'Catastrophic' Bangladesh oil spill threatens rare dolphins

© Agence France-Presse

The oil tanker was carrying an estimated 357,000 litres (77,000 gallons) of oil when it sank in the Sundarbans’s Shela river, home to rare Irrawaddy and Ganges dolphins.

Dhaka: An oil spill from a crashed tanker in Bangladesh is threatening endangered dolphins and other wildlife in the vast Sundarbans delta, officials warned on Thursday, branding the leak an ecological "catastrophe".

The tanker was carrying an estimated 357,000 litres (77,000 gallons) of oil when it sank in the Sundarbans' Shela river, home to rare Irrawaddy and Ganges dolphins, after colliding with another vessel on Tuesday.

Rescue vessels have now salvaged the tanker, but officials said the damage had already been done as the slick had spread to a second river and a network of canals in the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, which straddles India and Bangladesh.

"It's a catastrophe for the delicate ecology of the Sundarbans," the area's chief forest official Amir Hossain said. "The oil spill has already blackened the shoreline, threatening trees, plankton, vast populations of small fishes and dolphins."

Hossain said the oil had already spread over a 60-km-long area of the Sundarbans. Spread over 10,000 square kilometres, the Sundarbans is a Unesco-listed World Heritage Site and home to hundreds of Bengal tigers. The delta comprises a network of rivers and canals.

The accident occurred inside one of three sanctuaries set up for the dolphins, said Rubayat Mansur, Bangladesh head of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

The three areas were declared dolphin sanctuaries in 2011 after studies found they are home to some 6,000 of the animals. Fishing is banned there, but tankers and other boats are allowed to pass through. Speaking to AFP from the accident site, Mansur labelled the spill a "national disaster" and accused authorities of not doing enough to contain the damage.

"There are no coordinated efforts to tackle the disaster. The air has become toxic and we got news from fishermen they've seen dead fish. Crabs, which make up the largest single group in the forest are facing the biggest threat," he said.

"And if crabs are hit, the dolphins and tigers will be affected. Dolphins will find it very difficult to breathe this foul air," he added.

Authorities have launched a small-scale clean-up, but warned they lack the hardware and experience for a major effort.

"The tanker has been dragged to the shore. Two tanks housing 120,000 litres of oil remained intact, but the other four tanks with two-thirds of the ship's 357,000 litres of oil have already been spilled," shipping ministry spokesman Rafiqul Islam told AFP.

Islam said a government ship carrying 10,000 litres of oil dispersants would reach the spot within hours to begin a more substantial clean-up.

"The oil dispersants would break the spilled oils into droplets," he said, adding authorities have banned ships from using the Shela river channel until further notice.

Bangladesh's state-run petroleum corporation was also using buoys to restrict the slick, while local fishermen have been ordered to use nets to try to stop the oil entering small canals.

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Ellen Brown: Five big banks will survive next financial calamity - everyone else, bankrupt

© Thefiscaltimes.com

When a financial crash does happen, you can forget about getting immediate access to your money.

Ellen Brown of The Web of Debt Blog says, "The banks will say, well, we don't have it. All the money goes into one big pool since Glass Steagall was repealed. They are allowed to gamble with that money and that's what they do. I think maybe Bank of America is the most vulnerable because of Merrill Lynch. Everybody is concerned, and they do very risky deals and they are on the edge. I think they have over $50 trillion in derivatives and over $1 trillion in deposits. . . The Dodd-Frank Act says we, the people, are no longer going to be responsible for the big banks when they collapse.

It is not clear the FDIC will even be able to borrow from the Treasury, but even if they could, who is going to pay that money back? Let's say they borrowed $1 trillion. Who is going to pay that $1 trillion dollars back? It will bankrupt all the small banks that had to contribute to this premium. They will say we're raising your premium to everything you got, basically. Little banks will go out of business, and who is going to survive--the big banks. . . . What we're going to have left is five big banks, and everybody else is going to be bankrupt."

The latest is called "Big Banks Will Take Depositors Money In Next Crash -Ellen Brown." The G-20 met recently in Australia to make new banking rules for the next financial calamity. Financial reform advocate Ellen Brown says these new rules will allow banks to take money from depositors and pensioners globally. Brown explains, "It became rules we agreed to actually implement. There was no treaty, and Congress didn't agree to all this. They use words so that it's not obvious to tell what they have done, but what they did was say, basically, that we, the governments, are no longer going to be responsible for bailing out the big banks. These are about 30 international banks. So, you are going to have to save yourselves, and the way you are going to have to do it is by bailing in the money of your creditors. The largest class of creditors of any bank is the depositors."

It gets worse, as Brown goes on to say, "Theoretically, we are protected by deposit insurance up to $250,000 in the U.S. and 100,000 euros in Europe. The FDIC fund has $46 billion, the last time I looked, to cover $4.5 trillion worth of deposits. So, even though we are protected by the FDIC, the FDIC is not going to have the money.

This makes it legal for these big 30 banks to take our money when they become insolvent. They are too-big-to-fail. This was supposed to avoid too-big-to-fail, but what it does is institutionalizes too-big-to-fail. They are not going to go down. They are going to take our money instead."

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Texas mother's gut instinct and persistence leads to rare diagnosis for toddler son

© Reid Strauss

Reid Strauss was diagnosed with creatine transporter deficiency, but it took visits with 20 doctors before he was diagnosed

A Texas mother suspected something was wrong with her toddler son when she saw him stumbling around the backyard. Instead of ignoring this and other symptoms, Whitnie Strauss reportedly brought her two-and-a-half-year-old son Reid to a doctor - and then to 19 more doctors - until he was finally diagnosed with a rare disorder.

Strauss says she refused to believe her son's problem was an allergy, autism, a seizure disorder, a gastrointestinal problem or an immunodeficiency, reports Yahoo! News. Instead of accepting doctors' suggestions, the mother of three reportedly drove two hours with Reid, from outside of Austin to Houston, to get him to an emergency room.

After spending two days at Texas Children's Hospital, a pediatric neurologist named Dr. Michell Holick said she wanted to work with the family to figure out what was making Reid sick.

Holick ran a series of tests and confirmed that Reid was suffering from a rare disorder: creatine transporter deficiency. Creatine reportedly provides the body with energy, but Reid's disorder prevents his brain from receiving creatine - and there's no cure for it.

"You're hearing this terrible news, the worst news of my life," Strauss said. "But this weight is lifted because finally that burden of looking and trying to understand what's going on has been lifted."

Reid is now 4 and, while he has "limited speech," his mother says he is happy and "feisty." His condition is not expected to get worse and he is "leveling out," according to Holick.

Strauss says she hopes her story serves as an inspiration to other parents dealing with similar health scares.

"Listen to your instincts and that gut feeling," Strauss said. "Parents know. For us, it took 20 different doctors before we stumbled upon the one at Texas Children's, who for whatever reason dug deeper than all the others ... You never know when you're going to open the door and your Dr. Holick will be standing there."

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Dead sperm whale found off Odisha coast, India

An eight-member team of palaeontologists from the Regional Museum of Natural History in Odisha's capital city of, Bhubaneswar has begun the exercise to retrieve the skeleton of the giant whale that was washed ashore near Kelua river mouth on December 3.

The team, led by Dr Siba Prasad Parida, began work on Tuesday morning. After spraying chemical powders, the team started cutting out the flesh of the whale.

The extraction process was delayed due to excessive secretion of oil and worms from the body of the dead whale. "We had to re-position the whale 20 feet away with the help of a bulldozer to get going," said local forester Umesh Mohanty.

"So far, we have been able to cut out about 30% of the flesh. It might take another five to seven days to complete the process," said GN Indresa, one of the experts supervising the opeation.

"The bones of the skeletons will be removed and conserved separately with a layer of chemicals applied to them in the museum. It will take approximately five to six months to put together the entire skeleton back," said Shiv Prasad Parida, the leader of the team

The skeleton of a 47.3-foot large Baleen whale is already under display at the Regional Museum of Natural History.

It may be noted that the 32 feet long, approximately 75 years old sperm whale was washed ashore near Kelua river mouth of Astarang and struggled for a long time on shallow waters to swim back to the ocean before its death.

The officials and locals were not able to send the giant whale back to deep waters due to lack of equipment. It was suspected to be hit by a ship, as there was a big scar above its right eye. It could also have been washed ashore by high tide in the sea, the experts said.

Sperm whales are the largest toothed whales in the world and usually live in deep water up to one kilometer around the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.

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Collection of Roman artifacts found buried in garden of Rome's British embassy

An expert has said this funerary relief showing five freed slaves and a child is 'very rare' and unusual

More than 350 ancient Roman statues and artifacts have been found buried in the overgrown garden of the British ambassador in Rome.

The important collection had been hidden for decades in the garden which had been allowed to grow wild after years of neglect.

During a painstaking three-year landscaping project to restore the garden to its former glory, gardeners were astonished to find the statues, each covered in moss, lichen and slime.

The works include carved reliefs of wild boar, satyrs, griffons and goddesses.

They were found beneath a carpet of soil and leaf litter during works to landscape the garden of Villa Wolkonsky - once the home of a Russian princess.

Rare statues and artifacts have been found buried in the overgrown garden of the British embassy in Rome

Now, the marble statues and funerary reliefs have been cleaned and restored by experts and went on display today for the first time.

They are currently on show in the villa's 10-acre garden and experts say they are important from both an artistic and an archaeological point of view.

The villa itself is a palazzo and has been the residence of the British ambassador to Italy since the end of World War Two.

The restoration of the garden is being led by Nina Prentice, the wife of the ambassador, Christopher Prentice.

'Everything had slid into ruin and was covered in muck,' Mrs Prentice told The Telegraph.

'Every time we ventured into a different part of the garden, there would be another amazing statue. I just kept saying to myself, "I can't believe it."'

The rediscovered artifacts include stone reliefs from ancient Roman tombs showing the faces of freed slaves, their wives and children.

Other friezes feature chariot races and the ritual sacrifice of bulls.

The works include carved reliefs of wild boar, satyrs, griffons and goddesses and were found during works to landscape the garden of Villa Wolkonsky, the British ambassador's home in Rome

Mrs Prentice told the paper she found ancient sarcophagi used as plant pots and Roman capitols wedged underneath slabs of marble to form benches.

Dr Dirk Booms, a curator from the British Museum, told the paper the funerary relief showing five freed slaves and a child is 'very rare'.

He said: 'They have Greek names, suggesting they were Greek slaves who were freed by their Roman owners. The collection is an important part of the story of Rome.'

This statue, which is missing a head, is one of the 350 found in the garden of the British ambassador in Rome

The villa was originally owned by a socialite Russian princess, Zenaǐde Wolkonsky, who lived there during the 1830s.

Many of the artefacts came from a nearby Roman necropolis and were used to decorate the garden while she lived there.

During this time she made her home the meeting place of artists and writers and the villa was frequently visited by Karl Brullov, Alexander Ivanov and Sir Walter Scott.

Nikolai Gogol wrote much of Dead Souls at the villa.

It was eventually sold to the German government in 1920, becoming the German embassy and ambassador's residence.

The Telegraph reports that during Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943 and 1944, the villa's underground bomb shelter was used to hold Italian civilians, some of whom were reportedly tortured by the Gestapo.

After the Liberation of Rome in 1944, the Italian government took over the property, and it was placed under the Allied Control Commission.

For a short time it was occupied by the Swiss legation and then the Italian Red Cross.

When the British embassy at Rome's Porta Pia was blown up in 1946, the Italian government allowed the British government to use the villa as a temporary embassy and residence.

The United Kingdom then purchased the villa in 1951.

When the new UK Embassy was reopened at its original location in 1971, the offices moved back to Porta Pia and the villa reverted to its role as Her Majesty's Ambassador's Residence.

The unusual finds have been described by experts are 'an important part of the story of Rome'

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Reality and imagination flow in opposite directions in the brain

© Nick Berard

Professor Barry Van Veen wearing an electrode net that measures brain activity.

Neural circuits that activate when we daydream run in the opposite direction to how we process reality, a new study finds.

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Liege in Belgium have tracked the electrical activity in the brains of people either watching a video or imagining watching a video (Dentico et al., 2014). The findings could lead to new ways of understanding what happens in our brains when we sleep and dream. The scientists also hope the results will reveal insights into how short-term memory works.

Professor Barry Van Veen, who led the study, said:

"A really important problem in brain research is understanding how different parts of the brain are functionally connected. What areas are interacting? What is the direction of communication?

We know that the brain does not function as a set of independent areas, but as a network of specialized areas that collaborate."

The study used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the electrical activity in different regions of the brain while people were watching the video or imagining it.

When people watched the video, the electrical activity moved from the occipital lobe at the back of the brain, where visual information is processed forwards into the parietal lobe, where higher order processing takes place.

The reverse was seen when people were asked to generate visual imagery.

Professor Barry Van Veen said:

"There seems to be a lot in our brains and animal brains that is directional, that neural signals move in a particular direction, then stop, and start somewhere else.

I think this is really a new theme that had not been explored."

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Utah cops give 87yo woman 200 mile ride to visit ailing hospitalized son after stopping her for traffic violation

© ABC News

Trooper Jeff Jones assists Helen Smith

A Utah state trooper helped an elderly woman travel nearly 200 miles to visit her ailing son in a hospital after stopping her for a traffic violation.

Trooper Jeff Jones pulled over 87-year-old Helen "Skeeter" Smith on Friday night after she passed a stopped police cruiser with its light flashing on the side of Interstate 15 in Millard County, authorities said.

Utah law requires drivers to slow down and move away from stopped police vehicles to prevent crashes.

Jones issued the Panaca, Nevada, woman a verbal warning, but the trooper said Smith accidentally backed into his patrol car as she attempted to drive away.

Smith told the trooper she had very bad eyesight and could hardly see, and the trooper told the woman it would probably be unsafe for her to continue driving.

"Then she started crying and told me about (her son's) condition and what treatment he was under and how they had moved him to ICU," said Jones, an 11-year veteran.

Smith's son was hospitalized in Salt Lake City - about 180 miles away.

The trooper told Smith he was uncomfortable letting her drive, and he said the woman became hysterical.

So the trooper arranged to move Smith's car to a sheriff's department parking lot and coordinated a shuttle system with troopers in other counties to get the woman to the hospital.

Jones shuttled the woman himself to Juab County, where Trooper Jared Jensen drove Smith to Utah County, where Trooper Chris Bishop drove her to Salt Lake County and dropped her off with Trooper Andrew Pollard.

Pollard drove her to the hospital, where Smith was able to visit her son.

A spokesman for the Utah Highway Patrol said Jones was not directed by a supervisor to assist the woman, but he did the right thing by providing the service Smith needed.

"I just decided she needed help and we do help shuttle people once in a while - so why not her?" Jones said.

ABC News:

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