This is an idea I had tried to make, but fizzled out before it could go anywhere :<
Basically, the idea is that all the worlds and universes are connected to each other via portals. Every single world you can think of: Marvel, Harry Potter, Twilight, Prototype, Final Fantasy, every AU possible, is connected in some way.
You'd think we could just go to each world, right? Wrong! The portals are invisible and difficult to find. Things fall through, sometimes people (Amelia Earhart, anyone? How about those lost artifacts, or those really expensive sunglasses you could have sworn you left on your desk drawer?), so some of the worlds are conscious of the others. But chances are, you probably won't stumble across one. At least not on purpose.
Of course, there is one type of people who can see them. They don't live on this earth, or in this world. No, they have their own world. They're known as the portal-hikers. They can see and find portals, and after a certain age, can even see the other side. They are the only type of species, besides maybe dragons, that can do this. Sure, there's technology, but nothing is ever as good as the real deal.
I'll be playing a portal-hiker going on her rite-of-passage journey, which involves travelling to as many worlds as possible for two years, and returning back to your home world alive and with tons of souvenirs. They tend to travel in groups of 2 or 3 for safety. Anyone who wants to join can either be a fellow portal-hiker, or a resident of a world that they travel to. For simplicity's sake, we'll go with whoever posts first, and travel in that order. If you've got an awesome rp in the works with an awesome universe, we can go there too. Whatever works :)
Character Profile: Whatever you think is necessary, though if you're from another world, please include its name and a brief description. Also include a goal of the character, along with their current life situation.
Jodi Arias is accused of killing her lover in 2008. During her cross-examination by the prosecution this week, contradictions in her descriptions of her relationship with the deceased, and of his death have come to light. If convicted, Arias could face the death penalty.?
By David Schwartz,?Reuters / February 27, 2013
Prosecutor Juan Martinez cross examines Jodi Arias during her trial in Phoenix on Wednesday. Arias is charged in the June 2008 death of her lover in his suburban Phoenix home. She says it was self-defense, but police say she planned the attack on Travis Alexander in a jealous rage.
AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, David Wallace, Pool
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An?Arizona court?heard how a woman charged with capital murder felt "like a goddess" with her slain lover, as prosecutors on Wednesday cited contradictions to previous testimony in which she said the relationship made her feel "like a prostitute."
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Jodi Arias, 32, could face the death penalty if convicted of murdering 30-year-old?Travis Alexander, whose body was found in the shower of his?Phoenix?valley home in June 2008. He was shot in the face, stabbed 27 times and had his throat slit.
Arias, in frequently explicit testimony, has admitted to killing him but said it was in self-defense after he attacked her when she dropped his camera while taking pictures of him in the shower. The prosecution has said she killed him in a jealous rage.
During frequently combative cross-examination on Wednesday, prosecutor?Juan Martinez?sought to poke holes in Arias' previous testimony that her relationship with Alexander left her feeling "like a prostitute," noting how in a sex tape she said she felt "like a goddess" with him.
"You tell us you felt like a prostitute," Martinez said. "It seems to be contradictory."
Arias admitted to enjoying parts of her sex life with Alexander.
In four days of hostile questioning, Martinez has picked at numerous contradictory accounts Arias gave to friends, family and police investigators of both her relationship with Alexander and the manner he met his death.
On Wednesday, he played a television interview Arias gave from jail in which she said intruders killed Alexander - a version she later dropped when police forensic evidence placed her firmly at the crime scene. "I couldn't keep my stories straight," Arias said, when confronted with differing accounts.
Martinez has also produced text messages exchanged by the couple that apparently contradicted her version of their relationship as one characterized by violence and emotional abuse.
"You lied to a lot of people, but you're saying that just because you are sitting here in this courtroom, there has been, for the lack of a better term, a conversion," Martinez said to Arias. "For the lack of a better term, yes," she replied.
Alexander was found some five days after he was killed. Authorities pinned the death on Arias after sexually explicit photos were discovered in his camera's memory card.
The trial is set to continue on Thursday.
(Editing by Tim Gaynor, Cynthia Johnston and Peter Cooney)
Feb. 26, 2013 ? The popular half-gloves that leave fingers uncovered for texting may be good for communicating electronically but they may also lead to permanent loss of fingers due to exposure to the cold.
"Fingers are one of the first body parts to feel the effects of the cold and damp and along with toes, ears and the nose are frequently subjected to frostbite and even amputation," says Arthur Sanford, MD, Division of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care and Burns, Loyola University Health System. "Better to fat finger a text due to wearing winter gloves than to lose a finger due to the cold."
Frostbite is most likely to happen in body parts farthest from the heart and those with large exposed areas. "Blood vessels start to constrict at or below 32 degrees Celsius to preserve body temperature," says Sanford. "The lack of blood in areas of the body can lead to freezing and the death of skin tissue."
Sanford says he treats frostbite in people of all ages. "The old lady who goes out in the snow to get her mail, falls, breaks a hip and lays in the cold and wet for hours until being discovered is a typical victim of frostbite," he says. "But the younger person who goes on a drinking bender and walks home in the snow and damp is also a familiar sight at Loyola trauma."
When suffering from prolonged exposure to cold, use room temperature or slightly warm water to gently revitalize the body. "Do not use hot water, do not rub with handfuls of snow and do not vigorously massage the frozen area," warns Sanford. Overstimulation can actually worsen the situation.
Winter wellness tips from Sanford and Loyola include the following:
? Dress in layers. "If a sweater, pair of socks or other article of clothing gets wet, you can quickly remove it and still be protected from the cold and wet," says Sanford.
? Wear a hat, gloves or mittens and proper footwear including socks and boots. "Texting gloves may look cool and be handy for communicating but it is better to wear full gloves or mittens and save your fingers," says Sanford.
? When outerwear becomes wet, go inside and change to dry clothing. "Wet socks especially are dangerous and can lead to a condition called trench foot which results in poor blood circulation, decay of tissue, infections and even amputation," says Sanford.
? If affected area becomes numb, turns red or blue, swells or feels hot, go to the emergency department. "An emergency physician will assess the tissue and take the proper steps to save the body part," says Sanford.
Hypothermia, when the body temperature is below 95 degrees F(35 degrees C), was the cause of death for 700 Americans between 1979 -- 1998. "Frostbite in January, operate in July is a common mantra here at Loyola," says Sanford. "Bundling up for winter may take you out of media circulation temporarily but better that than to permanently lose the ability to text due to frostbite."
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This one's coming straight from the horse's mouth. Amazon is acknowledging a "known issue" with version 3.6.1 of its Kindle app for iOS -- the company is recommending that current users avoid the latest update, which hit the App Store today. According to TUAW, the new version may completely erase a user's book library. How this passed the e-book giant's QA team is anyone's guess, but until a revision hits the cloud, we suggest you stay away.
Update: Amazon has reached out to clarify this issue. The update causes the app to "deregister," and as a result, items are removed from the smartphone or tablet. All of your content remains in the cloud, however, and can be re-downloaded after you re-register the device with Amazon. The update has been re-submitted to Apple and should appear soon. Consider us re-lieved. You'll find the official word below:
We have identified an issue with the app update that may cause your app to become deregistered. To register, enter your Amazon account e-mail address and password and all your Amazon content will be available in the cloud. We have submitted an update fix for this issue and are working with Apple to release.
Update 2: As of Wednesday afternoon, the app has been replaced with version 3.6.2, with listed improvements including "Fix for Registration Issue." The source link will now direct you to that latest version, which, presumably, won't make all your books disappear.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Internet users who illegally share music, movies or television shows online could soon receive warning notices from the nation's five major Internet service providers.
The Copyright Alert System, organized by the recording and film industry, is being activated this week to target consumers using peer-to-peer software.
Under the new system, complaints will prompt an Internet service provider ? such as Verizon or AT&T ? to notify a customer whose Internet address has been detected sharing files illegally. A person will be given up to six opportunities to stop before the Internet provider will take more drastic steps, such as temporarily slowing their connection, or redirecting Internet traffic until they acknowledge they received a notice or review educational materials about copyright law.
Consumers who maintain they have been wrongly accused would be forced to pay $35 to appeal the decision. The fee would be reimbursed if they prevail.
Proponents say the focus is on deterring the average consumer rather than chronic violators. The director of the organization behind the system, Jill Lesser of the Center for Copyright Infringement, said in a blog post Monday that the program is "meant to educate rather than punish, and direct (users) to legal alternatives."
Each Internet provider is expected to implement their own system. The program gives each customer five or six "strikes" after a music or film company has detected illegal file-sharing and lodged a complaint. The first alerts are expected to be educational, while the third and fourth would require the customer to acknowledge that they have received the warnings and understand their behavior is illegal. The final warnings are expected to lead to "mitigation measures," such as slowing a person's Internet connection speeds.
Officials involved in the effort acknowledge it's unlikely to stop the biggest violators. There are ways to disguise an IP address or use a neighbor's connection that is unlocked. Public wireless connections, such as those offered at coffee shops, also won't be monitored.
TORONTO (Reuters) - The prospect of a divided Italian parliament prompted a late retreat in banking and other Canadian financial stocks on Monday, pushing the main Toronto equity index into the red after it had earlier hit a three-week high.
Voting projections in Italy show no coalition garnered enough votes to form a government, reviving fears about an extended period of uncertainty in Europe's third-largest economy.
"The basic problem is that the whole Europe situation had been shunted to the back-burner ever since the beginning of this year," said Elvis Picardo, strategist at Global Securities in Vancouver.
"The latest developments show that there is a degree of risk that is still attached to the continent," he said. "It's causing investors to rethink some of their assumptions about the market."
Royal Bank of Canada fell 1 percent to C$63.59, insurer Manulife Financial Corp lost 2.1 percent to C$14.84 and its rival, Sunlife Financial Inc, slipped 1.9 percent to C$28.34.
Picardo said investors may also be feeling more cautious about bank earnings, which are due to be reported this week and next, after a recent string of weak domestic housing, employment, inflation and retail sales data. <.to/>
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> ended down 50.76 points, or 0.40 percent, at 12,650.87.
It had earlier hit 12,832.71, its highest level since January 30.
The tide turned in the last hour of trade, and seven of the 10 sectors ended in negative territory.
Energy stocks took a beating, with Suncor Energy Inc falling 1.4 percent to C$31.52 to end the day as the heaviest weight on the index.
It had earlier risen, along with fellow oil sands producer Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, after a Barron's article suggesting each stock could gain 25 percent in the next year.
Canadian Natural Resources finished up 0.6 percent at C30.55.
Gold miners provided some of the only gains, as the price of bullion rose in part on the back of the Italian uncertainty.
Barrick Gold, the world's biggest producer, gained 2.2 percent to C$31.81, while four more gold miners rounded out the top five positive influences on the index.
Shares in BlackBerry ended flat at C$13.48, giving up early gains after the smartphone maker's chief executive told a German newspaper that sales of its make-or-break BB10 line were going better than expected and that the company had increased production to keep up.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? LG Electronics Inc. is aiming to raise its smartphone sales by more than half this year as it makes a shift from basic phones to high-end devices after lagging competitors for several years.
The South Korean company aims to sell more than 40 million smartphones in 2013, it said in a statement on Monday. LG shipped 26.3 million smartphones in 2012, fewer than HTC Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd. which each shipped more than 32 million smartphones.
To meet the sales goal, LG will release handsets in all price ranges from high-tier to affordable models and go all out in both developed and emerging markets.
"We aim to improve profitability and also to become a top-tier smartphone brand," Park Jong-seok, head of LG's mobile phone business, told reporters at a mobile industry fair in Barcelona, according to the statement.
LG faces similar challenges to other second-tier smartphone vendors. They are squeezed by the two smartphone giants ? Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. ? that are dominating most of the profit in the smartphone industry and also by Chinese makers that are expanding in the smartphone markets of fast-growing emerging countries.
But LG hopes to make its Optimus brand stand out by drawing on technologies from other parts of the LG empire. The company is the largest shareholder in LG Display Co. and has collaborated with other LG affiliates on batteries and cameras.
LG was the world's third-largest maker of cellphones in 2009 but was caught off guard by the popularity of smartphones. In the fourth quarter of 2012, LG sold fewer phones than Chinese rivals Huawei Technologies Ltd. and ZTE Corp., which are expanding shipments of their cheaper smartphones.
Its mobile communications division was profitable for the first time in three years last year as it moved its focus from basic phones to lucrative smartphones.
I have a confession to make.? I was one of those insane mothers who try to make sure their kids never come in contact with a particle of dirt.? This meant about half of everyday, usually while the babies were asleep, was spent scrubbing floors and moving furniture to vacuum behind.? On a rough estimate, that probably cost me a good 10 or so books by the age of 35.? It was probably ? oh, heck, surely ? excessive.
Kids who came to play with my kids, even well into elementary, used to say things like ?Your house is so clean.?
Then we moved to this house.? I?ve talked about before how this house seems to have a cloud of dolce far niente over it.? Which could be very nice, if we had maids and stuff (or staff.)
However, in retrospect I?m not even sure that?s true.? I mean, that there is a cloud of dolce far niente over the house.
What happened is that we moved here in 03, when I?d been informed my first series hadn?t done ?as well as expected? (which, speaking of pure evil and Random Penguins is funny considering within two years I?d outearned the advance for both number one and number two.? Since the advance back then were an estimation of what the book would make the author, saying books that earned royalties over the advance didn?t do as well as expected is duck speak.? The translation is actually this ?You earned more than we expected you to, given the crappy non-support and publicity we gave you ? but you didn?t become a miraculous bestseller, so we?re dropping you.?)
Anyway, because burning the publishing district was not an option even if it would have made me feel much better, and because I?m a human wave AUTHOR ? meaning I behave like a human wave character ? I said ?like h*ll you?ll fire me.* and spent the next couple of years furiously running just to stay in print.? The running included writing a lot of proposals, halves of some novels (that will now get finished) and apparently an entire medieval romance I have no memory of writing and I?m afraid of reading.? There was also a couple of stints in work for hire and ghosting.? I will not lie ? I would have quit writing ? probably ? sometime in the next two years when things weren?t BREAKING except that we were paying double mortgage, as we were still getting the other house ready to sell, then selling it.? So, I needed money for the double mortgage, which included a year where I made 5k from short stories.? (Do the math at around $300 each story.)
Because all my free time, I was working on the house in Manitou, to get it ready for sale, I wasn?t unpacking/cleaning.? I did the minimal unpacking to get the house functional but that was all.
Then we had the year of crisis with middle school and Number Two Son.
At the end of that, a certain pattern of living in this house had set in.? And unfortunately it wasn?t a very GOOD pattern.
I cleaned every week because I?m allergic to household dust, but furniture didn?t get moved, you didn?t look in drawers (except I organize my closet twice a year, otherwise I can?t find clothes) stuff just got piled in closets and the attic remained a disaster area.
And then I started getting ill ? a lot ? which meant fewer books got written and the cleaning was even more neglected.
Well? there is a possibility we will have to move in the next year or so ? and it would be sane to downsize if/when the boys leave.? (Though the advantage of this house for the times we live in is that it can easily fit two families.? ? three would be a bit cramped.)
So I started, desultorily, going through stuff, since the first order of business is ?cull crap? ? mostly paper books, since we now have a lot of them in electronic format, which thank G-d can?t collect dust.
And I?ve found that maybe the problem is not with the house, but with ourselves.? I.e., we took so long to get settled/get things started here, that by the time we did the clutter was well-night hopeless.? After five years the accumulation of dust in places I couldn?t reach without major reorganization started making me ill more often, and besides we were spending money to buy things we already had because we couldn?t find anything.? (Look, there might be a logical reason to have a collection of drill bits in my desk drawer of my writing desk.? Perhaps a character had told me she wanted to get drilled, who knows?? BUT when I needed those drill bits to fix the kitchen stool? well? I never thought to look there.? There were also two visa gift cards for the kids, given to us around the time we moved, which ended up at the back of my bedside table drawer, behind my weight in pens and about ten thousand hair clips.)
Now, I?m not going to tell you that I?m about to become the world?s best housekeeper.? I think my fans would rather I do three or four more books a year.? And G-d knows this is the last thing I wanted to be doing right now.? (And I have to do guest blogging today and tomorrow.? I just do.)? But those who have engaged in this type of work ? possibly not as epic ? will understand what I mean when I say that having lifted a corner of the mess, I now must continue until it?s done.
A lot of this, really, is ?moving in? and making this house functional to live in, as it never was.? Depending on whether or not it looks like re: staying or having to move, there might be wall painting this summer.? But for now, it?s just getting rid of furniture we don?t need.? Getting rid of stuff we no longer use (though the hair clips are a kludge.? I used them when I had hair so long I could ? and did, by accident ? sit on it.? Now I have it somewhere above my shoulders, so I don?t have that much use for ? fifty different ways to confine my hair.? I don?t intend to grow my hair that long again ? but then I never did, I just forgot to have it cut.? That?s what the first four years in this house were like.? I don?t have anywhere to store them, and no clue what to do with them.)
Now, I think I?m about at the point that I can relegate this to weekends ? I.e. do my usual lick and promise in the normal areas, but add one room that gets unpacked/organized/decluttered.? Which is good.? It means I can go back to doing the stuff all of us enjoy more.
The idea is that if I do this for a couple of months, then it will be easier to maintain the house and keep from getting sick, and finally fight off the lassitude of ?I can?t find anything and why bother.? At least that?s the idea.
However ? right now ? remember it?s been ten years of my not doing this, it means both the kids and the cats seem to think I?ve been possessed by a cleaning demon which has now spread to Dan who spent yesterday organizing his office, as the kids looked in horror.
Bear with me through late postings and such.? This is health related, though not in the normal way.? (For one, since there was mildew in the humidifier, I need to clean any place stuff might grow in the rest of the house.)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? With Danica Patrick starting from the pole, the Daytona 500's preliminary television ratings were much higher than last year's.
Sunday afternoon's race earned a 10.0 overnight rating and 22 share on Fox, the network said Monday. That's up 30 percent from 2012, when rain pushed the event to a Monday night. It was the highest overnight rating since 2006.
Jimmie Johnson won the race while Patrick was eighth, the best finish by a woman at the Daytona 500.
The race had plenty of buildup: Patrick making history as the first woman to start a Sprint Cup race from the pole, the revamped cars, no more tandem drafting, and a frightening crash the day before in the second-tier Nationwide Series.
"I noticed something last night coming out of the track for dinner, just seemed to be a different vibe inside the infield," said Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished second Sunday. "People seemed more excited about what was getting ready to happen. Even today, there seemed to be a whole lot more people here. Seemed to be a lot more excitement about the race.
"That really was the biggest motivator for me. I think we're headed in the right direction. ... For some reason, it just felt like we're on the right track as a sport. That's got me really excited."
Ratings represent the percentage of all homes with televisions tuned to a program. Shares represent the percentage of all homes with TVs in use at the time. Overnight ratings measure the country's largest markets.
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African stocks edged up on Monday as investors hunted for bargains following a recent sell-off with banks and retailers among the top gainers.
Major retailers, the biggest losers on the bourse so far this year after a thunderous rise in 2012, recouped some lost ground. Mr Price gained 2.5 percent higher to 121.82 rand and Woolworths climbed 3.6 percent to 68.80 rand.
Investors have been offloading retailers from their portfolios over the last month after a spate of sales updates and earnings results failed to justify the companies' lofty trading multiples.
The JSE Top-40 index was up 0.3 percent to 35,359.19 and the broader All-share index gained by the same margin, to 39,787.96.
"There's still a lot of nervousness in the market ahead of the budget, the outcome of Italy elections and the debt ceiling but there is some bargain hunting after last week's sell-off," Henre Herselman, a trader a Nedbank Private Wealth said.
Nedbank, whose 19 percent rise in annual profit undershot market expectations, gained 0.8 percent to 189.50 rand after beating forecasts with a 24 percent hike in dividend payout.
Rival FirstRand improved 0.75 percent to 30.73 rand after the lender said first-half headline earnings per share likely rose as much as 29 percent.
On the downside, contract mining and equipment firm Eqstra dropped 1.8 percent to 5.99 rand, falling for the second day on news of a 146 million rand buyout offer for shares it does not already own in civil engineering firm Protech Khuthele Holdings.
A below average 143 million shares were traded, according to preliminary exchange data, with advancers outpacing decliners 204 to 112, while 55 shares were unchanged.
We knew another Note was coming. After all, Samsung Mobile head JK Shin confirmed the news back in January. But here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the tablet's finally been made official. If you haven't already inferred from its name, Samsung's latest S Pen entry boasts an 8-inch 1,280 x 800 TFT display. That puts it on par with the Note 10.1's resolution, although here users will obviously benefit from a more eye-pleasing pixel density (189ppi) and smaller 210.8mm x 135.9mm x 7.95mm (8.3 x 5.4 x 0.31 inches) footprint. Beneath that love it or hate it sealed plastic chassis, lies the company's Exynos 4 Quad processor clocked at 1.6GHz and paired with 2GB RAM, radios for WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS, GLONASS and HSPA+ 21 (850/900/1900/2100MHz), up to 32GB of internal storage (microSD expansion available), in addition to a 4,600mAh battery. And, as with most Android products rolling out as of late, the Note 8.0 will ship with version 4.1.2 of Jelly Bean onboard -- skinned with the requisite TouchWiz UX.
We love our music apps, and the smartphones that made it commonplace to carry around advanced, diverse music functionality, rather than relying on a "dumb" iPod or waiting until you get back to your computer to try the cool stuff. More »
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) ? The mysterious death of a 30-year-old Palestinian gas station attendant in Israeli custody stoked new West Bank clashes Sunday, along with Israeli fears of a third Palestinian uprising.
A senior Palestinian official alleged that Arafat Jaradat was tortured by Israel's Shin Bet security service, citing an autopsy he said revealed bruising and two broken ribs.
Israel's Health Ministry said the autopsy did not conclusively determine the cause of death, but that the bruising and broken ribs were likely the result of attempts to revive the detainee.
Jaradat's death came at a time of rising West Bank tensions, including several days of Palestinian marches in support of four hunger-striking prisoners in Israeli lockups. In all, Israel holds nearly 4,600 Palestinians, including dozens who have never been formally charged or tried.
Frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the recent re-election of Israeli hard-line Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Palestinian cash crisis and the Palestinians' sense of being abandoned by the Arab world seem to have created fertile ground for a third Palestinian revolt.
Over the weekend, Israel's army chief convened senior commanders to discuss the growing unrest.
Jaradat's death "is liable to become the opening shot" in a third uprising, Israeli military commentator Alex Fishman wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily Sunday, arguing that the "Palestinian street has been boiling with anger for a number of weeks now."
However, Israeli officials have previously expressed concern about a new uprising, only to see bursts of Palestinian protests fizzle.
The first uprising, marked by stone-throwing protests and commercial strikes, erupted in the late 1980s and led to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The second uprising broke out in 2000, after failed talks on a final peace deal, and was far deadlier, with Israel reoccupying the West Bank in response to bombings and shootings.
In recent years, the West Bank has been relatively calm. Despite recent tensions, the Palestinian self-rule government has not broken off security coordination with Israel in their joint campaign against Islamic militants.
Palestinian activists also say they learned from the mistakes of the armed revolt a decade ago and are turning to more creative protests against Israel's 45-year rule over lands they want for a future state.
Former Palestinian security chief Jibril Rajoub, speaking in Hebrew on Israel Radio, tried to reassure Israelis, declaring Sunday "on behalf of the entire Palestinian leadership that there is no plan to lead to bloodshed."
Jaradat, a father of two from the West Bank village of Saeer, died in Megiddo Prison in northern Israel on Saturday, six days after his arrest on suspicion of stone throwing.
Jaradat's attorney, Kamil Sabbagh, said his client told an Israeli military judge Thursday during a hearing that he was being forced to sit for long periods during interrogation. He also complained of back pain and seemed terrified to return to the Shin Bet lockup, although he did not have any apparent signs of physical abuse, Sabbagh said.
After the court hearing, the judge ordered Jaradat to be examined by a prison doctor.
The Shin Bet said that during interrogation, Jaradat was examined several times by a doctor who detected no health problems. On Saturday, he was in his cell and felt unwell after lunch, the agency said.
"Rescue services and a doctor were alerted and treated him," the statement said. But "they didn't succeed in saving his life."
On Sunday, Israel's forensics institute performed an autopsy attended by a physician from the Palestinian Authority.
After being briefed by the Palestinian physician, Issa Karake, the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, told a news conference late Sunday that Jaradat had suffered two broken ribs on the right side of his chest. The autopsy also showed bruises on Jaradat's back and chest.
Israeli officials initially said Jaradat apparently died of a heart attack, but Karake said the Palestinian physician told him there was no evidence of that.
Later, Israel's Health Ministry said Jaradat did not suffer from disease and that it was not possible yet to determine his cause of death conclusively.
Jaradat "faced harsh torture, leading to his immediate, direct death. Israel is fully responsible for his killing," Karake said.
Protesting Jaradat's death, Palestinians threw stones at Israeli troops in several locations, including the West Bank city of Hebron and at a checkpoint near the military's Ofer prison on Sunday. In two locations, troops fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel pellets.
In the clash near the checkpoint, troops fired live rounds, shooting the 15-year-old son of the commander of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service in the chest and stomach, said Palestinian health official Dr. Ahmed Bitawi. The teen, Walid Hab al-Reeh, was in stable condition, while another man was wounded in the arm, Bitawi said.
The Preventive Security Service is key to security coordination with Israel. The Israeli military said it was aware of a report that a Palestinian youth was seriously hurt by gunfire, but could not confirm that soldiers used live rounds to disperse the protest.
Kadoura Fares, who heads a Palestinian group advocating for prisoners, urged Palestinians on Sunday to keep demonstrating. He also said that one of the four hunger-striking prisoners, Jafar Izzeldeen, was moved to a hospital Sunday because his condition was deteriorating.
Recent West Bank protests have focused on the fate of prisoners, an emotional Palestinian consensus issue.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned since Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in 1967, meaning virtually every Palestinian family has had someone locked up.
The detainees are held on a range of charges, from stone-throwing to deadly attacks. Most Palestinians embrace them as heroes resisting occupation, while Israelis tend to view them as terrorists.
___
Associated Press writers Diaa Hadid, Aron Heller and Dalia Nammari in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
1. There?s an assumption that you sleep with others all the time ? Yeah, that?s right. We all sleep with each other, 3000 times a day. There?s no need for women. No talking about feelings (with extra witty banter about your boobs), we can just cut straight to it and start unbuckling each other?s trousers. The only issue that we have to worry about is accidentally wearing each other?s clothes roughly twenty minutes later. We?re all sluts.
The problem is, in the ten years of being out I haven?t seen that much evidence of that at all. Yeah there are guys who sleep with absolutely everybody, but so are there many straight guys who sleep with absolutely everybody. The vast amount of gay guys I know are exactly the same as their straight counterparts ? we don?t know how to approach people / we don?t go home with people all the time / the only way to chat someone up is by downing three bottles of wine in a nightclub and stumbling over to them whilst trying to think up an awful yet interesting ?opening line? / oh god will they give me their phone number or not / that awful ?I don?t know what I?m doing? feeling the whole bloody time, and so on.
In fact, I?d go as far as much to say that there?s not too much difference between straight and gay guys at all. The fact is, a great deal of us (in the long term) are looking for relationships, are wanting love, are wanting to happy, just like a great deal of straight blokes. Yeah the culture perceives that getting with guys is easier than straight guys, but it doesn?t mean that we get the guys we like, or want to pull in the first place.
Now let me take your belt off.
2. You have to constantly come out to others for the rest of my life ? Coming out for the first time can be the hardest thing that a gay / bi / lesbian person could do. You agonise about the relationships with your family, your best mates, your colleagues and all sorts. Then it happens. You come out. You get an adrenalin rush as if you?ve just hurtled down Alton Towers? Oblivion just after eating 8 packets of skittles. You feel alive. You feel like you?ve just pressed a giant ?restart? button in your head. You feel like no other problem exists, that no other problem can stop you?
Then you come out? about 37,000,000 more times.
Whenever I get a new mate, new housemate, or new colleague, thinking about when tell them that I?m gay is something that is always in my mind. I know that I don?t need to tell people about my sexuality, it?s my private life after all, but essentially in the long term, I know that I have to? otherwise conversations become a bit of a mindfuck when I have to avoid anything about relationships, gay marriage, nights out, whether you?re single and ?whether you think this person is fit.?
Since coming out the first time I?ve found that there?s two perfectly acceptable ways to do it to anyone who isn?t your close friends and family. You either?
1. Strategically place a subtle reference within any conversation, flicking around the word ?girlfriend? with ?boyfriend?, ?she?s fit? with ?he?s fit? (you then look at them with a subtle stare of ?yeah that?s right, but let?s not chat about it? before moving on to the next conversation). OR?
2. You do a ?I?m Gay? announcement followed by an Oprah interview with the other person where you talk about your feelings.
Luckily as being gay is becoming less of a WTF thing these days, I hope that I will get to the day and age where I wouldn?t need to ?think? about the process of telling other people about my sexuality anymore. Until then though, I have to.
So I apologise if, after you meet me for the first time, I decide to break the ice by shouting ?DOESN?T TOM DALEY?S SIX PACK LOOK UNREAL?? or something.
3. When did you first realise that you were gay? ? The most annoying question in the entire Universe. Never ask a gay guy this. It?s so freaking weird. It?s like asking to a straight bloke, ?when was the first time you noticed, in the glistening sun, someone?s low cut top? When did you first imagine touching another girl?s boob??
Let me just answer the question here for you. We fancy blokes. It isn?t that complicated. Some of us don?t realise we do until later, but we just fancy blokes. In the same way that you fancy someone?s arse, face, thighs or personality right now. In the same way that you first thought ?I want to have sex with [insert name and gender here] when you were a teenager.? That?s it.
Don?t ask us about it. Many of us don?t like having to do a monologue about it in front of you and all of your friends anyway. And the stories are usually quite dull. We?re not soap characters. There aren?t any EXPLOSIONS or anything. We just realised one day. We worked it out. We told everyone. That?s it.
4. People assume that you take care of yourself. ? There was a time when everyone naturally assumed that gay people were either shouting ?I?m free? in department stores or having fun up on Hampstead Heath. Then they realised we were not. Fine if you are, but many of us were not just those type of characters.
So what do many people assume that gay people are today? Fashionable, well presented, tanned, bitchy antique collectors who all undergo teeth whitening, who all have Britney Spears three songs away in their iPod, might be orange, who sneer at anything that?s low-cultured and most importantly, look after themselves and their body.
May I add here? if you are into that (bar maybe the antique collectors) totally fine. TOTALLY FINE. But why do people assume that many of us, or all of us, are like that? I for one, do not look after myself. I can?t see my bedroom floor as it?s covered in clothes. I don?t shave that well, sometimes I end up cutting myself I feel as if Sweeney Todd has visited in my sleep. I?ve never had an interest in shopping ? whenever I?ve been dragged to any clothes store in the past, I usually find the ?shoe section? just so I can sit there and wait until everyone else has finished (it?s been my ritual to stare and evaluate the condition of store?s ceiling tiles ? I literally get that bored).
The ?supposed? assumed lifestyle of being gay is all, I admit, just a bit alienating to me. It always has been. I?ve felt in the past like I?ve been pushed into a group or associated with particular labels for no particular reason. Yet again may I clarify, I have no problem with people who like this in any way, but why do all gay people continue to be represented in this way, in the media and in culture? Why can?t ?liking blokes instead of girls? be the end all of being gay, without being pushed or associated with any of the ?supposed? lifestyle? Does society label gay people or do gay people continue to label themselves? I literally don?t know.
5. People trying to matchmake the gay people up who they know -
ARE YOU NUTS? WE?RE NOT A JIGSAW PUZZLE.
Fine if you?ve been contemplating it for an age and you think that we?re a perfect couple for each other, but if you are just thinking right now about throwing two gay guys thinking that they should be together without any sense or thought? seriously, get a grip. It?s a total, criminal offence.
SHUT. IT. DOWN.
I think I?ve vented enough here. Just so you know everyone, I?m going to have a lie down.
Handel?s Judas Maccabaeus to be performed by London Forest Choir with the English Baroque Sinfonia at Chingford Parish Church in The Green.
10:24am Saturday 16th February 2013 in News By Dominic Sutton
Tickets are on sale for a performance of Handel?s Judas Maccabaeus by a Walthamstow-based choir.
The dramatic oratorio which includes the famous chorus ?See, the conqu?ring hero comes!? will be performed by the London Forest Choir with the English Baroque Sinfonia at Chingford Parish Church in The Green.
Tickets for the performance on March 16 cost ?12, ?10 concessions, ?6 students and ?1 for accompanied children.
To book visit at www.londonforestchoir.org or call 0208 531 4837.
A team of scientists anchored at Yale University has demonstrated a new, highly versatile approach for quickly assembling drug-like compounds, establishing a broad new route to drug discovery and medical treatment. They report their results in the journalScience on Feb 8.
Drug molecules interact with their targets, such as proteins or enzymes, by attaching to them in a way that neutralizes the target's undesirable effects in the body. This is sometimes called the "lock-and-key" method. The new approach offers scientists far greater control over the three-dimensional structure of a key class of molecular compounds, making it easier to fashion drug molecules that fit their targets in the right way.
"Now we've got a lot more control over the shape and orientation of this class of drug compounds, and this essentially gives us greater flexibility in creating effective drugs," said Jonathan Ellman, the Yale chemist who led the experiment.
The research reported in Science revolves around piperidines, a class of organic compounds widely used in pharmaceuticals, including the familiar drugs quinine, morphine, oxycodone, Plavix, Cialis, and Aricept. Piperidines are core structures, or scaffolds, upon which molecular fragments ? parts of the drug molecule ? can be displayed for binding to a drug's targets. The scientists have shown a way to generate different piperidine derivatives by varying acid strength.
"Our research allows us to make new piperidines easily," Ellman said. "The approach has biomedical relevance because the scaffold upon which the fragments are displayed is present in many of the most important drugs."
The research is being published without patent constraints and could be used by drug developers immediately, said Ellman, who is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Chemistry and professor of pharmacology. "I believe that this is the most effective approach for rapidly translating this work into new drugs," he said.
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Yale University: http://www.yale.edu
Thanks to Yale University for this article.
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The truck owned and driven by suspected cop killer Christopher Dorner during his alleged rampage through the Los Angeles area was found deserted and in flames on the side of Bear Mountain, Calif., this afternoon -- with tracks in the snow leading away from the vehicle.
Heavily armed SWAT team members descended onto Bear Mountain from a helicopter manned with snipers today to investigate the fire. The San Bernadino Sheriff's Department confirmed the car was Dorner's, but said at a news conference this evening that the tracks did not lead to him.
Dorner, a former Los Angeles police officer and Navy reservist, is believed to have killed one police officer and injured two others early this morning in Riverside, Calif. He is also accused of killing two civilians on Sunday after releasing a scathing "manifesto" alleging grievances committed by the police department while he worked for it and warning of coming violence toward cops.
Read More About Chris Dorner's Allegations Against the LAPD
Heavily armed officers spent much of Thursday searching for signs of Dorner, investigating multiple false leads into his whereabouts and broadcasting his license plate and vehicle description across the California Highway System.
Around 12:45 p.m. PT, police responded to Bear Mountain, where two fires were reported, and set up a staging area in the parking lot of a ski resort. They did not immediately investigate the fires, but sent a small team of heavily armed officers up in the helicopter to descend down the mountain toward the fire.
The officers, carrying machine guns and searching the mountain for any sign of Dorner, eventually made it to the vehicle and identified it as belonging to Dorner. They have not yet found Dorner.
Today, CNN's Anderson Cooper said Dorner had sent him a package at his New York office that arrived on Feb. 1, though Cooper said he never knew about the package until today. It contained a DVD of court testimony, with a Post-It note signed by Dorner claiming, "I never lied! Here is my vindication."
It also contained a keepsake coin bearing the name of former Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton that came wrapped in duct tape, Cooper said. The duct tape bore the note, "Thanks, but no thanks Will Bratton."
Bratton told Cooper on his program, "Anderson Cooper 360," that he believed he gave Dorner the coin as he was headed overseas for the Navy, Bratton's practice when officers got deployed abroad. Though a picture has surfaced of Bratton, in uniform, and Dorner, in fatigues, shaking hands, Bratton told Cooper he didn't recall Dorner or the meeting.
PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings
Police officers across Southern California were on the defensive today, scaling back their public exposure, no longer responding to "barking-dog calls" and donning tactical gear outdoors.
Police departments have stationed officers in tactical gear outside police departments, stopped answering low-level calls and pulled motorcycle patrols off the road in order to protect officers who might be targets of Dorner's alleged rampage.
"We've made certain modifications of our deployments, our deviations today, and I want to leave it at that, and also to our responses," said Chief Sergio Diaz of the police department in Riverside, Calif., where the officers were shot. "We are concentrating on calls for service that are of a high priority, threats to public safety, we're not going to go on barking dog calls today."
Sgt. Rudy Lopez of the Los Angeles Police Department said Dorner is "believed to be armed and extremely dangerous."
Early Thursday morning, before they believe he shot at any police officers, Dorner allegedly went to a yacht club near San Diego, where police say he attempted to steal a boat and flee to Mexico.
He aborted the attempted theft when the boat's propeller became entangled in a rope, law enforcement officials said. It was then that he is believed to have headed to Riverside, where he allegedly shot two police officers.
"He pointed a handgun at the victim [at the yacht club] and demanded the boat," said Lt. David Rohowits of the San Diego Police Department.
Police say the rifle marksman shot at four officers in two incidents overnight, hitting three of them: one in Corona, Calif., and the two in Riverside, Calif.
Lopez said two LAPD officers were in Corona on special detail to check on one of the individuals named in Dorner's manifesto and encountered Dorner. Dorner allegedly grazed one of them but missed the other.
"[This is an] extremely tense situation," Lopez said. "We call this a manhunt. We approach it cautiously because of the propensity of what has already happened."
After Dorner allegedly shot at LAPD officers in Corona, he fled and encountered two Riverside police officers stopped at a red light in their police car. Dorner used a rifle to shoot through their windshield, killing one officer and injuring the other, police said.
The deceased officer was a 34-year-old, 11-year veteran of the police department. The injured officer, age 27, was expected to make a full recovery.
Diaz said that the names of the officers were being withheld to protect their families, who might be targeted by Dorner if the names were released.
"They were on routine patrol stopped at a stop light when they were ambushed," Lt. Guy Toussant of the Riverside Police Department said.
In the manifesto Dorner published online, he threatened at least 12 people by name, along with their families.
"Your lack of ethics and conspiring to wrong a just individual are over. Suppressing the truth will leave to deadly consequences for you and your family," Dorner wrote in his manifesto.
A badge and identification belonging to Dorner have been found in San Diego, according to San Diego Police Sgt. Ray Battrick. Dorner's LAPD badge and ID were found by someone near the city's airport and turned in to police overnight, The Associated Press reported.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said today that 40 protective details have been deployed to protect officers and their families.
"We are taking all measures possible to ensure safety of our officers and their families," he said.
Dorner is also believed to be responsible for the weekend slayings of an assistant women's college basketball coach, Monica Quan, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, in what cops believe were acts of revenge against the LAPD, as suggested in his online manifesto.
Lawrence was found slumped behind the wheel of his white Kia in the parking lot of their upscale apartment complex in Irvine, Calif., Sunday and Quan was in the passenger seat.
"A particular interest at this point in the investigation is a multi-page manifesto in which the suspect has implicated himself in the slayings," Maggard said.
Police said Dorner's manifesto included threats against members of the LAPD, and so the department is taking extra measures to ensure the safety of officers and their families.
The document, allegedly posted on an Internet message board this week, apparently blames Quan's father, retired LAPD Capt. Randy Quan, for his firing from the department.
One passage from the manifesto read, "I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty."
"I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own," it read. "I'm terminating yours."
Dorner was with the department from 2005 until 2008, when he was fired for making false statements.
Randy Quan, who became a lawyer in retirement, represented Dorner in front of the Board of Rights, a tribunal that ruled against Dorner at the time of his dismissal, LAPD Capt. William Hayes told The Associated Press Wednesday night.
According to documents from a court of appeals hearing in October 2011, Dorner was fired from the LAPD after he made a complaint against his field-training officer, saying in the course of an arrest she had kicked a suspect who was a schizophrenic with severe dementia.
After an investigation, Dorner was fired for making false statements.
"We have strong cause to believe Dorner is armed and dangerous," Maggard said.
Donner was also a Navy reservist who'd just finished his military career as a lieutenant on Friday. His only overseas deployment was to a Navy base in Bahrain. He also received a Rifle Marksman Ribbon and Pistol Expert Medal, meaning he received superior scores when he tested at the range.
Police described Dorner as black, 6-feet tall and weighing 270 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes.
Meanwhile, Cal State-Fullerton was mourning the loss of its beloved assistant coach.
"There are really no words to convey the sadness that our program feels, that the young women who have had the privilege of working with such a bright and passionate woman," head coach Marcia Foster said earlier this week. "I want to especially send out condolences to Randal and Sylvia Quan, and her brother Ryan."
After college, Quan coached at Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks and has spent the past two years as an assistant coach at Cal State-Fullerton. The university has posted a memorial page on its sports website dedicated to Quan.
Lawrence was a business graduate who recently started working as a public-safety officer at USC.
New coal technology harnesses energy without burning, nears pilot-scale developmentPublic release date: 6-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Pam Frost Gorder gorder.1@osu.edu 614-292-9475 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, OhioA new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone recently, with the successful operation of a research-scale combustion system at Ohio State University. The technology is now ready for testing at a larger scale.
For 203 continuous hours, the Ohio State combustion unit produced heat from coal while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction.
Liang-Shih Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Ohio State's Clean Coal Research Laboratory, pioneered the technology called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL), which chemically harnesses coal's energy and efficiently contains the carbon dioxide produced before it can be released into the atmosphere.
"In the simplest sense, combustion is a chemical reaction that consumes oxygen and produces heat," Fan said. "Unfortunately, it also produces carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the environment. So we found a way to release the heat without burning. We carefully control the chemical reaction so that the coal never burnsit is consumed chemically, and the carbon dioxide is entirely contained inside the reactor."
Dawei Wang, a research associate and one of the group's team leaders, described the technology's potential benefits. "The commercial-scale CDCL plant could really promote our energy independence. Not only can we use America's natural resources such as Ohio coal, but we can keep our air clean and spur the economy with jobs," he said.
Though other laboratories around the world are trying to develop similar technology to directly convert coal to electricity, Fan's lab is unique in the way it processes fossil fuels. The Ohio State group typically studies coal in the two forms that are already commonly available to the power industry: crushed coal "feedstock," and coal-derived syngas.
The latter fuel has been successfully studied in a second sub-pilot research-scale unit, through a similar process called Syngas Chemical Looping (SCL). Both units are located in a building on Ohio State's Columbus campus, and each is contained in a 25-foot-high insulated metal cylinder that resembles a very tall home water heater tank.
No other lab has continuously operated a coal-direct chemical looping unit as long as the Ohio State lab did last September. But as doctoral student Elena Chung explained, the experiment could have continued.
"We voluntarily chose to stop the unit. We actually could have run longer, but honestly, it was a mutual decision by Dr. Fan and the students. It was a long and tiring week where we all shared shifts," she said.
Fan agreed that the nine-day experiment was a success. "In the two years we've been running the sub-pilot plants, our CDCL and SCL units have achieved a combined 830 operating hours, which clearly demonstrates the reliability and operability of our design," he said.
At any one time, the units each produce about 25 thermal kilowattsthat is, thermal energy, which in a full-scale power plant would be used to heat water and turn the steam-powered turbines that create electricity.
The researchers are about to take their technology to the next level: a larger-scale pilot plant is under construction at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, AL. Set to begin operations in late 2013, that plant will produce 250 thermal kilowatts using syngas.
The key to the technology is the use of tiny metal beads to carry oxygen to the fuel to spur the chemical reaction. For CDCL, the fuel is coal that's been ground into a powder, and the metal beads are made of iron oxide composites. The coal particles are about 100 micrometers acrossabout the diameter of a human hairand the iron beads are larger, about 1.5-2 millimeters across. Chung likened the two different sizes to talcum powder and ice cream sprinkles, though the mix is not nearly so colorful.
The coal and iron oxide are heated to high temperatures, where the materials react with each other. Carbon from the coal binds with the oxygen from the iron oxide and creates carbon dioxide, which rises into a chamber where it is captured. Hot iron and coal ash are left behind. Because the iron beads are so much bigger than the coal ash, they are easily separated out of the ash, and delivered to a chamber where the heat energy would normally be harnessed for electricity. The coal ash is removed from the system.
The carbon dioxide is separated and can be recycled or sequestered for storage. The iron beads are exposed to air inside the reactor, so that they become re-oxidized be used again. The beads can be re-used almost indefinitely, or recycled.
Since the process captures nearly all the carbon dioxide, it exceeds the goals that DOE has set for developing clean energy. New technologies that use fossil fuels should not raise the cost of electricity more than 35 percent, while still capturing more than 90 percent of the resulting carbon dioxide. Based on the current tests with the research-scale plants, Fan and his team believe that they can meet or exceed that requirement.
###
The DOE funded this research, and collaborating companies include Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, Inc.; CONSOL Energy, Inc.; and Clear Skies Consulting, LLC.
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
Editor's note: An image is available from Pam Frost Gorder.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New coal technology harnesses energy without burning, nears pilot-scale developmentPublic release date: 6-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Pam Frost Gorder gorder.1@osu.edu 614-292-9475 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, OhioA new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone recently, with the successful operation of a research-scale combustion system at Ohio State University. The technology is now ready for testing at a larger scale.
For 203 continuous hours, the Ohio State combustion unit produced heat from coal while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction.
Liang-Shih Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Ohio State's Clean Coal Research Laboratory, pioneered the technology called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL), which chemically harnesses coal's energy and efficiently contains the carbon dioxide produced before it can be released into the atmosphere.
"In the simplest sense, combustion is a chemical reaction that consumes oxygen and produces heat," Fan said. "Unfortunately, it also produces carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the environment. So we found a way to release the heat without burning. We carefully control the chemical reaction so that the coal never burnsit is consumed chemically, and the carbon dioxide is entirely contained inside the reactor."
Dawei Wang, a research associate and one of the group's team leaders, described the technology's potential benefits. "The commercial-scale CDCL plant could really promote our energy independence. Not only can we use America's natural resources such as Ohio coal, but we can keep our air clean and spur the economy with jobs," he said.
Though other laboratories around the world are trying to develop similar technology to directly convert coal to electricity, Fan's lab is unique in the way it processes fossil fuels. The Ohio State group typically studies coal in the two forms that are already commonly available to the power industry: crushed coal "feedstock," and coal-derived syngas.
The latter fuel has been successfully studied in a second sub-pilot research-scale unit, through a similar process called Syngas Chemical Looping (SCL). Both units are located in a building on Ohio State's Columbus campus, and each is contained in a 25-foot-high insulated metal cylinder that resembles a very tall home water heater tank.
No other lab has continuously operated a coal-direct chemical looping unit as long as the Ohio State lab did last September. But as doctoral student Elena Chung explained, the experiment could have continued.
"We voluntarily chose to stop the unit. We actually could have run longer, but honestly, it was a mutual decision by Dr. Fan and the students. It was a long and tiring week where we all shared shifts," she said.
Fan agreed that the nine-day experiment was a success. "In the two years we've been running the sub-pilot plants, our CDCL and SCL units have achieved a combined 830 operating hours, which clearly demonstrates the reliability and operability of our design," he said.
At any one time, the units each produce about 25 thermal kilowattsthat is, thermal energy, which in a full-scale power plant would be used to heat water and turn the steam-powered turbines that create electricity.
The researchers are about to take their technology to the next level: a larger-scale pilot plant is under construction at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, AL. Set to begin operations in late 2013, that plant will produce 250 thermal kilowatts using syngas.
The key to the technology is the use of tiny metal beads to carry oxygen to the fuel to spur the chemical reaction. For CDCL, the fuel is coal that's been ground into a powder, and the metal beads are made of iron oxide composites. The coal particles are about 100 micrometers acrossabout the diameter of a human hairand the iron beads are larger, about 1.5-2 millimeters across. Chung likened the two different sizes to talcum powder and ice cream sprinkles, though the mix is not nearly so colorful.
The coal and iron oxide are heated to high temperatures, where the materials react with each other. Carbon from the coal binds with the oxygen from the iron oxide and creates carbon dioxide, which rises into a chamber where it is captured. Hot iron and coal ash are left behind. Because the iron beads are so much bigger than the coal ash, they are easily separated out of the ash, and delivered to a chamber where the heat energy would normally be harnessed for electricity. The coal ash is removed from the system.
The carbon dioxide is separated and can be recycled or sequestered for storage. The iron beads are exposed to air inside the reactor, so that they become re-oxidized be used again. The beads can be re-used almost indefinitely, or recycled.
Since the process captures nearly all the carbon dioxide, it exceeds the goals that DOE has set for developing clean energy. New technologies that use fossil fuels should not raise the cost of electricity more than 35 percent, while still capturing more than 90 percent of the resulting carbon dioxide. Based on the current tests with the research-scale plants, Fan and his team believe that they can meet or exceed that requirement.
###
The DOE funded this research, and collaborating companies include Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, Inc.; CONSOL Energy, Inc.; and Clear Skies Consulting, LLC.
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
Editor's note: An image is available from Pam Frost Gorder.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 6-Feb-2013
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