Contaminated water leak at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant

TOKYO (Reuters) - The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant said it had found another leak of contaminated water on Wednesday, piling pressure on the utility to curb the problem as it seeks permission to release water to the sea.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami more than two years ago, triggering nuclear reactor meltdowns and explosions.

Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, said a worker patrolling the area spotted the leak just after noon, with droplets of contaminated water leaking out between the tank's circular steel structure.

Shunichi Tanaka, chief of Japan's new nuclear regulator, set up after its predecessor was discredited in the 2011 disaster, told a news conference that Tepco should deal with the problem immediately. But he said the regulator did not regard the matter as serious.

The latest leak was acknowledged after Tepco said earlier this week it had detected radioactive cesium in groundwater flowing into the plant -- overturning an early finding that contamination was negligible.

A spate of similar incidents and power outages plagued the facility in March and April. The incidents represent another setback for the company as it tries to reassure the public and the government that it can manage the problem of tainted water.

The plant's still precarious state also serves as a reminder of the poor management of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986 as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government presses ahead with a drive to export Japan's nuclear technology.

The discovery that groundwater is being contaminated before it enters the damaged reactor buildings complicates efforts to persuade local authorities and fishermen that the groundwater is safe enough to be dumped into the ocean.

About 400 metric tons (441 tons) of groundwater flow daily into the reactor buildings only to be mixed with highly contaminated water that comes from cooling the melted fuel.

The government ordered Tepco last week to increase storage capacity of water tanks and construct a wall of frozen earth around the four reactor buildings to stem the flow of groundwater seeping into the plant.

Leaks were found in underground storage pits in April, prompting Tepco to speed up the construction of sturdier above-ground tanks. The leak discovered on Wednesday was from one of the sturdier tanks.

Tepco is also trying to construct a bypass that would route the water away from the plant and into the ocean. That plan requires the agreement of fishermen who oppose plans to dump 100 metric tons of groundwater a day from the plant into the sea.

(Reporting by Mari Saito, Risa Maeda and Kenichiro Hamada; Editing by Ron Popeski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/another-contaminated-water-leak-japans-fukushima-nuclear-plant-072121232.html

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Seeing our errors keeps us on our toes

June 4, 2013 ? If people are unable to perceive their own errors as they complete a routine, simple task, their skill will decline over time, Johns Hopkins researchers have found -- but not for the reasons scientists assumed. The researchers report that the human brain does not passively forget our good techniques, but chooses to put aside what it has learned.

The term "motor memories" may conjure images of childhood road trips, but in fact it refers to the reason why we're able to smoothly perform everyday physical tasks. The amount of force needed to lift an empty glass versus a full one, to shut a car door or pick up a box, even to move a limb accurately from one place to another -- all of these are motor memories.

In a report published May 1 in the The Journal of Neuroscience, the Johns Hopkins researchers describe their latest efforts to study how motor memories are formed and lost by focusing on one well-known experimental phenomenon: When people learn to do a task well, but are asked to keep doing it while receiving deliberately misleading feedback indicating that their performance is perfect every time, their actual performance will gradually get worse.

It had been assumed that the decline was due to the decay of memories in the absence of reinforcement, says Reza Shadmehr, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

But when Shadmehr and graduate student Pavan Vaswani asked volunteers to learn a simple task with a few twists designed to deliberately manipulate the brain's motor control system, they learned otherwise.

The volunteers were told to push a joystick quickly toward a red dot on a computer screen. But the volunteers' hands were placed under the screen, where they couldn't see them, and their starting point was shown on the screen as a blue dot. In addition, as the volunteers moved the joystick toward the red dot, a force within the contraption would suddenly push the joystick to the left. So the volunteers practiced until they could move the blue dot straight to and past the red dot by compensating for the leftward push with pressure toward the right.

Once the volunteers had mastered the task, Shadmehr and Vaswani changed it up without their knowing. For one group of 24 volunteers, they added a stiff spring to the joystick device that would guide the user straight to the target, but would also measure the amount of rightward force the volunteers were applying. To the volunteers, it looked as though they were now doing the task perfectly every time, and, as in previous experiments, they gradually stopped pushing to the right, apparently "forgetting" what they had learned.

For a different group of 19 volunteers, though, the researchers not only added the spring, but also changed the feedback on the screen not to reflect what was actually happening during each task, but to show feedback similar to reruns of earlier efforts. The volunteers weren't seeing the errors they were actually making, but feedback that looked convincingly like errors they might have made. This group continued to do the task as they'd learned, applying the right amount of force to the joystick hundreds of times.

This shows that decline in technique "isn't just a process of forgetting," says Vaswani. "Your brain notices that you are doing this task perfectly, and you see what you can do differently."

Adds Shadmehr, "Our results correct a component of knowledge we thought we understood. Neuroscientists thought decay was intrinsic to motor memories, but in fact it's not decay -- it's selection."

The study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (grant number NS078311) and the Human Frontier Science Program.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/RggCWIqZFrE/130604153331.htm

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Autonomous rovers to compete for $1.5 million NASA prize

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128478/Autonomous_rovers_to_compete_for______million_NASA_prize

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Rediscovered frog is 'living fossil'

4 June 2013 Last updated at 11:12 ET By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC World Service

A species of frog that was recently rediscovered after being declared extinct has been reclassified as a "living fossil".

Israel's Hula painted frog had not been seen for nearly 60 years, but in 2011 one was found lurking in a patch of swampy undergrowth.

Tests have revealed that the frog belongs to a group of amphibians that died out 15,000 years ago.

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Professor Sarig Gafny, from the Ruppin Academic Center, in Israel, told BBC News: "We felt like we had a great finding when we first rediscovered it - this (frog) was like an idol in Israel.

"But then we found it was a living fossil: this was amazing."

Spotty belly

Even before it was declared extinct in 1996, the hula painted frog was an elusive creature.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

The only way anyone could see it was through looking at fossils?

End Quote Professor Sarig Gafny Ruppin Academic Center

Despite its distinctive black-and-white-spotted belly, only three adults had ever been seen.

When Israel's Hula valley was drained in the 1950s, its swampy home was destroyed. Scientists thought the species had been lost forever.

But two years ago, a frog was spotted by a park ranger, and since then another 13 have been discovered.

Prof Gafny explained: "We've only found the specimens so far out of the water on land.

"You have to crawl in the dense vegetation, there are blackberries there, which are spiny, and then you have to dig in the decaying detritus... It's not very attractive to go and look for it."

But the discoveries have allowed the scientists to study the species in detail.

The frog had been classified as a member of the Discoglossus group of amphibians, but genetic tests and CT scans have revealed that it in fact belongs to the Latonia group.

These frogs were once widespread throughout Europe for millions of years, but all apart from the Hula painted frog died out about 15,000 years ago.

"Nobody ever had a chance to see a Latonia because it went extinct in Europe. The only way anyone could see it was through looking at fossils," explained Prof Gafny.

"But then with every characteristic that you look at in the current Hula painted frogs, it matches that of the fossils of Latonia and not that of the Discoglossus... So this is a living fossil."

The researchers said the frog was "a strikingly resilient" species - but added that it was now vital to ensure its future survival.

They believe that work to re-flood parts of the Hula valley would help to provide it with a habitat where it could thrive.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22770959#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote to ship free with x86 Windows 8 tablets

During today's Computex keynote, Microsoft Windows chief Tami Reller just announced that new x86 Windows 8 tablets will ship with Office in the box. The executive didn't detail the software offering, beyond mentioning that Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote will all be included. Windows RT devices, for their part, will now also include pre-installed Outlook, beginning with the Windows 8.1 update, which is due to arrive as a preview version later this month.

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/05/microsoft-office-free-with-windows-8/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

Trick or Treat

Channing Tatum shares name of baby girl

Celebs

Randee Dawn TODAY contributor

10 hours ago

Jason Merritt / Getty Images file

Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan-Tatum.

It's official: Not only have Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan-Tatum given birth to a baby girl, they now have a name for the little bundle of joy -- Everly.

The couple broke the news on Tatum's official website on Tuesday morning.

"Jenna Dewan-Tatum and Channing Tatum are thrilled to announce the birth of their daughter, Everly Tatum, who was born on May 31 in London," a statement on the site, positioned under a big image reading "Welcome to the World!" read. "Sending love and light to Chan, Jenna and Ms. Everly!"

Back in January, Tatum confessed he was a little scared of being a daddy, but thought it would be "cool." "I mean, I don't think there's one thing that doesn't terrify you, but in the most unbelievably beautiful way," the "White House Down" star told E! "Someone said it's really like watching your heart jump out of your body and run around, and I think that can possibly be the coolest thing that I've heard of."

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/channing-tatum-jenna-dewan-tatum-name-baby-girl-everly-6C10188451

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After NY inquiry, CareCredit to offer safeguards

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) ? GE Capital Retail Bank's CareCredit LLC subsidiary will add consumer protections to its health care credit card ? which can carry interest rates of nearly 27 percent ? under a settlement announced Monday by the state attorney general's office.

GE Capital Retail Bank issues the CareCredit card and contracts with about 160,000 health care providers nationwide who offer it to patients to finance treatment.

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the agreement limits charges by dentists, doctors or other health care providers in advance and requires clearer disclosure of the higher interest rates that kick in if charges are not paid off at the ends of promotional periods. The settlement ended an investigation by the office's Health Care Bureau that followed consumer complaints.

"The explosion of medical credit card debt is a major concern for many New Yorkers, particularly low- and middle-income households and vulnerable seniors," Schneiderman said. "The problem is made even worse by those who encourage high-pressure sales tactics in our health care settings and companies who charge outlandishly high interest rates."

GE Capital said CareCredit has worked with the attorney general's office over the past three years to resolve its concerns.

"As it has for 26 years, CareCredit remains committed to providing credit and financing options to New York residents and millions of families across the U.S. that enable them to plan and pay for elective healthcare procedures," GE Capital communications vice president Dori Abel said in a written statement.

According to the settlement agreement, CareCredit is the largest issuer of consumer health care financing in the U.S.; dental practices comprise approximately 60 percent of its business and about 65 percent of the card consumers apply in their dental or medical offices. CareCredit has authorized about 7,800 health care providers in the state to accept the card, which has been issued to more than 535,000 New York residents.

The company offered two financing options: Consumers paid no interest if they paid off their balances in full within the deadline of six, 12, 18 or 24 months or paid a rate of 14.9 percent with fixed monthly payments.

While 90 percent of consumers chose the no-interest option, one-quarter of those failed to pay off their balances in time and were hit with the 27 percent interest rate, frequently because they didn't understand the terms, the agreement said, citing Schneiderman's findings.

"These problems are more acute when providers charge the entire treatment plan up front, even before starting treatment," the agreement said.

The agreement also said that CareCredit "will not give kickbacks, rebates, compensation, or in-kind services" to any health care provider in exchange for its success in generating card business.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ny-inquiry-carecredit-offer-safeguards-182213403.html

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