Fatal shark attack keeps beaches closed as Jay Muscat remembered

Posted on by

Jay Muscat was with a friend at Cheynes Beach when he was fatally attacked by a shark.

Beaches in the area where a teenager was fatally attacked by a shark on Monday remain closed.

Albany local Jay Muscat, 17, was believed to have been spear fishing with a friend when the shark attacked off CheynesBeach, about 60 kilometres east of Albany.

It is understood his friend was also targeted by the shark and used his spear gun to fend off the animal, which may have helped avoid serious injury.

Baited drum lines, which were deployed on Monday afternoon in an effort to catch what is believed to be a 4-5 metre great white shark responsible for the attack, were again deployed on Tuesday morning.

Advertisement

It has been reported that Jay's friend Matt Pullella had told friends about being with Jay when the attack happened.

Matt posted on Facebook: "Today I witnessed one of my best friends be attacked and killed by a shark. The shark hit me first then attacked Jay. The shark turned and came for me. I pushed teh speargun down its throat and fired the gun! This is something no one should ever have to see. RIP Jay Muscat. I will never forget!", TheWest Australianreported.

Jay Muscat, 17, was a keen fisherman.

More to come...

Read more here:

Fatal shark attack keeps beaches closed as Jay Muscat remembered

Canberrans flock to the coast as temperatures tipped to hit 32 degrees

Posted on by

Volunteer Lifesaver Anthony Ballette with the other volunteers watching over swimmers at Malua Bay. Photo: Rohan Thomson

Lifesavers on the south coast are keeping an eye on Canberrans flocking to surf beaches this week, with temperatures tipped to hit 32 degrees.

A mostly overcast weekend with mild temperatures saw below-average numbers on beaches near Batemans Bay and Moruya, but that changed for a brief period on Monday before rain eventually settled in.

An afternoon storm on Monday was a surprise to many on the coast. Lifesavers reported full beaches about 1pm before the weather changed dramatically.

Batemans Bay lifeguard Anthony Bellette said the last couple of days had been quiet on the beaches, with few incidents in the water.

Advertisement

"We're expecting a lot more people to come out to the beach on Monday and Tuesday now that everyone is down here," he said

Mr McBurnie's colleague, Anthony Duke, said a cold air mass would pass over the south coast on Monday night bringing temperatures down to 28 on Tuesday and 22 on Wednesday.

"Temperatures will jump back up to 31 with clear skies on Thursday and remain around 30 degrees on the weekend," he said.

Mr Bellette urged coast-goers to be responsible at the beach, swim between the flags and avoid alcohol.

View original post here:

Canberrans flock to the coast as temperatures tipped to hit 32 degrees

Around the Region: First Day Hike at Ravines Garden State Park and more

Posted on by

BEACHES Beaches Museum volunteer orientation

Beaches Museum and History Park will host a volunteer orientation on Tuesday, Jan. 20, at 381 Beach Blvd. The two-hour training session will cover museum activiites, volunteer positions available and plans for 2015. To sign up or for more, (904) 241-5657 or info@BeachesMuseum.org.

BEACHES Arts in the Park seeks works for 2015 event

The City of Atlantic Beach has put out a call for artists who wish to participate in the 12th annual Arts in the Park on April 25. The Johansen Park event is a juried event and space is limited. Applications can be downloaded from coab.us, and applications are being accepted now.

ORANGE PARK Chat with Orange Park mayor

Orange Park Mayor Steve Howard holds open office hours from 8-11:30 a.m. on the first Thursday each month at Town Hall, 2042 Park Ave. For more, (904) 264-2635.

CLAY Animal care agency in need

Clay County Animal Care and Control needs volunteers, especially people to foster animals. It also needs donations of pet care items including towels, blankets, canned dog and cat food, cat litter, kitten and puppy formula, bleach and newspapers. For more, (904) 269-6342 or claycountygov.com/departments/clay-county-animal-care-control.

NASSAU We want Nassau County news

The Times-Union would like to include more news for Nassau County. Send us your items awards, milestones, announcements, events for community groups, nonprofits, churches, schools, businesses and government agencies. Contact dan.scanlan@jacksonville.com, aroundtheregion@jacksonville.com, or call (904) 359-4549.

See original here:

Around the Region: First Day Hike at Ravines Garden State Park and more

Shark kills teen in Western Australia, beaches closed

Posted on by

Facebook

Jay Muscat, 17, was a keen fisherman.

Beaches in the area of West Australia where a 17-year-old boy was yesterday killed in a shark attack are set to remain closed today.

Spear fisher Jay Muscat was with a friend at Cheynes Beach - about 65 kilometres east of Albany in West Australia's Great Southern region - when he was attacked and killed around noon Monday (local time).

It is understood his friend was also approached by the shark but did not suffer serious injuries.The local Department of Fisheries confirmed the teenager's death was the result of a shark.

"It has been confirmed that at about midday this morning, a man suffered fatal injuries after being bitten by a shark," the department said.

It is believed at least two men, who were fishing from rocks nearby, saw the boy's body floating in the water.

Cheynes Beach is a small coastal settlement of fishing shacks, holiday homes and a caravan park, surrounded by Waychinicup National Park.

While a Fisheries Department spokeswoman initially said the department had no plans to send officers or a vessel to the area to search for sharks that may have been involved in the incident, that position has since changed.

The Department of Fisheries has deployed equipment in an effort to catch the shark, which a spokeswoman said was "most likely to be a white shark".

Follow this link:

Shark kills teen in Western Australia, beaches closed

In Plaistow, business owner is seeing stars

Posted on by

PLAISTOW It's easy enough to buy a telescope through a big online retailers and point it at the stars, but getting the most out of the experience requires a lot more than taking the telescope out of a box, says the owner of a telescope business.

Anthony Costanzo has run the Astronomy Shoppe on Elm Street in Plaistow for 12 years. For Costanzo, who has a background in teaching and grinding his own lenses, operating an astronomy store is about much more than just selling telescopes.

We're not just selling telescopes, we are providing a lot of information, Costanzo said. I try to get everyone who comes in here involved with a local astronomy club.

On the sales side of his business, Costanzo offers telescopes from national and international manufacturers for every one from beginners to the most experienced amateur astronomers.

A quality tabletop Orion telescope that is a perfect starter telescope for children sells for under $100.

It's in the intermediate range, and you can see the moon, the planets, and deep sky objects, Costanzo said.

On the other end of the spectrum are the American-made Questar telescopes, which features the finest mirrors and lenses and can retail for more than $5,000.

Costanzo said he has seen his business grow consistently over the past five years, and this year is set to be his best yet.

Much of that growth is due to the services and items he provides in addition to telescope sales.

The Astronomy Shoppe also sells other items, from telescope holders to Bluetooth devices that connect telescopes to tablets and smart phones, that Costanzo has made or designed.

Here is the original post:

In Plaistow, business owner is seeing stars

ISU PROSPER youth program promotes healthy development, expands nationwide

Posted on by

An ISU program designed to reduce substance abuse and behavioral problems in youth is expanding to move nationwide.

PROSPER, which stands for PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience, works to promote healthy habits in youth by partnering with programs that help youth develop in healthy and positive ways.

The programfunded mostly by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Healthis more of a partnership support model rather than program.

We describe it as a delivery system for evidence-based programs, said Richard Spoth, director of Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute at Iowa State. Its actually for individual programs that are family-focused and school-based.

PROSPER partners with local schools or community programs, which can select evidence-based programs proven to reduce substance abuse and other youth behavior problems among youth while promoting healthy development.

The term evidence-based refers to programs that have been proven through scientific research and succeed in achieving desired outcomes. Programs selected by PROSPER must be scientifically proven effective before any connection is made.

Programs linked to PROSPER are typically built around strengthening families or promoting healthy habits in youth. PROSPER supports the programs that have been proven effective, which means better programs get more support, while the developing programs are encouraged to improve.

According to the PROSPER Partnerships website, The vision of PROSPER is to support community partnerships that sustain the most effective programs for promoting positive youth development and strong families, and to facilitate translation of prevention science into widespread community practice.

PROSPER is a third-generation model based on past projects focused primarily on strengthening families. First came Project Family, in which ISU Extension agents assisted local schools in hiring staff and program coordinators.

Because the implementation of the program in collaboration with Cooperative Extension worked so well, we wrote another proposal that was called Capable Families and Youth, Spoth said. In that particular project, we had regional level support for smaller local implementation groups.

Read more:
ISU PROSPER youth program promotes healthy development, expands nationwide

Breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence from 2014 | MIT …

Posted on by

The holy grail of artificial intelligencecreating software that comes close to mimicking human intelligenceremains far off. But 2014 saw major strides in machine learning software that can gain abilities from experience. Companies in sectors from biotech to computing turned to these new techniques to solve tough problems or develop new products.

The most striking research results in AI came from the field of deep learning, which involves using crude simulated neurons to process data.

Work in deep learning often focuses on images, which are easy for humans to understand but very difficult for software to decipher. Researchers at Facebook used that approach to make a system that can tell almost as well as a human whether two different photos depict the same person. Google showed off a system that can describe scenes using short sentences.

Results like these have led leading computing companies to compete fiercely for AI researchers. Google paid more than $600 million for a machine learning startup called DeepMind at the start of the year. When MIT Technology Review caught up with the companys founder, Demis Hassabis, later in the year, he explained how DeepMinds work was shaped by groundbreaking research into the human brain.

The search company Baidu, nicknamed Chinas Google, also spent big on artificial intelligence. It set up a lab in Silicon Valley to expand its existing research into deep learning, and to compete with Google and others for talent. Stanford AI researcher and onetime Google collaborator Andrew Ng was hired to lead that effort. In our feature-length profile, he explained how artificial intelligence could turn people who have never been on the Web into users of Baidus Web search and other services.

Machine learning was also a source of new products this year from computing giants, small startups, and companies outside the computer industry.

Microsoft drew on its research into speech recognition and language comprehension to create its virtual assistant Cortana, which is built into the mobile version of Windows. The app tries to enter a back-and-forth dialogue with people. Thats intended both to make it more endearing and to help it learn what went wrong when it makes a mistake.

Startups launched products that used machine learning for tasks as varied as helping you get pregnant, letting you control home appliances with your voice, and making plans via text message .

Some of the most interesting applications of artificial intelligence came in health care. IBM is now close to seeing a version of its Jeopardy!-winning Watson software help cancer doctors use genomic data to choose personalized treatment plans for patients . Applying machine learning to a genetic database enabled one biotech company to invent a noninvasive test that prevents unnecessary surgery.

Using artificial intelligence techniques on genetic data is likely to get a lot more common now that Google, Amazon, and other large computing companies are getting into the business of storing digitized genomes.

Here is the original post:

Breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence from 2014 | MIT ...

2014 in Computing: Breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence

Posted on by

The holy grail of artificial intelligencecreating software that comes close to mimicking human intelligenceremains far off. But 2014 saw major strides in machine learning software that can gain abilities from experience. Companies in sectors from biotech to computing turned to these new techniques to solve tough problems or develop new products.

The most striking research results in AI came from the field of deep learning, which involves using crude simulated neurons to process data.

Work in deep learning often focuses on images, which are easy for humans to understand but very difficult for software to decipher. Researchers at Facebook used that approach to make a system that can tell almost as well as a human whether two different photos depict the same person. Google showed off a system that can describe scenes using short sentences.

Results like these have led leading computing companies to compete fiercely for AI researchers. Google paid more than $600 million for a machine learning startup called DeepMind at the start of the year. When MIT Technology Review caught up with the companys founder, Demis Hassabis, later in the year, he explained how DeepMinds work was shaped by groundbreaking research into the human brain.

The search company Baidu, nicknamed Chinas Google, also spent big on artificial intelligence. It set up a lab in Silicon Valley to expand its existing research into deep learning, and to compete with Google and others for talent. Stanford AI researcher and onetime Google collaborator Andrew Ng was hired to lead that effort. In our feature-length profile, he explained how artificial intelligence could turn people who have never been on the Web into users of Baidus Web search and other services.

Machine learning was also a source of new products this year from computing giants, small startups, and companies outside the computer industry.

Microsoft drew on its research into speech recognition and language comprehension to create its virtual assistant Cortana, which is built into the mobile version of Windows. The app tries to enter a back-and-forth dialogue with people. Thats intended both to make it more endearing and to help it learn what went wrong when it makes a mistake.

Startups launched products that used machine learning for tasks as varied as helping you get pregnant, letting you control home appliances with your voice, and making plans via text message .

Some of the most interesting applications of artificial intelligence came in health care. IBM is now close to seeing a version of its Jeopardy!-winning Watson software help cancer doctors use genomic data to choose personalized treatment plans for patients . Applying machine learning to a genetic database enabled one biotech company to invent a noninvasive test that prevents unnecessary surgery.

Using artificial intelligence techniques on genetic data is likely to get a lot more common now that Google, Amazon, and other large computing companies are getting into the business of storing digitized genomes.

More here:

2014 in Computing: Breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence

Tech 2015: Deep Learning And Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World

Posted on by

Despite what Stephen Hawking or Elon Musk say, hostile Artificial Intelligence is not going to destroy the world anytime soon. What is certain to happen, however, is the continued ascent of the practical applications of AI, namely deep learning and machine intelligence. The word is spreading in all corners of the tech industry that the biggest part of big data, the unstructured part, possesses learnable patterns that we now have the computing power and algorithmic leverage to discernand in short order.

The effects of this technology will change the economics of virtually every industry. And although the market value of machine learning and data science talent is climbing rapidly, the value of most human labor will precipitously fall. This change marks a true disruption, and there are fortunes to be made. There are also tremendous social consequences to consider that require as much creativity and investment as the more immediately lucrative deep learning startups that are popping up all over (but particularly in San Francisco.)

Shivon Zilis, an investor at BloombergBETA in San Francisco, put together the graphic below to show what she calls the Machine Intelligence Landscape. The fund specifically focuses on companies that change the world of work, so these sorts of automation are a large area of concern. Zilis explains, I created this landscape to start to put startups into context. Im a thesis-oriented investor and its much easier to identify crowded areas and see white space once the landscape has some sort of taxonomy.

Shivon Zilis, Machine Intelligence Landscape

What is striking in this landscape is how filled-in it is. At the top are core technologies that power the applications below. Big American companies like Google, IBM, Microsoft, Facebook and Chinas Baidu are well-represented in the core technologies themselves. These companies, particularly Google, are also the prime bidders for core startups as well. Many of the companies that describe themselves as engaging in artificial intelligence, deep learning or machine learning have some claim to general algorithms that work across multiple types of applications. Others specialize in the areas of natural language processing, prediction, image recognitionand speech recognition.

For the companies that are rethinking enterprise processes like sales, marketing, security or recruitment, or for others that are remaking industry verticals, the choices of technologies to license are dizzying. As Pete Warden, creator of the open source Data Science Toolkit, wrote in a recent post on deep learning, I dont see any reason why the tools we use to developand train networks, should be used to execute them in production. Entering 2015 we see all of this research finding its way into actual applications that relatively ordinary humans will use. I also think well end up with small numbers of research-oriented folks who develop models, Warden continues, and a wider group of developers who apply them with less understanding of whats going on inside the black box.

These companies will need more people who can create, iterate and debug deep learning and other kinds of machine learning models. They will also need an even larger cohort of developers and designers who can create usable experiences on screens that make all of this intelligence actionable. Big companies are poised to be the big winners here. Obviously they have the resources to attract or acquihirethis talent. Even more crucial, big companies have big data and ongoing relationships with large numbers of customers. In machine learning, it is most often the quality and quantity of data available that is the limiting factor, not the cleverness of the algorithms.

And what most concerns the big tech companies from Apple to Google to Microsoft and IBM? Yep, mobile, and as Zilis points out, Winning mobile will require lots of machine intelligence. Siri and Google Now are responses to the need for highly contextual voice interaction in mobile. Visual search like Amazons FireFly involves location-basedpattern recognition to create a pleasing experience. The reason for the current great enthusiasm for deep learning is that these kinds of problems can be solved now in minutes or days instead of years.

Original post:

Tech 2015: Deep Learning And Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World

Russia: ‘NATO expansion will meet with Russian response’ – FM spokesperson – Video

Posted on by


Russia: #39;NATO expansion will meet with Russian response #39; - FM spokesperson
Further eastward expansion by NATO will force Russia to provide an "adequate response," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich said in M...

By: RuptlyTV

The rest is here:

Russia: 'NATO expansion will meet with Russian response' - FM spokesperson - Video