Cumbrian beaches fail water quality tests

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By Jonny Irving

Last updated at 11:56, Thursday, 07 November 2013

Two popular Cumbrian beaches are among just six in the UK that have failed to meet minimum water quality standards.

Source of trouble: Dog mess on the beach has been identified as a problem during tests at Allonby

Beaches at Allonby and Seascale both failed testing by DEFRA and the Environment Agency on the standard of bathing water.

They are among just four beaches in the north west that failed to meet the standards, along with St Annes and Fleetwood in Lancashire.

It is the second time that a beach in the Allonby area has failed the tests, as last year Allonby South, which passed this time out, fell short of the standards.

At Allonby, dog mess is cited as the reason, while at Seascale a range of factors are to blame.

An Environment Agency spokesman said: In Allonby, one of the key factors has been dog mess that has contributed to the fail.

In Seascale miss-connection from sewers, agricultural pollution run-off, and stream discharge have contributed.

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Cumbrian beaches fail water quality tests

Beaches beginning to bulk up | Video

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By the time hurricane season arrives next summer, several South Florida beaches will be bigger, providing better protection to coastal property and offering more room for sunbathers to lay their blankets.

A vast amount of sand is already starting to be spread on shorelines from Jupiter to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, with about 200 dump trucks showing up Tuesday in northern Pompano Beach.

"Palm Beach County depends on our beaches for our name, for our economy, for tourists and recreation, to protect the six billion dollars worth of real estate along the coast," said Leanne Welch, supervisor of the county's shoreline programs. "We have found that every dollar we spend returns anywhere from $8 to $9 to the local economy."

The beach restoration project in northern Broward will bolster a five-mile stretch from just south of Hillsboro Inlet to Commercial Boulevard, an area that lost a considerable amount of sand when Hurricane Sandy brushed past South Florida last year.

The work, expected to be completed in January, will add sand to the dry beach, making the beach taller rather than wider, at least initially. Where now the top of the dry beach is six or seven feet above sea level, the project will raise it to about 10 feet, said Eric Myers, Broward County's beach erosion administrator.

Adding sand gives the beach a better chance of recovering if sand is washed away, since much of that sand could just wash back onto the beach.

"Beaches are naturally dynamic, moving in response to storms and other influences," Myers said. "Beach renourishment is one way to try ensure that these functions continue to be provided."

To avoid disrupting traffic, the trucks will arrive over the course of several hours, assembling at a staging areas off Atlantic Boulevard and continuing on to the beach when called.

The Army Corps of Engineers is paying the entire $7.1 million cost.

Next week in southern Boca Raton, a dredge will scoop up offshore sand and pump it onto the beach. Within the next few weeks, a project will begin to pump sand from the ocean floor onto beaches in Ocean Ridge, Delray Beach, northern Boca Raton and Jupiter.

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Beaches beginning to bulk up | Video

Beaches beginning to bulk up

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By the time hurricane season arrives next summer, several South Florida beaches will be bigger, providing better protection to coastal property and offering more room for sunbathers to lay their blankets.

A vast amount of sand is already starting to be spread on shorelines from Jupiter to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, with about 200 dump trucks showing up Tuesday in northern Pompano Beach.

"Palm Beach County depends on our beaches for our name, for our economy, for tourists and recreation, to protect the six billion dollars worth of real estate along the coast," said Leanne Welch, supervisor of the county's shoreline programs. "We have found that every dollar we spend returns anywhere from $8 to $9 to the local economy."

The beach restoration project in northern Broward will bolster a five-mile stretch from just south of Hillsboro Inlet to Commercial Boulevard, an area that lost a considerable amount of sand when Hurricane Sandy brushed past South Florida last year.

The work, expected to be completed in January, will add sand to the dry beach, making the beach taller rather than wider, at least initially. Where now the top of the dry beach is six or seven feet above sea level, the project will raise it to about 10 feet, said Eric Myers, Broward County's beach erosion administrator.

Adding sand gives the beach a better chance of recovering if sand is washed away, since much of that sand could just wash back onto the beach.

"Beaches are naturally dynamic, moving in response to storms and other influences," Myers said. "Beach renourishment is one way to try ensure that these functions continue to be provided."

To avoid disrupting traffic, the trucks will arrive over the course of several hours, assembling at a staging areas off Atlantic Boulevard and continuing on to the beach when called.

The Army Corps of Engineers is paying the entire $7.1 million cost.

Next week in southern Boca Raton, a dredge will scoop up offshore sand and pump it onto the beach. Within the next few weeks, a project will begin to pump sand from the ocean floor onto beaches in Ocean Ridge, Delray Beach, northern Boca Raton and Jupiter.

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Beaches beginning to bulk up

Bathing beaches get clean bill of health

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Improvement in bathing quality as all the region's beaches reach the mandatory standard

2:45pm Thursday 7th November 2013 in News By Mark Foster

THE quality of bathing water at beaches throughout the region has continued to improve over the past year, according to the latest test results.

All the bathing beaches in the North-East and Yorkshire met the mandatory requirements set down in the European Bathing Water Directive.

And the vast majority reached the directives higher guideline standard, according to the Environment Agency.

The tests were carried out at each of the beaches on a weekly basis throughout the 2013 bathing season.

Across Yorkshire and the North-East all 54 beaches reached the minimum standard and 46 of those met with the higher standard.

That beat the previous years figures when four beaches failed to reach the minimum level and only 22 met the higher guideline a dip that was attributed to repeated heavy rainfall.

Regional environmental planning manager Trevor Hardy said: We have some fabulous beaches here and these results will give residents and visitors real confidence that water quality is good and getting better.

The Environment Agency has been working hard to reduce discharges, agricultural run-off and cross connections that can have a detrimental effect on water quality, and combined with the fact that this year has been much drier than 2012, we have seen one of the best set of results in twenty years.

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Bathing beaches get clean bill of health

YouTube astronomy brings new views on meteors

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Call it astronomy by YouTube.

Unprecedented social media documentation of a small asteroid exploding over a Russian city earlier this year has taught scientists much more about how and how often such spectacular events happen.

In one of three scientific papers on the Chelyabinsk meteor published Wednesday, a University of Western Ontario scientist concludes that the heavenly bodies are hitting the Earth two or three times more often than we thought.

"The consensus seems to be that we're seeing more things in the tens-of-metre size hitting us than we previously thought," said Peter Brown, lead author of a paper published in Nature. "Our knowledge of the risk is getting better."

The Chelyabinsk meteor sailed into the Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 15 and exploded in the sky so brightly that it cast daytime shadows in the nearby city of that name. The long, fiery trail gave observers plenty of time to whip out smartphones and videocams to record it and many did.

More than 400 recordings of it exist.

"It's almost certainly the best-recorded event in any of our lifetimes," said Brown. "Even if it happens again, the odds are it will happen over the oceans and be virtually unrecorded."

The blast knocked people off their feet and smashed thousands of windows. Many residents of Chelyabinsk were injured from flying glass.

Olga Popova, author of another paper published in Science, used the data from security and dashboard cameras to calculate that the asteroid was nearly 20 metres in diameter and hit a speed of 18.6 kilometres per second. The blast was 30 times brighter than the sun and released energy equivalent to 530 kilotonnes of TNT.

Brown and his colleagues were able to use the wealth of data to construct a clearer picture of what happens to asteroids when they hit the atmosphere.

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YouTube astronomy brings new views on meteors

SOFIA set to begin cycle two astronomy observations

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Nov 06, 2013 The SOFIA flying observatory deployed to Christchurch, New Zealand, in July 2013 for an opportunity to study the skies above the Southern Hemisphere. Credit: NASA / Carla Thomas

NASA, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the SOFIA Science Center, and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) have announced the selection of 51 investigations to study the universe using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). SOFIA, a joint program between NASA and the DLR, is set to begin its second full cycle of science flights from February through December 2014.

The SOFIA observatory is a substantially modified 747SP aircraft that carries a telescope with an effective diameter of 100 inches (2.5 meters) to altitudes above 39,000 feet (12 km), beyond the obscuring layer of water vapor in Earth's atmosphere.

"More than 1,000 hours of observing time were requested, three times the amount available, evidence of SOFIA's desirability to astronomers," said SOFIA Science Missions Operations Director Erick Young in announcing the awards of observing time. "The approved projects make good use of the observatory's capabilities to study objects ranging from Earth's solar system neighbors to galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away."

As of Nov. 5, the SOFIA has conducted 23 of 30 planned Cycle 1 science flights, including nine flights during a Southern Hemisphere deployment to New Zealand from its base at NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif.

The newly announced observing period, known as Cycle 2, contains 47 science flights grouped into multi-week observing campaigns spread through an 11-month span. The Cycle 2 science flights include approximately 350 research flight hours, about 200 hours of which have been awarded to guest investigators whose proposals to do research using SOFIA were evaluated by either a U.S. or a German-chartered peer review panel.

In addition to the science flights planned for Cycle 2, the SOFIA program will undertake commissioning observations needed to make two more of the observatory's seven first-generation scientific instruments ready for use by guest investigators. Those instruments, the EXES (Echelon-Cross-Echelle Spectrograph), a high-resolution mid-infrared spectrograph, and the FIFI LS (Field Imaging Far-Infrared Line Spectrometer), will be available to researchers on a limited basis.

"In the past year, SOFIA has become a first-class asset to the world scientific community," said Pam Marcum, NASA SOFIA Project Scientist. "This SOFIA Cycle 2 announcement marks an important step in our progress toward routine operations. Infrared studies from these observations will enhance our knowledge of the life cycles of stars, how planets form, the chemistry of the interstellar medium, and much more."

SOFIA is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The aircraft is based at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. NASA Dryden Flight Research Center manages the program. NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., manages the SOFIA science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) headquartered in Columbia, Md., and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart.

Explore further: Chelyabinsk meteor explosion a 'wake-up call', scientistswarn

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SOFIA set to begin cycle two astronomy observations

Boeing, Hexcel Expand Aerospace Composites Malaysia Facility By 40 Percent

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(ACM) to support increased production by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. ACM produces flight surfaces for all of Boeing's commercial programs, including the Next-Generation 737, 747-8, 767, 777 and 787 Dreamliner.

The RM50 million (17 million USD) investment by Boeing and Hexcel adds 125,000 square feet to a factory footprint that now totals 440,000 square feet, and the project includes a clean-room expansion of 11,000 square feet and installation of RM14 million (5 million USD) in new equipment.

With the added capacity, ACM is expected to grow its high-tech manufacturing workforce beyond its current 950 employees, furthering ACM's position as the region s leading employer.

The added capacity is expected to be partially used to begin production of 787 Fixed Leading Edge Panels in 2014.

"Boeing and Hexcel are increasing ACM's capacity as a direct result of its proven high performance and ability to expand its capabilities to support the quality, reliability and affordability of Boeing's commercial aircraft," said John Byrne, Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president, Airplane Materials and Structures.

"Boeing and Malaysia have a long history of collaboration, and ACM is a great example of the mutual benefit earned by growing Malaysia's high-tech sector and supporting Boeing's supply chain."

"Hexcel is deeply committed to the success of ACM and the Boeing aircraft it supports," said Russ Thurman, Hexcel Corporation, Director of Operations Americas.

"We share in ACM's continued passion in the advancement of composite aerospace production while expanding on our collective success as the employer of choice for the people of Malaysia"

"ACM are determined to continue to grow ACM business by sourcing locally, creating new local employment especially within this Kubang Pasu district, offering products and helping in the further industrial development of the state of Kedah and the growth of the aerospace industry in Malaysia," said Robert Moray, General Manager of ACM.

"Boeing recognizes that high-technology aerospace composites manufacturing is a key initiative of the Malaysian Government," said Skip Boyce, president of Boeing Southeast Asia.

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Boeing, Hexcel Expand Aerospace Composites Malaysia Facility By 40 Percent

FLYHT Aerospace Solutions Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: FLY) Schedules Third Quarter Conference Call

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CALGARY, ALBERTA--(Marketwired - Nov 7, 2013) - FLYHT Aerospace Solutions Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:FLY) (the "Company" or "FLYHT") has scheduled a live conference call to discuss the third quarter results to be held, Thursday, November 14, 2013 at 2:00 pm MST (4:00 pm EST, 1:00 pm PST).

The conference call will include a brief presentation about FLYHT's third quarter results and then a question and answer period with management.

To access the conference call by phone within Canada and the U.S. the toll-free number is 1-800-319-4610. Outside Canada and the U.S., dial 1-604-638-5340. (Callers should dial in five to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time).

Management will accept questions by telephone and e-mail. Individuals wishing to ask a question during the call, can do so by pressing *1. Also, you can email questions in advance or during the conference call to investors@flyht.com.

An archive of the conference call will be posted on the Presentations and Webcasts section of FLYHT's website as soon as it is available from the conference call provider. http://ctt.marketwire.com/?docid=0909580001&id=3625261&type=0&url=http%3a%2f%2fflyht.com%2finvestors%2fvideos%2f

About FLYHT Aerospace Solutions Ltd.

FLYHT provides proprietary technological products and services designed to reduce costs and improve efficiencies in the airline industry. The Company has patented and commercialized three products and associated services currently marketed to airlines, manufacturers and maintenance organizations around the world. Its premier technology, AFIRS UpTime, allows airlines to monitor and manage aircraft operations anywhere, anytime, in real time. If an aircraft encounters an emergency, FLYHT's triggered data streaming mode, FLYHTStream, automatically streams vital data, normally secured in the black box, to designated sites on the ground in real time. The Company has been publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange since 2003.

AFIRS, UpTime, FLYHT, FLYHTStream and AeroQ are trademarks of FLYHT Aerospace Solutions Ltd.

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FLYHT Aerospace Solutions Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: FLY) Schedules Third Quarter Conference Call

Gonzales: Stem cell therapy and autism

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STEM cell therapy is one of the most controversial topics that make parents of children with autism curious and excited. Is this safe and effective for our children? How is it done? Is this already the miracle cure that we all have been waiting for?

As soon as I opened my mails after Day 2 of the 13th National Autism Conference that was held on October 26-27, 2013, this was the first question that I got: is it the answer to improving the lives of individuals with autism?

The resource person who talked about stem cell therapy was Dr. Antonio Dans. He is the President of the Philippine Society of General Internal Medicine and a professor of the UP College of Medicine, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Department of Internal Medicine. He is also one of the Academicians of the National Academy of Science and Technology. He practices internal medicine at the Philippine General Hospital, a government facility that serves indigent patients from all over the country. His research and publications have ranged from clinical trials on novel drugs for primary and secondary prevention, to epidemiologic studies on burden of illness and causes of cardiovascular disease in the Philippines.

Given his credentials, it could have been very easy for him to say whether stem cell therapy have been proven to cure autism and other diseases and we, the parents, could have easily jumped into the bandwagon of those seeking for a medical cure for our children.

However, Dr. Dans emphasized that while there are indeed cases of successful stem cell therapies, for example, patients with cancer or blood disorder such as leukemia or a diabetic patient whose conditions improved and therefore leg amputation was no longer necessary, there is a need to conduct clinical trials.

The US Food and Drugs Administration defines clinical trial as a research study in human volunteers to answer specific health questions. Carefully conducted clinical trials are the safest and fastest way to find treatments that work in people, and new ways to improve health. In the United States, the FDA supervises the conduct of clinical trials before introducing a new treatment, medicine or use of an invasive medical device on human beings.

The outcome of a case study about stem cell therapy is much different from outcomes of a clinical trial because a case study involves only one person while a clinical trial involves groups of persons. A patient in a case study may say that a treatment may have been 100 percent effective for him as an individual, but the probability of cure may become lower using the same treatment for a group of 100 patients.

According to Dr. Dans, clinical trials are conducted to determine effectiveness of a treatment for a specific type of illness or groups of people. There may be reasons why patients get well after a treatment: maybe it was a placebo effect, or maybe the patient received other treatments, or maybe the body healed itself. Clinical trials are also conducted to assess side effects of a treatment. Some examples of side effects are: aggravation of existing cancers, severe allergic reactions, graft versus host disease (rash, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, jaundice, etc.).

Clinical trials are expensive. There are only about 121,428 studies conducted on stem cell therapies all over the world and 378 randomized clinical trials on stem cell therapy but zero for autism cases. One of most successful studies on stem cells can be found in Australia. (http://www.stemcellsaustralia.edu.au/About-Stem-Cells.aspx)

If my understanding is correct, the procedure for stem cell therapy seems simple: fat cells are taken from the patient and subjected to a laboratory procedure that will separate the healthy stem cells which will be injected back to the body of the patient.

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Gonzales: Stem cell therapy and autism