Updated: 2010-10-28 17:11
BEIJING - China's Tianhe-1 has overtaken Nebulae to regain top spot as China's fastest computer according to a new list of China's Top 100 supercomputers released Thursday.
On the biannual world TOP 500 list published in June, China's Nebulae machine took the second spot only after the US' Jaguar system, while Tianhe-1 took seventh place.
Housed at the National Center for Supercomputing in northern port city of Tianjin, Tianhe-1, meaning Milky Way, has a sustained computing speed of 2,507 trillion calculations, or 2.507 petaflops, per second.
It has a theoretical speed of 4.7 petaflops per second, according to a R&D research member of Tianhe-1. A petaflop is equivalent to 1,000 trillion calculations.
Nebulae housed in Shenzhen is capable of sustained computing of 1.271 petaflop per second (PFlop/s) on the Linpack benchmark, a measure for ranking supercomputers in world Top 500 list.
The US leads the world in supercomputing and is home to more than half of the top 500 supercomputers. The Jaguar system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee has a speed of 1.75 PFlop/s.
The enhanced Tianhe-1 has upgraded Intel CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs, and new domestically developed Feiteng-1000 CPUs have been installed, the developer the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) said.
Tianhe-1 has begun trial use among target clients including Tianjin Meteorological Bureau and the National Offshore Oil Corporation data center. "It can also serve the animation industry and bio-medical research," said Liu Guangming, director of the National Center for Supercomputing in Tianjin.
In September 2009, the NUDT created Tianhe-1 with a sustained computing speed of 0.5631 PFlop/s, the fastest supercomputer in China at that time.
The new technical data of Tianhe-1 has been submitted to the world Top 500 list and the next list will be released in November.
Related readings:
Supercomputer ranks second fastest in world
Chinese supercomputer ranked second-fastest
Xinhua
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Technology China's fastest supercomputer Tianhe-1 sets new record
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Walking 6 to 9 Miles a Week May Help Save Memory
Brain's gray matter doesn't seem to shrink with this amount of exercise, study finds
By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Walking about six miles a week appears to protect against brain shrinkage in old age, which in turn helps stem the onset of memory problems and cognitive decline, new research reveals.
"We have always been in search of the drug or the magic pill to help treat brain disorders," noted Kirk I. Erickson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and the study's lead author. "But really what we are after may be, at least partially, even simpler than that. Just by walking regularly, and so maintaining a little bit of moderate physical activity, you can reduce your likelihood of developing Alzheimer's disease and [can] spare brain tissue."
A report on the research, which was supported by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, is published online Oct. 13 in Neurology.
Erickson and his colleagues began tracking the physical activity and cognitive (or thinking) patterns of nearly 300 adults in 1989. At the start, all participants were in good cognitive health, they averaged 78 years old and about two-thirds were women. The researchers charted how many blocks each person walked in a week.
Nine years later, they were given a high-resolution MRI scan to measure brain size. All were deemed to be "cognitively normal."
But four years after that, testing showed that a little more than one-third of the participants had developed mild cognitive impairment or dementia.
By correlating cognitive health, brain scans and walking patterns, the research team found that being more physically active appeared to marginally lower the risk for developing cognitive impairment.
But more specifically, they concluded that the more someone walks, the more gray matter tissue the person will have a decade or more down the road in regions of the brain -- namely the hippocampus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the supplementary motor area -- that are central to cognition.
And among the more physically active participants who had retained more gray matter a decade out, the chances of developing cognitive impairment were cut in half, the study found.
However, the researchers stressed that the relationship between walking and gray matter volume appears to apply only to people who regularly walk relatively long distances that equal about six to nine miles a week.
Walking more than the six- to nine-mile range, however, did not have cognitive benefit, the study found.
"That's because the size of our brain regions can only be so large," Erickson said, adding that the opposite isn't true. "So with no exercise, there can be significant deterioration and decay with age."
However, he added, "what we often tend to think of as an inevitable component or characteristic of aging -- memory decline and brain decay -- is clearly not inevitable. There's plenty of evidence now, and this study is part of that, that shows that we can retain our brain tissue and retain our memories well into late adulthood by maintaining an active and engaged lifestyle."
Dr. Steven V. Pacia, chief of neurology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, described the study's finding as both "intriguing" and an "undoubtedly positive message to send to the public."
"My first reaction to studies like this is that only in America do we have to prove to people that it's good to walk," he said with a chuckle.
"But it stands to reason that being active as we age is going to have a beneficial effect on the brain, just as being inactive is going to have a negative impact," Pacia noted. "Because the brain lives in the environment of the body."
But there may be a catch. "This is just an observational study," Pacia noted. "And while we may assume that the relationship between the brain and activity is a prevention-of-atrophy issue -- just like it is with muscle and bone -- this study doesn't actually prove that. We don't yet know enough about the use-it-or-lose-it notion with respect to brain and exercise. So we do need more research to look at that."
More information
The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more on healthy aging.
SOURCES: Kirk I. Erickson, Ph.D., assistant professor, department of psychology, University of Pittsburgh; Steven V. Pacia, M.D., chief, division of neurology, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; Oct. 13, 2010, Neurology, online
Last of Chilean miners is raised safely to surface
By MICHAEL WARREN, Associated Press Writer 
AP/Roberto Candia
Miner Luis Urzua, the last miner to be rescued, celebrates next to Chile's President Sebastian Pinera after being pulled to safety.
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – The last of the Chilean miners, the foreman who held them together when they were feared lost, was raised from the depths of the earth Wednesday night — a joyous ending to a 69-day ordeal that riveted the world. No one has ever been trapped so long and survived.
Luis Urzua ascended smoothly through 2,000 feet of rock, completing a 22 1/2-hour rescue operation that unfolded with remarkable speed and flawless execution. Before a jubilant crowd of about 2,000 people, he became the 33rd miner to be rescued.
"We have done what the entire world was waiting for," he told Chilean President Sebastian Pinera immediately after his rescue. "The 70 days that we fought so hard were not in vain. We had strength, we had spirit, we wanted to fight, we wanted to fight for our families, and that was the greatest thing."
The president told him: "You are not the same, and the country is not the same after this. You were an inspiration. Go hug your wife and your daughter." With Urzua by his side, he led the crowd in singing the national anthem.
The rescue exceeded expectations every step of the way. Officials first said it might be four months before they could get the men out; it turned out to be 69 days and about 8 hours.
Once the escape tunnel was finished, they estimated it would take 36 to 48 hours to get all the miners to the surface. That got faster as the operation went along, and all the men were safely above ground in 22 hours, 37 minutes.
The rescue workers who talked the men through the final hours still had to be hoisted to the surface.
In nearby Copiapo, about 3,000 people gathered in the town square, where a huge screen broadcast live footage of the rescue. The exuberant crowd waved Chilean flags of all sizes and blew on red vuvuzelas as cars drove around the plaza honking their horns, their drivers yelling, "Long live Chile!"
"The miners are our heroes," said teary-eyed Copiapo resident Maria Guzman, 45.
One by one throughout the day, the men had emerged to the cheers of exuberant Chileans and before the eyes of a transfixed globe. While the operation picked up speed as the day went on, each miner was greeted with the same boisterous applause from rescuers.
"Welcome to life," Pinera told Victor Segovia, the 15th miner out. On a day of superlatives, it seemed no overstatement.
They rejoined a world intensely curious about their ordeal, and certain to offer fame and jobs. Previously unimaginable riches awaited men who had risked their lives going into the unstable gold and copper mine for about $1,600 a month.
The miners made the smooth ascent inside a capsule called Phoenix — 13 feet tall, barely wider than their shoulders and painted in the white, blue and red of the Chilean flag. It had a door that stuck occasionally, and some wheels had to be replaced, but it worked exactly as planned.
Beginning at midnight Tuesday, and sometimes as quickly as every 25 minutes, the pod was lowered the nearly half-mile to where 700,000 tons of rock collapsed Aug. 5 and entombed the men.
Then, after a quick pep talk from rescue workers who had descended into the mine, a miner would climb in, make the journey upward and emerge from a manhole into the blinding sun.
The rescue was planned with extreme care. The miners were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from the unfamiliar sunlight and sweaters for the jarring transition from subterranean swelter to chilly desert air.
As they neared the surface, a camera attached to the top of the capsule showed a brilliant white piercing the darkness not unlike what accident survivors describe when they have near-death experiences.
The miners emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven. Several thrust their fists upwards like prizefighters, and Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and led his rescuers in a rousing cheer. Franklin Lobos, who played for the Chilean national soccer team in the 1980s, briefly bounced a soccer ball on his foot and knee.
"We have prayed to San Lorenzo, the patron saint of miners, and to many other saints so that my brothers Florencio and Renan would come out of the mine all right. It is as if they had been born again," said Priscila Avalos. One of her brothers was the first miner rescued, and the other was due out later in the evening.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich said some of the miners probably will be able to leave the hospital Thursday — earlier than projected — but many had been unable to sleep, wanted to talk with families and were anxious. One was treated for pneumonia, and two needed dental work.
"They are not ready to have a moment's rest until the last of their colleagues is out," he said.
As it traveled down and up, down and up, the rescue capsule was not rotating as much inside the 2,041-foot escape shaft as officials expected, allowing for faster trips.
The first man out was Florencio Avalos, who emerged from the missile-like chamber and hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son, his wife and the Chilean president.
No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.
News channels from North America to Europe and the Middle East carried live coverage of the rescue. Pope Benedict XVI said in Spanish that he "continues with hope to entrust to God's goodness" the fate of the men. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live for a time. Crews from Russia and Japan and North Korean state TV were at the mine.
The images beamed to the world were extraordinary: Grainy footage from beneath the earth showed each miner climbing into capsule, then disappearing upward through an opening. Then a camera showed the pod steadily rising through the dark, smooth-walled tunnel.
Among the first rescued was the youngest miner, Jimmy Sanchez, at 19 the father of a months-old baby. Two hours later came the oldest, Mario Gomez, 63, who suffers from a lung disease common to miners and had been on antibiotics inside the mine. He dropped to his knees after he emerged, bowed his head in prayer and clutched the Chilean flag.
Gomez's wife, Lilianett Ramirez, pulled him up from the ground and embraced him. The couple had talked over video chat once a week, and she said that he had repeated the promise he made to her in his initial letter from inside the mine: He would marry her properly in a church wedding, followed by the honeymoon they never had.
The lone foreigner among them, Carlos Mamani of Bolivia, was visited at a nearby clinic by Pinera and Bolivian President Evo Morales. The miner could be heard telling the Chilean president how nice it was to breathe fresh air and see the stars.
Most of the men emerged clean-shaven. More than 300 people at the mine alone had worked on the rescue or to sustain them during their long wait by lowering rocket-shaped tubes dubbed "palomas," Spanish for carrier pigeons. Along with the food and medicine came razors and shaving cream.
Estimates for the rescue operation alone have soared beyond $22 million, though the government has repeatedly insisted that money is not a concern.
The men emerged in good health. But at the hospital in Copiapo, where miner after miner walked from the ambulance to a waiting wheelchair, it became clear that psychological issues would be as important to treat as physical ones.
Dr. Guillermo Swett said Sepulveda told him about an internal "fight with the devil" that he had inside the mine. He said Sanchez appeared to be having a hard time adjusting, and seemed depressed.
"He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect," the doctor said.
The entire rescue operation was meticulously choreographed. No expense was spared in bringing in topflight drillers and equipment — and boring three separate holes into the copper and gold mine. Only one has been finished — the one through which the miners exited.
Mining is Chile's lifeblood, providing 40 percent of state earnings, and Pinera put his mining minister and the operations chief of state-owned Codelco, the country's biggest company, in charge of the rescue.
It went so well that its managers abandoned a plan to restrict images of the rescue. A huge Chilean flag that was to obscure the hole from view was moved aside so the hundreds of cameras perched on a hill above could record images that state TV also fed live.
That included the surreal moment when the capsule dropped for the first time into the chamber, where the bare-chested miners, most stripped down to shorts because of the underground heat, mobbed the rescuer who emerged to serve as their guide to freedom.
"This rescue operation has been so marvelous, so clean, so emotional that there was no reason not to allow the eyes of the world — which have been watching this operation so closely — to see it," a a beaming Pinera told a news conference after the first miner safely surfaced.
The miners' vital signs were closely monitored throughout the ride. They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to prevent nausea from any rotation of the capsule as it travels through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall. Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the rescue had "inspired the world." The crews included many Americans, including a driller operator from Denver and a team from Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pa., that built and managed the piston-driven hammers that pounded the hole through rock laced with quartzite, some of the hardest and most abrasive rock.
Chile has promised that its care of the miners won't end for six months at least — not until they can be sure that each man has readjusted.
Psychiatrists and other experts in surviving extreme situations predict their lives will be anything but normal. Since Aug. 22, when a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the miners stunned the world with a note, scrawled in red ink, disclosing their survival, their families have been exposed in ways they never imagined.
Miners had to describe their physical and mental health in detail with teams of doctors and psychologists. In some cases, when both wives and lovers claimed the same man, everyone involved had to face the consequences.
As trying as their time underground was, the miners now face challenges so bewildering that no amount of coaching can fully prepare them. Rejoining a world intensely curious about their ordeal, they have been invited to presidential palaces, to take all-expenses-paid vacations and to appear on countless TV shows. Book and movie deals are pending, along with job offers.
Sepulveda's performance exiting from the shaft appeared to confirm what many Chileans thought when they saw his engaging performances in videos sent up from below — that he could have a future as a TV personality.
But he tried to quash the idea as he spoke to viewers of Chile's state television channel while sitting with his wife and children shortly after his rescue.
"The only thing I'll ask of you is that you don't treat me as an artist or a journalist, but as a miner," he said. "I was born a miner and I'll die a miner."
Associated Press Writers Frank Bajak, Franklin Briceno, Peter Prengaman, Vivian Sequera and Eva Vergara contributed to this report.
Associated Press
26 miners free as Chile rescue goes off flawlessly
Published October 13, 2010 | Associated Press
With remarkable speed — and flawless execution — miner after miner climbed into a cramped cage deep beneath the Chilean earth, was hoisted through 2,000 feet of rock and saw precious sunlight Wednesday after the longest underground entrapment in human history.
By midafternoon, 26 of the 33 miners, including the weakest and sickest, had been pulled to freedom, and officials said they might even be able to bring everyone out by midnight.
After 69 days underground, including two weeks during which they were feared dead, the men emerged to the cheers of exuberant Chileans and before the eyes of a transfixed globe. The operation picked up speed as the day went on, but each miner was greeted with the same boisterous applause from rescuers.
"Welcome to life," President Sebastian Pinera told Victor Segvia, the 15th miner out. On a day of superlatives, it seemed no overstatement.
They rejoined a world intensely curious about their ordeal, and certain to offer fame and jobs. Previously unimaginable riches awaited men who had risked their lives going into the unstable gold and copper mine for about $1,600 a month.
The miners made the smooth ascent inside a capsule called Phoenix — 13 feet tall, barely wider than their shoulders and painted in the white, blue and red of the Chilean flag. It had a door that stuck occasionally, and its wheels needed lubricating at least once, but it worked exactly as planned.
Beginning at midnight Tuesday, and sometimes as quickly as every 25 minutes, the pod was lowered the nearly half-mile to where 700,000 tons of rock collapsed Aug. 5 and entombed the men.
Then, after a quick pep talk from rescue workers who had descended into the mine, a miner would strap himself in, make the journey upward and emerge from a manhole into the blinding sun.
The rescue was planned with extreme care. The miners were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from unfamiliar light and sweaters for the jarring transition from subterranean swelter to chilly desert air.
As they neared the surface, a camera attached to the top of the capsule showed a brilliant white piercing the darkness not unlike what accident survivors describe when they have near-death experiences.
The miners emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven. Several thrust their fists upwards like prizefighters, and Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and led his rescuers in a rousing cheer.
"We have prayed to San Lorenzo, the patron saint of miners, and to many other saints so that my brothers Florencio and Renan would come out of the mine all right. It is as if they had been born again," said Priscila Avalos. One of her brothers was the first miner rescued, and the other was due out later in the evening.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich said some of the miners probably will be able to leave the hospital Thursday — earlier than projected — but many had been unable to sleep, wanted to talk with families and were anxious. One was treated for pneumonia, and two needed dental work.
"They are not ready to have a moment's rest until the last of their colleagues is out," he said.
As it traveled down and up, down and up, the rescue capsule was not rotating as much inside the 2,041-foot escape shaft as officials expected, allowing for faster trips.
The first man out was Florencio Avalos, who emerged from the missile-like chamber and hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son, his wife and the Chilean president.
The last out was slated to be shift foreman Luis Urzua, whose leadership was credited with helping the men endure the first two and a half weeks without outside contact. The men made 48 hours' worth of rations last before rescuers reached them with a narrow bore hole to send down more food.
No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.
Chile exploded in joy and relief when the rescue began just after midnight in the coastal Atacama desert. Car horns sounded in Santiago, the Chilean capital, and school was canceled in the nearby town of Copiapo, where 24 of the miners live.
News channels from North America to Europe and the Middle East carried live coverage. Pope Benedict XVI said in Spanish that he "continues with hope to entrust to God's goodness" the fate of the men. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live for a time. Crews from Russia and Japan and North Korean state TV were at the mine.
The images beamed to the world were extraordinary: Grainy footage from beneath the earth showed each miner climbing into capsule, then disappearing upward through an opening. Then a camera showed the pod steadily rising through the dark, smooth-walled tunnel.
Among the first rescued was the youngest miner, Jimmy Sanchez, at 19 the father of a months-old baby. Two hours later came the oldest, Mario Gomez, 63, who suffers from a lung disease common to miners and had been on antibiotics inside the mine. He dropped to his knees after he emerged, bowed his head in prayer and clutched the Chilean flag.
Gomez's wife, Liliane Ramirez, pulled him up from the ground and embraced him. The couple had talked over video chat once a week, and she said that he had repeated the promise he made to her in his initial letter from inside the mine: He would marry her properly in a church wedding, followed by the honeymoon they never had.
The lone foreigner among them, Carlos Mamani of Bolivia, was visited at a nearby clinic by Pinera and Bolivian President Evo Morales. The miner could be heard telling the Chilean president how nice it was to breathe fresh air and see the stars.
Most of the men emerged clean-shaven. More than 300 people at the mine alone had worked on the rescue or to sustain them during their long wait by lowering rocket-shaped tubes dubbed "palomas," Spanish for carrier pigeons. Along with the food and medicine came razors and shaving cream.
Estimates for the rescue operation alone have soared beyond $22 million, though the government has repeatedly insisted that money is not a concern.
The men emerged in good health. But at the hospital in Copiapo, where miner after miner walked from the ambulance to a waiting wheelchair, it became clear that psychological issues would be as important to treat as physical ones.
Dr. Guillermo Swett said Sepulveda told him about an internal "fight with the devil" that he had inside the mine. He said Sanchez appeared to be having a hard time adjusting, and seemed depressed.
"He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect," the doctor said.
The entire rescue operation was meticulously choreographed. No expense was spared in bringing in topflight drillers and equipment — and boring three separate holes into the copper and gold mine.
Mining is Chile's lifeblood, providing 40 percent of state earnings, and Pinera put his mining minister and the operations chief of state-owned Codelco, the country's biggest company, in charge of the rescue.
It went so well that its managers abandoned a plan to restrict images of the rescue. A huge Chilean flag that was to obscure the hole from view was moved aside so the hundreds of cameras perched on a hill above could record images that state TV also fed live.
That included the surreal moment when the capsule dropped for the first time into the chamber, where the bare-chested miners, most stripped down to shorts because of the underground heat, mobbed the rescuer who emerged to serve as their guide to freedom.
"This rescue operation has been so marvelous, so clean, so emotional that there was no reason not to allow the eyes of the world — which have been watching this operation so closely — to see it," a beaming Pinera told a news conference after Avalos was brought to the surface.
The miners' vital signs were closely monitored throughout the ride. They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to prevent nausea from any rotation of the capsule as it travels through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall. Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the rescue had "inspired the world." The crews included many Americans, including a driller operator from Denver and a team from Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pa., that built and managed the piston-driven hammers that pounded the hole through quartz and silica, some of the hardest and most abrasive rock there is.
Chile has promised that its care of the miners won't end for six months at least — not until they can be sure that each man has readjusted.
Psychiatrists and other experts in surviving extreme situations predict their lives will be anything but normal. Since Aug. 22, when a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the miners stunned the world with a note, scrawled in red ink, disclosing their survival, their families have been exposed in ways they never imagined.
Miners had to describe their physical and mental health in detail with teams of doctors and psychologists. In some cases, when both wives and lovers claimed the same man, everyone involved had to face the consequences.
As trying as their time underground was, the miners now face challenges so bewildering that no amount of coaching can fully prepare them. Rejoining a world intensely curious about their ordeal, they have been invited to presidential palaces, to take all-expenses-paid vacations and to appear on countless TV shows. Book and movie deals are pending, along with job offers.
Sepulveda's performance exiting from the shaft appeared to confirm what many Chileans thought when they saw his engaging performances in videos sent up from below — that he could have a future as a TV personality.
But he tried to quash the idea as he spoke to viewers of Chile's state television channel while sitting with his wife and children shortly after his rescue.
"The only thing I'll ask of you is that you don't treat me as an artist or a journalist, but as a miner," he said. "I was born a miner and I'll die a miner."
Associated Press Writers Frank Bajak, Franklin Briceno, Peter Prengaman, Vivian Sequera and Eva Vergara contributed to this report.
Associated Press
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Chile Frees First of 33 Miners in World's Longest Mine Rescue
By Matt Craze - Oct 12, 2010 8:46 PM PT
Chilean rescue workers pulled the first of 33 trapped miners to the surface in the world’s longest underground mine rescue.
Florencio Avalos emerged from the San Jose copper mine at 11:12 p.m. New York time after spending two months trapped in a tunnel more than 600 meters (1,970 feet) underground, according to images broadcast by state television channel TVN.
“I am so overwhelmed with emotion because it’s been so long since we have seen him,” Avalos’ father Alfonso said in comments broadcast by TVN. “I am so content, so happy. Thank God that he emerged so strong.”
Avalos, wearing protective glasses, embraced his wife and son and Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera before being taken to a mobile hospital unit as rescuers shouted “Long Live Chile.” Pinera will oversee the rescue of the 32 remaining men over the next 24 hours to 48 hours at the mine in the Atacama Desert.
The four-meter long “Phoenix” capsule painted in the red, white and blue colors of the Chilean flag will act as an elevator, hoisting the miners to the surface through a 26-inch wide rescue hole.
The miners were discovered alive on Aug. 22 after being trapped since Aug. 5, when the mine’s access collapsed. The miners’ only contact with the outside world was through six centimeter wide drill holes that were used to discover them and through which they receive food, water and medicine.
The survival of the San Jose miners surpasses a 25-day rescue of three coal miners in a flooded mine in Guizhou, China in 2009.
‘Chile Unites’
“Chileans and the entire world are not going to forget this night,” Pinera told the more than 1,000 reporters gathered at the mine site. “When Chile unites, and it always happens in adversity, we are capable of big things.”
Pinera, who wore the same red jacket he used in the aftermath of an 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile in February, will stay near the rescue site alongside Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales. One of the 33 miners is Bolivian.
Pinera’s approval rating has increased since his government started the rescue operation more than two months ago, while Mining Minister Laurence Golborne has become the most popular member of the president’s cabinet.
Pinera’s popularity grew to 57 percent in September from 54 percent in a May poll, Santiago-based research group Center for the Study of Contemporary Reality, or CERC, said in a report published Oct. 7. The Sept. 3-13 poll of 1,200 people has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Three Groups
The miners are being split into three groups for the rescue. The first will provide information to rescuers and possibly help with the operation, Health Minister Jaime Manalich said. The weakest will then come out, followed by the rest. The last to be rescued will be shift foreman Luis Urzua.
“I’m nervous, my stomach is in knots,” Maria Segovia, the sister of trapped miner Dario Segovia, said in an interview at the site dubbed “Camp Hope.”
The 33 men were given meals rich in minerals and protein to prevent nausea and stabilize blood pressure during the ascent and examined remotely by medical officials on the surface. Ten have been identified by authorities as being the most in need of special care, Manalich said.
They’ll wear elastic bands on their lower extremities and a waistband during the 15- to 20-minute ascent that will help ensure proper blood circulation and prevent a reduction in arterial pressure and possible fainting, the health minister said. Rescue workers will supply the miners with emergency oxygen in case dust on the ascent causes breathing problems.
The miners want to wait until all 33 are brought to the surface so they can travel to the hospital as a group, the health minister said today. Authorities are instead seeking to fly miners to hospital as soon as possible so they can undergo examinations and any necessary treatment, Manalich said.
“Miners are fighters,” said Mario Castillo, 39, who has worked to bring lighting and equipment to the rescue site during the past two months. “The big lesson from all of this is that we have to be united. This is for the world.”
Bloomberg
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
UFO closes Chinese airport
UFO closes Chinese airport
By Our Foreign Staff
Published: 9:36AM BST 05 Oct 2010
An airport in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, was forced to shut to prevent passenger jets crashing into a UFO, according to reports.
Three flights to Baotou from Shanghai and Beijing were reportedly forced to circle the airport until the UFO disappeared.
Two other flights were diverted away from Baotou and to the nearby cities of Ordos and Taiyuan. The airport was shut for around an hour "to guarantee safety" according to a spokesman.
Witnesses reported a bright light shining in the sky on September 11 around two-and-a-half miles away from Baotou airport, before suddenly vanishing.
The incident was the eighth reported UFO sighting in China since the end of June.
Xiaoshan International airport near the eastern city of Hangzhou was shut down on July 8 because of a UFO, although officials later confirmed the object sighted above the airport had been part of a military test at a nearby airbase.
In the far-western province of Xinjiang, another sighting on June 30 is thought to have been a missile test.
A number of sightings in Sichuan province may also be linked to the local custom of flying illuminated kites at night.
Telegraph
Friday, October 1, 2010
China Launches Second Robotic Moon Probe
SPACE.com Staff
space.com – Fri Oct 1, 9:45 am ET
An unmanned moon probe blasted off from China Friday (Oct. 1) to begin the country's next phase of lunar exploration and set the stage for even more ambitious spaceflights to come.
The Chinese moon probe, called Chang'e 2, launched at 6:59:57 a.m. EDT (1059:57 GMT) from the Xichang Space Center in southwestern China's Sichuan province, according to state media reports. It should take about five days for the spacecraft to enter orbit around the moon.
The Chang'e 2 spacecraft soared into space atop one of China's Long March 3C rockets. It launched on Oct. 1, National Day in China – a holiday that commemorates the 61st anniversary of Communist rule in the country.
Chang'e 2 is the second step in China's three-phase Chang'e moon exploration program, which is named after China's mythical moon goddess. Chang'e 2 will test out technology and collect data on possible landing sites for the Chang'e 3 spacecraft, which is scheduled to land on the moon in 2013, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency has reported.
According to media reports, the mission has a cost of about $134 million.
Chang'e 2 will eventually swoop down to an orbit just 9 miles (15 km) above the lunar surface to take high-resolution pictures of landing areas for the Chang'e 3 mission, Xinhua has reported.
After snapping the photos, Chang'e 2 will retreat to an altitude of about 62 miles (100 km) to conduct a study of the lunar surface and dirt.
The Chang'e 1 probe launched in October 2007 and conducted a 16-month moon observation mission, after which it crash-landed on the lunar surface by design, in March 2009.
The Chang'e missions are just one prong of China's burgeoning space program, which has seen three successful manned spaceflights, including the nation's first spacewalk on the most recent mission, the Shenzhou 7 flight of 2008.
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