Thursday, July 7, 2005

A Florida man is being charged with 3rd degree felony for logging into a private Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) Internet access point without permission. Benjamin Smith III, 41, is set for a pre-trial hearing this month in the first case of its kind in the United States.

This kind of activity occurs frequently, but often goes undetected by the owners of these wireless access points (WAPs). Unauthorized users range from casual Web browsers, to users sending e-mails, to users involved in pornography or even illegal endeavours.

According to Richard Dinon, owner of the WAP Smith allegedly broke into, Smith was using a laptop in an automobile while parked outside Dinon’s residence.

There are many steps an owner of one of these access points can take to secure them from outside users. Dinon reportedly knew how to take these steps, but had not bothered because his “neighbors are older.”

Thursday, January 13, 2005

The following stories made international headlines Thurssday:

One of the two NASA’s rovers roaming on planet Mars for over a year has stumbled upon a rock unlike any other previously seen: according to the machine’s instruments, the rock may be made out of metal. Scientists on the project suspect that the object is a meteorite, and are continuing to examine it with the rover’s other analysis and imaging tools.

Sources: MSNBC

Britain’s Prince Harry was photographed wearing a Nazi uniform, complete with swastika armband, while puffing on a cigarette at a costume party. The picture made the front page of London’s The Sun newspaper. The Prince’s father, Prince Charles, ordered Harry to visit Auschwitz to learn more about the Holocaust.

Sources: BBC News, Reuters

With two new cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy confirmed over the past two weeks, Canada’s beef industry is reeling.

Source: Toronto Star

The White House admits that its two-year search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has ended. U.S. investigators came up empty handed in their search for WMDs, a main reason cited by the administration for the invasion of the Middle East country.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Friday, March 23, 2007

In a press release earlier today, New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker, along with Dean of Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine Donald F. Smith, confirmed that scientists at the New York State Food Laboratory identified Aminopterin as a toxin present in cat food samples from Menu Foods.

Menu Foods is the manufacturer of several brands of cat and dog food subject to a March 16, 2007 recall.

Aminopterin is a drug used in chemotherapy for its immunosuppressive properties and, in some areas outside the US, as a rat poison. Earlier reports stated that wheat gluten was a factor being investigated, and officials now state that the toxin would have come from Chinese wheat used in the pet food, where it is used for pest control. Investigators will not say that this is the only contaminant found in the recalled food, but knowing the identity of the toxin should assist veterinarians treating affected animals.

The Food Laboratory tested samples of cat food received from a toxicologist at the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University. The samples were found to contain the rodenticide at levels of at least 40 parts per million.

Commissioner Hooker stated, “We are pleased that the expertise of our New York State Food Laboratory was able to contribute to identifying the agent that caused numerous illnesses and deaths in dogs and cats across the nation.”

The press release suggests Aminopterin, a derivative of folic acid, can cause cancer and birth defects in humans and can cause kidney damage in dogs and cats. Aminopterin is not permitted for use in the United States.

The New York State Food Laboratory is part of the Federal Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) and as such, is capable of running a number of unique poison/toxin tests on food, including the test that identified Aminopterin.

Friday, September 26, 2008

On October 14, 2008, Canadians will be heading to the polls for the federal election. New Democratic Party candidate Michael McMahon is standing for election in the riding of Prince Edward—Hastings. McMahon moved to Windsor in 1951, getting a degree in education, teaching locally and in Papua New Guinea. He served as Branch President of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), served on multiple of their major committees, and recently retired from the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board.

Wikinews contacted Michael McMahon, to talk about the issues facing Canadians, and what they and their party would do to address them. Wikinews is in the process of contacting every candidate, in every riding across the country, no matter their political stripe. All interviews are conducted over e-mail, and interviews are published unedited, allowing candidates to impart their full message to our readers, uninterrupted.

Since being redefined in 2003, the riding includes the County of Prince Edward and the County of Hastings (except the City of Quinte West). Conservative Party member Daryl Kramp currently represents the riding, after beating a Liberal in 2004. Ken Cole of the Liberals and Alan Coxwell of the Greens are also running in the riding.

For more information, visit the campaign’s official website, listed below.

Featured articles are selected by the community to represent the best of Wikinews. See the Featured Article Candidates page for nominations and discussions of candidate articles for this page. Or, subscribe to the RSS feed!

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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Research teams from the universities of Georgia and Glasgow discovered the mechanism the Trypanosome parasite evolved for “sleeping sickness” disease to circumvent the human immune system. Their study follows a recent African outbreak of the disease this parasite causes. The discovery is expected to help develop a cure preventing future deaths.

The 1998–2001 sleeping sickness epidemics in South Sudan, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda caused tens of thousands of deaths. The parasites are spread by tsetse flies. It is considered one of the worst epidemics in the last five decades. As WHO reported, subsequent recent introduction of population screening in rural areas and distribution of more effective drugs had potentially reduced the number of death incidents. However, the main effect of these measures being a decrease in spreading of the parasite and not in decrease of the death rate, the researchers decided to tackle the puzzle.

The scientists studied the molecules the human immune system activates in response to the attack. They were looking for the way the parasites inhibit it and lead to the death of the victim. Of the several known parasite species, the two that can infect humans were chosen to study, called Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and Trypanosoma brucei rhodensiense. Several others also exist, but they affect only animals.

Researchers knew that the Trypanosoma attacks typically are repelled by an HDL, more specifically trypanosome lytic factor-1 (TLF-1). It is generated in the humans’ immune system and is toxic to the parasites but not to humans. It was known that one of the parasites, T. b. rhodensiense, has evolved an inhibitor of the toxic chemical, called Serum Resistance Associated (SRA) protein. However the other one, T. b. gambiense, was responsible for over 95% of human deaths, and it had been previously unknown why.

The study showed that a gene mutation has lead to a change in the parasite’s surface protein receptor. It doesn’t bind to TLF-1 as well as for other species, leading to a substantial decrease in TLF-1 uptake by the parasite. The receptor is more strict, causing a lower nutrient intake as well, but it suffices, and the parasite defends against the human immune system.

As professor and head of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at UGA (and one of the leaders of the research) Stephen Hajduk explained, “Humans have evolved TLF-1 as a highly specific toxin against African trypanosomes by tricking the parasite into taking up this HDL because it resembles a nutrient the parasite needs for survival. But T. b. gambiense has evolved a counter measure to these human ‘Trojan horses’ simply by barring the door and not allowing TLF-1 to enter the cell, effectively blocking human innate immunity and leading to infection and ultimately disease.”

Based on the results of the research, humans could possibly develop a defense mechanism to keep the parasites from evading the human defense system. Stephen Hajduk commented, “We believe this research represents a paradigm shift and causes us to think more broadly about how pathogens avoid host defense mechanisms. It turns out that African trypanosomes have evolved a diversity of ways to avoid human innate and acquired immune systems.”

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Nine people have died in a fiery tourist bus crash in Egypt on Thursday. The bus was carrying 40 North American and European passengers when it crashed in the Sinai peninsula.

The bus left the road when it skidded off a tight bend and struck a concrete barrier, rolling over and catching fire. The bus ended the roll back the right way up and was completely destroyed by the fire. One wheel lay twelve metres from the main wreckage and skid marks were left on the road. The coach had been travelling from a resort at nearby Sharm el-Sheikh to the capital Cairo when it crashed at Abu Zenima, with some reports suggesting the cause was a blowout on a tyre.

According to the Egyptian security official eight Russian nationals were killed, as was one of two drivers on board, both of whom were Egyptian. This was contradicted by Russian state owned service RIA Novosti, which stated just two Russians were among the dead. The Russian foreign ministry only said 16 Russians were injured and none killed, also contradicting the Egyptian security official who said only 14 people were injured in total. The Ukrainian foreign ministry said a Ukrainian woman had been killed and the Romanian foreign ministry said a 41-year-old Romanian woman was amongst the dead. The driver behind the wheel at the time survived the accident.

The crash occurred at 6:00 am (0300 GMT) about 70km (45 miles) from Suez, and many of the injured were rushed to hospital there. Traffic officials, security personnel, civil defence soldiers and ambulances all responded to the crash. In addition, the Azure Travel coach, like all Egyptian tour buses, had at least one armed police officer travelling on board.

Other injured passengers were taken to Sharm. Two Canadians and two British citizens are reported to be amongst the injured. The Brits are in a serious condition and one Canadian woman had her hand amputated. At least one person died in hospital. It is also reported that Italians were injured in the crash.

Road accidents claim around 6,000 lives and injure 30,000 every year in Egypt. This high accident rate is fed by poor maintenance and regulatory enforcement and reckless driving, with many roads allowing high rates of speed to be achieved. A fog-triggered pile-up killed 29 in February, and 23 died in March in a head-on collision between two lorries.