The Science behind The Martian

Posted: 14 Oct 2015 05:48 AM PDT

[Source: HIRISE, Mars]

The Martian starring Matt Damon shows us what it might take for a single person to survive on Mars until possible rescue. Without giving away the plot, Matt Damon’s character, Astronaut Mark Watney needs to find a way to grow plants on Mars in order to stay alive and the terraforming he does is pretty accurate.

In the movie, Mark Watney needed to use hydrogen to get the water out of Martian soil in order to water the plants he needed to grow and eat for survival. His big issue was heating the hydrogen without blowing himself up.

Read More at Interesting Engineering

Blitab is a Braille tablet for blind and visually impaired people Posted: 13 Oct 2015 10:39 AM PDT Using devices such as smartphones and tablets is relatively simple to blind and visually impaired people since most operating systems provide a guide system via audio. However, not every bit of information can be passed through audio, hence Braille was invented, a tactile language that allows blind people to read. The Austrian company Blitab Technology claims to be working on a revolutionary tablet, which will be the world’s first developed exclusively for the visually impaired. The great breakthrough is the tablet’s display, capable of forming microbubbles, creating text and images in Braille. “What we are doing is creating a completely new technology which outputs braille in a completely new and innovative way without any mechanical elements,” Slavi Slavev, chief technology officer and co-founder of Blitab Technology, told IBTimes UK. Read More at Interesting Engineering

AKHIR & AWAL

The Religion of Islam

The Religion of Islam: This web site is for people of various faiths who seek to understand Islam and Muslims.  It contains a lot of brief, yet informative articles about different aspects of Islam.  New articles are added every week.  Also, it features Live Help through chat.

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877-WHY-ISLAM — You Deserve to Know - Your #1 source of information on Islam and Muslims in North America

877-WHY-ISLAM — You Deserve to Know - Your #1 source of information on Islam and Muslims in North America

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Nota mengharukan

Nota mengharukan dari Kamunting

Aidila Razak 11:31AM Jun 18 2012

EKSKLUSIF “Nota penyeksaan” yang didakwa diseludup keluar dari kem tahanan ISA di Kamunting, menimbulkan persoalan berhubung kaedah soal siasat yang digunakan pihak berkuasa.

Nota berkenaan, didakwa diseludup keluar oleh kakitangan kem dan diserahkan kepada Malaysiakini, menyatakan dengan terperinci penyeksaan ala Guantanamo yang didakwa dialami oleh 45 orang tahanan yang masih dikurung di pusat tahanan di Taiping, Perak.

Tiada tarikh dinyatakan dalam nota berkenaan, namun insiden berkenaan didakwa berlaku ketika proses soal siasat ketika individu berkenaan ditahan di satu pusat tahanan reman, sebelum dipindahkan ke Kamunting.

Kandungan nota berkenaan tidak dapat disahkan secara bebas, namun dakwaan itu termasuk:

• Dipaksa menanggalkan pakaian sehingga hanya memakai pakaian dalam, dan "digantung terbalik"  daripada satu "mesin" yang bergerak mengelilingi satu "bilik penyeksaan khas yang disyaki terletak di Bukit Aman".
• "Tiba-tiba mesin pun berhenti. Lantas, bertubi-tubi seluruh tubuhnya dipukul dengan objek tumpul (mungkin cota)".
• "Apabila pukulan dihentikan, mesin itu pun kembali bergerak. Tidak berapa lama mesin itu dihentikan semula dan dia kembali dipukul teruk".
• Minyak panas dilumurkan ke kemaluan.
• Mencabut bulu di badan, termasuk bulu kemaluan.
• Melumur "cili boh" ke badan, terutama ke kemaluan, dan "dipaksa membiarkan cili itu mengering pada badannya" untuk tempoh dua hingga tiga hari.
• Mencucuh kemaluan dengan api rokok.
• Dipaksa berbogel dan melakukan ketuk ketampi selama beberapa jam untuk tempoh sehingga 60 hari.

Difahamkan, pasukan Suruhanjaya Hak Asasi Manusia (Suhakam) ketika melawat kem berkenaan untuk memeriksa tahanan berkenaan, yang menjalankan mogok lapar, turut menerima set nota yang sama.

Pesuruhjaya Muhammad Sha'ani Abdullah berkata Suhakam kini sedang "membincangkan" kandungannya.

Brother's blood all over me

'I put my brother's blood all over me and acted like I was dead': In gut-wrenching, heartbreaking detail, Syrian boy, 11, relives slaughter of his parents and all four siblings

• Ali el-Sayed played dead to avoid being executed by gunman who slaughtered his family
• Tragic 11-year-old one of few survivors from horrific executions in Houla

By Chris Parsons
PUBLISHED: 18:46 GMT, 31 May 2012 | UPDATED: 19:27 GMT, 31 May 2012

An 11-year-old Syrian boy has described in heart-wrenching detail how he had to cover his clothes in his brother's blood to save his own life as killers slaughtered his entire family.
Ali el-Sayed witnessed his parents and all four of his siblings killed by Syrian gunmen during last weekend's horrific massacres, which he only survived himself by playing dead.
The youngest to die was Ali's brother, 6-year-old Nader. His small body bore two bullet holes - one in his head, another in his back.

Tragic: Ali el-Sayed, pictured here in an interview on Wednesday, had to play dead to avoid being executed by Syrian gunmen who killed his family

The 11-year-old boy told how he covered himself in his brother's blood to fool the gunmen and make them think he was also dead

Ali miraculously survived by covering himself in his brother's blood and lying motionless on the floor as shaven-headed killers, said to be working for the Syrian government, executed his parents and four siblings one by one.
Ali is one of the few survivors of a weekend massacre in Houla, a collection of poor farming villages and olive groves in Syria's central Homs province.

 

More...

• Syrian massacre victims were slaughtered 'family by family, one by one' during ELEVEN HOUR killing spree
• Bound, blindfolded and executed: Pictures reveal terrible fate of 13 bodies dumped by the roadside in Syria
• Yes, Syria is a tragedy but it would be madness for Britain to intervene
• Britain, France and Germany expel Syrian diplomats as the international community increases pressure on Assad regime over weekend massacre that killed over 100

More than 100 people were killed, many of them women and children who were shot or stabbed in their houses.
In an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday, five days after becoming an orphan and an only child, Ali said: 'I put my brother's blood all over me and acted like I was dead.'
Ali said his mother began weeping the moment about 11 gunmen entered the family home in the middle of the night. The men led Ali's father and oldest brother outside.

'My mother started screaming 'Why did you take them? Why did you take them?'' Ali said.
Soon afterward, he said, the gunmen killed Ali's entire family.

Brutal: In further bloodshed, UN observers found the 13 bodies of Syrian army defectors lying on the ground near Deir el-Zour, in Syria after being killed by Assad's forces

The killings brought immediate, worldwide condemnation of President Bashar Assad, who has unleashed a violent crackdown on an uprising that began in March 2011.
Activists say as many as 13,000 people have been killed since the revolt began.
Ali's ordeal emerged today as the bodies of 13 more people were discovered bound and shot in eastern Syria.
Syrian activists claimed that the victims were army defectors killed by President Bashar Assad's forces, although it has not been possible to verify their accounts.
In response, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said today that every day of slaughter in Syria is strengthening the case for tougher international action.
U.N. investigators and witnesses blame at least some of the Houla killings on shadowy gunmen known as shabiha who operate on behalf of Assad's government.

Execution: The men are believed to be defectors from the Syrian army who were caught and killed

As Ali huddled with his youngest siblings, a man in civilian clothes took Ali's mother to the bedroom and shot her five times in the head and neck.
'Then he left the bedroom. He used his flashlight to see in front of him,' Ali said. 'When he saw my sister Rasha, he shot her in the head while she was in the hallway.'
Ali had been hiding near his brothers Nader, 6, and Aden, 8. The gunmen shot both of them, killing them instantly. He then fired at Ali but missed.
'I was terrified,' Ali said, speaking from Houla, where relatives have taken him in. 'My whole body was trembling.'
Recruited from the ranks of Assad's Alawite religious community, the militiamen enable the government to distance itself from direct responsibility for the execution-style killings, torture and revenge attacks that have become hallmarks of the shabiha.

Terrible aftermath: A heartbreaking image of children said to have been killed in Houla by Assad's thugs at the weekend in a still from a video taken by an activist and posted online

Horror: The UN counted 49 children and 34 women among the dead. Activists from the Houla area said the army pounded the villages with artillery and clashed with local rebels after protests Friday

In many ways, the shabiha are more terrifying than the army and security forces, whose tactics include shelling residential neighborhoods and firing on protesters. The swaggering gunmen are deployed specifically to brutalize and intimidate Assad's opponents.
Activists who helped collect the dead in the aftermath of the Houla massacre described dismembered bodies in the streets, and row upon row of corpses shrouded in blankets.
'When we arrived on the scene we started seeing the scale of the massacre,' said Ahmad al-Qassem, a 35-year-old activist.
'I saw a kid with his brains spilling out, another child who was no more than 1 year old who was stabbed in the head. The smell of death was overpowering.'
The regime denies any responsibility for the Houla killings, blaming them on terrorists. And even if the shabiha are responsible for the killings, there is no clear evidence that the regime directly ordered the massacre in a country spiraling toward civil war.

This citizen journalism image provided by Shaam News Network taken Saturday, May 26, 2012 purports to show shrouded dead bodies following a Syrian government assault on Houla, Syria

Anger: Britain and France have condemned the attack on children and pointed the fingers at Syrian troops

As witness accounts begin to leak out, it remains to be seen what, exactly, prompted the massacre. Although the Syrian uprising has been among the deadliest of the Arab Spring, the killings in Houla stand out for their sheer brutality and ruthlessness.
According to the U.N., which is investigating the attack, most of the victims were shot at close range, as were Ali's parents and siblings. The attackers appeared to be targeting the most vulnerable people, such as children and the elderly, to terrorize the population.
This type of massacre - even more than the shelling and mortar attacks that have become daily occurrences in the uprising - is a sign of a new level of violence. By most accounts, the gunmen descended on Houla from an arc of nearby villages, making the deaths all the more horrifying because the victims could have known their attackers.

UN probe: Bodies pictured piled up in Syria, as released by the opposition's Shaam News Network

According to activists in the area, the massacre came after the army pounded the villages with artillery and clashed with local rebels following anti-regime protests. Several demonstrators were killed, and the rebels were forced to withdraw. The pro-regime gunmen later stormed in, doing the bulk of the killing.
Syrian activist Maysara Hilaoui said he was at home when the massacre in Houla began. He said there were two waves of violence, one starting at 5 p.m. Friday and a second at 4 a.m. Saturday.
'The shabiha took advantage of the withdrawal of rebel fighters,' he said. 'They started entering homes and killing the young as well as the old.'