BEIJING — Yunnan’s worst drought for many years has been exacerbated by destruction of forest cover and a history of poor water management. Born into a farming family in south Yunnan province, China, Zhu Youyong’s life has always been tied to the soil. At the age of 54, however, Zhu - now president of Yunnan Agricultural University in Kunming - says he ‘has never seen such severe drought in Yunnan’. Since last September, the province has had 60% less rainfall than normal. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, 8.1 million people - 18% of Yunnan’s population - are short of drinking water, and US$2.5-billion worth of crops are expected to fail. Scientists in China say that the crisis marks one of the strongest case studies so far of how climate change and poor environmental practice can combine to create a disaster. They are now scrambling to pin down exactly what caused the drought, and whether similar events are likely to hit the region more often in the future. Meanwhile, with most of the province’s winter crops ruined, local farmers need immediate help. Zhu has been going from county to county to persuade farmers to grow […]
LISBON, PORTUGAL — Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday blamed the church’s own sins for the clerical sex-abuse scandal — not a campaign mounted by outsiders — and called for profound purification to end what he called the ‘greatest persecution’ the church has endured. His strongly worded comments placed responsibility for the crisis squarely on the sins of pedophile priests, repudiating the Vatican’s initial response to the scandal, in which it blamed the news media as well as advocates of abortion rights and legalizing same-sex marriage for mounting what it called a campaign against the church and the pope. Speaking en route to Portugal, Benedict said the Catholic Church has always suffered from problems of its own making but that ‘today we see it in a truly terrifying way.’ ‘The greatest persecution of the church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church,’ the pontiff said. ‘The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness — but also justice.’ The comments marked Benedict’s most thorough admission of the church’s guilt in creating the scandal. Previously he blamed abusers themselves and, in the case of Ireland, the bishops who […]
A Single Waffle Structure Nanotechnology never looked so delicious. Chris Dwyer, Duke University Silicon chips are on the way out, at least if Duke University engineer Chris Dwyer has his way. The professor of electrical and computer engineering says a single grad student using the unique properties of DNA to coax circuits into assembling themselves could produce more logic circuits in a single day than the entire global silicon chip industry could produce in a month. Indeed, DNA is perfectly suited to such pre-programming and self-assembly. Dwyer’s recent research has shown that by creating and mixing customized snippets of DNA and other molecules, he can create billions of identical, waffle-like structures that can be turned into logic circuits using light rather than electricity as a signaling medium. The process works by adding light-sensitive molecules called chromophores to the structures. These chromophores absorb light, exciting the electrons within. That energy is passed to a different nearby chromophore, which uses the energy to emit light of a different wavelength. The difference in wavelength is easily differentiated from the original light; in computing terms, it’s the difference between a one or a zero. Presto: a logic gate. Rather […]
BAGHDAD — Nearly 100 people died and at least 300 others were injured Monday in a series of attacks that crisscrossed Iraq, targeting security forces, factory workers and shoppers on what authorities called the deadliest day of the year. The violence – a combination of explosions and drive-by shootings at checkpoints – occurred against a backdrop of political stagnation since the March parliamentary elections, which pitted Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki against secular rival Ayad Allawi in a race so close that the outcome is still disputed. The political stalemate has given rise to fears of renewed sectarian violence, a potential hindrance to the full withdrawal of U.S. forces as scheduled for the end of next year. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. With a steady stream of bombings and security leadership in flux, some Iraqi politicians have called for the formation of an interim monitoring system until a new parliament is seated. That idea appeared to gain traction Monday, as the death toll rose throughout the day with bombings in Baghdad as well as the mainly Shiite Muslim south and Sunni Muslim west. ‘The parliament is in limbo, so who is there to […]
An 83-year-old Indian holy man who says he has spent seven decades without food or water has astounded a team of military doctors who studied him during a two-week observation period. Prahlad Jani spent a fortnight in a hospital in the western India state of Gujarat under constant surveillance from a team of 30 medics equipped with cameras and closed circuit television. During the period, he neither ate nor drank and did not go to the toilet. ‘We still do not know how he survives,’ neurologist Sudhir Shah told reporters after the end of the experiment. ‘It is still a mystery what kind of phenomenon this is.’ The long-haired and bearded yogi was sealed in a hospital in the city of Ahmedabad in a study initiated by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the state defence and military research institute. The DRDO hopes that the findings, set to be released in greater detail in several months, could help soldiers survive without food and drink, assist astronauts or even save the lives of people trapped in natural disasters. ‘(Jani’s) only contact with any kind of fluid was during gargling and bathing periodically during the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
