Texas plant had history of thefts, tampering

By Selam Gebrekidan and Joshua Schneyer

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Texas fertilizer plant that exploded two weeks ago, killing 14 people and injuring about 200, was a repeat target of theft by intruders who tampered with tanks and caused the release of toxic chemicals, police records reviewed by Reuters show.

Police responded to at least 11 reports of burglaries and five separate ammonia leaks at West Fertilizer Co over the past 12 years, according to 911 dispatch logs and criminal offense reports Reuters obtained from the McLennan County Sheriff's office in Waco, Texas through an Open Records Request.

Some of the leaks, including one reported in October 2012, were linked to theft or interference with tank valves.

According to one 2002 crime report, a plant manager told police that intruders were stealing four to five gallons of anhydrous ammonia every three days. The liquid gas can be used to cook methamphetamine, the addictive and illicit stimulant.

In rural areas across the United States, the thriving meth trade has turned storage facilities like West Fertilizer Co and even unattended tanks in farm fields into frequent targets of theft, according to several government and fertilizer industry reports issued over the past 13 years.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama bow their heads behind a photo of volunteer firefighter Capt. Cyrus Adam Reed, who was killed, as they attend the memorial for victims of the ... more? President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama bow their heads behind a photo of volunteer firefighter Capt. Cyrus Adam Reed, who was killed, as they attend the memorial for victims of the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, Thursday, April 25, 2013, at Baylor University in Waco,Texas. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) less? ?

The cause of the April 17 blast at the plant in the town of West is still being probed, and investigators have offered no evidence that security breaches contributed to the deadly incident. There also is no indication that the explosion had anything to do with the theft of materials for drug making. Anhydrous ammonia has been ruled out as a cause because the four storage tanks remained intact after the blast, said Rachel Moreno, a spokeswoman for the Texas Fire Marshal's Office.

MANY LEADS

Investigators are pursuing about 100 leads, including a call to an arson hotline and a tip that there had been a fire on the property earlier on the day of the explosion, according to Moreno. Authorities have not said whether either tip was credible. About 80 investigators from various state and federal agencies are contributing to the probe. They hope to determine by May 10 what caused the explosion, Texas Fire Marshal Chris Connealy said at a state legislative hearing on Wednesday.

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), one of several state and federal agencies that monitor security at chemical plants, declined to answer questions about the breaches of security at West Fertilizer Co. State investigators also declined to comment.

Thefts of anhydrous ammonia are common in McLennan County, where burglars siphon fertilizer from trailer tanks into five-gallon propane containers, said McLennan County Chief Deputy Sheriff Matt Cawthon, who took up the position in January.

After reviewing crime reports from the past 12 years and speaking to deputies who responded to some of the break-ins, Cawthon said security was clearly lax at the plant.

The perimeter was not fenced, and the facility had no burglar alarms or security guards, he said. "It was a hometown-like situation. Everybody trusts everybody."

Chemical safety experts said the recurrent security breaches at West Fertilizer are troubling because they suggest vulnerability to theft, leaks, fires or explosions. Apart from anhydrous ammonia, the company stored tons of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used in bomb-making. No thefts of that substance were reported to police.

"Regardless of what triggered this specific event, the fact that there were lots of burglaries and that they were after ammonia clearly shows this plant was vulnerable to unwanted intruders or even a terrorist attack," said Sam Mannan, a chemical process safety expert at Texas A&M University, who has advised Dow Chemical and others on chemical security.

NEW LAW

Owners of West Fertilizer, responding through a representative, declined to answer questions about specific instances of theft or the level of security at the plant. The company has encouraged its employees to share "all they know" with investigators, said Daniel Keeney, a spokesman for the company.

The current owners of West Fertilizer are Donald Adair, 83, and Wanda Adair, 78, who bought it in 2004. Calls to a number listed for previous owner Emil Plasek were not returned.

In a 2006 permit application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the company reported it would protect ammonia tanks against theft or tampering and conduct daily equipment inspections. A TCEQ spokesman would not comment about security measures. He said the agency's responsibility is to regulate emissions from the plant, not to oversee security.

Documents from the Texas Department of State Health Services show the West plant was storing 540,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia in 2012. Ammonium nitrate was among the ingredients in the bomb used by Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people.

After that bombing, Congress passed a law requiring facilities that store large amounts of the chemical to report to the DHS and work with the agency to ensure proper security measures are in place to keep it out of criminal hands and protect against such attacks.

West Fertilizer did not report to DHS, despite storing hundreds of times more ammonium nitrate than the amount that would require it do so. Companies are required to report if they store at least 2,000 pounds of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate, or 400 pounds of the substance when it's combined with combustible material.

A 2005 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study identified hundreds of cases in 16 states where anhydrous ammonia was stolen for use in meth production. Some illegal labs mix anhydrous ammonia with ephedrine or pseudoephedrine and sodium or lithium to make methamphetamine, the U.S. Department of Justice reported in 2001.

In dozens of instances, the CDC said, the thefts by meth makers siphoning ammonia from tanks caused injuries or forced evacuations because gas was released into the environment. However, cases of ammonia theft have become less frequent since 2006, when new laws restricted the sale of pseudoephedrine, which is found in some common cold drug remedies, according to The Fertilizer Institute, an industry association.

Police records show West Fertilizer began complaining of repeated thefts from the facility in June 2001, when burglars stole 150 pounds of anhydrous ammonia from storage tanks three nights in a row. Nearly a year later, a plant manager told police that thieves were siphoning four-to-five gallons of the liquefied fertilizer every three days.

Randy Plemons, who was chief deputy sheriff during the years when the thefts occurred, declined to discuss specifics of his agency's response to the repeated break-ins.

"Whenever we were notified of the burglaries and thefts we responded to those," he said. "I can't speak to every offense."

Company owners downplayed security risks in documents submitted to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in 2006, saying thefts had dropped to zero over the preceding 20 months as meth makers now had found a substitute for anhydrous ammonia available at garden nurseries or major retailers.

VERY STRONG ODOR

Yet burglars and trespassers continued to target the facility. Following a series of break-ins in late 2008 and early 2009, including one where a trespasser visited pornographic websites on a secretary's computer, police told plant manager Ted Uptmore - who has worked at the company for decades -- to install a surveillance system. Later documents show the company complied. Uptmore did not respond to phone calls seeking comment for this story.

The last record of tampering was in October 2012, when a 911 caller reported an odor "so strong it can burn your eyes." The firm dispatched Cody Dragoo, an employee often sent after hours to shut leaking valves and look into break-ins. That night, he shut off the valve but reported it had been tampered with.

Two weeks ago, Dragoo, 50, was among those killed in the blast while responding to the fire.

(Editing by Janet Roberts, Martin Howell and Leslie Gevirtz)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-texas-fertilizer-plant-history-theft-tampering-050245710.html

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News from the Front in War on Cancer--Mission Not Accomplished

Janet Rowley noticed something odd about the glowing chromosomes revealed by her microscope. It was the early 1970s, the first years of the so-called "war on cancer," and she was using a new staining technique to examine cells from patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a cancer of the blood that was almost always fatal. The technique highlighted bands within the chromosomes, and she could see an extra piece on the end of chromosome 9. That fragment was nearly the same size as a "missing" chunk of chromosome 22 that other researchers had detected a decade earlier. To Rowley, it looked as if the tips of these two chromosomes had swapped places, or translocated. During the next few years she found two other cases of chromosomal translocation in different forms of leukemia. The finds forever changed the way scientists thought about cancer. Shuffled chromosomes in leukemia established that broken, scrambled and messed-up genes cause cancer. The genetic code details when cells should grow, divide and eventually die. Cancer is a disease of misinformation?cells ignore the rules, growing despite multiple molecular signals telling them to stop and invading other tissues because they no longer respond to biological messages to stay put or even destroy themselves. In the past four decades scientists have identified thousands of genetic mistakes that either cause cancer or boost the risk of developing it. The effects of these typos are sometimes dramatic?the gene variants BRCA1 and BRCA2 can boost women's lifetime risk of developing breast cancer from 12 percent to 60 percent. Some errors are found only in cancer cells themselves; other changes can be passed from generation to generation. The latter are the mistakes that may be passed down and boost the risk of developing cancer?this is the inherited genetic risk, or the reason that people with a familial history of a disease may want to get tested earlier or more often. As researchers uncover more genetic mistakes and delve deeper into the human genome, it may be possible to pin down the exact probabilities conferred by inherited genetic risk. If clinicians could scan a healthy person's genes for variations that explain their probability of developing cancer, perhaps they could prevent or catch the disease before it became a problem: Spit into this vial and the doctor will tell you what will ail you in 20 years. Despite the plummeting cost of DNA sequencing technology, much of the information is a jumble of alphabet soup. Science can figure out what gene variants and markers a person has, but they can't tell exactly what it means for his or her health. It will take researchers years to untangle the genetics of cancer. Even large steps, heralded as a major advances, answer few questions and pose many more. This spring, a massive international collaboration doubled the number of known genetic regions associated with the risk of breast, prostate or ovarian cancers. The genetic markers are signpost that researchers can follow to better understand the biology of these cancers. Only a few of the 74 newly identified markers are shared by more than one type of cancer, underscoring cancer's complexity. Yet exactly how the findings can inform public health recommendations remains to be discovered. Each marker is associated with small modifications of risk, but the effects add up. The findings could lead to more accurate cancer screening and hint at ways cancers could be caught before the disease becomes aggressive. Only further study, however, will show where to draw the lines between risk percentages that tell patients "not to worry" or "get tested now." Reams of data
The impressive number of hits in the new work stems from the size of the research effort: 160 institutions around the world analyzed a pool of more than 200,000 individuals' genetic sequences. The international project is called the Collaborative Oncological Gene-environment Study (COGS). To find the dozens of new cancer risk regions, researchers combed the pooled genetic information for variations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP is change in a single letter of the DNA code, likely introduced as a "typo" during gene replication. If such a change happens within a gene, it can affect the structure of proteins. If it falls within a stretch of DNA that regulates genes, it can affect the amount of protein a cell produces. The COGS researchers put 211,000 SNPs of interest, which were previously identified in other studies, on a custom-made DNA array that looks a bit like a computer chip. Then they used the chip to scan the pooled genetic information to look for differences between people who had cancer and those who did not. If a particular SNP popped up more often in the group of people who had cancer, that SNP could be linked to increased risk for that cancer. Most of the SNPs the cancer teams identified are specific to one of the three cancers, but 17 are shared risk factors for all three. The new SNPs, combined with 75 previously known markers, explain a proportion of inherited genetic risk for these cancers: 28 percent for breast, 4 percent for ovarian and 30 percent for prostate cancer. The research was published as a collection of 13 papers in April in Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, PLoS Genetics, The American Journal of Human Genetics, and Human Molecular Genetics (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group). Comparing genomes to uncover SNPs of interest is one way that researchers dig down to find the genetic basis of complex diseases. "We get little bits that we put together," says Stephen Chanock, chief of the Laboratory of Translation Genomics at the National Cancer Institute. Chanock was involved in several of the new studies. Complex diseases such as cancer spring from many gene variants that all contribute to the disease. These studies are helping researchers fill in the list of risky genetic markers. "What is emerging is the complicated genetic architecture of different diseases," he says. Following the signs
Rowley's swapped chromosomes eventually led researchers to find a way to treat CML. Now patients can take a pill that jams a monkey wrench into a process vital to the cancer's development. The drug, called imatinib (first marketed as Gleevec in the U.S.), often grants patients a normal life expectancy with minimal side effects. Few cancer treatments have met this high bar, but researchers still comb the genome for cancer's fingerprints and clues to what might stop the disease. Indeed, the COGS findings provide signposts for future research. For example, a handful of SNPs associated with prostate cancer risk fall within genes important for the binding of a cell to a surface. That surface could be another cell to facilitate communication or create a barrier through which pathogens cannot pass. Cell?cell adhesion is important for immune response and is also involved in tumor metastasis?tumor cells use cell adhesion to stick to a new location in the body. Understanding the mechanisms for cell?cell adhesion may offer insights for new treatments. In a number of regions the SNPs are involved in more than one type of cancer cluster. "In some cases we are beginning to understand why that is," said Doug Easton, a professor at the University of Cambridge and the lead author of the main breast cancer paper at a press conference before the papers were published. One of the COGS papers honed in on a genetic region that helps control the length of telomeres, which are protective caps on the end of DNA strands. The so-called TERT locus harbors SNPs relevant to both breast and ovarian cancer risk, making it a prime candidate for further study. The next step for the international cancer teams is an even larger study with a new chip called OncoChip, made by Signature Genomics. They plan to screen 600,000 SNPs of interest to see if they are involved five malignancies?ovarian, breast and prostate as well as colorectal and lung cancers. The larger numbers will give the researchers more statistical power to uncover less common gene variants. In addition researchers will map the already discovered variants to figure out which genes and biochemical pathways are involved. Studies of gene function are critical to characterize cancer biology, says Mathieu Lupien, a scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute and assistant professor at the University of Toronto who was not involved in COGS. "Now we can move forward and understand why it is those genetic defects promote cancer," he says. Weighing the risks
Genetic markers may lead to better treatments, but researchers also hope to catch cancer before it starts. Clinicians already use cancer-risk calculators to group people into high- and low-risk categories based on lifestyle choices, environment and family history. The new SNPs could be additional indicators that make the stratification more accurate and efficient. High-risk groups could get targeted recommendations for avoiding risky behaviors or whether to get screened for a type of cancer. Currently, cancer screening is saddled with a lot of false positives, which means people who do not have cancer are told they are positive. Such results lead to unnecessary and even dangerous procedures?not to mention the anxiety felt by those who believe they have a potentially life-threatening disease. For example, screening for prostate, lung, colorectal and ovarian cancers in 68,436 people over a period of three years led to a least one false positive for 60 percent of men and 49 percent of women. Another study found that follow-up procedures (such as a biopsy) after a false positive cost an average of $1,024 for women and $1,171 for men. The challenge is figuring out where to draw the line for high-risk, says Ros Eeles, a professor of oncogenetics at the Institute of Cancer Research in London and one of the principal investigators involved in the main prostate cancer paper. "We could do the test and give a risk profile, but we don't know what you should do when you have the information," she says. Studies that retroactively profile genetic risk markers in patients could reveal where the lines should fall and what interventions are most effective. "We're not to the point of being able to predict an individual's risk," says Joe Gray, a professor at Oregon Health & Science University's Knight Cancer Institute and not involved in the COGS studies. A more thorough understanding of risk factors and better cancer screening could lead to a future where doctors can "prevent people from having cancer we don't know how to treat," he says. More information about how different genetic variants contribute to risk of disease could help refine the definition of high-risk groups. A well-tested SNP profile could sort out individuals at the top of the spectrum, where the benefits of screening would outweigh the risks. Once the genetic risk is understood, public health professionals can employ the same communication strategies used to counsel people about heart disease risk. "We do [stratified screening] all the time with cardiovascular risk," says Hilary Burton, director of the PHG Foundation based in England. Right now the evidence on breast cancer screening is "finely balanced between benefits and harm," she says. The newly identified SNPs can help tip the balance for some carefully identified individuals. The vision the researchers outline could be in the not-too-distant future. People in their 40s today might see safer, stratified risk screening for some cancers within their lifetimes, Cambridge?s Easton said in a press conference. Still, before all patients can receive the benefits of safe screening, researchers will need to address a gap common to current genome-based discoveries: The 200,000 people in the COGS pool are largely of European descent and live Australia, North America and Europe. Whereas the consortium did find some risk markers specific to people of Asian descent, other genetic groups such as African and indigenous populations in the Americas and Australia are underrepresented. "We are still very much in the discovery mode," Chanock says. Decades after uncovering the genetic basis of cancer, that is a sobering statement. Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news-front-war-cancer-mission-not-accomplished-110000269.html

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An Isolated Incident Caused by an Irresponsible Gun Owner (Balloon Juice)

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Traktor DJ gets remixed for iPhone, brings big features to small pockets (video)

Traktor DJ for iPad showed us what can be done when you resist the urge to simply shrink your existing software or just slide it under a touch interface. Since its iOS debut, the folk at Native Instruments have spent the last couple of months cautiously considering how best to transplant the same waveform-based interface over to the iPhone. Today, you can find out. You get everything you find in the iPad version, like three band EQ, filters, hot cues and effects --along with the same key, tempo and timbre matching utilities, plus library sharing with the full-fat desktop version. The UI isn't the only thing getting downsized, either: this iPhone-friendly version costs just $4.99 (compared to $20 on the iPad). That should leave enough change to drop a few on party rock anthems.

Filed under: Software, HD, Mobile

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Source: iTunes

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/SjuRFbMIGEs/

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The World's Toughest Material Is Built of Knots

A scientist from the University of Trento in Italy claims to have made the world's toughest material. But this isn't some kind of exotic super material?it's just made from strands of fiber with knots tied in them.

The material, created by Nicola Pugno, is formed from strands of Endumax polymer fiber with a simple slip knot tied into them. For those who missed out on a youth in scouting, a slip knot's incredibly simple: it's just a loop of rope passed through a bight?that's a u-shaped section of the same rope?and you probably tie one without thinking about it. But how the hell does that give rise to a super-tough material?

Before diving into exactly how it works, it's worth pointing out what toughness actually is. Crucially, it's not strength?that's a measure of how much force a material can handle before it breaks. Toughness is instead a measure of how much energy a material can absorb So, glass is strong, not tough; rubber is tough, not strong; steel is a bit of both. For some perspective, kevlar is considered incredibly tough, and can handle 80 joules per gram before breaking.

So, Pugno took those Endumax fibers?which usually exhibit a toughness of 44 joules per gram without a knot?and tied his slip knots. Then he loaded them up, and found that they could absorb an astronomical quantity of energy before breaking. The reason? Well, when loaded, the knot dissipates large quantities of energy through friction as it's pulled. Once the knot slips open, the fiber fails?but by that point it's absorbed 1,070 joules of energy per gram.

For comparison, that's more than the theoretical values calculated for graphene, which we think can only withstand 1,000 joules per gram. So Pugno's material could?could?be the toughest material in the world. He also theorizes that a knotted thread of graphene could absorb 100,000 joules per gram, which is just insane.

But easy there, tiger. There are caveats. First, it's not clear how a single fiber with a knot tied in it translates to a real, practical piece of material: a sheet of kevlar contains thousands of fibers, each of which would need knots tied in them somehow. Second, this work is preliminary?it's not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal?so it's not clear that it's 100 percent reproducible.

But hey, let's assume it is, and that manufacturing techniques could cope. If that's the case, we have something pretty special on our hands here. [arXiv via Extreme Tech]

Image by Andreas berheide/Shutterstock

Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-toughest-material-is-built-of-knots-486827412

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Gambia : National cricket association president appointed Executive Director for Northwest Africa

Gambia Cricket Association's President Johnny Gomez has been elected as International Cricket Council/ACA Executive Director for Northwest Africa.

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Johnny Gomez, was elected unopposed and seconded by Mali. The new portfolio he occupies makes the Gambia Cricket Association President responsible for cricket in Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Mali and Cape Verde.

In a separate development but still on cricket, Mr. Gomez was recently appointed as an umpire in the division 7 tournaments in Botswana - a level higher than the Division One which he previously officiated, a release from the Cricket Association says.

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Source: http://www.modernghana.com/sports/461314/2/gambia-national-cricket-association-president-appo.html

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