Trending world news
Australia says missing Malaysia plane not where 'pings' heard
By Lincoln Feast
Flight MH370,
carrying 239 passengers and crew, disappeared from radar screens on
March 8 shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.
Investigators
say what little evidence they have to work with, including the loss of
communications, suggests the Boeing BA.N 777 was deliberately diverted
thousands of kilometers from its scheduled route.
The
search was narrowed last month after a series of acoustic pings thought
to be from the plane's black box recorders were heard near where
analysis of satellite data put its last location, some 1,600 km (1,000
miles) off the northwest coast of Australia.
"The
Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has advised that the search
in the vicinity of the acoustic detections can now be considered
complete and, in its professional judgment, the area can now be
discounted as the final resting place of MH370," the agency in charge of
the search said in a statement.
ATSB
chief Martin Dolan told Reuters he expected the team to take two to
three weeks to reassess and re-analyze the data, although he was
"confident" that the final resting place of the aircraft was the Indian
Ocean.
"We don't know what those pings were," Dolan said over the
phone. "We are still analyzing those signals to understand them better."BREAKTHROUGH NO MORE
The
discovery of the pings on April 5 and 8 was hailed as a significant
breakthrough, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott expressing
confidence that searchers knew where the plane wreckage was within a few
kilometers.
However, a
thorough scan of the 850 sq km area around the pings with an unmanned
submarine failed to find any sign of wreckage. No debris linked to the
plane has been picked up despite the most extensive and expensive search
effort in aviation history.
"We
concentrated the search in that area because the pings were the best
information available at the time," Australian Deputy Prime Minister
Warren Truss, who is also the transport minister, told the Australian
parliament.
"We are still
very confident that the resting place of the aircraft is in the southern
(Indian) Ocean, and along the seventh ping line," he added, referring
to an arc identified by analysis of satellite communications data from
UK company Inmarsat Plc ISA.L.
Earlier
on Thursday, CNN quoted Michael Dean, the U.S. Navy's deputy director
of ocean engineering, and said authorities now almost universally
believe the pings did not come from the plane's onboard data or cockpit
voice recorders.
"Our best
theory at this point is that (the pings were) likely some sound produced
by the ship ... or within the electronics of the Towed Pinger Locator,"
Dean told CNN.
The search
zone had already been extended to a 60,000 sq km zone that is being
surveyed by a Chinese vessel. It will then be searched by a commercial
operator in a mission that is expected to start in August and take up to
a year, at a cost of A$60 million ($55 million) or more.
Malaysia's
government and Inmarsat ISA.L released data this week used to determine
the path of MH370, which families of the missing passengers hope could
help verify the plane's last location by opening up the data to analysis
by a wider range of experts. (Full Story)
Australian authorities said the data supported the theory that the plane crashed after running out of fuel.
Along
with surface searches, examination of satellite data and the undersea
sonar searches, authorities have asked the United Nations' Comprehensive
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) to check its system of
hydrophones, designed to pick up possible nuclear tests, for any clues
as to where the aircraft may have crashed.
"Both
the CTBTO and institutions from our 183 Member States ... have analyzed
all relevant International Monitoring System data - infrasound, seismic
and hydroacoustic - without finding any signal that could point to the
fate of MH370," a spokesman from CTBTO said in an emailed response. ($1 =
1.0848 Australian Dollars)
(Editing by Paul Tait)
Trending technology news
Google unveils a self-driving car with no steering wheel, brakes or accelerator
by himanshu arora
Google CEO Sergey Brin unveiled the two-seater prototype during an onstage interview at the Recode Code Conference in Palos Verdes, California. "We took a look from the ground up of what a self-driving car would look like", he said.
Unlike the search giant's other self-driving cars which are carefully monitored by two Google employees (who are ready to take control at any moment) every time they hit the road, the new prototype car is entirely driven by computers.
Google says the car, which has virtually no blind spots, is capable of seeing what’s going on up to a distance of two football fields.
Although the car has experienced zero crashes during testing, it's still limited to a maximum speed of 25 MPH so that there's less destruction in case of a crash. As far as looks are concerned, opinions will vary, but according to a Google spokeswoman the final version will likely be much more refined.
Google started working on self-driving cars back in 2009. Since then the search giant's robo-cars have racked up 70,000 miles on the road. The company expects to have them ready for public use between 2017 and 2020.
Google is not the only company working on self-driving cars. Ford Motor has already unveiled a self-driving prototype car, while other automobile companies like Nissan, GM, Tesla and more are also working on driverless cars.The video below is a first drive of the car.
A first drive
Apple to unveil connected smart home initiative at WWDC
By Shawn Knight
Interest in Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference
increased a few notches on Monday thanks to a new report that claims
the Cupertino-based company is planning to reveal a connected smart home
initiative during the keynote.Naturally, Apple’s iOS devices would be the stars of the new software platform according to unnamed sources as reported by the Financial Times. For example, the lights in a user’s home could be set to automatically turn on when the person enters the home via a signal from their iPhone.
But it’s not just limited to the iPhone as the iPad and even a revised version of Apple TV (expected later this year) could play a role in the connected ecosystem.
The idea of Apple getting into the smart home space isn’t a huge surprise, especially as smartphone sales in developed markets are beginning to slow. We’ve seen a number of smart home patents from Apple surface over the years such as a recent one that would use Siri to power a smart home system.
If true, Apple would join a market that already includes industry juggernauts like Google and Samsung. But even with some established players already on the field, the smart home market is still at its infancy in terms of growth and potential.
Critics have been calling for Apple to revolutionize a new market for years – could a home automation play be their next big thing?
Trending health news
Researchers Discover Key to Earlier Autism Diagnosis
Health researchers in Canada have discovered a new method for detecting autism at a much younger age, giving parents and doctors a chance to intervene earlier in a child’s life.Roughly one in sixty-eight children are diagnosed with some type of autism spectrum disorder, which can be characterized by social issues, communication problems, repetitive behaviors, and even cognitive delays.
Right now most children diagnosed with autism receive their diagnosis after age four. Researchers believe it would be more helpful to make that diagnosis much earlier in a child’s life.
In an effort to find the key to an earlier diagnosis, researchers at Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital examined the genetic data of 3,000 North American and European families. Eventually the researchers developed a formula they believe will help them calculate the genetic probability that a child will develop autism.
According to Sick Kids Hospital researcher Stephen Scherer, the unique genes that result in autism can actually be detected during prenatal development. “We’ve stumbled upon the core group of genes that is necessary for human cognition,” Scherer said. “It’s those segments of genes that are turned on very early in brain development and are very highly evolutionarily conserved — those are almost always found to be involved in autism.”
Scherer, whose report on the subject was recently published by the journal Nature Genetics, says his team plans to use their findings to develop a diagnostic tool that clinicians everywhere can use to detect autism. Scherer says he expects the tool will be available sometime in late 2014.
World’s First Infant Kidney Dialysis Machine Saves Newborn’s Life
The
world’s first kidney dialysis machine specifically designed for infants
has been used to successfully treat its first newborn.In the past, doctors used standard kidney dialysis machines to treat newborns suffering from kidney failure. But that’s hardly ideal because such machines are designed for much larger adults, making it difficult to precisely treat infants.
That’s why Dr. Claudio Ronco and his colleagues at the San Bartolo Hospital in Vincenza, Italy created their dialysis machine for newborn babies. Ronco says the device, which was officially licensed last summer by European medical authorities, can be used by any child weighing less than twenty-two pounds.
Recently, Ronco and his medical team used the newborn dialysis machine to treat a three-day-old baby girl suffering from multiple organ failure. When treated with the device, the girl weighed 6.6 pounds.
Ronco says the newborn dialysis machine saved the young girl’s life, giving her family new hope. “Her parents had already reserved the funeral,” Ronco said. “But [now] she’s doing great.”
Ronco has offered more information about his newborn dialysis machine, which costs just under $50,000, in an article recently published by The Lancet.
Dr. Bethany Foster of the Montreal Children’s Hospital says the device should be considered “a pretty major advance for the smallest infants.” Foster, who is an associate professor of pediatrics, went on to say that “I can’t imagine the baby they [treated] would have survived with the current technology.”
Trending entertainment news
Tom Cruise Hits Three Countries in 24 Hours to Premiere 'Edge of Tomorrow'
The actor and his co-star Emily Blunt traveled more than 3,000 miles to promote their sci-fi movie in London, Paris and New York on Wednesday, May 28.
The red carpet odyssey kicked off in London at 6:30 A.M. Looking dapper in a three-piece outfit, he jokingly said that the idea of three-cities premiere in 24 hours was just as wild as fighting aliens in the film.
Cruise was supposed to attend the Paris premiere at 2 P.M. local time but was delayed getting out of London. "I'm beginning to feel like Cage," he said upon arriving in The City of Light, referring to his character Major William Cage who finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop-forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over.
The final New York City screening started at precisely 11:59 P.M. "It was a lot of fun, it was a once in a lifetime kind of experience," Cruise said during the N.Y. premiere. He also posted on Twitter, "We made it! I got to meet fans in London, Paris and New York today - amazing."
Blunt managed to keep her looks fresh during all three premieres. She wore a strapless Osmond gown in London and traded it with a black dress in Paris. For the final stop of the day, she rocked a red gown.
"Edge of Tomorrow" will hit theaters across the nation on June 6. Doug Liman, who directed "The Bourne Identity" and "Mr and Mrs Smith", served behind the lens for the sci-fi pic.
Harry Styles Reportedly 'Furious' After Video of Bandmates Smoking a Joint Surfaced
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