Japan faces nuclear-free summer, power shortage risks

TOKYO?? The possibility of a nuclear power-free summer in Japan draws closer when one of two remaining reactors shuts down for on Monday for maintenance, raising concerns about a power crunch if none of those taken off-line after the Fukushima crisis is restarted.

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Anti-nuclear activists may applaud the prospect that the reactors that supplied nearly 30 percent of Japan's electricity before the March 2011 disaster will be shut down. But experts say firms will have to bear a costly burden and that mandatory limits on power use may be necessary to avoid blackouts.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima plant, will shut down its last running reactor, the No. 6 unit at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, leaving online just one of Japan's 54 reactors.

The one remaining reactor, Hokkaido Electric's Tomari No.3, is scheduled to go off line on May 5 for maintenance, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Sunday.

Safety worries have kept reactors that underwent regular maintenance from going back on stream after the Fukushima disaster, triggered by a huge tsunami last March. Tens of thousands evacuated their homes.

The government is keen to get some running again, but must first persuade wary locals that the plants are safe.

Most mayors and governors whose communities host nuclear plants want fresh safety assurances beyond the government-imposed stress tests conducted in recent months before agreeing to the restart of reactors, a Reuters poll showed.

Utilities have pressed into service old fossil fuel plants to boost power supply. But analysts said these ageing facilities could suffer breakdowns, while companies and vulnerable consumer groups would also have to bear the pain of adjustments.

"It's tough...We may see a big impact on industrial activities this year," said Osamu Fujisawa, an independent energy economist. "It's likely for two or three reactors to come back online, but that is a drop in the bucket."

The government has estimated that Japan could face a power shortage of 9.2 percent this summer, or 16.6 million kilowatts, if all nuclear reactors are down and no measures are taken.

But it also said most of that gap could be filled if steps such as increasing power supply from fossil fuel plants and solar power as well as conserving energy are taken.

RISKS, COSTLY STEPS

Last summer, the government imposed power restrictions on some large corporate users, ordering them to cut usage by 15 percent.

To deal with the shortage, manufacturers operated plants at night and on the weekends to avoid peak hour power consumption. Companies used in-house generators while cutting down on the use of air conditioners and lights.

Such steps, while effective, came with costs.

A poll by business lobby Keidanren in October showed most of 53 manufacturers surveyed said it was hard to operate plants at non-peak hours due to high costs and the burden on employees. Only one manufacturer was willing to take such steps again.

"Many companies, especially manufacturers, are saying that if such a situation continues for two or three more years, then they would have to go abroad," Keidanren official Masami Hasegawa told Reuters.

Installing in-house generators is expensive.

"The worst scenario for companies would be to install in-house generators at a high cost and taking a very long time for investment payback," said Hirofumi Kawachi, a senior analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities.

Trade Minister Yukio Edano, who oversees energy policy, said on Friday that Japan might manage to get through this summer without mandatory power use restrictions.

But Fujisawa, the independent energy economist, warned that the region served by Kansai Electric, which includes the huge western metropolitan area of Osaka, may face mandatory limits because of Kansai's greater reliance on nuclear power compared to other utilities.

"Edano has said that he wants to avoid a mandatory restriction on power, but he has not shown how to make this feasible," he said.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42195038/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/

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The Israel-Iran Situation And Its Potential Effect On Oil Prices (USO, RTH, XRT, RETS, RETL, PMR)

---

The potential Israel-Iran situation in the Middle East is adding to the risk premium in oil prices (NYSEARCA:USO). Analyst estimates are putting this risk premium in oil prices as high as $20 per barrel; this means that instead of the oil price costing over $100 per barrel as it currently is now, it would only cost over $80 per barrel without this brewing conflict.? Here in America, that $20 oil price risk premium translates into gasoline costing 50 cents higher than it would otherwise, which would make the average gas price around $3.30/gallon versus around $3.80/gallon as it currently stands.

The continued tensions over Iran?s nuclear development program and its influence on rising oil prices center around whether Israel will attack Iran?s nuclear facilities to prevent further development of a weapon. Some analysts are believing that an attack by Israel on Iran is becoming more of a certainty, even as high as 38.1% (over a 3 out of 8 chance), which is why the oil price, and hence, the gasoline price, is factoring this in of late.

Some risk-parity approach models are being applied to the scenario of Israel attacking Iran. This potential conflict with Iran could cause Iran to shut down oil traffic through the Straits of Hormuz, which could lead to a moderate rise in oil prices. The projected percentage increase would be 18%, essentially increasing the oil price from around $105 per barrel as it currently stands to around $124 per barrel.

However, if a larger scale conflict between Israel and Iran took place, one that involved many direct missile strikes and counterstrikes between the two countries, this would constitute a more severe scenario that could cause oil prices, and hence, gasoline prices, to really soar beyond their current high prices now. In fact, some risk-parity approach models estimate that oil prices would rise by 75% over their current levels, resulting in a price of $185 per barrel.

This would likely have a devastating effect on the U.S. economic recovery, as already there is debate over whether the United States should tap into its Strategic Oil Reserve to relieve gas prices that are hovering around $4.00 per gallon. Such an attack on Iran would easily cause gasoline prices to rise to levels that the United States has never seen before. Some say that the price of gasoline could reach $8.00 per gallon and beyond. That would certainly affect everything from retail sector ETFs (NYSEARCA:RTH, NYSEARCA:XRT, NYSEARCA:RETS, NYSEARCA:RETL, NYSEARCA:PMR) to other sectors of the stock market, since transportation costs and discretionary income would be negatively impacted to such a large degree.

If such a scenario with Iran would occur, President Obama would certainly tap into the United States? Strategic Oil Reserve to alleviate some of the price rise, but how long the very high gasoline prices would last would depend on how quickly the United States and its allies could take control of the Gulf Region. The quicker they took control, the quicker the gas prices would drop, but most projections indicate that it would take over a week to gain control of the Gulf, and some scenarios even have it taking nearly a month to gain control of the Gulf. The exorbitant gasoline prices lasting for that period of time would certainly cause catastrophic damage to the U.S. economy, damage that would likely not be overcome for a period of years, if not the better part of a decade.

In addition to the devastating economic impact on the recovering U.S. economy that an attack on Iran would have, former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke believes there would be more negative impacts on the American way of life in general. Clarke believes that there would be an increased alert of terror attacks occurring in U.S. cities, the potential for worldwide cyberwar that would attempt to take out nations? electric power grids, the deaths of numerous American sailors, and the potential for a long drawn-out military conflict against Iran.

Bottom Line: Israel attacking Iran would cause oil prices to rise, and thus, gasoline prices to rise, which would cause detrimental damage to the U.S. economy, the severity of which would depend on whether the Straits of Hormuz are cut off or if there is a long-drawn out military conflict with Iran.

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Tags: american oil prices, american strategic oil reserve, iran israel tension, iran nuclear weapons program, iran oil prices, iran us tension, NYSEARCA:PMR, NYSEARCA:RETL, NYSEARCA:RETS, NYSEARCA:RTH, NYSEArca:USO, NYSEARCA:XRT, PMR, RETL, RETS, RTH, Strait of Hormuz, us war with iran, USO, XRT

Source: http://wallstreetsectorselector.com/2012/03/the-israel-iran-situation-and-its-potential-effect-on-oil-prices-uso-rth-xrt-rets-retl-pmr/

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Today on New Scientist: 23 March 2012

Mega wasp named after Indonesian mythical beast

A new genus of digger wasp has been described - and black is definitely its colour

Joe Davis: The mad scientist of MIT?

A new film offers an inside view into the life of artist and experimental scientist Joe Davis

Friday Illusion: Sneaky sound alters what you see

Watch a new illusion that shows how the direction of a sound can skew your perception of motion

Prehistoric fisheries offer clues to sustainable catch

Ancient societies of Hawaii and Canada farmed the seas sustainably for centuries but netted a bountiful harvest that seems to defy modern expectations

Syrian uprising raises fears over chemical weapons

If the government is toppled, what will become of Syria's weapons of mass destruction?

Feedback: Pet pendants, possibly

Would you like to offer your pet dog or cat some chemical-free flea and tick control? If you're a New Zealander, you're in luck

The life and loves of Isaac Newton

In his new novel, The Sensorium of God, Stuart Clark catalogues the messy international and interpersonal politics at the time of Newton's breakthroughs

Reptile grew feather-like structures before dinosaurs

Some 80 million years before the first feathered dinosaurs, Longisquama grew impressive structures using the same genes

The God issue: Alain de Botton's religion for atheists

Religions are not literally true but neither are they total nonsense. Alain de Botton explains why atheists need to reclaim the useful bits

Classical music affects heart transplants

Mice with heart swaps survived twice as long when they listened to classical rather than pop music after their operation

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The Ballooning Brain: Defective Genes May Explain Uncontrolled Brain Growth in Autism

News | Mind & Brain

Autistic children's brains may grow too big, too soon. A new study links this unusual growth to abnormal gene activity that fails to prune unnecessary neural connections

By Ferris Jabr ?| March 22, 2012?|

BOUNTIFUL BRAINS: Eric Courchesne's studies suggest that autistic brains brim with too many neurons for their own good. Image: FR86, iStockphoto

As a baby grows inside the womb, its brain does not simply expand like a dehydrated sponge dropped in water. Early brain development is an elaborate procession. Every minute some 250,000 neurons bloom, squirming past one another like so many schoolchildren rushing to their seats at the sound of the bell. Each neuron grows a long root at one end and a crown of branches at the other, linking itself to fellow cells near and far. By the end of the second trimester, neurons in the baby's brain have formed trillions of connections, many of which will not survive into adulthood?the least traveled paths will eventually wither.

Sometimes, the developing brain blunders, resulting in "neuro-developmental disorders," such as autism. But exactly why or how early cellular mistakes cause autism has eluded medical science. Now, Eric Courchesne of the University of California, San Diego, thinks he has linked atypical gene activity to excessive growth in the autistic brain. With the new data, he has started to trace a cascade of genetic and cellular changes that he thinks define autism. Although intrigued by Courchesne's work, other researchers caution that explosive neural growth is not necessarily a defining feature of all autistic brains.

Since 1998 Courchesne has been searching autistic brains for unusual structural features. His studies suggest that while in the womb, the autistic brain sprouts an excess of neurons and continues to balloon during the first five years of life, as all those extra neurons grow larger and form connections. Sometime after age four or five, Courchesne has also found, autistic brains actually start to lose neural connections, faster than typical brains.

In a study published November 2011 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Courchesne reported that children with autism have 67 percent more neurons in their prefrontal cortex (PFC) than typical children. Located in the area of the brain just behind the eyes, the PFC is responsible for what psychologists call "executive functions"?high-level thinking, such as planning ahead, inhibiting impulses and directing attention. In his 2011 study Courchesne sliced up brain tissue from six autistic children and seven typical children who had passed away and counted the number of cell bodies in the sections to estimate the total number of neurons in their PFCs.

Now, Courchesne and his colleagues have analyzed DNA and RNA in 33 cubes of brain tissue from people who passed away, 15 of whom were autistic (nine children and six adults) and 18 who had typical brains (seven children and 11 adults). Looking at the order of DNA's building blocks reveals whether individual genes have mutations; measuring levels of RNA indicates how often those genes were translated into proteins. Such gene expression, Courchesne and his colleagues found, varied between autistic and typical brains. In brain tissue from both autistic children and autistic adults, genes coding for proteins that identify and repair mistakes in DNA were expressed at unusually low levels. Additionally, all autistic brains demonstrated unusual activity levels for genes that determine when neurons grow and die and how newborn neurons migrate during early development. Some genes involved in immune responses, cell-to-cell communication and tissue repair, however, were expressed at unusual levels in adult autistic brains, but not in autistic children's brains. The results appear in the March 22 issue of PLoS Genetics.

By combining his new findings with his earlier discoveries, Courchesne has started to construct a kind of timeline of autism in the brain. Perhaps, as the brain of a future autistic child develops in the womb, something?an inherited mutation or an environmental factor like a virus, toxin or hormone?muffles the expression of genes coding for proteins that usually fix mistakes in sequences of DNA. Errors accumulate. The genetic systems controlling the growth of new neurons go haywire, and brain cells divide much more frequently than usual, accounting for the excess neurons found in the PFC of autistic children. Between birth and age five, the extra neurons in the autistic brain grow physically larger and form more connections than in a typical child's brain. Unused connections are not pruned away as they should be. Later, in adolescence and adulthood, the immune system reacts against the brain's overzealous growth, which might explain the unusual levels of immune genes Courchesne found in his new study and why, in earlier work, he had discovered that when autistic children become teenagers, some brain regions actually start shrinking compared with typical brains.

Not all researchers, however, accept that the patterns of brain growth Courchesne has discovered are relevant to everyone with autism. Nicholas Lange, a biostatistician in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, says that Courchesne analyzed too few samples in his new study to generalize the results to the larger autistic community. Some researchers have surfaced evidence that around 15 percent of autistic children have smaller than usual heads, a condition known as microcephaly, which indicates an abnormally small brain. David Amaral of the University of California, Davis, has previously told reporters that in an unpublished neuroimaging study, he found that only about 11 of 114 autistic children had unusually large brains. Other researchers point out that, in his research with tissue samples from brain banks, Courchesne fails to compare the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex with other parts of the brain?it remains unclear why only the PFC would explode in growth.

But acquiring enough preserved tissue from brain banks to conduct meaningful studies is no easy task?they are incredibly coveted resources, and Courchesne's new study relies on a respectable sample. Looking at gene expression in postmortem brain tissue offers insights into the biology of autism that neuroimaging studies and analysis of DNA and RNA in blood cannot provide because different cell types express different sets of genes. Courchesne's newest findings at least partially echo earlier research by Daniel Geschwind of the University of California, Los Angeles, who also linked autism to unusual activity of genes that control immune responses and how neurons organize themselves in the developing brain. Although Courchesne's concept of autistic brain development is far from flawless or complete, it remains one of the most cohesive theories offered so far?one that suggests the possibility of treatment as well. If scientists definitively link autism to a characteristic sequence of changes in gene expression and unusual neural growth, then it becomes possible to target and reverse any one of the thousands of steps in that sequence.

"Each individual autistic person likely has their own specific profile of dysregulated [sic] genes," Courchesne says, "which means that autism is a very complicated problem. But it's now knowable. We are getting at core knowledge. If we confirm that the starting point is gene activity, we can do something about it, because gene activity can be modified."

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=693bd8699809db63486cbfb449bf3831

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Man claiming to help tornado victims arrested

Earlier this month, Indiana State Police received a complaint that a man was passing out prescription medications to a storm victim in Jackson County. This led them to dig a little deeper, and they found out the suspect might not be the man he says he is.?

"We really can't find one legitimate organization that he was affiliated with," said Sgt. Jerry Goodin of Indiana State Police.?

Investigators said Gerald Scott Flint, a Brazil, IN native, visited the devastated areas hit just days after the March 2 tornadoes. Goodin said Flint was collecting supplies like food and water and monetary donations for his organization, "Volunteer Medics Worldwide."?In some cases, he claimed to be working with Homeland Security. Police said that simply wasn't the case.

?

Jennifer McConahay's home was destroyed, and she now spends the majority of her time at Henryville Community Church helping others who have been affected. She says cases like this are just a setback.

"It makes you angry, but there are so many other people out here doing such great things, I don't want to take away from them," McConahay said.

Out of Jackson County, Flint is accused of possessing a legend drug. "A legend drug requires a prescription, so you have to have a prescription from a doctor to possess those," Goodin said. "He's not a doctor, so he was not allowed to have those or give those things out."

According to Flint's website, he has been volunteering since 1991, traveling the world to places hit by natural disasters, but in southern Indiana, Goodin said something just wasn't adding up.?"We have no idea, some of these donations that he collected, it could have very well went out to the victims of the tornadoes. Right now we cannot account for all the supplies that were taken."

In Clark County, Flint is charged with impersonating a public servant and theft.?

If you donated money or supplies or if you received anything from Flint or "Volunteer Medics Worldwide", Indiana State Police want to hear from you. You can reach them at 812-246-5424.?

Source: http://www.wave3.com/story/17235460/man-claiming-to-help-tornado-victims-arrested

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Real Estate Marketing ? First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit and the ...

Posted on March 22, 2012, 1:55 pm, by admin.

realestatemarketingthisweek.com ? Real Estate Marketing ? Seller paid closing costs the best deal going today in Real Estate ? With Michael J Barnes, Brett Fallon and Dan Havey of Real Estate Marketing This Week Part 1 ? Today were going to be talking about mortgage strategies, buying real estate, all the different things that you need to know from here on out through 2009, lots and lots of opportunities. We brought back once again one of the best financial planners in the entire country Mr. Brett Fallon. We also have in the studio today a very good friend of mine Mr. Dan Havey. Dan has been in the real estate and mortgage industry for over 20 years, in fact he got me into the industry, he was instrumental, in fact the major hand behind putting together of the loan modification hotline. Velocity Financial is a financial services firm, were primarily focused on doing mortgages for residential purchasing and refinances. One of the things that we have seen is that the purchasing market has picked up quite a bit and looks in my eyes like we very well may have hit the bottom on prices. You can buy a 3000 square foot house for $150000 these days, and one thing that we?ve recently found is most of the sellers are willing to pay closing costs on behalf of the buyer. Its a known fact that it?s a cold sellers market and sellers are happy to have an offer, whether it be a low offer or not. Now I have a couple examples I want to share, it?s important to point out that I am not a ?

Tags: buyer, credit, Estate, First, home, Market, Marketing, part, Real, time, Today
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Source: http://utmortgage.org/real-estate-marketing-first-time-home-buyer-tax-credit-and-the-real-estate-market-today-part-1

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Someone made a robot that can play 'Angry Birds'

4 hrs.

Matthew Hawkins

While the BitbeamBot can do more than just play everyone's favorite smart phone game, its inventor figured it would be a fun way to demonstrate his creation's capabilities.

Jason Huggins, founder and CEO of Sauce Labs, recently demoed his robot at the PyCon 2012, a convention dedicated to the Python, a computer programming language. In the following, he explains the genesis of the project, which originally had nothing do with goofing off and playing games:

As Huggins touches upon, things built need to be tested, an un-fun fact of life that has been around since the dawn of civilization. In modern times, such necessary monotony used to be in the form of a button that had to be pressed over and over again.

With the advent of touch screen interfaces, swiping across a screen might take it's place, which the BitbeamBot hopes to take care off ... before it rises up and kills us all, that is.

At the very least, according to The Unofficial Apple Weblog, the BitbeamBot is apparently very good at "Angry Birds." And I can't seem to recall the T-800 having any kind of personality trait of its own, other than learning how to say "hasta la vista, baby" in "Terminator 2."?

--

Matthew Hawkins is an NYC-based game journalist who has also written for EGM, GameSetWatch, Gamasutra, Giant Robot and numerous others. He also self-publishes his own game culture zine, is part of?Attract Mode, and co-hosts?The Fangamer Podcast. You can keep tabs on him via?Twitter,?or his personal home-base,?FORT90.com.

Source: http://www.ingame.msnbc.msn.com/technology/ingame/someone-made-robot-can-play-angry-birds-498626#/technology/ingame/

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