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Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Mark Rutte has been elected leader of the Dutch People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). In a close internal election, the junior minister for Education beat the minister for Immigration and Integration Rita Verdonk and backbencher Jelleke Veenendaal.

On 31 May 2006, the party’s president Jan van Zanen announced the result, which was broadcast live on Dutch television. He announced that 28,788 people voted in this election, that is 74% of the eligible VVD members. They voted mostly by telephone and via the Internet. Mark Rutte obtained 51.5%, leaving Rita Verdonk second, with 45.5% of the vote. Jelleke Veenendaal obtained 3.0% of the vote.

Mark Rutte is the current junior minister for Education, Culture and Science, with a special responsibility for higher education and science. He was the first to put forth his candidacy and the VVD leadership and the party board backed him. After studying history and leading the VVD youth (JOVD) Rutte became manager for Unilever. In 2002 he became junior minister for Social Affairs and Employment, after a cabinet reshuffle he became junior minister of the ministry for Education, Culture and Science. Rutte is generally perceived to stand on the progressive side within the VVD. He promised “to make the VVD a party for everyone and not just of the elite”. His youthful and charismatic appearance has been likened to the successful leader of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) Wouter Bos. It is generally expected that Rutte will stand down as junior minister and return to his seat in parliament.

The elections were called after the 2006 municipal elections. Jozias van Aartsen, who led the VVD until after the elections, stepped down as political leader of the VVD, after his party performed particularly bad in those elections.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

The 10.10 version of Ubuntu (codename Maverick Merkaat), a free operative system is to be released in the next few days. French Wikinews contributor Savant-fou (Baptiste) has interviewed Fabrice (fabrice_sp on Ubuntu), an Ubuntu’s MOTU (Master Of The Universe), member of the development team of the operative system.

Ubuntu is a computer operating system, based on Debian, which is created collaboratively by thousands of people. There are three official Ubuntu versions: Ubuntu Desktop Edition (for desktop and laptop PCs); Ubuntu Netbook Edition (for netbooks); and Ubuntu Server Edition (for use in servers).

Sunday, July 19, 2015

French Formula One (F1) driver Jules Bianchi died on Friday night at age 25, nine months after his serious accident at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix. News of his death was announced by his family the following morning:

This is the first F1 race-related driver death since the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, when Ayrton Senna was killed.

On October 5, 2014, at the late portion of the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka Circuit, Bianchi collided with a tractor crane that had been attending to the crashed car of Adrian Sutil. Bianchi’s helmet became wedged underneath the tractor, causing a diffuse axonal injury, and he fell into a coma. After being treated at a Japanese medical centre, he was moved about two months after the accident to a hospital in Nice. Placed in the intensive care unit, in December he began rehabilitation therapy. Bianchi’s father, Philippe, described his non-progress as a “daily torture”.

Bianchi, the 2007 French Formula Renault and 2009 Formula 3 Euro Series champion, was the inaugural member of the Ferrari Driver Academy. He joined F1 team Force India in 2012. In 2013, he joined Marussia F1; the following year, at the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix, he scored his and Marussia’s first points with a ninth-place finish.

After the accident, the FIA, which sanctions Formula One racing, formed a panel to investigate the crash. Afterwards, the group revealed its findings: as Bianchi entered the run-off area of the track, he disabled the failsafe mechanism by “[applying] both throttle and brake together, using both feet”, while his front wheels were locked; the panel also stated he did not slow down enough to control his car. Eventually, F1 mandated the use of the “virtual safety car”, which requires drivers to enter the pit lane at slower speeds instead of proceeding around the track.

This is the Bianchi family’s second driver death. Lucien Bianchi, the 1968 24 Hours of Le Mans winner and Jules’s great uncle, was killed in 1969 during testing at Circuit de la Sarthe, where the 24 Hours of Le Mans race is held.

Upon the news of his death, many drivers sent their condolences through social media. Bianchi’s Marussia team mate Max Chilton tweeted, “No words can describe what his family and the sport have lost. All I can say [is] it was a pleasure knowing and racing you.”

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Studies done on germs and bacteria performed by researchers at the University of Florida show that a dirty kitchen sponge can be cleaned and “sterilized” by microwaving it for 2 minutes, but researchers warn to wet the sponge first.

“People often put their sponges and scrubbers in the dishwasher, but if they really want to decontaminate them and not just clean them, they should use the microwave,” said the professor who was in charge of the study that discovered the results, Gabriel Bitton.

“Basically what we find is that we could knock out most bacteria in two minutes. The microwave is a very powerful and an inexpensive tool for sterilization,” added Bitton.

The sponges that researchers studied, were placed in “raw wastewater” and then put into a microwave to be “zapped,” according to Bitton. The wastewater was a “witch’s brew of fecal bacteria, viruses, protozoan parasites and bacterial spores, including Bacillus cereus spores,” said Bitton.

Researchers say that at least 99% of the bacteria, viruses, spores and parasites in kitchen spongees can be destroyed or “inactivated” by simply microwaving the wet sponge, on the highest power, for two minutes.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Researchers say that new, ten million-year-old fossils found in Ethiopia, prove that the theory that humans may have evolved from a species of great apes eight million years ago, may not be true, but that humans may have split from apes as long as 10.5 million years ago.

At least nine fossilized teeth, one canine tooth and eight molars, of a previously unknown species of apes found in Africa were discovered by a team of researchers from Ethiopia and Japan who then compared the 3-D make up of the teeth to other fossils that date back as far as 8 million years and found that the fossils are likely a “direct ancestor” of apes currently living in Africa and that the new ape fossils were that of a species of gorilla who ate mostly plants high in fiber.

Current fossils and research say that the evolutionary split from apes to humans occurred at least eight million years ago. The new fossils say that the split may have happened as long as 10.5 million years ago.

“Based on this fossil, that means the split is much earlier than has been anticipated by the molecular evidence. That means everything has to be put back,” said researcher at the Rift Valley Research Service in Ethiopia and a co-author of the study, Berhane Asfaw.

Despite the finds, other researchers are not convinced that the findings are correct.

“It is stretching the evidence to base a time scale for the evolution of the great apes on this new fossil. These structures appear on at least three independent lineages of apes, including gorillas, and they could relate to a dietary shift rather than indicating a new genetic trait,” said a Professor at the London Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom, Peter Andrews who also added, “but the fossil evidence for the evolution of our closest living relatives, the great apes, is almost non-existent.

Researchers have named the newly discovered species Cororapithecus abyssinicus whose remains were found in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, the same place where the remains of Lucy were discovered in 1974.

Monday, March 8, 2010

The skeletal remains of 14-year-old Escondido, California teenager Amber Dubois were found north of the Pala Indian Reservation Saturday morning, police said. Dubois disappeared February 13, 2009 while walking to Escondido High School. The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s office made a positive identification through dental records.

According to Escondido Police Chief Jim Maher, police were following a lead when they came across the remains. Maher declined to say what the lead was or to describe in detail the site where the remains were found. He also refused to reveal whether John Albert Gardner III, suspect in the murder of Chelsea King, is being linked to the Dubois case.

Amber’s father, Maurice Dubois, made a statement thanking those who had helped in the search for Amber. “The entire community, everybody who helped out with the search effort, and above all our huge volunteer corps, they are the most dedicated people and without them we couldn’t have done anything,” he said.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005Black American women living in communities with high poverty rates are significantly less likely to be screened for cervical cancer, a study finds.

The Harvard School of Public Health’s Geetanjali Dabral Datta investigated the relationship between individual characteristics and larger socioeconomic factors and cervical cancer screening rates. The Febreuary 1 issue of Cancer carries the study. More than 40,000 black women from across the United States participated in the Black Women’s Health Study.

“African-American women have twice the mortality rate from cervical cancer as white women,” said Elizabeth Ward, the director of the American Cancer Society. “Researchers need to investigate how those differences are related to socioeconomic status. One of the big factors that may account for this finding is access to high-quality medical care. Often communities that have high poverty rates either lack access to good quality care, or people have to travel longer distances to obtain high-quality care.”

David L. Katz at Yale University’s School of Medicine said; “While this finding is not surprising, it is noteworthy just the same. No one should die of cervical cancer, because a simple screening test reliably finds the condition in its earliest stages when cure is almost universally achievable. Yet, several thousand deaths from this cancer occur each year in the U.S.”