Author: Admin

Monday, August 22, 2005

Robert A. Moog, inventor, founder of Moog Music, and musical revolutionary, died Sunday at the age of 71 in his Ashville, North Carolina home.

Moog was diagnosed with brain cancer in April and underwent treatment for it.

Thoug Bob Moog is best knwon for his bringing of synthesizers into popular music and his appreciation for “the magical connection” between musicians and their instruments, Moog had a childhood interest with the theremin, an early electronic musical instrument. He developed his first synthesizer (the Moog Modular Synthesizer) in 1963, while still a Ph.D student at Cornell University. He was recognized with the Grammy Trustees Award for lifetime achievement in 1970.

Moog is survived by his wife and five children who have announced the formation of The Bob Moog Memorial Fund for the advancement of electronic music.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Andrew Burris, from Curtis, Ohio, and member of Carpenters Local 1138, died in Toledo, Ohio when the construction platform he was on fell around 9:15 a.m. EST. The platform was attached to the northbound side of the Veterans’ Glass City Skyway, a new bridge on Interstate 280. The platform was clamped to the side of the bridge, and broke off. Burris fell about 95 feet to the ground, where he landed on the east side of the roadway. Authorities from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration do not know why the platform broke free from the bridge. The Toledo Police department does not suspect foul play, and considers the death to be accidental. The $220 million bridge is scheduled for opening in June, 2007, and is the largest construction project in the history of Ohio.

“On behalf of Director Beasley and the Ohio Department of Transportation, we extend our deepest sympathy to the family of Andrew Burris,” said ODOT District 2 director, Dave Dysard. “We also extend our condolences to his relatives, friends and his fellow workers who have made us proud through their commitment and dedication to their work. Andrew was a part of the team that took the pylon to the top back in 2005. For four-and-a-half years, he was an integral part of the team that worked to complete this vital link for our community.”

This is the second fatal accident on the bridge. On Presidents’ Day in 2004, five workers were killed and four were injured when a crane collapsed.

Mr. Burris was from a line of carpenters, and kept a scrapbook of the project. His mother, Ruth, was quoted as saying “I think he felt closer to heaven there.”

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A Scottish woman who set out before Christmas to purchase a turkey finally made it home on Monday, after being cut off by snow for a month. Kay Ure left the Lighthouse Keeper’s cottage on Cape Wrath, at the very northwest tip of Great Britain, in December. She was heading to Inverness on a shopping trip.

However on her return journey heavy snow and ice prevented her husband, John, from travelling the last 11 miles to pick her up. She was forced to wait a month in a friend’s caravan, before the weather improved and the couple could finally be reunited.

They were separated not just for Christmas and New Year, but also for Mr Ure’s 58th birthday. With no fresh supplies, he was reduced to celebrating with a tin of baked beans. He also ran out of coal, and had to feed the couple’s six springer spaniels on emergency army rations.

“It’s the first time we’ve been separated”, said Mr Ure in December. “We’ve been snowed in here for three weeks before, so we are well used to it and it’s quite nice to get a bit of peace and quiet.”

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Viktor Schreckengost, the father of industrial design and creator of the Jazz Bowl, an iconic piece of Jazz Age art designed for Eleanor Roosevelt during his association with Cowan Pottery died yesterday. He was 101.

Schreckengost was born on June 26, 1906 in Sebring, Ohio, United States.

Schreckengost’s peers included the far more famous designers Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes.

In 2000, the Cleveland Museum of Art curated the first ever retrospective of Schreckengost’s work. Stunning in scope, the exhibition included sculpture, pottery, dinnerware, drawings, and paintings.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Reuters, AFP, the Associated Press are reporting that a gas explosion in a Turkish school killed at least seventeen girls Friday.

Reuters reports the initial death toll at sixteen, with 27 injured. The number of deaths later rose to 17 when a body was removed from the rubble. Two survivors were pulled from the rubble as rescuers worked into the night. One girl is still missing.

“We won’t stop until we find her,” village mayor Mehmet Demirgul, told the Associated Press.

About fifty students and teachers were in the school, where some had gathered on for Islamic study in the three-story structure in the village of Balcilar, near Taskent in the Konya province .

Merve Avci, a 13-year-old, slightly injured student spoke to the Anatolian news agency: “I was in the part of the building which didn’t collapse with five of my friends immediately after the explosion, and we felt flames rising from the downstairs to upper floors.”

Anatolian says that Avci was in the process of washing before pre-dawn prayers, when a noise in the building’s kitchen led Avci and some teacher to investigate. She says she saw a loose gas pipe before being ordered back to her room. She says she smelled gas coming from somewhere above her room before the explosion.

“We think the collapse was caused by a gas canister explosion in the building, given the burns on the injured,” Konya province health service official Galip Sef told Reuters.

Mayor Demirgul said a leak in a pipe carrying liquefied petroleum gas is the probable cause of the pre-dawn blast.

“We are hearing voices. I believe those inside the rubble will be saved,” Demirgul told reporters, according to the Associated Press and Reuters.

The Associated Press reports that a small portion of all three stories of the building were left standing. This is confirmed by images displayed on the Reuters website.

The building is owned by a religion foundation and is under investigation when Turkish authorities found an non-approved annex to the structure, according to AFP.

The explosion is unrelated to the bomb blast in northern Turkey on July 28.

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

All across the Canadian province of Ontario, college teachers have gone on strike, leaving more than 150,000 students in 24 colleges without classes.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union rejected the final offer from college management, after negotiations at the Delta Chelsea Hotel in downtown Toronto.

This strike comes just a month before many student’s scheduled graduations. If courses are extended into the summer, to compensate for lost school time, students’ ability to maintain jobs to pay for their education would be severely limited.

“A prolonged strike would not only affect college students, but also have a ripple affect on the Ontario economy and workforce. Potential employers are expecting 44,000 new graduates and 100,000 returning students to enter the workforce this May, families have made summer plans, and some seasonal businesses may experience a significant loss if the school year does not finish on time,” says Tyler Charlebois, Director of Advocacy for the College Student Alliance. “I hope for the sake of Ontario, the provincial government takes this situation as seriously as we are and takes action as necessary.”

OPSEU was asking for more teachers, smaller classes, and more faculty time for students. A strike vote was 80.4% in favour of action. Humber had the least support for the strike, with only 67.0%, followed by St. Lawrence with 67.7%. St. Clair, Boréal, Centennial, and Sault all had more than 90% support.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

The World Health Organization (WHO), non-governmental aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have sent experts to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to assist local health authorities with a recent outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in Kasai Occidental province of DRC. The illness had been unidentified until laboratory test results confirmed the presence of the virus.

DRC President Joseph Kabila described the situation as being contained. “The village of Kampungu has been quarantined to prevent population movement towards Kananga,” Kabila said on Thursday. Kananga is the provincial capital. “The situation is at the moment, I cannot say under control, but at least the problem has been contained very well in the area,” he continued. “There is no risk that the whole country will be affected.”

WHO is working closely with officials from the DRC Ministry of Health and MSF to improve local facilities in order to better contain the virus. A mobile field laboratory is to be established in order to provide rapid sample analysis and, subsequently, diagnosis of patients. There are concurrent outbreaks of other diseases, such as dysentery (Shigellosis), that have been complicating diagnoses and need to be identified as well.

Ebola haemorrhagic fever generates mortality rates in the range of 50 to 90 percent, typically. There is currently no vaccine or effective treatment for Ebola. WHO describes the symptoms of Ebola as being “characterized by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is often followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding. Laboratory findings show low counts of white blood cells and platelets as well as elevated liver enzymes.”

MSF, who now have 14 experts in DRC, arranged for eighteen tons of supplies, such as medical and sanitation material, to be delivered to the province of West Kasai. MSF indicated that the transportation of supplies from the airport to the affected areas has been a challenge, due to poor road conditions. It has taken up to three days to travel the 250 km to the outbreak area from the provincial capital city, Kananga.

MSF experts will provide advice on sanitary burial procedures, which would include the use of body bags and spraying. Both the WHO and MSF will disseminate information to the local population regarding the transmission of the virus and measures that could be taken to reduce the spread of the disease.

The MSF emergency team coordinator in Kampungu, Rosa Crestani, described the isolation ward set up at Kampungu’s health centre. “Our isolation centre is basically divided in three parts. One is completely isolated, where the sick patients are; another is where the staff dresses with the complete protection uniform and then undresses after having been in contact with the patients; and the third part is a space for disinfection in between,” said Crestani. “In the coming days, we will decide with the Ministry of Health and the WHO whether we set up isolation structures in other locations of the health zone.”

Neighbouring countries, such as Rwanda and Zambia have issued alerts to their citizens, warning of travel to and from DRC. Zambian Health Minister Brian Chituwo stated that all people coming into Zambia from DRC will be watched for symptoms of Ebola for up to eight hours. Chituwo noted, however that it would be unlikely for an infected person to travel into the country, as the time between onset and death is very rapid and that the symptoms are severe.

There has been a minimum of 395 people affected by haemorrhagic fever, including 160 deaths, in DRC in the past few months. Since arriving in Kampungu in early September, MSF have seen 25 patients admitted with suspected Ebola haemorrhagic fever, of which eight have died.