cannot be described independently–instead, the quantum state refers to the system as a whole. Any changes to one qubit create corresponding changes in the other qubit.

Entanglement works to transport information, physicists believe, because of an unexplained interconnectedness between two particles. Distance is irrelevant, even across light-years.

“Entanglement is arguably the strangest and most intriguing consequence of the laws of quantum mechanics,” stated Hanson. “When two particles become entangled, their identities merge: their collective state is precisely determined but the individual identity of each of the particles has disappeared.”

The science of quantum information has faced the challenge of transferring quantum information between locations. Prior to the Delft study, an enormous error rate burdened this field of science in attempts to use entanglement to teleport information.

“The unique thing about our method is that the teleportation is guaranteed to work 100%. The information will always reach its destination, so to speak. And, moreover, the method also has the potential of being 100% accurate,” said Hanson.
Next for the Delft team is to extend the distance of teleportation. The team aims to shoot for 1,300 meters (4265 feet). The team plans to undertake this next phase this summer.

ScreenHunter_299 Jun. 22 12.27 — Delft team

The upcoming test, if successful, could provide evidence that would prove entanglement, and thereby disprove the rejection of the notion by Albert Einstein. There is a race in the community to be the first to prove entanglement through the “loophole-free Bell test,” considered one of the highest goals within quantum mechanics.

Implications of the research include the possibility for the development of the first true quantum computers, which are different from traditional transistor-based computers in that qubit-based computers are not confined to the 0 or 1 binary computation method, but are capable of superpositions of states–that is, quantum computers can simultaneously describe multiple values. The hope of quantum computers is that they will be vastly faster and make completely secure communications possible.

A video produced by the Delft team on teleportation:

Images: Hanson lab@TUDelft

Hanson Lab

Science Magazine

Superfoods: New Study Lists–and Ranks–World’s Healthiest Fruits and Vegetables

October 17, 2014June 22, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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A new study conducted by William Paterson University has ranked the healthiest fruit and vegetable superfoods. The 41-item list was compiled based on nutrient density, and is considered to be an important step toward defining and quantifying green foods based on their nutritional value in order to help consumers in choosing the healthiest foods.

New Study Lists--and Ranks--World's Healthiest Green Superfoods (4) — Jennifer Di Doia

The study, “Defining Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables: A Nutrient Density Approach,” was completed by William Paterson University’s Jennifer Di Doia, PhD, and published on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website.

The research employed a three-step process. First, potential powerhouse fruits and vegetables (PFV) were listed and nutrient and kilocalorie values were calculated for each PFV in their raw forms. A nutrient density score was calculated for each food, and limitations to the effective value of each nutrient were accounted for so that PFVs that were particularly rich in only one nutrient would not skew the results. Then, the most nutritious PFVs–containing the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) required 10 percent of daily nutrition–were selected and ranked.

Of 47 foods studied, only six did not measure up to the FDA requirements–raspberry, tangerine, cranberry, garlic, onion, and blueberry.

At the top of the list was watercress. Chinese cabbage, chard, beet green and spinach were also much higher in nutritional value by weight than other green superfoods. These top foods were found to be more than twice as nutritious as broccoli or red pepper, and around four times as nutritious as cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, tomatoe, lemon, lettuce, strawberries or oranges. In fact, Oranges, grapefruit, blackberry, leek, and sweet potato just barely made the list.

The researcher responsible for the study stated that she felt, “The focus on individual foods in terms of the nutrients they provide may facilitate better understanding of PFV than green leafy, yellow/orange, citrus, and cruciferous food groups that are emphasized,” but cautioned, “Foods within particular groups were studied; thus, other nutrient-dense items may have been overlooked. Because it was not possible to include phytochemical data in the calculation of nutrient density scores, the scores do not reflect all of the constituents that may confer health benefits.”

By Day Blakely Donaldson

CDC

World’s Most Authoritative Global Weather Forecast Service Becomes More User-Friendly

October 17, 2014June 22, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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The most authoritative global weather forecasting service, the World Weather Information Service, has been upgraded and revamped to be even more user-friendly. The service, based on the collaboration of 133 international meteorological services, offers forecasts for 1,719 global cities in 10 languages. The new site has a user-customized home page, is integrated with GIS, and is mobile-friendly.

According to WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud, “The World Weather Information Service is the authoritative source of official forecasts from around the globe. It is an excellent example of international collaboration between meteorological services to better serve the public worldwide. National weather services operate standardized weather observing networks and follow the most rigorous forecasting procedures.b design will ensure that the weather information will be available in a more user-friendly manner.

“A five-day forecast today is as accurate as a two-day forecast 25 years ago thanks to cutting-edge science and powerful super computers. Meteorological services are constantly improving the lead-time and reliability of their predictions. The new web design will ensure that the weather information will be available in a more user-friendly manner.”

The updated service has a new interface and is integrated with the latest web technology, such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The site offers a user-customized homepage, a favorites list of cities, a sharing tool and news.

The service receives over 12 million views per month. It was launched in 2002, and has received a total of 1.3 billion user views, including a record high of 173 million last year.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

WMO Service

WMO Press Release

Mali Begins Radio-Based Health Education

June 4, 2015June 21, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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Radio remains the dominant form of media in Africa, where most people do not have access to televisions and cannot always read newspapers, and the West African country of Mali has begun a new health program to educate people through the country’s most popular radio station.

“Innovation doesn’t always come in the form of the latest, cutting-edge technology,” said the Mali Health Organization Project’s Executive Director Kris Ansin, “We see radio as the ideal vector for health change among the poorest of the poor.”

In suburban slums–where populations are the fastest growing on the planet–crowding, land use and sanitation have created health challenges.

Health Radio was created with the intention of sparking discussion and acion in the homes and neighborhood in such slum areas, where health issues are most pressing. The radio program purposes to engage and organize slum communities to create positive change.

Some of the topics featured on the program are trash disposal, clean water and improved sanitation. The program also broadcasts crucial health information to empower users and inspire communities, with the intentions of promoting early detection of common maladies, lowering costs and saving lives.

Local businesses also play a part in the program, leveraging publicity and interest by distributing health supplies to participants.

Radio is a broadcast tool that is both low cost and scalable. By broadcasting Mali’s Health Radio into the daily lives of Malians, health has beem improved among the poor and the program has become a platform for better health.

By Day Blakely Donaldson

Sustania

Mali Health

Time Travel Simulated by Australian Physicists

January 26, 2021June 21, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

Physicists at University of Queensland, Australia have simulated time travel using particles of light. The researchers achieved this by simulating the behavior of a single piece of light–a particle of energy–traveling on a closed timelike curve (CTC)–a closed path in space-time. The work may help to understand the longstanding problem of how time-travel could be possible in the quantum world and how the theory of quantum mechanics might change in the presence of closed timelike curves.

The work also shows how many effects, forbidden in standard quantum mechanics, may be possible inside a CTC and how light would behave differently depending on how it was created.

In the study, the research team simulated the behavior of a single photon that travels through a wormhole and interacts with its older self. This was achieved, PhD student Martin Ringbauer told The Speaker, by making use of a mathematical equivalence between two cases. In the first case, photon 1 “travels trough a wormhole into the past, then interacts with its older version.” In the second case, photon 2 “travels through normal space-time, but interacts with another photon that is trapped inside a CTC forever” (as shown in the illustration at top of the article). “Using the (fictitious second case) and simulating the behavior of photon 2, we were able to study the more relevant case 1,” said Ringbauer.

“We used single photons to do this,” said UQ Physics Professor Tim Ralph, “but the time-travel was simulated by using a second photon to play the part of the past incarnation of the time travelling photon.”

The paper, “Experimental Simulation of Closed Timelike Curves,” was completed by University of Queensland’s Dr Matthew Broome, Dr Casey Myers, Professor Andrew White, in addition to Professor Ralph and Martin Ringbauer, supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems and Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, and was published in Nature Communications.

In the team’s press briefing, Ringbauer commented on the relationship between the theory of general relativity and another important–but conflicting–theory, quantum mechanics. Time travel is thought to potentially help understanding the gap between the two schools of thought.

“The question of time travel features at the interface between two of our most successful yet incompatible physical theories – Einstein’s general relativity and quantum mechanics,” said Ringbauer.

Time travel in the quantum world may avoid general relativity paradoxes such as the grandparents paradox–a timetraveller preventing his grandparents from meeting and so preventing his own time travel.

The authors of the study believe that such paradoxes can be resolved in a quantum regime, because a quantum model of closed timelike curves–such as traversable wormholes–can be formulated consistently with relativity”

Ringbauer explained the concept to The Speaker this way: “General relativity predicts the existence of closed timelike curves (e.g. by following a path through a wormhole that connects two different temporal locations in space-time). This would allow travel back in time. In the classical world this is unlikely to be possible, since it causes paradoxes, such as the grandfather paradox. In the quantum world, however, these paradoxes are resolved and time-travel can be formulated in a self-consistent way.”

Part of the reason time travel could be freed from such paradoxes in the quantum world is that the properties of quantum particles are “fuzzy” and “uncertain,” and therefore there is “wriggle room” to avoid inconsistencies in such situations, according to Professor Ralph.

Although Ralph said that there was no evidence that nature behaved differently than the laws of standard quantum mechanics, it had not been tested in vastly different environments, such as near black holes, where the extreme effects of general relativity play a role.

This is the value of the study, said Ralph. “Our study provides insights into where and how nature might behave differently from what our theories predict.”

“We see in our simulation (as was predicted in 1991),” Ringbauer stated, “how many effects become possible, which are forbidden in standard quantum mechanics. For example it is possible to perfectly distinguish different states of a quantum system, which are usually only partially distinguishable. This makes quantum cryptography breakable and violates Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. We also show that photons behave differently, depending on how they were created in the first place.”

Nature Communications

Press Release

University of Queensland