Drinking tapwater in the US could give you cancer, scientists warn

Public water supplies serving six million people found to contain up to 25 times the safe limit of toxic chemicals

More than six million people in the US are drinking water that contains poisonous industrial chemicals linked with cancer and other health problems at levels higher than official safety limits, according to a major new study.

Researchers from Harvard University and other institutions used information about 36,000 water samples collected nationwide by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2013-2015.

They found that chemicals known as PFASs were present in 194 out of 4,864 public water supplies. And 66 water supplies had at least one sample that was above the EPA safety limit.

The highest concentration was found in Newark, Delaware, where the level of one kind of PFAS was 25 times higher than the safe limit. The worst problems were found in watersheds near industrial sites, military bases and wastewater treatment plants, the researchers reported in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

PFASs – polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances – can be used in everything from food containers such as pizza boxes and non-stick cooking utensils to clothing, carpets and furniture. Only last year a group of scientists expressed concern about the increasing number of these kinds of chemicals in the environment, noting a "growing body" of evidence that they can cause cancer, obesity, low birth weight and even delay puberty.

Lead author of the paper, Xindi Hu, said: “For many years, chemicals with unknown toxicities, such as PFAS, were allowed to be used and released to the environment, and we now have to face the severe consequences.

“In addition, the actual number of people exposed may be even higher than our study found, because government data for levels of these compounds in drinking water is lacking for almost a third of the US population – about 100 million people.”

Some manufacturers have stopped using them amid rising concern over their health effects, but the chemicals have persisted in people, wildlife and in the natural environment.

PFASs are also widely used in fire-fighting foam and some industrial processes. Normal waste-water treatment plants are not able to remove them and sludge from these plants is often used as fertilizer on farms, which could lead to the contamination of groundwater.

Three-quarters of the samples of PFAS-polluted water were found in 13 states with the highest levels in California, followed by New Jersey, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Georgia, Minnesota, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Illinois.

Professor Elsie Sunderland, who worked on the study, said the problem could actually be significantly worse as other research had cast doubt on the safety of the current limits.

“These compounds are potent immunotoxicants in children and recent work suggests drinking water safety levels should be much lower than the provisional guidelines established by EPA,” she said.

Last year a group of scientists issued the "Madrid Statement on PFASs", in which they said they were "concerned about the production and release into the environment of an increasing number of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances".

"PFASs are found in the indoor and outdoor environments, wildlife, and human tissue and bodily fluids all over the globe. They are emitted via industrial processes and military and firefighting operations, and they migrate out of consumer products into air, household dust, food, soil, ground and surface water, and make their way into drinking water," they wrote.

"In animal studies, some long-chain PFASs have been found to cause liver toxicity, disruption of lipid metabolism and the immune and endocrine systems, adverse neurobehavioral effects, neonatal toxicity and death, and tumors in multiple organ systems.

"In the growing body of epidemiological evidence, some of these effects are supported by significant or suggestive associations between specific long-chain PFASs and adverse outcomes, including associations with testicular and kidney cancers, liver malfunction, hypothyroidism, high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, lower birth weight and size, obesity, decreased immune response to vaccines, and reduced hormone levels and delayed puberty."

IN1Case Multi-tool Utility Case for iPhone 5s Review

			In the old days we carried a pocket knife. Then later multi-tools became popular. Now IN1case hopes the iPhone case will replace both of them with their IN1case Multi-tool Utility Case. It houses all the tools in a nice case with a kickstand that fits both the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s. This black slider case adds an extra layer of protection on the back of a black polyurethane hard case that holds 8 tools and a kickstand.
			Like all other iPhone cases, we get spaces and cutouts to reach the buttons and ports. The case made it hard to put the iPhone on an iHome dock with Lightning connector. The kickstand holds the iPhone at the perfect viewing angle (about 45 degrees) for watching Netflix or Hulu
Along the top edge of the back of the IN1case Multi-tool Utility Case we get a pair of pens, one red and one blue. Writing takes some finesse since the pens measure only a few inches long with a minuscule diameter that makes them hard to hold. The company doesn’t offer a beautiful Cross pen, but a pen ready to scribble a short note or sign a check.  On the right side looking at the front of the iPhone, we get six more tools. A flat head screwdriver and a Philips head screwdriver sit closest to the top. They’re so small, a user can’t get much torque, but it will let the user tighten things like a screw in a pair of glasses. Closest to the bottom we get four more tools, a nail file, tweezers, scissors and a toothpick. None of these tools will impress anyone. They’re for those times when we’re desperate and don’t have anything else better to use. The scissors barely cut and the nail file might file down a cheese stick, but nothing harder. The tweezers and the toothpick function okay, but do you really want to pick your teeth with something stored in an iPhone case silo? The thick back of the IN1case will do a good job of protecting an iPhone 5 or 5s. The case comes in two pieces and it slides onto the phone tightly so it won’t fall off. The two parts won’t come apart easily, which is a good thing. The tight fit caused a problem when I slid it onto the iPhone with a glass screen protector from Spigen. As the image below shows it broke the glass protector. That says more about the terrible Spigen protector than it does about the case. Despite these complaints, I like the case. It looks good, feels good in the hand and protects well. None of these tools will replace my toolbox for big jobs, but neither will a pocket knife or most small multi-tools. The tools will help when the user gets desperate to open a box with the scissors or fix her glasses with the screwdriver. The $44.95 price makes this case bout $15 more than a simple slider case without any of the tools. Its worth $15 to get a case with the tools and a kickstand, possibly the most useful feature. Post By: Aamir Khan Jadoon

Venus orbits sun within huge band of dust, say scientists

Studying the dust ring will allow scientists to improve their ability to detect planets outside our solar system

 

700,000-Year-Old Horse Found in Yukon Permafrost Yields Oldest DNA Ever Decoded

The frozen remains of a horse more than half a million years old have reluctantly given up their genetic secrets, providing scientists with the oldest DNA ever sequenced.

The horse was discovered in 2003 in the ancient permafrost of Canada’s west-central Yukon Territory, not far from the Alaskan border.

And although the animal was dated to between 560,000 and 780,000 years old, an international team of researchers was able to use a new combination of techniques to decipher its genetic code.
Among the team’s findings is that the genus Equus — which includes all horses, donkeys, and zebras — dates back more than 4 million years, twice as long ago as scientists had previously believed.
“When we started the project, everyone — including us, to be honest — thought it was impossible,” said Dr. Ludovic Orlando of the University of Copenhagen, who coordinated the research, in a statement to Western Digs.
“And it was to some extent, with the methods available by then. So it’s clearly methodological advances that made this possible.”
Orlando and his colleagues published their findings this summer in the journal Nature; he discussed them today in a lecture at The Royal Society, London.
Previous to this, the oldest genome ever sequenced was of a 120,000-year-old polar bear — no small feat considering that the half-life of a DNA molecule is estimated to be about 521 years. By this reckoning, even under the best conditions, DNA could remain intact for no more than 6.8 million years.
But Orlando’s team was able to make the most of what they had for a number of reasons, he said.
The fact that the remains were frozen helped slow the rate of decay. But they also “targeted specific DNA preservation niches,” he said, like the protein called collagen found in the animal’s bones, which is more DNA-rich than other tissues.
“But also we pioneered the usage of what is called true Single Molecular Sequencing that basically reads through molecules as they stand, without further manipulation,” Orlando added. By tracking a full, single DNA molecule, the team was able to avoid having to “amplify” fragments, which can often introduce errors.

To get a better sense of what this new, ancient genome held, Orlando’s team compared it against that of a 43,000-year-old horse, plus modern domestic horse breeds, and finally the Przewalski’s horse, an equid that makes its home on the Asian steppes and holds the title as the last surviving population of wild horses.

Anti-Gravity Ball Opens New Dimensions

Anti-Gravity Ball Opens New Dimension

MIT media lab created a metal ball which is capable of doing some extraordinary feats while being in anti gravity mode. This round shiny metal ball has been named as ZeroN and it has indeed put a great significance in manipulating technologies in a more advanced way. The ball can be controlled via computer and by hands as well, to be more precise it lets you control the communication between computer and human via physical interference.
The strong magnetic field controlled by the computer along with optical tracking system and a projector are used to make the ball move around. Jinha Lee, the one who has made this project has been telling that this anti gravity ball could be used in various fashions, like by projecting our solar systems and even manipulating some controls of physical motion to digital motion. The stability and the vertical hold of the ball is also appreciatable, since it has no disturbance as the magnetic field puts a firm hold over it.

More to see this thing in action watch the video below:

Seeing New York City Through Google Glass

As we get closer to the launch of the consumer version of Google Glass, aimed for early 2014, we’ve seen Glass show off a range of functions, from capturing first-person video footage to identifying music playing in a restaurant. For Google, however, this is just the beginning of what Glass can do, which is why they’re reaching out to creative minds and inventors to develop ideas for applications that will make Glass into the ultimate mobile technology.
On November 10, at the NYU Tisch School, about 50 students and developers gathered for a Google Glass Design Sprint, organized by NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). Moderated by Glass developer advocate Timothy Jordan, this “design sprint” was a high-powered brainstorming session focused on dreaming up apps that would improve the way Glass-wearers navigate city environments. The goal of the design sprint was to explore ideas for what Glass can contribute to urban science on the streets of New York.  Participants produced a flurry of brightly colored post-its, scrawled with notes like “language translation” and “count density of subway traffic,” then spent two hours discussing their ideas, evaluating each one’s usefulness and complexity.
One attendee was Jared Lamenzo, an ITP alumnus who works for digital design company Mediated Spaces and develops “citizen science” apps to encourage kids to interact with nature. Jared collaborating with Cornell University on an app that would allow users to identify birds in the wild. With Glass, Jared’s app would bring bird watching to a whole new level, with almost instantaneous recognition. He’s also a Google Explorer, which means he owns the $1,500 developer edition of Google Glass that was released in February. He and his friend Gabriel Willow used Glass to make this guided tour of Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, with additional special effects from the Mozilla PopcornMaker program:

https://jaredlamenzo.makes.org/popcorn/1e74


Most attendees were current NYU graduate students, like Shilpan Baghat, who is developing an Android app to help consumers make informed choices at grocery stores. At the moment, he says, there’s no app that uses personalized nutritional data to guide consumers and tell them whether a product would be good or bad for them, based on various health indicators like Body Mass Index (BMI) and cholesterol levels. Though it will take a while to develop, he hopes this application could eventually be extended to Google Glass.
This is just the start of ITP’s work on Google Glass. Over the next few months, students will continue to flesh out their ideas for applications, said Shawn Van Every, a professor at ITP. By the end of the spring, ITP expects to host another event to test out the students’ prototypes on Google Glass. Google continues to reach into the community to gather ideas, inspire developers to begin work, and of course, raise the level of excitement about this potentially-transformative new technology.