Week 5 Tianjin explosion

Tianjin explosion: China sets final death toll at 173, ending search for survivors

Saturday 12 September 2015 06.08

Chinese authorities ended the search for the remaining eight missing in a massive chemical warehouse explosion last month, setting the final death toll at 173 in China’s worst industrial disaster in years.

The announcement by the Tianjin city government said there was no hope of finding the eight people and the court would start issuing death certificates.

“After thorough investigations by all parties it is certain that there is no possibility of survivors,” said a statement on Friday night.

The eight include five firefighters, underscoring the explosion’s status as the worst disaster for Chinese first responders, more than 100 of whom were killed, including police officers. Among firefighters a total of 104 were killed.

Investigations into the 12 August blasts at the Ruihai International Logistics warehouses showed they were located closer to homes than permitted, and stored much more hazardous material than authorised, including 700 tonnes of highly toxic sodium cyanide.

A series of massive explosions late at night shattered windows and tore facades off buildings for miles around, while launching debris including heavy steel storage canisters into nearby communities with the force of an artillery shell. Homeowners have held protests demanding the government buy back their apartments, saying they are unliveable.

The disaster has raised questions about corruption and government efficiency, potentially tarnishing the government led by Xi Jinping, who has made those two issues a hallmark of his administration.

Authorities are investigating malfeasance in the issuing of permits and regulation of the company, and have detained 12 of its employees and executives. They include the primary owner, who was on the board of a state-owned company and kept his ownership of Ruihai hidden as a silent partner.

Also detained as part of the investigation are 11 government officials, while the head of the government body in charge of industrial safety, Yang Dongliang, has been placed under investigation for corruption.

Yang had previously worked for 18 years in Tianjin in state industry and local government, rising to executive vice mayor.

Authorities say they have sealed all waterways leading out of the blast zone to curb cyanide contamination as teams in hazmat suits clean up hazardous debris.

According to the Tianjin Environmental Protection Bureau, water samples inside the disaster zone have shown levels of cyanide as high as 20 times above that considered safe. No cyanide has been detected in nearby seawater or areas outside the 1.8-mile (three-kilometre) radius quarantine zone.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/12/tianjin-explosion-china-sets-final-death-toll-at-173-ending-search-for-survivors

Structure of the Lead:

WHO-

 WHEN- August 12, 2015

WHY- Tianjin explosion

WHERE- Chain Tianjin

 HOW-not given

Keywords:

1.

Week 4  New Horizons, Pluto, Earth 2.0, Kepler 452b

Orphaned planet and twin Earths that 'could share life' revealed

By James Griffiths, CNN

December 4, 2015 

(CNN)From a world 11 times more massive than Jupiter to a pair of Earth-like planets that may house life, scientists have revealed a host of fascinating new findings about our galactic neighbors.

Take HD-106906b, or "fat Jupiter" as some observers havetermed it.

A planet far larger than our incredibly massive neighbor which has become partially exiled from its solar system, ending up nearly 16 times farther away from its host star than Pluto is from the sun.

world, before getting booted out to the very edges of the system by a dramatic event in the recent galactic past.

"We think the whole [fat Jupiter] system has recently been disturbed by some violent gravitational interaction, though we're not sure exactly what happened," said Paul Kalas, an adjunct professor of astronomy at the University of California at Berkeley.

"Something recently happened that kicked it out."

A similar event may have occurred in the distant history of our own solar system.

Scientists believe that we once shared our part of the Milky Way with a ninth planet (or tenth, if we're counting Pluto) before Jupiter's huge gravitational pull sent the other planet spinning out into the wastes of intergalactic space.

Extreme solar systems

Kalas was speaking at a press event for the Extreme Solar Systems (ExSS) conference taking place this week in Waikoloa Beach, Hawaii.

The conference, the third of its type since 2007, brings together 350 of the world's leading space scientists to discuss "every aspect of exoplanet research", according to American Astronomical Society Director of Communications Rick Feinberg.

Feinberg pointed out that the conference was being held at special time, the 20th anniversary of the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first planet outside our solar system found orbiting a sun-like star.

"51-Pegasi b is now part of history," Feinberg said.

Though the gassy, tidally-locked and incredibly hot 51-Pegasi b doesn't present much hope for life outside our solar system, other findings presented at the conference are may well do.

Twinned planets sharing life

While Earth is the only planet in our neighborhood that lies in the "Goldilocks zone" -- the area close enough to our star to get enough warmth but not so close it's roasted -- other solar systems may have two or more in the habitable area.

This could actually be an advantage when it comes to developing life, according to the University of Nevada's Jason Steffen and Gongjie Li of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"You're no worse off by having a neighboring planet that's also in the habitable zone," Steffen said at ExSS.

In fact, there may be significant upsides. Steffen and Li found that two inhabitable planets could easily share microbes and other material of life, assisting in the development and evolution of organisms on both worlds.

"Life in a multi-habitable system may have a higher probability of surviving," said Steffen.

Steffen and Li's theory builds on the concept of panspermia, that our own planet may have been "seeded" with life from meteorites, asteroids and other ejecta from far-away worlds.

Last month, scientists announced the discovery of GJ-1132b, "arguably the most important planet ever found outside the solar system", which may support basic forms of life such as bacteria.

Complete coverage on Space and Science

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/04/world/extreme-solar-systems/index.html

Structure of the Lead:

     WHO- Orphaned planet and twin Earths

     WHEN-   December 4, 2015 

     WHAT- the first planet outside our solar system found orbiting a sun-like star

     WHY- solve the plight of the Earth

     WHERE- Outer space

      HOW-not given

Keywords:

1.      exile:流放

2.      gravitational:重力的

3.      interaction;互相影響

4.      adjunct:助手；副手

5.      astronomy:天文學

6.      spin:旋轉；自轉

7.      microbes: 微生物

8.      inhabitable:可居住