U.S. Air National Guard pilot rescued at sea after mid-air collision

By Gary Robertson

RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - A pilot was rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard off the coast of Virginia after two Air National Guard fighter jets collided when their wings came in contact in mid-air, authorities said on Friday.

The F-16C Falcon jets from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland were on a routine training mission late on Thursday when they "clipped wings", the National Guard said in a statement.

They were about 35 miles southeast of Chincoteague, Virginia, according to the Coast Guard.

One of the pilots ejected and his ejection seat sent a satellite-aided distress signal that alerted the Coast Guard to the crash at 10:28 p.m. on Thursday, the Coast Guard said.

The pilot, who had minor injuries, used an emergency raft to stay afloat until he was rescued by an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter at about 12:30 a.m. Friday.

The other pilot was able to fly his jet back to base.

The pilots, who were not identified, are attached to the 113th Wing D.C. Air National Guard.

"We are extremely fortunate to have lost only metal, and not the life of one of our Airmen," Brigadier General Marc Sasseville, the 113th Wing Commander, said in a statement.

The Air National Guard said on Friday that salvage operations were under way to retrieve the damaged jet, which was in water 100 feet deep.

The cost of an F-16C Falcon jet is $18.8 million, according to the U.S. Air Force website.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Gunna Dickson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-air-national-guard-pilot-rescued-sea-mid-175825592.html

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Immigration Reform Stalled in Washington

(KUTV) Immigration Reform is stalled in Washington.

Just over a month ago, the Senate passed a big, comprehensive immigration bill ? but Senate leader Democrat Harry Reid hasn?t sent that bill to the House of Representatives yet.

Some say he fears defeat.

Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz sits on the House Committee on the issue.

?The Senate bill is dead on arrival when they send it over. They haven?t sent it over yet ? if they send it over,? he said.

Chaffetz says the bill, passed in June, won?t be passed by the House ? and that instead, they?ll tackle immigration piecemeal.

Chaffetz main worry with the bill is that it will provide a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants that are already here without securing the borders and without providing a workable plan for legal immigration.

?If you don?t figure out visas and close the border and do those things there is no way you can pass a form of amnesty,? said Chaffetz.

Senators note their bill would hire 20,000 new border police and spend billions to toughen border security.

(Copyright 2013 Sinclair Broadcasting Group.)?
Immigration Reform Stalled in Washington

Source: http://kutv.com/news/top-stories/stories/immigration-reform-stalled-washington-6077.shtml?wap=0

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Flaring burns more than $100 million a month in North Dakota

energy

Ernest Scheyder Reuters

11 hours ago

SHANNON STAPLETON / Reuters

Natural gas flares are seen at an oil pump site outside of Williston, North Dakota in this March 11, 2013 file photo. Oil drillers in North Dakota's Bakken shale fields are losing out on more than $100 million per month in lost revenue as the amount of natural gas flared continues to balloon, despite near-universal efforts to curb the controversial practice, according to a recent study.

NEW YORK -- Oil drillers in North Dakota's Bakken shale fields are allowing nearly a third of the natural gas they drill to burn off into the air, with a value of more than $100 million per month, according to a study to be released on Monday.

Remote well locations, combined with historically low natural gas prices and the extensive time needed to develop pipeline networks, have fueled the controversial practice, commonly known as flaring. While oil can be stored in tanks indefinitely after drilling, natural gas must be immediately piped to a processing facility.

SHANNON STAPLETON / Reuters

An aerial image shows a natural gas flare after sunset outside of Williston, North Dakota in this March 12, 2013 file photo.

Flaring has tripled in the past three years, according to the report from Ceres, a nonprofit group that tracks environmental records of public companies.

"There's a lot of shareholder value going up in flames due to flaring," said Ryan Salmon, who wrote the report for Ceres. "Investors want companies to have a more aggressive reaction to flaring and disclose clear steps to fix the problem."

The amount lost to flaring pales in comparison to the $2.21 billion in crude oil production for May in North Dakota.

Still, energy companies are working to build more pipelines and processing facilities to connect many of the state's 9,000 wells - a number expected to hit 50,000 by 2030. But it is a process that takes time and is not always feasible.

SHANNON STAPLETON / Reuters

Natural gas flares are seen at an oil pump site outside of Williston, North Dakota March 11, 2013.

"Nobody hates flaring more than the oil operator and the royalty owners," said Ron Ness of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, an industry trade group. "We all understand that the flaring is an economic waste."

Alliance Pipeline is spending about $141 million on a 79-mile pipeline that will carry natural gas from Bakken wells to Alliance's larger interstate pipeline, which cuts through North Dakota from Alberta.

Hess Corp is spending $325 million to more than double its Tioga, North Dakota, processing plant's daily capacity once it opens in October.

Visible from space
Roughly 29 percent of natural gas extracted in North Dakota was flared in May, down from an all-time high of 36 percent in September 2011. But the volume of natural gas produced has nearly tripled in that timeframe to about 900,000 cubic feet per day, boosting flaring in the state to roughly 266,000 million cubic feet per day, according to North Dakota state and Ceres data.

NASA

NASA astronauts can see flaring from space. Williston is the cluster of lights on the upper left side of the photograph; Minneapolis is the bright splotch on the lower right.

North Dakota's flaring, which NASA astronauts can see from space, releases fewer greenhouse gases than direct emission of natural gas into the air, but it is essentially burning product that could be sold at a profit if there were pipelines.

In Texas and Alaska, which have a well-developed energy infrastructure, less than 1 percent of natural gas extracted along with oil is burnt off, according to state data.

Oil production remains king in North Dakota, outpacing the amount of natural gas extracted and funding many infrastructure projects. Yet production of natural gas likely will double by 2025, increasing flaring, according to state forecasts.

Drillers have promised to end the practice. Continental Resources Inc , the second-largest Bakken operator with 1.1 million acres under its control, famously declared in March it wants to reduce flaring to "as close to zero percent flaring as possible."

Continental says it flares 10.8 percent of natural gas it produces, and is working with pipeline companies and landowners to cut the number further.

SHANNON STAPLETON / Reuters

A warning sign for a natural gas pipeline is seen in front of natural gas flares at an oil pump site outside of Williston, North Dakota in this March 11, 2013 file photo.

"Internally, it's a front-and-center focus for our company to have wells connected," said Jeff Hume, Continental's vice chairman of strategic growth initiatives. "Everybody makes money when that product is sold, not flared."

The components of natural gas, including low-value methane and lucrative butane, a so-called "natural gas liquid" highly prized by chemical makers, are worth roughly $13 per million cubic feet of natural gas before taxes and transportation fees, at current prices.

With more than 266,000 million cubic feet flared each day in North Dakota, that's roughly $3.6 million in lost revenue, more than $100 million per month.

Roughly 2,300 miles of new pipeline were installed in North Dakota in 2011, the latest year for which data is available. Still, the Bakken spans 18,000 square miles and is the largest oil field in North America.

And about 13 percent of natural gas flared is at wells that already have pipelines that are too small to handle the high volume of natural gas being drilled, an additional infrastructure problem.

"Everyone's on the same page as far as getting the flaring reduced," said Justin Kringstad, head of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, a state agency. "It's going to take time to get all the necessary infrastructure built out."

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Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663286/s/2f5b3acb/sc/2/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Cbusiness0Cflaring0Eburns0Emore0E10A0A0Emillion0Emonth0Enorth0Edakota0E6C10A798151/story01.htm

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Monsoon remains active over North India

Monsoon remained active over most parts of North India on Tuesday and three persons, including two kids, were killed in a rain-related incident in Rajasthan's Kota district.

A humid weather left people sweating in national capital Delhi despite a dip in the mercury, the Met department said.

The minimum and maximum temperature in the national capital remained below the season's average but humidity level was as high as 95 per cent.

The maximum was recorded at 33.1 degree Celsius, while the minimum was 25.8 deg C, both one point below normal for this time of the year.

Heavy rains hit normal life in parts of Kota, Baran and Jhalawar districts of Rajasthan.

A man and his two minor children died in a house collapse in Itawa area of Kota last night, officials said.

River Parvati was flowing at full spate in Baran and Kota and many low lying areas were inundated with people stuck in their houses.

Atru recorded a maximum rainfall of 80 mm followed by Kishangarh 70 mm, the MeT officials said.

Monsoon remains active over North, rains kills three in Rajasthan:

According to a Central Water Commission report, all major rivers in Uttar Pradesh remained in spate, with the Ganga flowing above the danger mark in Ballia.

Ken and Betwa were flowing above the danger level in Banda and Mohana (Jalaun). Similarly, Sharda river was flowing above the danger mark in Pallian Kalan.

Light to moderate rains lashed the state today, and Deoband in Saharanpur district received the maximum rainfall on 11 cm, a MeT report said.

Punjab also received light to moderate rains, with maximum temperatures in the region witnessing a slight decrease.

According to the MeT Department here, Chandigarh had received a rainfall of over 30 mm during the past 24 hours.
?

Source: http://www.saharasamay.com/nation-news/676534020/monsoon-remains-active-over-north-india.html

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Overweight While Younger Ups Kidney Risk Later - Health News ...

THURSDAY, April 4 (HealthDay News) ? Overweight young adults are much more likely than those who are not overweight to develop kidney disease by the time they are seniors, according to a new study.

Researchers analyzed data from a long-term study of nearly 4,600 people in the United Kingdom who were born in March 1946. The data included the participants? body-mass index at ages 20, 26, 36, 43, 53 and 60 to 64. Body-mass index is a measurement of body fat based on height and weight.

Participants who were overweight in early adulthood ? ages 26 or 36 ? were twice as likely to have chronic kidney disease at ages 60 to 64, compared with those who were never overweight or did not become overweight until ages 60 to 64.

Having a larger waist-to-hip ratio (called an apple-shaped body) during middle age also was associated with chronic kidney disease at ages 60 to 64, according to the study, which was published online April 4 in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

The researchers calculated that 36 percent of chronic kidney disease cases in people aged 60 to 64 could be prevented if nobody became overweight until at least that age.

?To our knowledge we are the first to report how age of exposure to overweight ? may affect kidney disease risk,? study author Dr. Dorothea Nitsch, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said in a journal news release.

It isn?t clear whether being overweight in early adulthood or the length of time people are overweight is behind the increased risk of chronic kidney disease at ages 60 to 64. Either explanation suggests that preventing excess weight gain in early adulthood could greatly reduce a person?s risk of developing chronic kidney disease, the researchers said.

They added that preventing excess weight gain in early adulthood appears to have a larger effect than any known treatment for chronic kidney disease.

Although the study tied being overweight in young adulthood to kidney disease later in life, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

More than 1.4 billion adults worldwide were overweight in 2008, including about 500 million who were obese, according to the World Health Organization.

More information

The National Kidney Foundation has more about chronic kidney disease.

Source: http://news.health.com/2013/04/04/overweight-while-younger-ups-kidney-risk-later/

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4 Energy Stock Stories To Close the Trading Week

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Apple's Stock!

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1) Which critical areas of Apple's business are succeeding or at risk; and,
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Source: http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/4-energy-stock-stories-to-close-the-trading-week-2.html/

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Pirate perch probably use chemical camouflage to fool prey

Mar. 28, 2013 ? It?s a nocturnal aquatic predator that will eat anything that fits in its large mouth.

Dark and sleek, it hides beneath the water waiting for prey. A Texas Tech University researcher says the target will never know what hit them because they probably can?t smell the voracious pirate perch.

After careful investigations, William Resetarits Jr., a professor of biology at Texas Tech, and Christopher A. Binckley, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Arcadia University, found that animals normally attuned to predators from their smell didn?t seem to detect the pirate perch. It could be the first animal discovered that is capable of generalized chemical camouflage that works against a wide variety of prey.

The team published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal The American Naturalist.

Thankfully, at five-and-a-half inches long, only insects, invertebrates, amphibians and other small fish need worry about the danger hiding near the bottom among the roots and plantlife, Resetarits said.

?We use the term ?camouflage,? because it is readily understandable,? he said. ?What we really are dealing with is some form of ?chemical deception.? The actual mechanism may be camouflage that makes an organism difficult to detect, mimicry that makes an organism difficult to correctly identify, or cloaking where the organism simply does not produce a signal detectable to the receiver.?

Resetarits said pirate perch aren?t really perch at all, but related to the Amblyopsid cave fish family. Fossils from this fish date back about 24 million years ago.

They make their homes in freshwater ponds and streams in the Eastern United States. Once considered for the aquarium market, the fish got its name because of its penchant for eating all tank mates.

?Pirate perch have some unique aspects to their morphology and life history, but they are generalist predators, and so should have been avoided by prey animals like all the other fish tested,? he said. ?For some reason, they weren?t avoided at all.?

To test their theory, Resetarits and Binckley ran a series of experiments in artificial pools housing 11 different species of fish, including pirate perch.

The fish were kept at bay at the bottom of the pools with screens so that they could not prey on the beetles and tree frogs that colonized the water.

When it came to choosing a pool, the beetles and frogs consistently steered clear of the water with other fish species in them, most likely because they could smell the presence of fish in the water. However, they had no qualms about moving into pools containing the pirate perch.

?We were incredibly surprised,? Resetarits said. ?It took a while for us to pull this all together. When we first observed it with tree frogs, we were very surprised and puzzled. But when the same lack of response was shown by aquatic beetles, we were quite literally flabbergasted. We continued to do experiments with other fish and always got the same results. All fish except pirate perch were avoided.?

Exactly what the pirate perch is doing to hide isn?t yet known, he said. Researchers want to determine how the pirate perch are either scrambling chemical signals or masking their odor. Once they have identified chemical compounds that might explain the behavior, they will return to the field to test with the same tree frogs and beetles as well as other organisms known to respond to fish chemical cues, such as mosquitoes and water fleas.

?We will also test whether this chemical deception works against the pirate perch?s own predators,? Resetarits said. ?Of course, other critical questions that we are working on include just how much advantage in terms of prey acquisition do pirate perch gain as a result of chemical deception. Does this phenomenon occur in closely related species, such as cavefish? Are there prey species that have found a way around the chemical deception? There are many questions now, and I think we have just scratched the surface.

?I think the most important aspect is not the bizarre, just-so story, but the fact that there is no reason to believe that chemical camouflage is less common than visual camouflage. Humans? sense of smell is just not very sophisticated, so we can?t simply ?notice? examples of chemical camouflage the way we do visual camouflage. I think chemical camouflage is likely quite common. We are starting pursuit of the larger question, starting with close relatives of pirate perch.?

Find Texas Tech news, experts and story ideas at www.media.ttu.edu and on Twitter @TexasTechMedia.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Texas Tech University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. William J. Resetarits, Christopher A. Binckley. Is the Pirate Really a Ghost? Evidence for Generalized Chemical Camouflage in an Aquatic Predator, Pirate PerchAphredoderus sayanus. The American Naturalist, 2013; : 000 DOI: 10.1086/670016

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/c5NbMbTJghI/130329085941.htm

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