When he released a federal worker survey on the afternoon before Thanksgiving, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry forthrightly noted that “continued tight budgets and pay freezes” contributed to many lower ratings.
The report goes a bit further, suggesting “the downward trend of many of the survey items . . . suggest that the continued tight budgets, salary freezes and general public opinion of federal service are beginning to take a toll on even the most committed employees.”
TOKYO: Scientists in Japan have used ostrich blood vessels to create a viable bypass in pigs, raising hopes of easier and more effective artery transplants for heart patients.
The team found they could harvest blood vessels from the bird's long neck and use them to construct artificial pathways that are up to 30 centimetres (12 inches) long and as little as two millimetres (0.08 inches) in diameter.
Conventional substitutes - taken from dead human donors, animals or made of synthetic fibres or resins - need to be at least double that in order to prevent problems with clotting.
Chief researcher Tetsuji Yamaoka said the arteries, which carry blood to the ostrich's head, are processed and lined with clot-preventing molecules on a nano scale.
"Ostriches are good as they provide a stable supply of narrow and long vessels," said Yamaoka, who heads the Biomedical Engineering Department of the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Centre in Suita, western Japan.
Researchers at Yamaoka's laboratory used the new vessel in femoral artery bypass operations in five miniature pigs, bridging large arteries in their right and left thighs.
They confirmed the new vessel allowed blood to flow smoothly without the use of clot-prevention agents, Yamaoka said this week, calling it the world's first success in small-diameter, long bypass operations in animals.
There have been bypass operations using short artificial vessels in small animals such as rats, Yamaoka said.
"But vessels must be narrow and long to be used in humans," he said, adding at least 10 centimetres would be needed for human heart operations and 20 centimetres for legs.
Surgeons could cut the new vessel to size for specific operations, making it unnecessary to take blood vessels from elsewhere in the patient's body.
Yamaoka's team aims to start clinical tests in three years.
-AFP/fl
The 'CMS-India Corruption Study 2012' says majority of the slum dwellers surveyed felt that corruption in public services has grown in the last 12 months, the season of protests against graft and scandals that rocked the country.
The study conducted by the Centre for Media Studies in the slums of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Goa, Kolkata and Mumbai also said slum dwellers in all these cities perceived an increase in corruption especially police services.
"More than half of the slum dwellers from nine major cities in the 2012 survey felt that corruption in general has increased in public services in the last 12 months while around 29 per cent opined that corruption in public services continues to remain the same," the study released today says.
88 per cent of the people said they faced corruption from police service in the last one year and least in water supply services (78 per cent).
The study threw up several interesting features like 'most often paid' amount among services was highest in police which is Rs 500 and the highest amount paid by a single slum household in Delhi to get a housing plot is Rs 7000.
One slum dweller in Kolkata also paid a paltry sum of Rs 5 to get monthly ration.
Among other findings of the survey include only 23 per cent of the people surveyed in Ahmedabad this year experienced corruption, a remarkable decrease when compared to 41 per cent in 2008.
However, in all other cities the percentage registered a phenomenal increase with 96 per cent of the slum dwellers in Mumbai saying that they have been a victim of the menace. In 2008, the percentage was just 17 per cent.
The study comes at a time when there is a clamour from civil society groups for enacting a stronger Lok Pal Bill and other steps to curb corruption in all spheres of the society.
"The incidence of corruption has doubled since 2008 in urban India from 34 per cent to 67 per cent. Out of those who were asked to pay, 84 per cent paid bribe to pay to avail the services," the study says.
It also says people paid bribe for availing basic services like monthly ration, a ration card, new electricity connection), water supply, removal of garbage), to get OPD card in public hospitals and to get an FIR registered or remove name as an accused from police records.
"Of those who experienced corruption in public services, about 47 per cent experienced once during the last 12 months while another 31 per cent came across such situations twice," it says.
Three out of every four slum dwellers (75 per cent) had been asked for a bribe in at least one of the three public services - PDS, Public Hospital/Health services and Municipal Services - in the previous 12 months prior to the survey.
The study also says around 35 per cent of slum dwellers were denied service at least once as they could not pay bribe.
The study also suggested measures like special review of policies to do with slums and slum dwellers in the specific context of basic services to free them from the menace of corruption.
"Social audit of services in urban slums will ensure better service delivery and plugging the gaps in supply and demand of public services. Rights to Service should be introduced in all big cities across the country for time-bound service delivery," the study said.
Image courtesy T.A. Rector, UAA/WIYN/NOAO/NSF
A new camera called the One Degree Imager, located at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, is responsible for this enticingly crisp image of the Bubble Nebula. Released on December 4, this closeup highlights the sphere of gas blown out by the nebula's central star, which is 45 times larger than our own sun.
Located in the constellation Cassiopeia, the Bubble Nebula is ten light-years across. Intense radiation from the massive star causes the otherworldly glow that lights up what looks like a celestial soap bubble.
(Related: "Amazing Hubble Images.")
Published December 6, 2012
Photograph by Frank Olsen, My Shot
Delicate green auroras light up the water at Buksnesfjord, Norway, in a picture taken just after midnight on December 4.
(See pictures of auroras sparked by a massive solar flare.)
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy SDO/NASA
Sheets of plasma—or superheated gas—break off from the surface of the sun in this image taken in extreme ultraviolet light. Before floating free, the plasma rose up and danced along pathways determined by magnetic fields. These unseen forces pushed and pulled the gas into contorted shapes.
(Learn about the sun.)
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy NASA
What looks like a jawbreaker is actually a gravity map of the moon. Red areas indicate places with higher gravity fields while blue areas indicate lower gravity fields.
(Learn about lunar exploration.)
Twin probes circling the moon—part of NASA's GRAIL mission—since 2011 have been recording changes in gravity as they fly over peaks and valleys on the lunar surface. As one probe flies over an area with a greater gravity field, the washing-machine-size instrument speeds up slightly, increasing the distance between it and its sister probe. These minute changes in position have enabled scientists to construct this very detailed view of local changes in the moon's gravity.
(How well do you know your moon myths? Take our quiz.)
Published December 6, 2012
Illustration courtesy L. Calçada, ESO/NAOJ/NRAO
In this artist's conception of fine-grained particles around a brown dwarf—or a failed star—bits of debris are on their way to becoming a rocky planet.
Current thinking on Earthlike, rocky planet formation says that random collisions between tiny debris occur in the disc of material surrounding newborn stars. But the recent discovery of such a disc surrounding a brown dwarf has some astronomers rethinking that hypothesis. If planets can form from the debris around these failed stars, then rocky planets may be much more common than previously thought.
(Related: "Coldest Star Found-No Hotter Than Fresh Coffee.")
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, Suomi NPP/NASA
The Suomi NPP satellite captured this nighttime image of the aurora australis over the Antarctic coast south of South Africa. Despite the winter darkness and a waning crescent moon, the auroras produced enough light for sensors on board the new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite to capture the boundary between the ice shelf and what some scientists call the Southern, or Antarctic, Ocean (dark line across the bright center swirl).
Launched last year, Suomi NPP enables scientists to capture nighttime images of the Earth's atmosphere and surface. The new sensor is so sensitive, it can capture the lights from one ship at sea.
(Learn about Antarctica.)
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy Michael Taylor, Landsat/NASA
In NASA's Landsat 5 satellite image, the Mergui Archipelago shows off the vibrant greens of its rain forests and the brilliant blues of the surrounding tropical ocean. Located along the southern border of Myanmar (Burma), next to Thailand, the area is known for valuable pearl oysters (Pinctada maxima) and a highly diverse concentration of plants and animals.
(See photos of Myanmar.)
Published December 6, 2012
Illustration courtesy AOES Medialab/ESO
The Venusian atmosphere is made mostly of carbon dioxide, along with periodic spikes in sulfur. Recent research has found that volcanoes on the planet's surface, seen here in an artist's conception, are likely injecting that sulfur into the upper atmosphere. Direct confirmation is difficult, however, since Venus's thick atmosphere precludes a peek at its peaks.
Published December 6, 2012
Image courtesy SSI/ISA/ESA/NASA
Published December 6, 2012
Software millionaire John McAfee has been returned to an immigration detention cell in Guatemala after being rushed to a Guatemala City hospital via ambulance.
McAfee, 67 -- who soon may be deported back to Belize, where authorities want to question him about the shooting death of his neighbor -- was reportedly found prostrate on the floor of his cell and unresponsive.
He was wheeled into the hospital on a gurney. Photographers followed in pursuit right into the emergency room, but as emergency workers eased McAfee's limp body from the gurney and onto a bed and began to remove his suit, he suddenly spoke up, saying, "Please, not in front of the press."
Earlier today, McAfee had complained of chest pains, raising concerns he might be having a heart attack.
However, that did not appear to be the case. Hours after his emergency, hospital officials sent McAfee back to the detention center, telling ABC News they found no reason to keep him overnight.
In a phone interview overnight, McAfee told ABC News, "I simply passed out, everything went black."
He said he hit his head on the floor when he collapsed. McAfee explained that for the past 48 hours he hasn't eaten and had very little to drink.
McAfee had been scheduled to be deported to Belize, ABC News has learned. But a judge could stay the ruling if it is determined that McAfee's life is threatened by being in Belizean custody, as McAfee has claimed in the past several weeks.
McAfee's attorneys hope to continue delaying the deportation by appealing to the Guatemala's high court on humanitarian grounds.
Raphael Martinez, a spokesman for the Belize government, said that if McAfee is deported to Belize, he would immediately be handed over to police and detained for up to 48 hours unless charges are brought against him.
"There is more that we know about the investigation, but that remains part of the police work," he said, hinting at possible charges.
He added that a handover by Guatemala would be "the neighborly thing to do."
A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Guatemala said that "due to privacy considerations," the embassy would "have no comment on the specifics of this situation," but that, "U.S. citizens are subject to the laws of the countries in which they are traveling or residing, and must work within the host countries' legal framework."
Guatemala's National Police/AP Photo
Just hours before McAfee's arrest, he told ABC News in an exclusive interview Wednesday he would be seeking asylum in Guatemala. McAfee was arrested by the Central American country's immigration police and not the national police, said his attorney, who was confident his client would be released within hours.
"Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," said McAfee before his arrest. "I chose Guatemala carefully."
McAfee said that in Guatemala, the locals aren't surprised when he says the Belizean government is out to kill him.
"Instead of going, 'You're crazy,' they go, 'Yeah, of course they are,'" he said. "It's like, finally, I understand people who understand the system here."
But McAfee added he has not ruled out moving back to the United States, where he made his fortune as the inventor of anti-virus software, and that despite losing much of his fortune he still has more money than he could ever spend.
In his interview with ABC News, a jittery, animated but candid McAfee called the media's representation of him a "nightmare that is about to explode," and said he's prepared to prove his sanity.
McAfee has been on the run from police in Belize since the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull.
During his three-week journey, said McAfee, he disguised himself as handicapped, dyed his hair seven times and hid in many different places during his three-week journey.
He dismissed accounts of erratic behavior and reports that he had been using the synthetic drug bath salts. He said he had never used the drug, and said statements that he had were part of an elaborate prank.
Investigators said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of the former developer, who was found shot in the head in his house on the resort island of San Pedro, but that they wanted to question him.
McAfee told ABC News that the poisoning death of his dogs and the murder just hours later of Faull, who had complained about his dogs, was a coincidence.
McAfee has been hiding from police ever since Faull's death -- but Telesforo Guerra, McAfee's lawyer in Guatemala, said the tactic was born out of necessity, not guilt.
"You don't have to believe what the police say," Guerra told ABC News. "Even though they say he is not a suspect they were trying to capture him."
Guerra, who is a former attorney general of Guatemala, said it would take two to three weeks to secure asylum for his client.
According to McAfee, Guerra is also the uncle of McAfee's 20-year-old girlfriend, Samantha. McAfee said the government raided his beachfront home and threatened Samantha's family.
"Fifteen armed soldiers come in and personally kidnap my housekeeper, threaten Sam's father with torture and haul away half a million dollars of my s***," claimed McAfee. "If they're not after me, then why all these raids? There've been eight raids!"
Before his arrest, McAfee said he would hold a press conference on Thursday in Guatemala City to announce his asylum bid. He has offered to answer questions from Belizean law enforcement over the phone, and denied any involvement in Faull's death.
Two high-profile Republican members of Congress who stand at the forefront of the effort to rebuild the party after a stinging presidential defeat delivered speeches Tuesday night aimed at turning the page with a fresh emphasis on inclusion and a renewed focus on growing the middle class.
“Nothing represents how special America is more than our middle class. And our challenge and our opportunity now is to create the conditions that allow it not just to survive, but to grow,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), the Leadership Award recipient at a dinner hosted by the Jack Kemp Foundation, a charitable nonprofit organization named for the late congressman and Housing and Urban Development secretary.
SINGAPORE: The Subordinate Courts has granted permission for a senior member of City Harvest Church to travel overseas.
Chew Eng Han, an investment manager for the church, made the application in a pre-trial conference on Thursday.
In August, he had also applied for and was granted permission to go overseas.
His bail remains at S$1 million.
Chew will be back in court on 10 January next year.
He is one of the senior members of the church facing charges for misappropriating S$24 million from the church's building fund.
The other members charged include church founder and president of the management board Kong Hee, vice president and senior pastor Tan Ye Peng, finance director Serina Wee and management board member John Lam Leng Hung.
- CNA/de
"You have placed the record but where is the letter of the present CJI? Why you have not placed it when you knew that the matter will be taken at 10.30 am today? It's not acceptable.. the manner in which the things are going. We don't know what is happening?," a bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya said.
The bench made the remark after going through the file relating to the appointment placed before it by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) A S Chandhiok.
The bench was upset that the matter was "lingering" despite the NGT being "without head" for the last one year.
"We have our own doubts about the manner in which it is being done. We are not sure when the chairman will be appointed," the bench said and reminded the ASG about its previous order of May 3 when the Centre had assured the court that things will be completed.
"It has not happened and it is very unfortunate," the court said.
On May 3, the Centre had submitted before the court that six expert and four judicial members would be appointed by October 31, however, the court had directed it to complete the process of appointments of the NGT chairman as well as its expert and judicial members by September 15.
The court on Thursday asked the Centre to give an undertaking as to by what time it would come out with the notification on appointment of the chairman and the judicial and expert members for the NGT.
The bench said it would take up the matter on Wednesday and would like the ASG to take instructions also on the issue of making available accommodation to the chairman and the judicial and expert members as per their previous status.
NASA is so delighted with Curiosity's Mars mission that the agency wants to do it all again in 2020, with the possibility of identifying and storing some rocks for a future sample return to Earth.
The formal announcement, made at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting, represents a triumph for the NASA Mars program, which had fallen on hard times due to steep budget cuts. But NASA associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld said that the agency has the funds to build and operate a second Curiosity-style rover, largely because it has a lot of spare parts and an engineering and science team that knows how to develop a follow-on expedition.
"The new science rover builds off the tremendous success from Curiosity and will have new instruments," Grunsfeld said. Curiosity II is projected to cost $1.5 billion—compared with the $2.5 billion price tag for the rover now on Mars—and will require congressional approval.
While the 2020 rover will have the same one-ton chassis as Curiosity—and could use the same sky crane technology involved in the "seven minutes of terror"—it will have different instruments and, many hope, the capacity to cache a Mars rock for later pickup and delivery to researchers on Earth. Curiosity and the other Mars rovers, satellites, and probes have garnered substantial knowledge about the Red Planet in recent decades, but planetary scientists say no Mars-based investigations can be nearly as instructive as studying a sample in person here on Earth.
(Video: Mars Rover's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")
Return to Sender
That's why "sample return" has topped several comprehensive reviews of what NASA should focus on for the next decade regarding Mars.
"There is absolutely no doubt that this rover has the capability to collect and cache a suite of magnificent samples," said astronomer Steven Squyres, with Cornell University in New York, who led a "decadal survey" of what scientists want to see happen in the field of planetary science in the years ahead. "We have a proven system now for landing a substantial payload on Mars, and that's what we need to enable sample return."
The decision about whether the second rover will be able to collect and "cache" a sample will be up to a "science definition team" that will meet in the years ahead to weigh the pros and cons of focusing the rover's activity on that task.
As currently imagined, bringing a rock sample back to Earth would require three missions: one to select, pick up, and store the sample; a second to pick it up and fly it into a Mars orbit; and a third to take it from Mars back to Earth.
"A sample return would rely on all the Mars missions before it," said Scott Hubbard, formerly NASA's "Mars Czar," who is now at Stanford University. "Finding the right rocks from the right areas, and then being able to get there, involves science and technology we've learned over the decades."
Renewed Interest
Clearly, Curiosity's success has changed the thinking about Mars exploration, said Hubbard. He was a vocal critic of the Obama Administration's decision earlier this year to cut back on the Mars program as part of agency belt-tightening but now is "delighted" by this renewed initiative.
(Explore an interactive time line of Mars exploration in National Geographic magazine.)
More than 50 million people watched NASA coverage of Curiosity's landing and cheered the rover's success, Hubbard said. If things had turned out differently with Curiosity, "we'd be having a very different conversation about the Mars program now."
(See "Curiosity Landing on Mars Greeted With Whoops and Tears of Jubilation.")
If Congress gives the green light, the 2020 rover would be the only $1 billion-plus "flagship" mission—NASA's largest and most expensive class of projects—in the agency's planetary division in the next decade. There are many other less ambitious projects to other planets, asteroids, moons, and comets in the works, but none are flagships. That has left some planetary scientists not involved with Mars unhappy with NASA's heavy Martian focus.
Future Plans
While the announcement of the 2020 rover mission set the Mars community abuzz, NASA also outlined a series of smaller missions that will precede it. The MAVEN spacecraft, set to launch next year, will study the Martian atmosphere in unprecedented detail; a lander planned for 2018 will study the Red Planet's crust and interior; and NASA will renew its promise to participate in a European life-detection mission in 2018. NASA had signed an agreement in 2009 to partner with the European Space Agency on that mission but had to back out earlier this year because of budget constraints.
NASA said that a request for proposals would go out soon, soliciting ideas about science instruments that might be on the rover. And as for a sample return system, at this stage all that's required is the ability to identify good samples, collect them, and then store them inside the rover.
"They can wait there on Mars for some time as we figure out how to pick them up," Squyres said. "After all, they're rocks."
Software anti virus pioneer John McAfee is in the process of being deported to Belize after he was arrested in Guatemala for entering the country illegally, his attorney told ABC News early Thursday.
ABC News has learned that John McAfee is scheduled to be deported to Belize later this morning. But a judge could stay the ruling if it is determined McAfee's life is threatened by being in Belizean custody, as McAfee has claimed over the past several weeks.
Just hours before McAfee's arrest, he told ABC News in an exclusive interview Wednesday he would be seeking asylum in Guatemala. McAfee was arrested by the Central American country's immigration police and not the national police, said his attorney, who was confident his client would be released within hours.
"Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," said McAfee, 67, before his arrest. "I chose Guatemala carefully."
McAfee said that in Guatemala, the locals aren't surprised when he says the Belizean government is out to kill him.
"Instead of going, 'You're crazy,' they go, 'Yeah, of course they are,'" he said. "It's like, finally, I understand people who understand the system here."
But McAfee added he has not ruled out moving back to the United States, where he made his fortune as the inventor of anti-virus software, and that despite losing much of his fortune he still has more money than he could ever spend.
In his interview with ABC News, a jittery, animated but candid McAfee called the media's representation of him a "nightmare that is about to explode," and said he's prepared to prove his sanity.
Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images
McAfee has been on the run from police in Belize since the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull.
During his three-week journey, said McAfee, he disguised himself as handicapped, dyed his hair seven times and hid in many different places during his three-week journey.
He dismissed accounts of erratic behavior and reports that he had been using the synthetic drug bath salts. He said he had never used the drug, and said statements that he had were part of an elaborate prank.
Investigators said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of the former developer, who was found shot in the head in his house on the resort island of San Pedro, but that they wanted to question him.
McAfee told ABC News that the poisoning death of his dogs and the murder just hours later of Faull, who had complained about his dogs, was a coincidence.
McAfee has been hiding from police ever since Faull's death -- but Telesforo Guerra, McAfee's lawyer in Guatemala, said the tactic was born out of necessity, not guilt.
"You don't have to believe what the police say," Guerra told ABC News. "Even though they say he is not a suspect they were trying to capture him."
Guerra, who is a former attorney general of Guatemala, said it would take two to three weeks to secure asylum for his client.
According to McAfee, Guerra is also the uncle of McAfee's 20-year-old girlfriend, Samantha. McAfee said the government raided his beachfront home and threatened Samantha's family.
"Fifteen armed soldiers come in and personally kidnap my housekeeper, threaten Sam's father with torture and haul away half a million dollars of my s***," claimed McAfee. "If they're not after me, then why all these raids? There've been eight raids!"
Before his arrest, McAfee said he would hold a press conference on Thursday in Guatemala City to announce his asylum bid. He has offered to answer questions from Belizean law enforcement over the phone, and denied any involvement in Faull's death.
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