Authorities: 245 Dead in Brazil Nightclub Fire

A fire swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing at least 180 people and leaving hundreds injured, police and firefighters said.

Sandro Meinerz, a spokesman for the police in the city of Santa Maria, told local media that the fire broke out at the Kiss club while a band was performing. He said at least 200 people were injured.

The cause of the fire is not yet known, officials said. The total number of victims is still unclear and there may be hundreds injured, Civil Police and regional government spokesman Marcelo Arigoni told Radio Gaucha.

Arigoni told the radio station a truck carrying 70 bodies had arrived at the Municipal Sports Center, which was being used as an improvised morgue.

Diario de Santa Maria reported that the fire started at around 2 a.m.

Rodrigo Moura, whom the paper identified as a security guard at the club, said it was at its maximum capacity of between 1,000 and 2,000, and partygoers were pushing and shoving to escape.

Ezekiel Corte Real, 23, was quoted by the paper as saying that he helped people to escape. "I just got out because I'm very strong," he said.

"Sad Sunday", tweeted Tarso Genro, the governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. He said all possible action was being taken and that he would be in the city later in the day.

Santa Maria, at the southern tip of Brazil near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay, is a major university city with a population of around a quarter of a million.

Read More..

Your molar roots are leftovers from Homo erectus

TALK about exploring your roots. Longer lifespans mean our adult teeth erupt later than they did in our early ancestors, but the memo didn't make it to the roots of our molars. They develop at the same pace as they did in Homo erectus.

Christopher Dean and Tim Cole at University College London studied the microscopic structure of adult molars to reconstruct the pace of their development, much like tree rings can be used to build a picture of tree growth. They found that the roots of chimpanzee molars go through a growth spurt as the teeth erupt through the gum - probably to provide more stability for biting and chewing. The same thing happened in early hominins, but not in modern humans: by the time our molars arrive, their roots have been fully developed for at least a year.

Dean and Cole found an explanation in Homo erectus, a species who lived between 1.8 million and 300,000 years ago. H. erectus gained its molars at exactly the same age as our molar roots have their growth spurts. Or as Dean puts it: "Our roots are stuck in the past."

In humans, he says, root growth spurts are merely a hangover from an early stage of evolution. We retain molar roots like H. erectus because the growth spurts use too little energy for natural selection to weed them out (PLoS One, doi.org/j8w).

H. erectus had a bigger brain and smaller teeth than its ancestors. Some believe, controversially, that these features reflected big dietary changes, including eating the first cooked food, which would have been easier to chew while supplying more energy.

The new study may find favour with critics of the controversial "cooked food hypothesis". It shows that H. erectus still required an early molar root growth spurt - presumably to prepare its teeth for heavy-duty chewing.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Read More..

French-led troops in Mali seize airport at Islamist bastion

BAMAKO: French-led troops Saturday seized the airport and a key bridge serving the Islamist stronghold of Gao in a major boost to a 16-day-old offensive to rout Al Qaeda-linked rebels from Mali's sprawling desert north.

The stunning advance came as the extremist Muslim group controlling Gao since June said it was ready for talks to free a 61-year-old French hostage kidnapped in November.

In a parallel movement, Chadian troops deployed in Mali's eastern neighbour Niger started rolling towards the border to join a contingent of Niger soldiers as part of African efforts to boost the French-led offensive.

"They are a very big contingent and they have tanks and four-wheel drives with machineguns," a Niger security source said.

It was not clear whether they were set to cross the border, which lies only 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Gao.

France on Saturday confirmed the capture of the airport and the Wanbary bridge at Gao but said fighting was continuing in Gao itself.

The airport is located about six kilometres east of Gao, while the bridge lies at the southern entrance to the town, held by the Al Qaeda-linked Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO).

Sources said earlier that the Islamists had left Gao in the wake of the French-led military offensive on January 11 to stop a triad of Al Qaeda-linked groups from pushing southward from their northern bastions towards Bamako.

An alliance of Tuareg rebels who wanted to declare an independent homeland in the north and hardline Islamist groups seized the northern towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in April last year.

The Islamist groups include MUJAO, Ansar Dine, a homegrown Islamist group, and Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, of which MUJAO is an offshoot.

The Islamists then sidelined the Tuaregs to implement their own Islamic agenda. Their harsh interpretation of sharia law has seen transgressors flogged, stoned and executed, and they have forbidden music and television and forced women to wear veils.

The MUJAO said it was ready for negotiations to release Gilberto Rodriguez Leal, a French national of Portuguese origin who was kidnapped in western Mali.

"The MUJAO is ready to negotiate the release of Gilberto," said spokesman Walid Abu Sarhaoui. "We Muslims can come to an understanding on the issue of war," he added, without elaborating.

West African defence chiefs meanwhile met to review the slow deployment of regional forces to bolster the French-led offensive against Islamists at an emergency meeting in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan.

Although the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc has pledged more than 4,500 soldiers, their deployment has been delayed by financing and logistical problems.

Chad, which neighbours Mali and is not an ECOWAS member, has promised a total of 2,000 additional troops. They were sent to Niger to join 500 local troops to open a new front against the Islamists.

The Abidjan talks will determine exactly how many troops each country in the 15-nation bloc is willing to pledge but "particularly commit to deploying troops as quickly as possible," said Ivory Coast Defence Minister Paul Koffi Koffi.

The African Union said it would urge members to bolster the African force and seek support from the United Nations for the operation in the form of transport, medicine and field hospitals.

While a fraction of the African forces have arrived in Bamako and are slowly deploying elsewhere, the French and Malian forces have done all the fighting so far.

France has already deployed 2,300 troops to Mali and defence officials acknowledge the force will exceed the initially set upper limit of 2,500.

On Friday, the French and Malian forces captured Hombori, another northern town, in their advance on Gao.

To the centre, French-led forces who on Monday had recaptured the town of Diabaly were pushing northeast towards the town of Lere with the aim of taking control of Timbuktu, still further north.

Aid agencies have expressed increasing concern about the growing food crisis for civilians in the vast semi-arid north of Mali and the drought-stricken Sahel as a whole.

France has asked several Western countries and others to provide logistical support such as planes to allow aerial refuelling, sources close to Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

- AFP/al

Read More..

Review: While "jOBS" fawns over subject, film falls flat

Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs in "jOBS."

(Credit:
Five Star Feature Films)

PARK CITY, UTAH--The eagerly awaited biopic "jOBS" opens in 2001, when Apple's iconic co-founder arrives at Town Hall on Apple's Cupertino campus with good news. A secret team, Steve Jobs tells his employees, has built a product that will revolutionize the way everyone listens to music. Before he can even show them the iPod, the employees have sprung to their feet, wild-eyed and ecstatic, and their thunderous applause is eventually drowned out only by strings swelling in the background. It's a scene that sets the tone for all that is to follow: for most of the film's two hours, "jOBS" rarely stops clapping for its subject.

The team behind "jOBS," which was directed by Joshua Michael Stern, began working on the project shortly before Jobs retired from Apple in 2011. The script by first-time screenwriter Matt Whiteley covers Jobs' life from 1974, when Jobs attended classes at Reed College in Oregon, to 2001, when he announced the
iPod to Apple employees. Along the way "jOBS" covers most of the major milestones of its subject's time at Apple: the Apple I, the Apple II, the Lisa, and the Macintosh all are shown in development, as Jobs (a hard-working Ashton Kutcher) works to bring his vision of personal computing to the masses. Jobs hand-picks John Sculley to become Apple's CEO, hoping his marketing expertise will help the company overtake IBM in the PC market. But Sculley disappoints Jobs, who alienates his allies on Apple's board of directors and is ousted from the company he started. Only Apple's near-death experience in 1997 is enough to bring him back to Apple -- first as an adviser, then as an "interim" CEO -- and with the success of the Bondi blue iMacs, Apple was ascendant once again.

It's a story that will be familiar to readers of Walter Isaacson's recent Jobs biography or any number of other histories of the company. The opportunity "jOBS" had was to render these legendary events of Silicon Valley's history on screen, and to dramatize the contradictions of a man who remained unknowable even to some of those closest to him.

The movie gives it a shot. Kutcher drew skepticism when he was announced as the film's lead, despite an uncanny resemblance to the man he would be playing. But he throws himself into the role, inhabiting Jobs in his mannerisms and gestures while doing a more than creditable impression of the man's voice. Kutcher also captures Jobs' deliberate, slightly hunched-over walk. At moments, as during an enjoyable sequence in which Jobs recruits members for the Macintosh team, Kutcher disappears into the role.

The filmmakers do show Jobs being a jerk: he sleeps around, he yells at people, he parks in handicapped spaces. He persuades Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad) to perform crucial work for him, but lies about how much he is being paid, so he can dramatically underpay his best friend. An hour into the movie, he fires someone during an argument over font availability on the Lisa.

Yet the filmmakers are more interested in showing Jobs going about the work of being a genius. Over and over again, minor characters explain to him why something can't be done; Kutcher-as-Jobs smiles enigmatically and waves away their concerns. (It is left to someone else, far off screen, to turn his visions into reality.) We watch Jobs out-negotiate a computer parts store owner, lecture the team making the Lisa, and ride to the rescue of the Macintosh. Each time, he speaks of how the technology Apple is building will improve the lives of average people. Co-workers argue with him, but they never get anywhere, because their parts are poorly written and the filmmakers have no interest in showing their subject being wrong about his work. The film mentions Lisa's failure but has no interest in what part Jobs played in that failure; all Apple failures in "jOBS" are portrayed as the result of conservative, backward-thinking executives beholden only to their shareholders. The result is that the viewer spends two hours watching cardboard cutouts lose arguments to Ashton Kutcher.

Kutcher speaks fully 40 percent of the lines in "jOBS." Unfortunately, he has almost no one to play off of. Dermot Mulroney, as early Apple investor Mike Markkula, shakes his head at Jobs' excesses without ever really challenging him. J.K. Simmons, as the Apple board chairman who oversees Jobs' ouster, is a cartoon villain. Women in the film barely exist; an actress playing Chris-Ann Brennan has a single under-written scene informing a young Jobs that she is carrying his baby; years later in the film, a small scene shows Jobs at home with his wife. Only Gad, as Wozniak, gets a scene standing up to the great man -- as Woz quits Apple, he criticizes Jobs for losing his humanity amid a single-minded pursuit of making great products. It's something even Jobs' staunchest admirers have to wrestle with, and the film could have used more of that.

Others will write of the things "jOBS" omits, gets wrong, or simply avoids. My primary disappointment was in how shallow the film felt, given the extensive historical record. In the early days Jobs' co-workers had to wrestle with a man who smelled bad, who cried often, who yelled constantly, who missed deadlines, who overspent his budget by millions. He did it in service of products we love and use daily, and yet his obsessions took a toll on those around him. It also inspired others to do the best work of their lives, pushing themselves further than they ever imagined they can go. There is great drama to be found in all that, but it is not to be found in the saccharine "jOBS."

Read More..

Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

Read More..

Cops Using More Private Cameras to Nab Suspects

Philadelphia detectives were able to quickly make an arrest in the murder and burning of a female pediatrician by viewing surveillance video of nearby stores and a hospital that captured the suspect entering the doctor's home and later getting into his truck.

In the hours after Dr. Melissa Ketunuti's body was found strangled and burning in her basement, city's Homicide Task Force collected surveillance footage from a coffee shop, drug store and hospital overlooking Ketunuti's block. It was footage taken from Ori Feibush's coffee shop that allowed cops to identify Smith.

The suspect, an exterminator named Jason Smith, soon confessed to detectives, police said.

Lately a range of crimes have been solved by the seemingly ubiquitous security videos maintained by private companies or citizens, and investigators have been able to quickly apprehend suspects by obtaining the video, deftly turning private cameras into effective police resources.

Philadelphia Police Arrest Suspect in Doctor's Killing Watch Video

Pa. Doctor Killing: Person of Interest in Custody Watch Video

Private surveillance cameras have become so pervasive that the face of a suspect who allegedly shot a Bronx, N.Y., cab driver in a botched robbery on Jan. 14 was splashed throughout the media within days because the cabbie had rigged his vehicle with a camera.

The New York Police Department arrested Salvatore Perrone after he was caught on surveillance video recorded near two of three shopkeeper slayings in Brooklyn, N.Y., in November. He has since been charged with murder.

And in Mesa, Ariz., surveillance footage taken in November by resident Mitch Drum showed a man rolling on the ground trying to extinguish flames that had engulfed his shirt, which had caught fire while he was allegedly siphoning gas from a car by Drum's house. The man was arrested.

Though surveillance cameras have been a staple of security since a network of government operated cameras dubbed the "ring of steel" was introduced in London in the early 1990s, police have recently launched programs to partner with more businesses.

In Philadelphia, police have launched a program for businesses to register private cameras with the department. According to the SafeCam website, businesses will only be contacted when there is a criminal incident in the vicinity of the security camera. At that point, police will request a copy of the footage for their investigation.

"Businesses are saying, 'I have a camera at this location, and it may or may not be of use to you. It's a registration to say, 'feel free to call me,'" Sgt. Joseph Green told ABCNews.com

Read More..

Uncharted territory: Where digital maps are leading us

* Required fields

* First name

* Last name

* Country

* Email address

* Password
Password must contain only letters and numbers, and be at least 8 characters

* Confirm password

Read More..

ECB chief hails euro relaunch at Davos

DAVOS, Switzerland: The head of the European Central Bank said on Friday that the embattled euro had been relaunched but that more had to be done to boost the eurozone's recession-wracked economy.

Speaking to the world's top business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mario Draghi also said that austerity measures being taken in crisis-hit countries were "unavoidable" despite the impact on growth.

"If one has to find a common denominator... for defining why 2012 is going to be remembered, I think one would say it's the year of the relaunching of the euro," Draghi said in his well-attended and hotly anticipated speech.

Draghi outlined three "extraordinary" steps taken by European leaders and institutions to battle the three-year sovereign debt crisis that has pitched the 17-nation bloc into recession.

Governments have pushed through structural reforms with "urgency" and these are "now bearing fruit," said the ECB boss.

European leaders had recognised structural flaws inherent in the single currency and were now pushing for greater integration.

And finally, his own institution had undertaken actions that broke the monetary policy mould, including providing one trillion euros ($1.33 trillion) in liquidity for banks.

The ECB also announced a programme to buy the bonds of debt-wracked countries which had proved "very helpful" in reducing the perception that the euro was on the point of collapse, Draghi said.

However, he said it was too early to declare the battle over.

"Are we satisfied for that? I think to say the least, the jury is still out. Because all in all, we haven't seen an equal momentum on the real side of the economy and that's where we will have to do much more," he said.

Nevertheless, Draghi hailed what he called a period of "relative tranquility" on the financial markets and said: "All the indices point to a substantial improvement of financial conditions."

"It is a situation where you have what I called once positive contagion on the financial markets ... but we don't see this being transmitted into the real economy yet," complained the central banker.

He forecast that the euro area economy would "stabilise" at a "very low level of activity" this year, and predicted "a recovery in the second part of the year."

The European Central Bank has forecast the eurozone economy will contract by 0.3 percent this year but rebound to register GDP growth of 1.2 percent in 2014.

Draghi urged governments not to let up on the momentum of reforms just because the pressure from the markets had been reduced.

"We can have a positive development if national governments would persevere in their actions, both in fiscal consolidation but especially now in the field of structural reforms," he said.

Fiscal consolidation - or reducing debt and deficit mountains - was "unavoidable" he stressed, but he acknowledged that raising taxes and cutting spending tended to result in slower economic growth.

Draghi concluded with a plea to the global elite not to underestimate the euro area economy, despite its woes.

Notwithstanding the strife in weaker euro countries like Spain and Greece, the average levels of indicators such as productivity or inflation put the euro area in line with some of the best economies in the world, he said.

"We tend to forget the strength of the euro area economy."

- AFP/de

Read More..

Apple's Tim Cook gives workers kudos for strong quarter

Apple CEO Tim Cook introduces the iPhone 5.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

Apple CEO Tim Cook gave his employees a pat on the back for their contributions to the latest quarterly results.

In an e-mail distributed throughout Apple yesterday, Cook praised workers for their "incredible hard work and focus" in "another record setting quarter." Apple's CEO noted that more than 75 million iOS devices were sold last quarter, which he called a "testament to the strength of Apple's innovation."

An employee Town Hall meeting is slated for today at 10 a.m. PT where Cook will answer questions submitted in advanced. As shared by 9to5Mac, here's Cook's e-mail of congratulations to employees:

Team, We've just reported another record setting quarter, thanks to everyone's incredible hard work and focus. We sold over 75 million iOS devices in the holiday quarter alone, which is a testament to the strength of Apple's innovation. Please join me for an employee communications meeting tomorrow at 10 a.m. Pacific time in the auditorium of De Anza 3. We've created a space on AppleWeb where you can submit your questions in advance, and we'll do our best to answer as many of them as we can during the meeting. The meeting will be broadcast live throughout Cupertino and at many other Apple locations. Please check AppleWeb for details. Tim

Though Cook seemed pleased with the latest results, at least publicly, Apple investors have been less than kind. The company posted record sales of $54.5 billion, but Wall Street was looking for $54.7 billion. In reaction, Apple's stock has been hammered since the results were revealed on Wednesday.

But much of the concern is over Apple's future. Analysts and investors alike are worried that Apple won't be able to maintain its usual high-growth performance and that its best days may be behind it.

Read More..

Deformed Dolphin Accepted Into New Family

In 2011, behavioral ecologists Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany were surprised to discover that a group of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus)—animals not usually known for forging bonds with other species—had taken in an adult bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).

The researchers observed the group in the ocean surrounding the Azores (map)—about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal—for eight days as the dolphin traveled, foraged, and played with both the adult whales and their calves. When the dolphin rubbed its body against the whales, they would sometimes return the gesture.

Among terrestrial animals, cross-species interactions are not uncommon. These mostly temporary alliances are forged for foraging benefits and protection against predators, said Wilson.

They could also be satisfying a desire for the company of other animals, added marine biologist John Francis, vice president for research, conservation, and exploration at the National Geographic Society (the Society owns National Geographic News).

Photographs of dogs nursing tiger cubs, stories of a signing gorilla adopting a pet cat, and videos of a leopard caring for a baby baboon have long circulated the Web and caught national attention.

A Rare Alliance

And although dolphins are known for being sociable animals, Wilson called the alliance between sperm whale and bottlenose dolphin rare, as it has never, to his knowledge, been witnessed before.

This association may have started with something called bow riding, a common behavior among dolphins during which they ride the pressure waves generated by the bow of a ship or, in this case, whales, suggested Francis.

"Hanging around slower creatures to catch a ride might have been the first advantage [of such behavior]," he said, adding that this may have also started out as simply a playful encounter.

Wilson suggested that the dolphin's peculiar spinal shape made it more likely to initiate an interaction with the large and slow-moving whales. "Perhaps it could not keep up with or was picked on by other members of its dolphin group," he said in an email.

Default

But the "million-dollar question," as Wilson puts it, is why the whales accepted the lone dolphin. Among several theories presented in an upcoming paper in Aquatic Mammals describing the scientists' observations, they propose that the dolphin may have been regarded as nonthreatening and that it was accepted by default because of the way adult sperm whales "babysit" their calves.

Sperm whales alternate their dives between group members, always leaving one adult near the surface to watch the juveniles. "What is likely is that the presence of the calves—which cannot dive very deep or for very long—allowed the dolphin to maintain contact with the group," Wilson said.

Wilson doesn't believe the dolphin approached the sperm whales for help in protecting itself from predators, since there aren't many dolphin predators in the waters surrounding the Azores.

But Francis was not so quick to discount the idea. "I don't buy that there is no predator in the lifelong experience of the whales and dolphins frequenting the Azores," he said.

He suggested that it could be just as possible that the sperm whales accepted the dolphin for added protection against their own predators, like the killer whale (Orcinus orca), while traveling. "They see killer whales off the Azores, and while they may not be around regularly, it does not take a lot of encounters to make [other] whales defensive," he said.

Read More..