Could a teenager save the world's oceans? Student, 19, claims his invention could clean up the seas in just five years
A Dutch teenager has invented a device that he claims could clean up some 20 billion tonnes of plastic waste from the world's oceans.
Boyan Slat, 19, came up with the idea of a series of floating booms and processing platforms designed to collect floating plastic rubbish.
The 'ocean cleanup' concept is designed to capture the floating plastic but allow life like fish and plankton to pass through unharmed, while saving the waste materials to be recycled.
Boyan Slat, 19, came up with the idea of a series of floating booms and processing platforms (pictured) designed to collect floating plastic rubbish

The 'ocean cleanup' concept is designed to capture the floating plastic but allow life like plankton to pass through unharmed, while saving the waste materials to be recycled. The design is self-sufficient and saves energy by being tethered to the sea bed (pictured)
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The Ocean Cleanup Array is an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms will span the radius of a gyre.
The booms act as giant funnels where the angle of the booms effectively 'suck' rubbish in.
The debris enters the platforms, where it will be filtered out of the water and eventually stored in containers until collected for recycling on land.
One of the most significant advantages of using booms instead of nets is that marine life cannot be caught in them.
Furthermore, because the transport of plastic along the booms is driven by the currents, it’s slow enough for organisms to escape.
The engineering student believes that once operational, his device could dramatically reduce the amount of rubbish in the oceans in just five years time.
Millions of tonnes of plastic debris are littering oceans and have accumulated in areas of high concentration called gyres - which are essentially floating rubbish tips.

This litter directly kills millions of aquatic animals annually but also spreads and introduces harmful algae and invasive species as well as man-made pollutants into the food chain, costing governments and organisations millions of dollars to clean up every year, according to Mr Slat.

Mr Slat believes his invention could make up to $500 million a year from recycling the waste collected (pictured) making it a potentially profitable clean-up solution

While he believes humans must end their reliance on disposable plastic items and manage waste responsibly, his innovation could make a big difference to the cleanliness of oceans in the shorter-term.
He proposes fixing sea water processors to the sea bed, which are also attached to the floating platform so that the water can move through them and generate energy.
His concept also includes using floating booms instead of nets to cover vast areas of water effectively, while no mesh and a very low speed, means there will be 'virtually no by-catch' and unfortunate animals getting tangled in nets that are meant to help conserve their habitat.

His concept uses floating booms (pictured) instead of nets to cover wast areas effectively, while no mesh and a very low speed, means there will be 'virtually no by-catch' and unfortunate animals getting tangled in nets

The litter in the oceans directly kills millions of aquatic animals annually (like this bird with a stomach-full of plastic) but also spreads and introduces harmful algae and invasive species as well as man made pollutants into the food chain
Writing on his website, Mr Slat said: 'Although this hypothesis still has to be tested, even the planktonic species - due to their density being close to that of the sea water - may move under the booms along with the water flow.'
In a bid to solve problems of conventional clean-up measures, including rubbish escaping, emissions and high costs, he said his contraptions are 'completely self-supportive' and get their energy from the sun and waves.
'By letting the platforms' wings sway like an actual manta ray, we can ensure contacts of the inlets with the surface, even in the roughest weather,' he said.

Millions of tonnes of plastic debris are littering oceans and have accumulated in areas of high concentration called gyres (pictured by the circles of arrows) which are essentially floating rubbish tips

While Mr Slat (pictured) is now a student at the Delft University of Technology, he came up with the idea while he as at school to win a number of prizes

As well as solving an environmental problem, Mr Slat also believes his invention could make up to $500 million a year from recycling the waste collected.
He said: 'This concept is so efficient, that we estimate that by selling the plastic retrieved from the 5 gyres, we would make in fact more money than the plan would cost to execute. In other words; it may potentially be profitable.'
Mr Slat believes that many people need reminding about the environmental disaster affecting the Earth's oceans.
He said: 'One of the problems with preventive work is that there isn’t any imagery of these ‘garbage patches’ because the debris is dispersed over millions of square kilometres.'
'By placing our arrays however, it will accumulate along the booms, making it suddenly possible to actually visualise the oceanic garbage patches. We need to stress the importance of recycling, and reducing our consumption of plastic packaging,' VR-zone reported.
While Mr Slat is now a student at the Delft University of Technology, he came up with the idea while he as at school to win a number of prizes and the respect.
source:Odunlade.blogspot.com/2013/09/could-teenager-save-worlds-oceans.html

t may be the hot dance craze of the moment, but one hapless young twerker appears to take things a little too far when she literally sets herself on fire in the middle of a raunchy routine.
YouTube footage shows the unfortunate girl attempting to show off her twerking skills next to a coffee table, upon which are four burning candles and a bottle of tequila.
At first it appears to be going well as she gyrates to the music wiggling her bottom while leaning onto the apartment door.  Wind your waist: The girl launches into her twerking routine next to four burning candles after apparently knocking back shots of tequila Accident waiting to happen: She goes into a handstand while continue to wiggle away But when she takes it to the next level by performing a handstand things take a disastrous turn. Her roommate opens the door sending her crashing onto the coffee table.

 
Her tight polyester leggings immediately burst into flames and she jumps onto the couch screaming for help while her roommate stands in the background panicking.
The video, believed to have been filmed in the U.S., cuts off at this point so it is unclear whether she was injured. There is also a suggestion the video could have been staged.   Rude interruption: The apartment door opens and the girl begins to topple backwards
Hitting the deck: The unfortunate twerker lands on top of the candles and tequila while her roommate panics in the background  Hot stuff: The girl's legging catch fire and she springs to her feet


Twerking started in the New Orleans 'bounce' music scene of the early 90s, but has hit the headlines in 2013 after being taken up by a raft of celebrities.
It had its most main-stream appearance to date with former clean cut child star Miley Cyrus gyrating around singer Robin Thicke at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this month.

A YouTube a search for 'twerking' brings up more than 3.8 million results with everything from pregnant women and dogs to babies and the elderly and it has even been honored with an official entry in the Oxford Dictionaries Online. Leave it to the professionals: Singer Miley Cyrus shows how it should be done at the MTV Music Awards.
sourceOdunlade.blogspot.com/2013/09/girl-sets-herself-on-fire-after.html

A woman has been stopped by police for aparently Bosom feeding her baby while riding a moped. The young mother was allegedly driving through the streets of Yuzhou, China when she was pulled over.
Officers said she was weaving through traffic while holding her 18-month-old son on her lap as he Bosom fed, and they pulled her over before she had an accident A woman has been stopped by police for Bosom feeding her baby while weaving her moped through the streets of a town in the Hunan province, China Witnesses have claimed they saw the mother begin to Bosom feed the child while keeping a hand on the handlebars.

Breitbart reports that police were concerned she was risking her life, her son's life and the lives of all the other road users.
They added that if she carried on they would take her bike away.
In June 2008, Catherine Donkers, 29, was accused of child endangerment for trying to Bosom feed her daughter while driving from Detroit to Pittsburgh. She was also apparently driving without a licence.  The young mother was allegedly driving through the streets of Yuzhou, China, in Hunan Province (pictured) when she was pulled over In her defence she said using a mobile phone caused far more distraction than 'nursing a child' while driving.

And in 2009 a  drunken mother was Bosom -feeding her five-month-old baby at the wheel when she almost crashed into a police car.
The teenager was so drunk she could not provide a roadside breath test and was arrested at the scene in the Australian town of Alice Springs.
sourceOdunlade.blogspot.com/2013/09/mother-arrested-in-china-for.html

Ariel Castro, the Cleveland kidnapper who held three women against their will for a decade, is dead after hanging himself in his prison cell Tuesday night.
Castro, 53, was found about 9.20pm at Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio. He had served only one month of his prison term, which sent him away for life, plus 1,000 years.
Castro was being housed alone in an isolation unit for his protection, prison officials said.
Prison regulations dictate that guards had to check on him every 30 minutes. Officials say he hanged himself during a break between inspections.
Dead: Ariel Castro hanged himself in his prison cell just one month after being sentenced to serve the rest of his life in prison
 Lonely death: This is an isolation cell at Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, like the one where Castro hanged himself Tuesday

Castro made international headlines when Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were freed from his Cleveland house after ten years of captivity under unimaginable conditions. 
 
When prison guards found Castro hanging in his cell Tuesday, they immediately began trying to resuscitate him.
He was taken to Ohio State University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead about an hour and a half later - shortly before 11pm.
It costs nearly $25,000 a year to house a prison inmate in Ohio, on average. The cost to house Castro, who was kept in high security, would likely have been much higher.
Castro's family - he has a son and three daughters by his ex-wife - was informed of his suicide about 1am.
A spokeswoman for the the Ohio Department of Corrections said the agency will make a full investigation of Castro's suicide to determine whether regulations were followed and if anything could have been done to prevent his death.
Castro's attorneys tried unsuccessfully to have a psychological examination of Castro done at the Cuyahoga County Jail, where Castro was housed before he was turned over to state authorities following his conviction, his attorney, Jaye Schlachet, said Wednesday morning.
Freed: Amanda Berry, left, Gina DeJesus, center, and Michelle Knight, right, have all spoken out about recovering from their horrific ordeal being kidnapped, raped and tortured by Castro

 This is the last photo taken of Ariel Castro after he was sentenced to spent the rest of his life in prison

WOIO-TV, which broke the news of Castro's death, reports that guards checked on him every 10 minutes while he was being held in the Cuyahoga County jail awaiting trial.
He had written about killing himself in a self-piteous suicide note he wrote in 2004. The FBI found the note when they searched his home after his captives were freed.
House of horrors: This is the four-bedroom home where Castro kept his victims for a decade - unbeknownst to his family or his neighbors
In an interview last month after Castro's conviction, Schlachet and attorney Craig Weintraub said their client clearly fit the profile of sociopathic disorder and that they hoped researchers would study him for clues that could be used to stop other predators.
The former school bus driver was sentenced on life in prison, plus 1,000 years after he pleaded guilty to 937 counts of kidnapping, rape and battery.
Castro claimed that he was 'sick' but 'not a monster' and blamed his barbaric treatment of the three young women to an addiction to pornography and abuse he sustained as a child.
'I do want to let you know there was harmony in that home. I was a good person,' the delusional Castro told a court before he was sent away.
He admitted that he kidnapped Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus off the streets of Cleveland and kept them chained and bound in his house of horrors for up to 11 years.
Knight, who was his first victim - taken off the street in 2002, was in the courtroom at the time of his sentencing. She offered a stinging rebuke of her tormentor.
'I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all that happened, but you will face hell for eternity,' she said.
sourceOdunlade.blogspot.com/2013/09/cleveland-kidnapper-ariel-castro-dead.html

This time, neither storm, jellyfish, nausea nor utter fatigue could keep 64-year-old endurance swimmer Diana Nyad from achieving her lifelong ambition of conquering the Straits of Florida.
Nyad on Monday became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, willing her way to a Key West beach just before 2 p.m. ET., nearly 53 hours after jumping into the ocean in Havana for her fifth try in 35 years.

Nyad pumped her fist as she walked onto the beach toward an awaiting medic before being guided to an ambulance.
Dozens of onlookers -- some in kayaks and boats, many others wading in the water or standing on shore -- gathered to cheer her on as she finished the more-than-100-mile swim.
Diana Nyad to try again
It was a long-awaited triumph for Nyad, who was making her fifth attempt since 1978 and her fourth since turning 60.
The first four tries were marked by gut-wrenching setbacks -- if the rough, strength-sapping seas didn't force her to quit, an hours-long asthma attack, or paralyzing and excruciating jellyfish stings did.
But for this swim, besides donning a suit meant to protect her against her jellyfish nemesis, she wore a special mask to prevent jellyfish stings to her tongue -- a key factor in her failed attempt last year.
She and her support team didn't encounter many jellyfish this time. But she had plenty of other challenges, and early Monday the fatigue was showing.
Around 7:30 a.m. ET Monday, she was slurring her speech because of a swollen tongue and lips, her support team reported on its website.
As the team called her around dawn for her first feeding since midnight, she took longer than normal to reach the support boat, the report said.
Though she slurred her speech, the words were understandable. Before resuming her swim-crawl to Key West, her team applied a "sting stopper" substance to her forehead and cheeks in the hopes of warding off jellyfish stings.
"Don't get it on my nose or eyes," she said, according to her website.
Divers swam ahead of her, collecting jellyfish and moving them out of Nyad's path.
When instructed Monday morning to follow the path that's been cleared for her, she flashed her sense of humor, replying: "I've never been able to follow it in my life," according to the website.
Nyad's home stretch followed an overnight in which she became so cold, the team didn't stop her for feeding until first light "in the hopes that swimming would keep her warm," the website said.
Every stroke she swam put her deeper into record territory. On Sunday night she broke Penny Palfrey's record for the farthest anyone has managed on the trek without a shark cage.
In 1997, Australian Susie Maroney completed the swim from within a shark cage. She was 22 at the time.
Nyad set out from Havana at 8:59 a.m. Saturday with a crew of 35, including divers to watch for sharks.
Nyad's first attempt to cross the Straits of Florida was in 1978, when rough seas left her battered, delirious and less than halfway toward her goal.
She tried again twice in 2011, but her efforts ended after an 11-hour asthma attack and jellyfish stings.
Last year, she abandoned an attempt about halfway through after severe jellyfish stings and a lightning storm put her in danger.
In the 1970s, she won multiple swimming marathons and was one of the first women to swim around the island of Manhattan.
Nyad said she was 8 years old when she first dreamed about swimming across the Straits of Florida. At the time, she was in Cuba on a trip from her home in Florida in the 1950s, before Fidel Castro led a Communist takeover in Cuba and the country's relations with the United States soured.
The Los Angeles woman has said this is her final attempt. She said on her website that she wants to prove "it's never too late to chase your dream."
sourceOdunlade.blogspot.com/2013/09/diana-nyad-completes-historic-cuba-to.html

(CNN) -- An Ohio man intended to save the life of his older sister by donating a kidney to her -- a sacrifice on his part that ended in vain a year ago when a nurse mistakenly threw away the donated organ.

Paul Fudacz Jr. and his sister, Sarah, say the University of Toledo Medical Center "utterly botched" their kidney transplant surgery.

The medical center this week said it has "worked hard to learn from this incident" and apologized to the family.

But on Tuesday it asked that a lawsuit be dismissed and denied claims of gross negligence and failure to meet accepted standards of care.

The civil complaint contends Paul Fudacz's right kidney was considered a "perfect match" for his sister, then 24, who reportedly suffered from end-stage renal disease.

During the brother's surgery on August 10, 2012, his kidney was placed in a "slush machine" until it could be moved to his sister's room, where she'd yet to undergo her surgery.

A nurse, who was cleaning up, had just returned from a lunch break and thought the kidney was already in Sarah's room when she discarded the machine's contents, according to the lawsuit. While the kidney was later recovered, it couldn't be used because it had been thrown away with other infected or unsterile medical waste, the Fudacz family alleges.

Sarah Fudacz required additional dialysis and four dialysis-related surgeries before she received a replacement kidney three months later, the lawsuit states.

"When compared to Paul Jr.'s kidney, Sarah's new kidney is a poorer match and of poorer quality," and she has a higher risk of rejecting it over time, the lawsuit claims.

The pair's parents also claimed they suffered emotional distress and a "loss of consortium," or loss of family relationships.

But the Ohio attorney general contends parents of adult children and siblings cannot make such a claim about loss of consortium in such a case.

Each of eight Fudacz family members -- including four other siblings -- are seeking in excess of $25,000.

Dr. Jeffrey Gold, chancellor and executive vice president for health affairs, University of Toledo Medical Center, said the university "continues to express the sorrow that we feel that this unfortunate incident occurred. We apologize sincerely."

"While the legal realities of this situation are complex and ongoing, we have worked hard to learn from this incident and have spread the lessons widely to try to make hospitals and transplant programs safer across the country."

In the wake of the incident, the hospital temporarily suspended its live kidney donor program. It has since resumed operations.

The nurse involved in the incident retired from the hospital. The surgeon in charge of the planned transplant no longer directs the kidney transplant program but continues to perform them and remains a professor, the University of Toledo Medical Center said.
sourceOdunlade.blogspot.com/2013/09/ohio-family-hospital-botched-transplant.html

 Pregnant mothers who regularly attend swimming classes may be increasing the risk of their child developing an allergic condition.
Scientists believe that commonly-found airborne chemicals, such as chlorine from pools and compounds found in cleaning products could be behind the five-fold increase in inherited allergies during the past 50 years.
Exposure to these chemicals may be altering an unborn child’s immune system, leaving them more sensitive to conditions such as eczema, asthma and hay fever.
Allergy risk? Scientists believe swimming while pregnant may expose unborn babies to chemicals which change their immune systems
The warning comes from a report in the British Journal of Dermatology that looks at the growing prevalence of these ‘atopic allergies’.
One theory, known as the ‘hygiene hypothesis’, is that an excessively clean lifestyle has resulted in a generation of children developing immune systems unfamiliar with many germs.
 
As a result, when they are later exposed to new irritants their body is more likely to have an allergic reaction.
However, experts from the St John’s Institute of Dermatology in London and the University of Manchester are investigating whether exposure to everyday airborne chemicals ‘during critical windows of pregnancy/early-life development’ have also contributed to the rise.
‘High-level exposure to volatile organic compounds in the domestic environment either during maternal pregnancy or in early life, is associated with development of childhood atopic disease,’ says the report.
On the rise: Asthma affects one in 11 children in the UK, and one in 12 adults (posed by model)

‘Similarly, sustained exposure to airborne chlorinated chemicals from swimming pools during childhood has been associated with the development of atopic allergy.’
Dr John McFadden, consultant dermatologist at St John’s Institute, said further investigation was needed.
‘We in the science world are still struggling to find the exact cause of this rise,’ he said. ‘We have not proved anything, we are not saying this is the cause, this is a hypothesis, but we do know we are using far more chemicals than we did 50 years ago, whether it is in personal care products or processed food.’
Dr McFadden said the  findings should not change  the advice currently given  to soon-to-be mothers, but  the link required further study.
‘It is conceivable, but not proven, that persistent low-dose exposure to chemicals can have some effect on the immune system,’ he said.
Expectant women are encouraged to continue exercising during pregnancy, and swimming is recommended by the NHS as water helps support their additional weight.
Elizabeth Salter Green, director of CHEM Trust, which campaigns against the overuse of manmade chemicals, said: ‘It is well known that the foetus developing in-utero is extremely vulnerable to chemical exposures.
‘Simply put, in-utero growth, including neurological wiring of the brain and the development of the immune system, rely on chemical messengers – hormones – being at the right level at the right moment of development.
‘Therefore the theory that our increasing exposure to worrying chemicals is [affecting] those natural chemical messengers, leading to alteration of immune response and development of atopic allergies, via cleaning products, personal care products and volatile chlorinated chemicals in swimming pools, is highly plausible.’
The research is the latest to blame chemicals found in everyday products such as washing-up liquid and shower gel for a surge in allergic reactions.
sourceOdunlade.blogspot.com/2013/09/mothers-who-swim-during-pregnancy.html