Rescue workers remove an injured person on a stretcher following a building explosion and collapse in East Harlem, Wednesday, March 12, 2014 in New York.Image: Mark Lennihan/Associated Press Seven people are dead in East Harlem this morning as recovery efforts continue through the rubble of the two buildings that collapsed on Wednesday. The body of the seventh victim was found at 7:12 a.m., according to the FDNY. Five people are still missing. The major explosion that shook uptown New York City around 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday was the result of a gas leak. Residents of 1646 Park Ave., one of the two five-story apartment buildings that crumbled, say they called 311 last month when nauseating gas smells permeated the building. “The first time was unbearable,” Ruben Borrero, who lives in the building, told Mashable at the scene on Wednesday. “You walked into the building, and you had to walk straight back out. It was that bad.” City officials, however, say the first tip they received of the gas leak was call to Con Edison that came in around 15 minutes before the explosion. The map above shows the location of the two buildings the collapsed in East Harlem on March 12. Among the victims are two women who lived in the buildings and worked for a church blocks away. Another, 45-year-old Griselde Camacho, was a sergeant for Hunter College’s public safety office. Building resident Rosaura Hernandez-Barrios, 22, also died. Minutes after the buildings tumbled, thick smoke and a sulphuric smell crept through the neighborhood. Firefighters struggled throughout the day to extinguish the blaze and start searching for victims. At least 65 people were injured, 27 of those were transported to hospitals. Shattered glass, wood shards and pieces of broken brick covered the sidewalks blocks away from the site. Layers of dust enveloped vehicles parked on the street. Portions of the elevated Metro North train tracks were covered in debris, leading to a temporary shutdown and continued delays on Thursday. The Red Cross set up a temporary shelter at a nearby school. More than 100 people lined up for food and counseling Wednesday afternoon. The shelter remained open throughout the evening for those who didn’t have a place to sleep. “This is going to be an extended operation,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a press conference hours after the blast. “This is a tragedy of the worst kind because there was no indication in time to save people.” Building Collapse in New York City A general view on the corner of 116th and Park Ave in Harlem where the building collapse took place around 9:30 a.m. on March 12. Image: Mashable Christina Ascani Firefighters respond to an explosion that leveled two apartment buildings in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York. Image: Mashable Christina Ascani Con Edison crewmembers try to reach gas pipes underground. Image: Mashable Christina Ascani Debris covers the Metro North rail line across the street from the two-building collapse. Image: Mashable Christina Ascani A police perimeter was […]
Mother Jones, the left-leaning magazine that has been publishing hidden camera footage from a private meeting between Mitt Romney and some of his wealthiest backers, has published the full 49-minute recording in two clips on YouTube. The previously released footage, in which Mitt Romney speaks candidly about Barack Obama supporters, Iran, Palestine and other issues, has sparked a great deal of controversy in the political world. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Romney team, which was attempting to use this week to “reboot” the campaign’s message. In a hastily-called press conference Monday night, Romney said he hoped the full versions of the videos would be released so that viewers could get the full context, and hear the question he was responding to. Now Mother Jones has obliged. (Watch part one of the video above, and part two below.) On YouTube, the most popular of the short videos posted by Mother Jones has already amassed more than 1.4 million views. Images courtesy of Flickr, Gage Skidmore Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/09/18/full-romney-hidden-camera/
Bluefin-21 is in the water after being craned over the side of Australian Defense Vessel Ocean Shield to begin using its side-scan sonar in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on April 14.Image: Leut Kelli Lunt/Getty Images If wreckage from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is ever discovered, an underwater drone could very well be the first thing to spot it. The Bluefin-21 was contracted by the U.S. Navy to dive into the southern Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia and scan the ocean floor for pieces of the plane that went missing on March 8 with 239 people onboard. The drone was forced to resurface on April 16 due to a technical issue, according to a press release provided to Mashable by the Joint Agency Coordination Center, a search organization the Australian government created to help find the missing Malaysia airliner. Officials downloaded the drone’s memory once it was above water but, so far, Bluefin-21 has turned up nothing significant. Built by Bluefin Robotics but owned and operated by Phoenix International, this autonomous underwater vehicle takes instructions from a ship’s radio before diving up to around 2.8 miles underwater. The remains of flight MH370 might be much farther down, but at that depth Bluefin-21 can blast the ocean floor with a sonar beam. Data picked up from the sonar will be delivered once the drone resurfaces. Jim Gibson, General Manager of Phoenix International, told Mashable that if Bluefin-21 finds what might be a debris field, someone will switch out the vehicle’s sonar instruments with photo-taking equipment and send it back down to see if the clutter comes from the Malaysia Airlines plane. Bluefin-21 scans from side-to-side, and can spend about 16 hours at the bottom before coming up to re-juice. The ability to swap equipment is key to why this particular drone wound up searching for flight MH370. “It’s easily transported, unlike a lot of the other AUVs that are one piece,” Gibson said. “You can’t disassemble them, you need a special launch and recovery system to get them in and out of the water and everything else, and they’re quite heavy.” The ’21’ refers to the drone’s 21-inch diameter, according to the Bluefin Robotics website. It’s a little over 16 feet long and weighs around 1,650 pounds when it’s not in the water. Once it hits its lowest depth, the vehicle travels about three nautical miles per hour and can scan about 15 square miles of ocean floor per day. It stores all that information into its four gigabytes of memory. Despite the technical hiccup early on April 16, Bluefin-21 was redeployed later that day. Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/04/16/underwater-drone-mh370/
Is foreign money infiltrating American politics through insecure online donations to Barack Obama? That’s one question pondered in a report published Monday but quickly denied by the Obama campaign. The study was conducted by the Government Accountability Institute, a research group run by conservative author, strategist and researcher Peter Schweizer. An 109-page examination of “fraudulent and foreign online campaign contributions,” it points out three ways in which the Obama campaign may be receiving foreign funds, which is illegal. First, the report, titled “America the Vulnerable,” claims the Obama campaign “lacks the industry-standard level of credit card security for donations,” but “uses it for merchandise purchases” on the campaign store. Donors on the official Obama site don’t need to include their credit card security number, the three- or four-digit code found on every card. The Obama campaign previously claimed it doesn’t need that code — called the CVV — because “they are able to vet contributions on the back end using sophisticated techniques that it doesn’t disclose,” claims the report (the Obama campaign since said it uses an Address Verification System to verify credit cards). Second, the report highlights Obama.com, a domain that’s not owned by the Obama campaign but points to a campaign donation page. According to the GAI, a majority of traffic to that site has come from abroad: “In 2008, Obama.com was purchased by an Obama fundraiser living in Shanghai, China, whose business is heavily dependent on relationships with Chinese state-run television and other state-owned entities. According to industry leading web analytics site Markosweb, an anonymously registered redirect site (Obama.com) features 68% foreign traffic. Starting in December 2011, the site was linked to a specific donation page on the official BarackObama.com campaign website for ten months. The page loaded a tracking number, 634930, into a space on the website labeled “who encouraged you to make this donation.” That tracking number is embedded in the source code for Obama.com and is associated with the Obama Victory Fund. In early September 2012, the page began redirecting to the standard Obama Victory Fund donation page.” The GAI report also noted several occasions where foreigners have received Obama donation pitches, but doesn’t confirm those foreigners were actually able to donate. GAI’s report also examines the Romney campaign, stating the following: “About 11.9% of the Romney campaign’s Internet traffic comes from foreign sources. Examining over 100,000 backlinks on the Internet that link to the Romney campaign’s webpage, approximately 12.8% of those are from foreign sources, including foreign language news sites and blogs.” However, the report isn’t as accusatory toward the Romney campaign as it is of the Obama campaign. The Obama campaign’s response? A Monday afternoon blog post explaining that the campaign screens for foreign IP addresses and requires a copy of a valid passport from a contributor identified as valid but donating from abroad. It also dismisses the GAI as having a right-wing agenda and claims the campaign “does not accept donations from foreign nationals or any other ineligible individual.” “OFA has […]
On July 20, 1969, astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot of the first lunar landing mission, poses for a photograph beside the deployed United States flag during Apollo 11 extravehicular activity on the lunar surface.Image: NASA General Electric is taking a “small step” into sneaker design to commemorate the role — or rather, sole — it had in mankind’s first “giant leap” on the moon. Forty-five years to the day, hour and minute after Apollo 11 moonwalkers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first manned lunar landing at 4:18 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 20, GE will release for sale its new moon boot-inspired, limited edition sneakers, “The Missions.” The company, which is perhaps publicly better known for its consumer appliances and lighting products, provided in 1969 the silicone rubber that was used to create the now-iconic tread that lined the bottom of the Apollo moon boot. GE also produced the Lexan polycarbonate plastic used in forming the astronauts’ bubble helmets. “To celebrate the 45th anniversary of the original lunar landing and the sci-fi super materials that made it happen, GE and JackThreads decided to partner up to take that moon boot and create an updated, street-ready version so damn impressive, people will think whoever is wearing it might be from outer space,” men’s clothier JackThreads described on its website. The sneakers, which are strictly limited to just 100 pairs, are set to go on sale Sunday exclusively on JackThreads for $196.90 commemorating the year of the moon landing. The shoes will be sold on a first come, first served basis, with delivery expected in September. GE debuted “The Missions” on July 16, on the anniversary of Apollo 11’s launch atop a Saturn V rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, using the social network Snapchat. The company also invited Buzz Aldrin to use the photo messaging service to share stories of his voyage to the moon and showed him wearing a pair of the sneakers. The unisex “Missions,” which were designed with the help of luxury shoemaker Android Homme, feature an off-white and gray color scheme with a translucent, thermoplastic sole. The redesigned moon boots have components made from the same lightweight carbon fiber used for jet engine components, and they sport a hydrophobic coating similar to the materials that are used to prevent ice from forming on wind turbine blades. “We re-imagined our lunar kicks with next-gen materials pulled from the belly of bad ass jet engines … to not only commemorate GE’s contribution to space flight but also our shared excitement for future awesome things,” stated JackThreads. GE intends “The Missions” sneakers to draw attention to the advanced materials being developed in its labs today, Linda Boff, executive director of global brand marketing at GE, told Ad Age magazine. “By highlighting super materials like stabilized carbon fiber and hydrophobic coating in our limited-edition sneakers, it helps people relate to the power of these technologies,” she said. The Mission sneakers. Image: General Electric Aldrin […]
Space Shuttle Atlantis to New Home Ready to Roll Photo Credit: NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis Starts Its Early-Morning Trek Photo Credit: NASA Atlantis Rolls to Final Home Photo Credit: NASA Watching the Space Shuttle Go By Space shuttle workers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, watch as the space shuttle Atlantis is transported on a 10-mile journey to the Kennedy Visitor Complex Photo Credit: NASA Ariel View of Space Shuttle Atlantis Rolls to Its New Home Photo Credit: NASA Saying Goodbye Space shuttle team members carry a “We Made History Atlantis” banner as the spacecraft moves out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for its 10-mile trip to the Kennedy Visitor Complex where it will be put on public display. Photo Credit: NASA Atlantis Rolls to Final Home: Underside View Photo Credit: NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis’s New Home Ariel view of the Kennedy Space Center visitor complexPhoto Credit: NASA A Long Journey Photo Credit: NASA Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/11/02/shuttle-atlantis-new-home/
How’s this for a jump through political history? C-SPAN’s digital team sent Mashable this supercut of every presidential nominee since 1984 — when the network began broadcasting conventions — accepting his party’s nomination for president. From Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush to Barack Obama, the gang’s all here. The video isn’t just political history, but time capsule of technology as well — watch as the clarity of the footage improves greatly over time. Do you think the 2016 nominations will be broadcast in 3D? Images courtesy of Flickr, Beverly & Pack Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/08/28/president-nominations-video/
You might not recognize the latest ad in Obama’s presidential campaign as politically charged on first listen. The video features Girls star Lena Dunham comparing her first time voting to losing her virginity. Specifically targeting women, Dunham advises how to make your “first time” special. “You want a guy who cares whether you get health insurance, and specifically whether you get birth control,” says Dunham in the ad, which has stirred controversy for its sexy tone. Dunham has been known to raise eyebrows before, like when she ate cake naked at the 2012 Emmys. The Obama campaign ruffled feathers earlier this election season when it released a video that compared Big Bird to Bernie Madoff. What do you think of the ad? Is this offensive or do critics need to lighten up? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/26/obama-lenda-dunham-first-time/
In a surprise appearance on Friday, President Obama made an emotional speech about race in America following the acquittal of George Zimmerman, explaining how the death of Trayvon Martin felt personal to him. “Another way of saying that is, Trayvon Martin could’ve been me, 35 years ago,” Obama said. “There are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of being followed in a department store — that includes me.” Zimmerman fatally shot the 17-year-old Martin on the night of Feb. 26, 2012. Zimmerman, 29, was a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., a gated community where Martin was staying at the time. In the weeks following the incident, he was accused of second-degree murder and manslaughter. A jury found him not guilty of both charges on Saturday. Watch Obama’s full speech below. What do you think of Obama’s sentiments? Share your reactions in the comments below. Image: Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/07/19/obama-trayvon-martin/
Just a couple of weeks after Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed released the files for the world’s first 3D-printed handgun, imitators have already replicated and improved upon it. Two gunsmiths from Wisconsin successfully fired their own Liberator nine times, without the gun showing any damage. As first reported by Forbes, two engineers, Michael Guslick and a man who refers to himself as “Joe” — he didn’t want to reveal his name — printed their version of the Liberator on a relatively cheap and unsophisticated 3D printer. Unlike Wilson, who used a $8,000 Stratasys, the Wisconsin duo used a consumer-grade $1,725 Lulzbot AO-101. They printed all the pieces within 48 hours and spent a paltry $25 in materials. “People think this takes an $8,000 machine and that it blows up on the first shot. I want to dispel that,” Joe told Forbes. “This does work, and I want that to be known.” As the video shows, the Lulz Liberator is functional — but making it so was trickier than it may appear. When the Guslick and Joe tested the “Lulz Liberator” last week, using .380 caliber rounds, the barrel snapped on the first try. But that barrel was actually printed on a Stratasys 3D printer owned by Guslick. He explained that the initial failure was “due to a compressed load and resulting cartridge overpressure.” Then the Wisconsin engineers used a barrel printed with Joe’s Lulzbot. The gun fired nine times over the course of the test — with its components remaining intact. The gun might have sustained even more shots, but the men decided to stop the test because of poor light conditions. Guslick, who was one of the first gunsmiths to experiment with 3D printing, wrote in an email to Mashable that it wasn’t easy to fire the handgun successfully. “The Liberator is actually a very finicky gun at this point,” he wrote. “We had many more times that it went ‘click’ rather than ‘bang.’” Guslick explained that for various reasons, the gun failed to fire with both barrels and even failed between successful shots. The main problem was the shape of the firing pin, which “appears to be crucial for operation,” he wrote. In fact, sometimes the firing pin wouldn’t hit the primer “dead-center,” and it required “several strikes” to ignite, Guslick wrote. Since Joe and Guslick didn’t use the firing pin retainer, a part of the original Liberator design, they lost a lot of firing pins and had to add replacements after each successful shot. The body screws bent from the recoil, which made more replacements necessary. Regardless, this is another step toward making functioning plastic guns more accessible to anybody with an Internet connection and a 3D printer, even a relatively cheap one. And it’s a step toward making those guns more efficient; maybe even deadlier. UPDATE, May 21, 11:50 a.m.: The story has been updated to clarify the issues that Guslick and Joe had with the firing pin. Images and video courtesy of Michael Guslick Read […]
