ARSRFO GROUP

Washington: 

Although it will be years before the first humans set foot on Mars, the US space agency has invited public to submit their names to fly abroad the next rover to Red Planet in 2020.

Souvenir boarding passes will display names submitted by the people which will also be on microchips aboard the Mars 2020 rover, NASA said in a statement on late Tuesday.

People who want to send their name to Mars on NASA’s next rover mission to the Red Planet (Mars 2020) can get a souvenir boarding pass and their names etched on microchips to be affixed to the rover.

The rover is scheduled to launch as early as July 2020, with the spacecraft expected to touch down on Mars in February 2021.

The 1,000-kg rover would search for signs of past microbial life, characterize the planet’s climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

“As we get ready to launch this historic Mars mission, we want everyone to share in this journey of exploration,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in Washington, DC.

“It’s an exciting time for NASA, as we embark on this voyage to answer profound questions about our neighbouring planet, and even the origins of life itself,” he added.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California would use an electron beam to stencil the submitted names onto a silicon chip.

The chip (or chips) will ride on the rover under a glass cover.

More than two million names flew on NASA’s InSight mission to Mars, giving each “flyer” nearly 500 million frequent flyer kms.

The last date to submit your name is September 30.

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Cabot’s 500 pounds of churning white flesh sped though North Carolina waters last week, part of a group traversing shipwrecks, seeking bounties of fish.

In a matter of days, Cabot traveled hundreds of miles north, sliced through Block Island Sound and hunted Tuesday for a meal near Greenwich, Connecticut.

“For the first time ever, we are tracking a white shark in the Long Island Sound,” the ocean life research group Ocearch said on Twitter.

Be advised! For the first time ever, we are tracking a white shark in the Long Island Sound. 9′ 8” @GWSharkCabot is just off the shore near Greenwich. Follow him using the browser on any device at https://t.co/paqCMWe00Mpic.twitter.com/td8e5eZUUY

– OCEARCH (@OCEARCH) May 20, 2019

Later, the group clarified its tweet and said it was the first time a shark of Cabot’s size and maturity was tracked there. It detected a juvenile shark in the sound in 2016.

But beachgoers panic-stricken over a Memorial Day weekend “Jaws” scenario should feel fortunate over Cabot’s presence, which indicates cleaner waters full of the sea life that drew him in the first place.

Ocearch, which has tagged 43 sharks, outfitted Cabot with a tracking device last year in Nova Scotia.

Cabot’s journey up and down the coast is typical for sharks pursuing warm waters. The 10-footer ripped down the Eastern Seaboard after he was tagged in October and reached Florida waters around Christmas, according to tracking data.

After a jaunt into the Gulf of Mexico, Cabot reversed course and headed back north in the summer. In just over three months, Cabot has traveled more than 4,000 miles.

“These sharks have been coming here for a millennia; for as long as the East Coast of the United States has existed, these sharks have been in their waters,” Robert Hueter, a senior scientist at Ocearch, told CBS News last week.

Chris Fischer, the group’s founding chairman and expedition leader, said the group was surprised to see Cabot so far west, CBS News reported, and speculated his presence was linked to environmental efforts to clean up the sound.

“This is something to celebrate,” Fischer said, according to CBS News.

“I know they’ve been working hard in the sound to clean it up and to get life to come back to the region, and when you have an apex predator like Cabot move in to the area, that’s a sign there’s a lot of life in the area and you’ve probably got things moving in the right direction.”

Soaring population growth, climate change and sewage have harmed the waters, but a 10-year effort by federal and state officials to clean up the region appears to have yielded promising results, the Journal News reported, citing a report from the environmental group Save Our Sound.

Cabot left the sound by Monday evening and ventured southwest of Montauk, according to tracking data. He seems to be the northernmost great white tracked by Ocearch. Brunswick and Jane recently pinged from the North Carolina waters, and Lunda, a 2,100-pounder, was off South Carolina recently.

Far northeast is a fitting place for Cabot. He was named in honor of John Cabot, the 15th-century Italian explorer who sought a route to Asia.

Instead, he spotted rocky terrain on his voyage west in 1497 – and called it New-found-land.

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Seoul, South Korea: 

An endangered bird was reintroduced to the wild by South Korean authorities Wednesday, four decades after it went extinct on the peninsula.

The crested ibis is listed as South Korea’s National Monument number 198, but was last seen in the wild in 1979 in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula.

China and Japan are also part of the species’ natural range, but the species was driven to the edge of extinction — partially because pesticide use eliminated its food sources — until captive breeding programmes were set up.

Starting with birds donated by Beijing, the South Korean captive-bred population has reached 363, and the environment ministry said 40 of them had been selected and released into the Upo wetland 350 kilometres southeast of Seoul.

The species – Latin name Nipponia nippon – is also known as the Japanese crested ibis, but is best known in the South for a popular children’s song composed in the 1920s, when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule.

The song describes the sound of the bird’s call as a sad reminder of a lost mother, and was banned by the Japanese authorities — who reportedly saw it as a form of anti-colonial resistance — but became popular again after Korea regained its independence in 1945.

 

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Shanghai, China: 

China’s three biggest airlines have filed claims seeking compensation from Boeing over the grounding and delayed delivery of 737 MAX 8 aircraft following two deadly crashes, Chinese state media reported on Wednesday.

The reports in various state-run media that China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, and Air China would seek payouts from the American aerospace giant come against the backdrop of an escalating US-China trade war.

China Southern is Asia’s largest carrier by fleet size, China Eastern is the country’s number two, while Air China is the state flag carrier.

A spokesman for China Eastern confirmed to AFP that a dispatch by state-run Xinhua news agency saying the airline had presented Boeing with a compensation claim was correct.

Neither the spokesman nor the report gave any financial or other details.

Spokespersons for China Southern and Air China could not immediately be reached for comment.

On March 11, China became the first country to order its airlines to ground the 737 MAX as a result of the two tragedies.

The day before, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board, including eight from China.

That followed the October crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX, which went down shortly after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.

Xinhua had reported that “grounding Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes had resulted in great losses for the company (China Eastern), and the losses are still expanding”.

Shanghai-based China Eastern has grounded its 14 MAX planes while the US aviation giant addresses the safety risks, Xinhua reported.

It was not immediately clear how many planes the other two airlines had grounded.

But Chinese media have previously reported that a combined 96 MAX aircraft were in service among all of China’s carriers.

There was no immediate indication that the move was related to the increasingly bitter trade conflict.

Trump launched the trade war last year to extract profound economic reforms from Beijing, accusing China of seeking to forge global industrial dominance through massive state intervention in markets and the theft of US technology.

The two sides have exchanged tariffs on more than $360 billion in two-way trade.

The conflict has widened recently with the United States taking unprecedented steps to bar US technology sales to Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

Washington suspects Huawei has deep links with China’s military which could allow Beijing to potentially use Huawei-enabled networks for espionage or cyber-sabotage.

Boeing acknowledged Saturday it had to correct flaws in its 737 MAX flight simulator software used to train pilots.

The firm’s statement about the simulator marked a first acknowledgement of a shortcoming since the two accidents led to the worldwide grounding of the top-selling airliner.

The anti-stall system on the MAX models has been blamed in large part for the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy.

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Washington, United States: 

Adidas, Nike and PUMA on Tuesday urged US President Donald Trump to prevent the shoe industry from falling victim to the trade war with China, saying new tariffs could be “catastrophic.”

In a letter to Trump, those big name manufacturers joined forces with more than 170 other American shoe manufacturers and retailers calling for footwear to be exempted from a new round of punitive tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods.

In the escalating trade war with Beijing, Trump this month increased existing tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports to 25 percent, and is threatening to extend those duties to nearly all Chinese products imported into the United States.

That would mean additional taxes on a range of consumer goods, including electronics and clothing, such as athletic shoes and iPhones, which has sparked fear in retailers and producers who rely on goods from China.

“The proposed additional tariff of 25 percent on footwear would be catastrophic for our consumers, our companies, and the American economy as a whole,” the letter from the shoe coalition states.

The firms said the industry already pays $3 billion in duties and that additional tariffs would increase costs and prices.

US consumers pay the price

“There should be no misunderstanding that US consumers pay for tariffs on products that are imported,” the companies said, refuting Trump’s frequent erroneous statement that China pays the tariffs, creating a windfall for the US Treasury.

While Trump has called on industries to move away from China or produce their products in the United States, the shoe industry firms said they need “years of planning… to make sourcing decisions and companies cannot simply move factories to adjust to these changes.”

The shoe industry — including other names like Reebok, Ariat and Crocs, as well as retailers like Foot Locker — is the latest to wade into the debate.

While many companies and industries want to see changes in China’s policies, including resolving the issue of theft of US technology, they oppose using tariffs as the primary weapon.

In a letter just after the new tariffs were announced, a group of 17 industry groups urged Trump to reconsider, given their reliance on China for goods.

“In 2017, China accounted for about 41% of all apparel, 72% of all footwear, and 84% of all travel goods imported into the United States,” the letter said.

The US Trade Representative’s office published a list of products that would be targeted by new tariffs, and has called for public comment, including a hearing set for June 17.

In prior rounds of tariffs, the White House granted exemptions for some critical products at the request of US industries

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Colombo: 

Member of Sri Lankan Parliament Mohamed Naushad Jalaldeen, who was arrested on charges of having close links with local Islamic terror group National Thawheed Jamaath (NTJ), will be questioned, police said on Tuesday.

The 42-year-old parliamentarian, who has served as a translator attached to the Hanzard Department of Sri Lankan parliament since 2006, was arrested by a special police team in Kurunegala on Monday. He has been charged of aiding and abetting NTJ leader, Zahran Hashim, who carried out the deadly Easter Day serial bombings on April 21, The Daily Mirror reported.

Mr Naushad is also said to be an active member of the proscribed organisation and has conducted lectures on Islam extremism in Akurana and Kandy.

During an investigation, the police seized several suspicious pieces of equipment from Mr Naushad’s house in Rajagiriya. Police said they will question the legislator.

Security of parliament has further been tightened following arrest of Mr Naushad.

Mr Naushad was apprehended on the information obtained after questioning an electro-cardiologist of Kurunegala Teaching Hospital who was also taken into custody on suspicion with two others last Friday with links to the NTJ.

The April 21 attacks targeted three high-end hotels and three churches across the country and killed more than 250 people. The NTJ, which later claimed the responsibility of the attacks, is an affiliate of the Islamic State.

Election Results for Lok Sabha Election 2019 will be out on May 23. Get the latest election news and live updates on ndtv.com/elections. Catch all the action on NDTV Live. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram for news updates from each of the 543 parliamentary seats for the election 2019

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Washington: 

The US defence chief said President Donald Trump’s administration was seeking to deter Iran but not start a war, after he briefed members of Congress.

“This is about deterrence, not about war. We are not about going to war,” acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told reporters after exiting the closed-door meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Mr Shanahan credited robust US moves in recent weeks, which included the deployment of an aircraft carrier strike group, with thwarting Iranian threats.

“We have deterred attacks based on reposturing of assets, deterred attacks against American forces,” Mr Shanahan said.

“Our biggest focus at this point is to prevent Iranian miscalculation. We do not want the situation to escalate,” he said.

Mr Pompeo said that he and Mr Shanahan placed Iranian actions within the context of “40 years of terrorist activity,” since the 1979 Islamic revolution replaced the pro-Western shah with a staunchly anti-US clerical regime.

The briefing did not satisfy many of the Democrats, who say that the heightened tensions are the results of President Donald Trump administration’s aggressive stance and shunning of diplomacy.

“I worry very much that, intentionally or unintentionally, we can create a situation in which a war will take place,” Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent running for the Democratic presidential nomination, told reporters.

Saying that the Iraq and Vietnam wars were based on lies by previous administrations, Mr Sanders said: “I believe that a war with Iran would be an absolute disaster, far worse than the war with Iraq.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) Election Results for Lok Sabha Election 2019 will be out on May 23. Get the latest election news and live updates on ndtv.com/elections. Catch all the action on NDTV Live. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram for news updates from each of the 543 parliamentary seats for the election 2019

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Los Angeles: 

Washington on Tuesday became the first US state to legalize human composting after its eco-friendly governor signed a bill to that effect in a bid to cut carbon emissions from burials and cremations.

Under the new law that will go into effect in May of next year, people who die in the state will have the option to have their bodies transformed into soil suitable for use in gardening in a process called recomposition.

“Recomposition offers an alternative to embalming and burial or cremation that is natural, safe, sustainable, and will result in significant savings in carbon emissions and land usage,” said Katrina Spade, who lobbied for the law and is the founder of Recompose, a Seattle-based company set to be the first to offer the service.

“The idea of returning to nature so directly and being folded back into the cycle of life and death is actually pretty beautiful,” Ms Spade added in a statement sent to news agency AFP.

She said she became interested in the process about 10 years ago after turning 30 and thinking more about her own mortality.

Spade then began examining the technical aspects of creating an environmentally friendly “third option” that could compete with the $20-billion US funeral industry, which offers conventional burial and cremation.

Her approach – developed with Washington State University, which did clinical trials with donor bodies – calls for a dead person to be placed in an hexagonal steel container filled with wood chips, alfalfa and straw.

The container is then shut and the body is decomposed by microbes within 30 days. The end product is a dry, fluffy nutrient-rich soil resembling what one would buy at a local nursery and suitable for vegetable gardens.

“Everything – including bones and teeth – is recomposed,” Spade said. “That’s because our system creates the perfect environment for thermophilic (i.e. heat-loving) microbes and beneficial bacteria to break everything down quite quickly.”

The process used by Recompose is the same as that used for decades with farm animals and the clinical trials carried out by the university in Washington found that it was also safe for use with humans.

‘Socially acceptable materials’ 

“We have found that the essential methods that we use for livestock mortality composting are also effective for human disposition,” said Dr Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, a professor of soil science at Washington State University. “We have substantially changed the materials used, to be socially acceptable, but the basic principles that we have learned from livestock mortality composting are very effective for the human research subjects that we used.”

According to statistics, more than one in two Americans opt for cremation. In Washington state, nearly 75 percent of people choose that option.

Spade expects her company to charge some $5,500 for a “natural organic reduction,” an amount a little bit over the price of cremation but less than the price of burial in a casket.

Her innovation comes as so-called “green” or earth-friendly burials are gaining traction in the United States, where companies are now offering organic caskets or a burial in which the body is wrapped in a simple shroud in towns that allow it.

The actor Luke Perry, star of the hit-series “Beverly Hills 90210” who died in March, was buried in a biodegradable suit made partly out of mushrooms, as he requested.

The so-called “mushroom suit” was developed by Coeio, a California startup, that said the attire helps the body decompose, neutralizes toxins found in the body and transfers nutrients to plant life.

But not everyone is enthusiastic about turning bodies into garden-variety soil, notably the Catholic church, which has denounced recomposition as undignified.

“The Catholic Church believes that disposing human remains in such a manner fails to show enough respect for the body of the deceased,” Joseph Sprague, executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, said in a letter to the legislative committee that examined the bill signed on Tuesday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) Election Results for Lok Sabha Election 2019 will be out on May 23. Get the latest election news and live updates on ndtv.com/elections. Catch all the action on NDTV Live. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram for news updates from each of the 543 parliamentary seats for the election 2019

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