Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Wikinews extended invitations by e-mail on March 23 to multiple candidates running in the Texas’ 6th congressional district special election of May 1 to fill a vacancy left upon the death of Republican congressman Ron Wright. Of them, the office of Democrat Daryl Eddings, Sr. agreed to answer some questions by phone March 30 about their campaigns and policies. The following is the interview with Ms Chatham on behalf of Mr Eddings, Sr.

Eddings is a federal law enforcement officer and senior non-commissioned officer in the US military. His experience as operations officer of an aviation unit in the California National Guard includes working in Los Angeles to control riots sparked by the O. J. Simpson murder case and the police handling of Rodney King, working with drug interdiction teams in Panama and Central America and fighting in the Middle East. He is the founder of Operation Battle Buddy, which has under his leadership kept in touch with over 20 thousand veterans and their families. He was born in California, but moved to Midlothian, Texas. He endeavours to bring “good government, not no government”. Campaign manager Faith Chatham spoke to Wikinews on matters ranging from healthcare to housing.

An Inside Elections poll published on March 18 shows Republican candidate Susan Wright, the widow of Ron Wright, is ahead by 21% followed by Democrat Jana Sanchez with 17% and Republican Jake Ellzey with 8% with a 4.6% margin of error among 450 likely voters. The district is considered “lean Republican” by Inside Elections and voted 51% in favour of Donald Trump in last year’s US presidential election. This is down from 54% for Trump in 2016’s presidential election, the same poll stated.

Sunday, February 5, 2006

Authorities have killed the man sought in connection with an attack on patrons of a gay bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts Wednesday night, February 1. Jacob D. Robida, 18, of New Bedford was wanted on suspicion of three counts of attempted murder and hate crimes.

Robida entered Puzzles Lounge around 11:30 pm Wednesday night and asked if it was a gay bar. The bartender said yes and served Robida a drink acquired with a fake ID.

After finishing the drink and ordering a second one, Robida moved to the back of the bar where a game of pool was being played and started swinging a hatchet at a customer’s head. While the bartender was calling the police, Robida struck a second patron with the hatchet and then pulled out a gun shooting the first victim in the face and the second twice in the head. A third person was also shot.

Robida was captured Saturday February 4, 2006 in Norfork, Arkansas after a gunfight with police. A police chase began after Robida killed a police officer who pulled him over for a routine traffic stop. After his car was spotted on Arkansas Highway 201 he was chased into Norfork and stopped at a police barricade. Once stopped Robida killed the passenger in his car and fired on police. At this point the police returned fire and shot Robida twice in the head, and he was then taken to a hospital in Springfield, Missouri.

Robida died at 3:38 a.m. Sunday February 5, 2006 as a result of his injuries. The female passenger who was traveling with Robida and was killed before the shoot out with police has been identified as Jennifer Rena Bailey of Charleston, West Virginia. She appears to have had a prior relationship with Robida, however his reason for picking her up and later killing her is still unknown.

Sunday, October 6, 2019

On Thursday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) — the supreme court on matters of European Union (EU) law — ruled in regard to the case “Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek vs. Facebook Ireland Limited”. The Luxembourg-based court issued a judgement favorable to the plaintiff, Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, a politician in Austria, allowing an Austrian court to require social media site Facebook to remove a post from its site made by a user in Ireland. The ruling made proclamations which analysts say could have far-reaching implications for regulation of content on the Internet beyond the borders of the EU. The court’s decision cannot be appealed.

In 2016, a Facebook user registered from Ireland shared publicly a news article from the Austrian news site oe24.at along with some comments of their own. The post, which was about Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, the then chair and spokesperson for The Greens, could potentially be seen by anyone with access to Facebook. The comments called her political party facsist and termed her a “corrupt oaf” and a “lousy traitor”.

Glawischnig-Piesczek sued in Austria for defamation and won. Facebook was ordered to remove the post which it did by making it unavailable to view in Austria only. This apparently did not appease Glawischnig-Piesczek. As a result, the Supreme Court of Justice (Oberster Gerichtshof?) of Austria brought the case before the ECJ, asking for clarifications of EU law.

The EU law Electronic Commerce Directive 2000 provides liability protections for hosting sites. In its finding, the ECJ set rules for compliance with rulings from a court from any EU member nation for any website which hosts user content:

By today’s judgment, the Court of Justice answers the Oberster Gerichtshof that the Directive on electronic commerce, which seeks to strike a balance between the different interests at stake, does not preclude a court of a Member State from ordering a host provider:

• to remove information which it stores, the content of which is identical to the content of information which was previously declared to be unlawful, or to block access to that information, irrespective of who requested the storage of that information;
• to remove information which it stores, the content of which is equivalent to the content of information which was previously declared to be unlawful, or to block access to that information, provided that the monitoring of and search for the information concerned by such an injunction are limited to information conveying a message the content of which remains essentially unchanged compared with the content which gave rise to the finding of illegality and containing the elements specified in the injunction, and provided that the differences in the wording of that equivalent content, compared with the wording characterising the information which was previously declared to be illegal, are not such as to require the host provider to carry out an independent assessment of that content (thus, the host provider may have recourse to automated search tools and technologies);
• to remove information covered by the injunction or to block access to that information worldwide within the framework of the relevant international law, and it is up to Member States to take that law into account.

According to the ruling, a host, such as Facebook, must remove the original post as well as re-posts and posts which state essentially the same thing if it is deemed against the law. Steve Peers of the University of Essex, speaking to BBC, said, “If there’s a court order to say that someone’s been defamed, then Facebook has to also search for different variations of it”, also observing, “[t]here’s no harmonised defamation law internationally”.

Jennifer Daskal of American University and contributor to Slate wrote, “a single EU country (in this case Austria) could demand an online provider (in this case Facebook) to take down an objectionable post, monitor its site for equivalent content, and take down those postings as well. And it says a country could do so on a global scale, regardless of where the poster or the viewer is located. In so ruling, the court demonstrated a shocking ignorance of the technology involved and set the stage for the most censor-prone country to set global speech rules.”

Facebook released a statement which read, in part, “This judgment raises critical questions around freedom of expression and the role that internet companies should play in monitoring, interpreting and removing speech that might be illegal in any particular country”. Facebook further claimed, “It undermines the long-standing principle that one country does not have the right to impose its laws on speech on another country”.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

In the largest study of its kind, a genetic analysis of 1,168 families with multiple cases of autism has identified genetic links to autism. A previously overlooked stretch of DNA on chromosome 11 implicates a gene called neurexin 1 and increases the evidence for the involvement of neurexins and genes related to glutamate transmission in the brain.

Genetic studies of autism have previously been undertaken; however the new study involves the collaboration of more than 120 scientists from more than 50 institutions representing 19 countries who pooled their data as part of the Autism Genome Project. The findings were published in the Feb. 18 issue of Nature Genetics.

Bob Wright, co-founder of Autism Speaks, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing awareness of autism, said: “The identification of susceptibility genes will provide profound new insight into the basis of autism offering a route to breakthroughs in new treatments in support of families.” Autism Speaks funded this project in conjunction with the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Joachim Hallmayer, MD, associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford and chair of the collaboration’s executive committee, explains what is next: “While promising, these results need to be followed up with more refined genetic maps to home in on other specific candidate genes. We also need to look more closely at chromosomal anomalies in large samples of children with autism.” In the paper, researchers caution that the genetic foundation of autism probably involves multiple genes and chromosomal abnormalities.

Autism affects about one in every 150 children, and the CDC has called it an “urgent health concern”. Autism is a developmental disorder which impairs social interaction, communication and features restricted and repetitive interests and activities. Twin studies and other research clearly suggest a genetic basis for the condition. Currently there is no cure for autism, but both behavioral or sensory interventions and drugs can influence the symptoms.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Neverland Valley Ranch, owned by Michael Jackson, is to be sold at auction on March 19, 2008, unless Jackson pays over US$24 million.

Financial Title Company, the trustee of his Santa Barbara County, California, home and amusement park, has foreclosed on the property. They notified Jackson of the foreclosure and sale on Monday. Jackson had only just recently paid an overdue property tax bill of $600,000.

The court filing, addressed to Jackson, says, “You are in default of a deed of trust … Unless you take action to protect your property it may be sold at a public sale.” Fox News published the filing.

The foreclosure includes the ranch and all possessions on the property, inside or out.

The foreclosure auction will take place in front of the Santa Barbara County Courthouse in Santa Barbara. Jackson has until then to pay $24,525,906.61 he owes the title company.

In 2006, Jackson refinanced previous loans that had been bought up by Fortress Investment Group. The $300-million loan was secured with the aid of Sony Music Entertainment. However, the Neverland property was not part of that deal.

Jackson has not lived at Neverland since June 30, 2005, when he moved to Bahrain after a rape charge and subsequent acquittal.

Sunday, June 4, 2006

The two brothers who were arrested on Friday regarding intelligence of a chemical bomb plot in East London have denied all the accusations, according to their lawyers.

In relation to the accusations of manufacturing a chemical device, Kate Roxburgh, Mohammed Abdul Kahar’s lawyer, said “(Kahar) says there’s absolutely not a word of truth in any of it. He says the police are not going to find anything because there is nothing to find.”

Koyair’s lawyer has denied his client has been involved in a terrorist plot.

The announcement comes after the dramatic events of Friday morning, where over 250 police officers were involved in a raid on a house in the Forest Gate area of the city. The raid took place after British security services received intelligence of a “viable” chemical device within the property.

Mohammed Abdul Kahar, aged 23, and his 20 year-old brother Abul Koyair were arrested in a dawn raid on Friday under the Terrorism Act after several weeks of surveillance by MI5. During the operation, Kahar was shot in the shoulder.

Early reports suggested that police were responsible for the injury, from which Kahar is now recovering. However, one source claims that it was actually Abul Koyair who pulled the trigger, accidentally wounding his brother in the panic – an allegation that Koyair has denied.

The brothers, who are both Muslim and of Bangladeshi origin, are being questioned today at London’s high-security Paddington Green Police Station. Meanwhile, police officers are still searching the house for a device, which they believe to be a conventional explosive with added chemical components.

Due to the ongoing investigations, there is still a large police presence at the residence, as well as a layer of sheeting surrounding the building. Despite the small yet ever-present chance of a chemical incident, other residents of the street have not been evacuated.

In response to safety fears, police said that “nothing suspicious was found in an initial search of the house and that neighbours are not in danger.”

BBC News reported that Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt was “keeping ministers informed” about the unfolding situation but would not comment about specific points of the investigation.

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Planetary scientist Vlada Stamenkovi? of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and colleagues have developed a new chemical model of how oxygen dissolves in Martian conditions, which raises the possibility of oxygen-rich brines; enough, the work suggests, to support simple animals such as sponges. The model was published in Nature on October 22. Wikinews caught up with him in an email interview to find out more about his team’s research and their plans for the future.

The atmosphere of Mars is far too thin for humans to breathe or for lungs like ours to extract any oxygen at all. It has on average only around 0.6% of the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere, and this is mainly carbon dioxide; only 0.145% of the thin Martian atmosphere is oxygen. The new model indicated these minute traces of oxygen should be able to enter salty seeps of water on or near the planet’s surface at levels high enough to support life forms comparable to Earth’s microbes, possibly even simple sponges. Some life forms can survive without oxygen, but oxygen permits more energy-intensive metabolism. Almost all complex multicellular life on Earth depends on oxygen.

“We were absolutely flabbergasted […] I went back to recalculate everything like five different times to make sure it’s a real thing,” Stamenkovi? told National Geographic.

“Our work is calling for a complete revision for how we think about the potential for life on Mars, and the work oxygen can do,” he told Scientific American, “implying that if life ever existed on Mars it might have been breathing oxygen”.

Stamenkovi? et al cite research from 2014 showing some simple sponges can survive with only 0.002 moles of oxygen per cubic meter (0.064 mg per liter). Some microbes that need oxygen can survive with as little as a millionth of a mole per cubic meter (0.000032 mg per liter). In their model, they found there can be enough oxygen for microbes throughout Mars, and enough for simple sponges in oases near the poles.

In 2014, also suggesting multicellular life could exist on Mars, de Vera et al, using the facilities at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), studied some lichens, including Pleopsidium chlorophanum, which can grow high up in Antarctic mountain ranges. They showed those lichens can also survive and even grow in Mars simulation chambers. The lichens can do this because their algal component is able to produce the oxygen needed by the fungal component. Stamenkovi? et al’s research provides a way for oxygen to get into the Martian brines without algae or photosynthesis.

Stamenkovi? et al found oxygen levels throughout Mars would be high enough for the least demanding aerobic (oxygen-using) microbes, for all the brines they considered, and all the methods of calculation. They published a detailed map^[3] of the distributions of solubility for calcium perchlorates for their more optimistic calculations, which they reckoned were closer to the true case, with and without supercooling. The lowest concentrations were shown in the tropical southern uplands. Brine in regions poleward of about 67.5° to the north and about 72.5° to the south could have oxygen concentrations high enough for simple sponges. Closer to the poles, concentrations could go higher, approaching levels typical of sea water on Earth, 0.2 moles per cubic meter (6.4 mg per liter), for calcium perchlorates. On Earth, worms and clams that live in the muddy sea beds require 1 mg per liter, bottom feeders such as crabs and oysters 3 mg per liter, and spawning migratory fish 6 mg per liter, all within 0.2 moles per cubic meter, 6.4 mg per liter.

((Wikinews)) Does your paper’s value of up to 0.2 moles of oxygen per cubic meter, the same as Earth’s sea water, mean that there could potentially be life on Mars as active as our sea worms or even fish?

Stamenkovi?: Mars is such a different place than the Earth and we still need to do so much more work before we can even start to speculate.

Stamenkovi? et al studied magnesium and calcium perchlorates, common on Mars. They found the highest oxygen concentrations occur when the water is colder, which happens most in polar regions.

((WN)) The temperatures for the highest levels of oxygen are really low, -133 °C, so, is the idea that this oxygen would be retained when the brines warm up to more habitable temperatures during the day or seasonally? Or would the oxygen be lost as it warms up? Or — is the idea that it has to be some exotic biochemistry that works only at ultra low temperatures like Dirk Schulze-Makuch’s life based on hydrogen peroxide and perchlorates internal to the cells as antifreeze?

Stamenkovi?: The options are both: first, cool oxygen-rich environments do not need to be habitats. They could be reservoirs packed with a necessary nutrient that can be accessed from a deeper and warmer region. Second, the major reason for limiting life at low temperature is ice nucleation, which would not occur in the type of brines that we study.

Stamenkovi? et al’s paper is theoretical and is based on a simplified general circulation model of the Mars atmosphere — it ignores distinctions of seasons and the day / night cycle. Stamenkovi?’s team combined it with a chemical model of how oxygen would dissolve in the brines and used this to predict oxygen levels in such brines at various locations on Mars.

When asked about plans for a future model that might include seasonal timescales, Stamenkovi? told Wikinews, “Yes, we are now exploring the kinetics part and want to see what happens on shorter timescales.”

Stamenkovi? et al’s model also takes account of the tilt of the Mars axis, which varies much more than Earth’s does.

Wikinews asked Stamenkovi? if he had any ideas about whether and how sponges could survive through times when the tilt was higher and less oxygen would be available:

((WN)) I notice from your figure^[4] that there is enough oxygen for sponges only at tilts of about 45 degrees or less. Do you have any thoughts about how sponges could survive periods of time in the distant past when the Mars axial tilt exceeds 45 degrees, for instance, might there be subsurface oxygen-rich oases in caves that recolonize the surface? Also what is the exact figure for the tilt at which oxygen levels sufficient for sponges become possible? (It looks like about 45 degrees from the figure but the paper doesn’t seem to give a figure for this.)

Stamenkovi?: 45 deg is approx. the correct degree. We were also tempted to speculate about this temporal driver but realized that we still know so little about the potential for life on Mars/principles of life that anything related to this question would be pure speculation, unfortunately.

((WN)) How quickly would the oxygen get into the brines — did you investigate the timescale?

Stamenkovi?: No, we did not yet study the dynamics. We first needed to show that the potential is there. We are now studying the timescales and processes.

((WN)) Could the brines that Nilton Renno and his teams simulated, forming on salt/ice interfaces within minutes in Mars simulation conditions, get oxygenated in the process of formation? If not, how long would it take for them to get oxygenated to levels sufficient for aerobic microbes? For instance could the Phoenix leg droplets have taken up enough oxygen for aerobic respiration by microbes?

Stamenkovi?: Just like the answer above. Dynamics is still to be explored. (But this is a really good question ?).

Wikinews also asked Stamenkovi? how their research is linked to the recent discovery of possible large subglacial lake below the Martian South Pole found through radar mapping.

((WN)) Some news stories coupled your research with the subglacial lakes announcement earlier this year. Could the oxygen get through ice into layers of brines such as the possible subglacial lakes at a depth of 1.5 km?

Stamenkovi?: There are other ways to create oxygen. Radiolysis of water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen can liberate oxygen in the deep and that O₂ could be dissolved in deep groundwater. The radiolytic power for this would come from radionuclides naturally contained in rocks, something we observe in diverse regions on Earth.

((WN)) And I’d also like to know about your experiment you want to send to Mars to help with the search for these oxygenated brines.

Stamenkovi?: We are now developing at “NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology” a small tool, called TH2OR (Transmissive H2O Reconnaissance) that might one day fly with a yet-to-be-determined mission. It will use low frequency sounding techniques, capable of detecting groundwater at depths down to ideally a few km under the Martian surface, thanks to the high electric conductivity of only slightly salty water and Faraday’s law of induction. Most likely, such a small and affordable instrument could be placed stationary on the planet’s surface or be carried passively or actively on mobile surface assets; TH2OR might be also used in combination with existing orbiting assets to increase its sounding depth. Next to determining the depth of groundwater, we should also be able to estimate its salinity and indirectly its potential chemistry, which is critical information for astrobiology and ISRU (in situ resource utilization).

((WN)) Does your TH2OR use TDEM like the Mars 94 mission — and will it use natural ULF sources such as solar wind, diurnal variations in ionosphere heating and lightning?

Stamenkovi?: The physical principle it uses is the same and this has been used for groundwater detection on the Earth for many decades; it’s Faraday’s law of induction in media that are electrically conducting (as slightly saline water is).

Stamenkovi?: However, we will focus on creating our own signal as we do not know whether the EM fields needed for such measurements exist on Mars. However, we will also account for the possibility of already existing fields.