Daily Archives: September 9, 2012

Participants: Freedom Walk a time of remembrance

Posted: September 9, 2012 at 7:12 pm

Janis Upchurch, like most, remembers exactly where she was on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

I was teaching first grade, Upchurch said. We heard about it, turned on the TV, and thats when the towers started to fall. My son was in elementary school at the time, but that event made up his mind about joining the Marines.

Upchurch, the president of Blue Star Mothers Chapter 12, was one of 50 to 75 people who participated in the 2012 Freedom Walk on Saturday morning. The event was started five years ago to commemorate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as well as honor all retired and active duty military, police and fire personnel.

Gary Young, an Air Force veteran, brought his sister and son with him for the walk. Young said he has been involved in the event for all five years, and he wouldnt miss it for the world.

I like the purpose behind it, Young said. Id like to see more people participate though. I dont think anyone has forgotten about what happened, but it would be nice if they came out and joined with us in remembrance.

There were snacks and drinks preceding the walk, as well as a short ceremony consisting of a prayer, the singing of the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the playing of taps by Muskogee High School Band Director Steve Wiles.

Oscar Ray also gave a short speech where he addressed the importance of remembering the tragedy, but also the higher importance of celebrating the heroes and their accomplishments.

Im pretty sure when the families who lost someone that day remember their loved ones, they smile, Ray said. This should be more of a celebration of life than a somber remembrance.

Thea Devers, who also is an Air Force veteran, said she spent the morning of Sept. 11 at work and couldnt believe it when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

I was a courier for the White House and the state department, Devers said. The Pentagon was one of my many stops. It could have been me in there when it happened. I thank God I missed it.

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Participants: Freedom Walk a time of remembrance

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Liberty gets best of Lewis-Palmer in boys' soccer 4-1

Posted: at 7:12 pm

September 08, 2012 9:17 PM

Liberty and Lewis-Palmer may not have been playing a boys soccer game that meant anything for conference standings Saturday afternoon, but the intensity and high level of play matched the best of rivalries.

The host 5A Lancers came away with a 4-1 win, but the bigger story is that each team looks to be talented enough to make a lot of noise in this season.

Liberty (2-2-1) would break the ice just 5 minutes into the game when Kyle Spillane beat L-P goalkeeper Fabio Eickmeier between his legs from close-range after a breakaway resulting from a turnover.

When we get going our offense can be very explosive when we string passes together and get into space, Spillane said. We have firepower everywhere, from the top to the middle and even with our defense and its real nice to have multiple scorers.

The next 15 minutes saw each team get a multitude of scoring chances, but each keeper stood tall. Eickmeier and Libertys Kyle Krumm took turns making diving saves and keeping their teams in the game.

With the next goal being huge, Liberty seized control of the game. Matt Love beat Eickmeier to his right and snuck the ball past the post and a sliding Ranger defender in the 22nd minute.

Just 4 minutes later, Taylor Whited scored on a laser from 25 yards out that found the net off the post. The strong first-half effort showed just how dangerous the Lancers can be on both ends of the field.

Kyle was really focused today and were sorry we couldnt get him a shutout there in the first half because he kept us in the game early when both teams had some good shots, Liberty coach Gregg Braha said. I think the team feels when Kyle is back there that they can make a mistake and get away with it because hes there.

Lewis-Palmer (1-2) never backed down in the game, even when it seemed like every great scoring chance was thwarted by a spectacular save. The 4A Rangers struck for their lone goal with just 6 seconds left in the first half when Brendan Heers shot ricocheted off the goal post and past Krumm.

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Liberty County civic leader, champion jelly cook dies

Posted: at 7:11 pm

C.T. "Rusty" Hight, known for his wide-ranging talents in roles ranging from a Liberty County jurist to a master gardener, died Wednesday. He was 65.

Hight learned he had a "small speck of cancer" five weeks before it took over his body, said his sister, Nelda Zbranek.

But she and others who knew him will never forget how he prayed for "God to help him do the right thing" each time he put on his black robe to serve as the 75th state district judge from 2002 to 2010.

And he didn't mind trading that robe for an apron. He loved to cook up a pot of his award-winning jelly made with the tart juice from marble-sized mayhaws, a native fruit found in East Texas swamps.

He would spend hours collecting just the right mayhaws to simmer over the stove in a rustic cabin in his backyard in Dayton.

Over the last two decades, his jelly was often pronounced the blue ribbon winner at the annual Mayhaw Festival in Daisetta.

His gardening skills were also apparent in the bountiful supply of vegetables he grew in his backyard, some so large that they looked like they could set a world record.

He also served many years as a Dayton school trustee.

One of his proudest moments came when he was able to hand a diploma to his daughter, Laura, who was still recovering after emerging from a 4-month coma.

She had been badly injured in a car accident that claimed the life of a school friend two years earlier. Medical personnel had not expected her to live.

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Space Station fixed with $3 toothbrush

Posted: at 3:11 pm

International Space Station engineers improvised a set of tools to repair a malfuctioning power unit, using spares that included a $3 toothbrush. Picture: NASA Source: Supplied

IN a move that would have made MacGyver proud, astronauts have fixed a series of electrical malfunctions on the International Space Station - with a toothbrush.

For more than a week, astronauts on the station have been trying to figure out how to replace a malfunctioning Main Bus Switching Unit, which transfers power from the massive solar panels into the station, space.com reported.

Without the 100kg MBSU the station was unable to get power from two of its eight panels. Then on Saturday another malfunction put a third panel offline - making for a nervous time on the station as they conserved power to keep vital life support systems functioning.

Last week a marathon eight-hour spacewalk failed to fix the problem, as a pair of stubborn bolts thwarted their efforts to install a spare MBSU.

A fisheye lens attached to an electronic still camera was used to capture this image of NASA astronaut Sunita Williams. Picture: NASA

Experts at NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston worked around the clock to figure out a solution, improvising a set of tools from existing supplies on the station that could help fix the stuck bolt. Their solution included an Allen wrench taped to a bolt, and a $3 toothbrush used to clear metal shavings from the threaded bolt hole.

"It's been like living on the set of Apollo 13 the past few days," astronaut Jack Fischer said from Mission Control in Houston, referring to the brainstorming session that figured out how to save the stranded Apollo 13 astronauts - portrayed in a movie starring Tom Hanks.

On Thursday NASA's Sunita Williams and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide spent six and a half hours outside the space station fixing the MBSU.

Astronaut Aki Hoshide, Expedition 32 flight engineer, during a six-hour, 28-minute spacewalk to complete the installation of a Main Bus Switching Unit that was hampered last week by a possible misalignment and damaged threads where a bolt must be placed. Picture: NASA

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Space Station fixed with $3 toothbrush

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Astronauts repair space station with help of toothbrush

Posted: at 3:11 pm

Spacewalking astronauts triumphed over a stubborn bolt and installed a critical power-switching box at the International Space Station this week, reviving electrical systems.

"Looks like you fixed the station," mission control at Nasa's Johnson Space Centre in Houston told the crew on the radio.

The problem had cut the amount of electrical power available to the orbiting lab and a variety of equipment had to be turned off.

Engineers on the ground and the astronauts in orbit scrambled over the weekend to devise makeshift tools to clean metal shavings from the socket of the troublesome bolt after last week's failed effort to plug in the new power-relay unit.

This time, NASA's Sunita Williams and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide, part of NASA's Expedition 32 mission to the ISS, were armed with a blue toothbrush, a wire brush and other jury-rigged tools.

The two applied grease to the sticky bolt as well as extra pressure and plain old jiggling. They also brushed and blew away most if not all the metal shavings, debris that was discovered during last Thursday's eight-hour repair session, one of the longest spacewalks on record.

Wednesday's outing lasted 6 1/2 hours.

Although the space station remained stable, NASA was in a hurry to get the problem fixed because of the impending departure of Joseph Acaba, the U.S. astronaut who operated the hefty robot arm from inside. Acaba is due to return to Earth in 1 1/2 weeks.

Altogether, the space station has four of these power-switching units, which relay electricity from the eight solar wings. Being down one unit meant the orbiting complex could draw power from only six of those wings.

The power store was further degraded over the weekend when, in an unrelated problem, a tripped circuit breaker prevented full access to yet another solar panel. That left the space station running on just five wings, a vulnerable situation.

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Astronauts repair space station with help of toothbrush

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Decoding Human DNA

Posted: at 3:11 pm

In a milestone for the understanding of human genetics, scientists just announced the results of five years of work in unraveling the secrets of how the genome operates.

The ENCODE project, as it is known, dispensed with the idea that our DNA is largely "junk," repeating sequences with no function, finding instead that at least 80 percent of the genome is important.

The new findings are the latest in a series of increasingly deep looks at the human genome. Here are some of the major milestones scientists have passed along the way.

1. An understanding of heredity, 1866

The realization that traits and certain diseases can be passed from parent to offspring stretches back at least to the ancient Greeks, well before any genome was actually decoded. The Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that "seeds" from different parts of the body were transmitted to newly conceived embryos, a theory known as pangenesis. Charles Darwin would later espouse similar ideas.

What exactly these "seeds" might be was destined to remain a mystery for centuries. But the first person to put heredity to the test was Gregor Mendel, who systematically tracked dominant and recessive traits in his famous pea plants. Mendel published his work on the statistics of genetic dominance in 1866 to little notice. [Genetics by the Numbers: 10 Tantalizing Tales]

2. Chromosomes come to light, 1902

But the painstaking work of cross-breeding pea plants wouldn't languish for long. In 1869, Swiss physician Johannes Friedrich Miescher became the first scientist to isolate nucleic acids, the active ingredient of DNA. Over the next several decades, scientists peering deeper into the cell discovered mitosis and meiosis, the two types of cell division, and chromosomes, the long strands of DNA and protein in cell nuclei.

In 1903, early geneticist Walter Sutton put two and two together, discovering through his work on grasshopper chromosomes that these mysterious filaments occur in pairs and separate during meiosis, providing a vehicle for mom and dad to pass on their genetic material.

"I may finally call attention to the probability that the associations of paternal and maternal chromosomes in pairs and their subsequent separation may constitute the physical basis of the Mendelian law of heredity," Sutton wrote in the journal The Biological Bulletin in 1902. He followed up with a more comprehensive paper, "The Chromosomes in Heredity" in 1903. (German biologist Theodor Boveri came to similar conclusions about chromosomes at the same time Sutton was working on his chromosome discovery.)

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Decoding Human DNA

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Paul Fenech’s Housos gets second series on SBS

Posted: at 3:11 pm

Fenech: Brain behind Housos

SBS has commissioned another series of nine episodes of Paul Fenechs politically incorrect comedy Housos.

Production of the new series set in a fictional housing commission block in Sunnyvale starts in Sydneys western suburbs on Monday.

The cast includes Encore columnistJason Jabba Davis, Habib Tahir, Melissa Tkautz, Amanda Keller and Angry Anderson. Narrator Ian Turpie passed awayin March this year.

Since it first aired on SBS, Fenech has also shot a Housos feature film.

Tony Iffland, SBSs director of television and online content, said: Housos became hugely successful with its tongue-in-cheek humour. The new season will continue our commitment to commissioning and supporting Australian content and talent. We are delighted to be working with Paul again on a second series.

Fenech best known for Fat Pizza said: The new season of Housos gives fans the chance to unite and get in touch with their inner-bogan. Whether you have to beg, borrow or literally steal a TV set to watch it, we have enough surprises to make it worth your while.

The first series of the unashamedly unsophisticated show was SBS best performing in its timeslot. The show gained notoriety before it even aired after Nines A Current Affair mistook it for a documentary.

September 9th, 2012 at 4:56 pm

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Is it a bird, is it a phone, no it’s… Smarterman

Posted: at 5:14 am

BRITS are using smartphones more and more research shows they are replacing watches, address books, MP3 players and even TVs. And thats not the limit of their potential.

Here futurist BEN HAMMERSLEY, author of 64 Things You Need To Know Now For Then and editor-at-large of technology magazine Wired, tells us what we can expect in the future.

Futurist ... Ben Hammersley

YOU are a superhuman. Or if youre not, you at least know someone who is.

Dont believe me?

Can you summon vast swathes of knowledge in just a few seconds? Can you tell how your friends are feeling, even if theyre miles away?

If you get lost, can you locate yourself to within three feet, in just seconds?

Can you remember whole novels, albums, calendars and to-do lists flawlessly?

Anyone with a smartphone can do all of these things.

The technology has made superheroes of us all.

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Is it a bird, is it a phone, no it’s... Smarterman

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Freedom's Burgess runs for 287 yards, 4 TDs in win over Draughn

Posted: at 3:13 am

Credit: James Lynch Jr. | The News Herald

Freedom senior James Caldwell (right) gets to the sideline on a long kickoff return against Draughn on Friday in Morganton.

Freedom High senior running back David Burgess said after Fridays 34-14 home win over Draughn that 1,000 yards was his goal this season.

Reaching that mark is almost a foregone conclusion after the game of his life.

Burgess racked up 230 yards on the ground in the first half alone and finished the Patriots victory over their county rivals with 287 yards and four touchdowns on just 18 carries. His total shattered his previous career high of two weeks ago by more than 100 yards.

In the process, Burgess eclipsed the 2,000-yard rushing mark for his varsity career and now has a county-best 704 yards and 11 TDs on 67 attempts this fall.

We started off the game trying to run it inside on them, Freedom coach Mike Helms said. Then we went to the spread, and thats what really worked for us. Davids a special kid and he had a special game. Weve grown to expect that kind of thing from him.

(Burgess) just broke tackles and made us miss, Draughn coach Scott Lambert added. Theyve got some very talented athletes over there.

Burgess 67-yard touchdown run made it 6-0 Freedom after one quarter. The Wildcats (3-1) stormed back, though, to lead 14-6 with 4:42 to play until halftime after TDs on the ground by Adam Estep (17 carries, team-high 68 yards) and Dustin Bryant (11 carries, 37 yards).

Freedom (3-1) had a quick answer. Burgess pulled within one yard of 2,000 after a 7-yard dash up the middle into the end zone, set up by a 63-yard kickoff return by James Caldwell. His two-point conversion reception from quarterback Shawn Fairchild knotted the score.

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Freedom's Burgess runs for 287 yards, 4 TDs in win over Draughn

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Freedom Fall in Game Three 5-2, Trail 2-1 in Series

Posted: at 3:13 am

September 8, 2012 - Frontier League (FL) Florence Freedom Florence, KY-The Gateway Grizzlies spoiled the first ever home playoff game for the Florence Freedom with a 5-2 win on Saturday night at the Home of the Florence Freedom.

The Grizzlies now lead the best of five division series 2-1 with the Freedom facing elimination Sunday night.

Gateway got a solid start from Chris Enourato(1-0) who limited the Freedom to five hits in his five innings while striking out four. The only run he surrendered was an RBI groundout by Pierre LePage in the third inning, which gave the Freedom a 1-0 lead.

The Grizzlies took the lead for good in the fifth. Jonathan Johnson was hit by Freedom starter Andy Clark(0-1) with the bases loaded to tie the game at 1-1. Chris McClendon then reached on a fielder's choice to produce another run for a 2-1 lead.

Clark worked 6.1 innings giving up four hits on three earned runs. He struck out six, but also hit three batters.

The Freedom attempted a comeback against the Grizzly bullpen in the eighth. Drew Rundle's RBI double against Zach Treece cut the deficit to 5-2. However that would be the closest they would get as Richard Barrett earned his second save of the postseason retiring the Freedom 1-2-3 in the ninth.

Rundle and Peter Fatse each provided the Freedom offense with two hits. McClendon went 1-5 with 2 RBI, while Rogelio Norris went 1-4 with a solo homerun for the victorious Grizzlies.

The Freedom and Grizzlies will play game four of their divisional series Sunday night. LHP Andres Caceres (7-3, 3.90) will make the start for Florence. RHP Paul Tremlin (7-4, 3.72) will take the mound for the Grizzlies. The game can be heard with Steve Jarnicki starting at 5:50 on Real Talk 1160 and realtalk1160.com.

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Freedom Fall in Game Three 5-2, Trail 2-1 in Series

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