Archives 2016

Farmers are some of the most undervalued members of American society, so it’s only right that they get one day a year to educate the masses about what farming means to the country.


According to local news affiliate WBNG Binghamton, National Agriculture Day is celebrated every year on March 15. In New York, Chenango County farmers ventured to nearby Norwich to celebrate the importance of their service to the American people.


“One percent of the nation is producing food for one-hundred percent of the consumers,” said Chenango County Farm Bureau President Bradd Vickers.


“We’re making sure that the consumer realizes who produces their products,” Vickers added. “No, your food doesn’t come from the back of the grocery store or a truck behind the grocery store.”


This year, many farmers are bringing attention to the lessened demand for milk among American consumers. The dairy industry has continued to produce milk in mass quantities despite the lack of demand, which has had a negative impact on the entire agriculture sector.


“Every year, the consumer uses less and less milk and the dairy industry is producing more and more milk and it’s hurting the farmers,” said John Peila, a dairy farmer in Oxford, NY.


Employment of farmers and other agricultural managers is projected to decline about 2% from 2014 to 2024. Therefore, farmers have begun to diversify their crop yields to attract consumers that prefer fresh and healthy foods.


“Agriculture is no longer just milking dairy cows, it’s very diversified,” said Harvey Fletcher, Vice President of the Chenango County Farm Bureau. “We have large tree farmers, we have berry farmers, we have vegetable farms.”


According to local Ohio news affiliate WKBN, farmers used this day to bring awareness to direct relationship between agriculture and the economy. David Hull of White House Fruit Farms claims that agriculture is an essential part of any thriving community, particularly in the state of Ohio.


“When you put the three service legs together — the manufacturing, the agriculture and the service — it makes for a more interesting, vibrant community, more economically stronger with more employment opportunities,” Hull said.


Hull also takes great pride in bringing fresh food to his fellow Ohioans. Instead of being pessimistic about the changes in Americans’ eating habits, he believes this generation’s obsession with “organic” foods could be the best thing to happen to the agriculture industry in years.


“Knowing that your food can come from a local source, and being able to see where it’s grown and how it’s grown, and actually talking to the person that is growing it is becoming more important, and I think customers are becoming more aware of that than they were 20 years ago,” Hull continued.


Farmers may be underappreciated for 364 days of the year, but it’s nice to see them get their well-deserved day in the spotlight so Americans can celebrate their hard work.

One of the biggest companies in their industry in Mexico is coming to the United States. Polímero y Materias Primas Internacionales SA de CV (Polymat), an independent polymer resins distributor, will open a facility in the U.S. sometime in 2016, according to PlasticsNews.com.

“We’re growing and will open a company in Houston in the second quarter of this year,” said Managing Director Ángel Ramón Oria Varela. “I cannot give you the name of the company,” he said, adding, “We will invest enough money to be a global competitor in the distribution and trade of plastic resins. We’ve been working on this for the past two years.”

Resin is a non-specific name for sticky, oozing substances that come from certain trees and plants. In the plastics industry, it is used in many forms, like the four-stage process of rotational molding.

Rotational molding is an extremely specialized and unique method of production that involves heating plastic resin in a closed mold. There is no pressure involved, unlike most other plastic molding processes. The specific stages of the four-step process include: loading the resin in the mold, heating and fusing the resin, cooling, and finally unloading the part from the mold.

Polymat was founded by Oria in 1988 and has been one of the leading names in the Mexican industry since then, according to Oria. They even recently closed a $4.5 billion joint venture between Brazil’s Braskem SA and Mexico’s Grupo Idesa SA de CV. That deal is expected to take off soon.

“We’re very proud” to have been appointed, Oria said. “We’ve looked for opportunities in the past but now we are planning to go by ourselves. If someone wants to join [us], we would be prepared to listen.”

As many businesses and retailers continue to move towards plastics due to convenience, cost, and efficiency, the industry looks staged for more development and expansion like the move by Polymat.

The report indicates the new facility will be located in Houston.

In what’s being spurred by Asia-Pacific markets, a new report from global market research firm Markets and Markets estimates that the cooling tower industry will continue steady growth over at least the next four years. According to ACHRnews.com, the report indicates that the market, which stood at $2.34 billion in 2015, will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.2% and ultimately reach approximately $2.88 billion by the year 2020.

There are a variety of reasons as to why the industry is expected to see such success, including HVACR deployments, increasing power generation capacity, and technological advances in cooling towers, in general. These areas are growing at a particularly rapid rate in the Asia-Pacific region of the world, where things like the rising population, infrastructure development concerns, and overall industrialization of the region have sparked the need for more cooling towers.

Cooling tower technology is of vital importance to a number of industrial and commercial facilities, ranging from schools and hospitals to factories and power plants, and having the right cooling tower is crucial for these buildings. For example, in a typical 700 MW coal-fired power plant with a cooling tower, the cooling water circulation rate amounts to approximately 71,600 cubic meters an hour (or 315,000 U.S. gallons per minute); the circulating water requires a supply water make-up rate of about 5% (i.e., 3,600 cubic meters an hour).

When it comes to the specific segments, power generation held the largest market share in 2015. HVACR, food and beverage, and chemical application segments came in after that.

“Different types of cooling towers are manufactured for various applications,” the report reads. “They serve various end-use industries including chemical, petrochemical and oil and gas, HVACR, food and beverage, power generation, and others for an array of applications. The value chain for the cooling tower manufacturers begins with research and product development and ends at the end-use industries.”

Considering all the other industries and developments that stem directly, or indirectly, from the benefit of cooling towers, there’s no question this continued growth looks to be good news for economies on a global scale.

The debate over medical marijuana has moved from controversial, and even contentious, arguments over whether to allow it at all to a much more generally accepted idea. Now the debate focuses on more intricate details in terms of who can use it and how it can be grown, distributed, and sold. Basically, it’s become an issue that’s bordering on universal acceptance with people only debating the specifics. That notion is reinforced by the recent unionization of employees in the industry, and now a shop in Orange County, CA, can be added to that list.

According to the Los Angeles Times, South Coast Safe Access, a dispensary in Santa Ana, has signed a collective bargaining agreement with United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 324, which went into effect on Monday, March 8.

In total, the city of L.A. has 26 unionized medical marijuana dispensaries. Proponents believe that the addition of the first one in Orange County is just adding to the industry’s credibility. In fact, UFCW Local 324 executive vice president Rick Eiden believes this sort of expansion and inclusion fits in perfectly with the way the world is heading.

“[Unionizing dispensaries] really coincides with the work we’ve done in the retail drug industry,” Eiden said. “Employees interact with the patients in determining their needs and working on a sensible prescription for what their needs are.”

The minimum wage is $10 an hour in California, but the 20 workers at South Coast Safe Access will work for no less than $13.50 an hour and receive employer-paid medical benefits as well as employer contributions to a retirement pension. The union organization is already in talk with other marijuana shops about similar plans.

As of last year, 23 states and the District of Columbia legally allowed medical marijuana, and that number could soon rise as more states take notice of moves like this. In addition to the benefits these deals could have in moving the medical marijuana industry forward, Eiden thinks it could help the labor union industry too.

“Here in California, we’ve maintained our numbers in the labor movement,” Eiden said. “But we haven’t seen large numbers of growth in decades.”

When an influential person donates money to a cause, it’s usually celebrated for a short while and then orgotten. When a person of influence donates their time and expertise to help less fortunate people, however, it’s truly something special.


According to Las Vegas Review-Journal, Wisconsin dentist Dr. William Moline placed a call to his good friend, fellow dentist Dr. Cal Evans of Las Vegas, to inquire about a potential trip to the Dominican Republic last year.


The reason for the trip was simple; people in the Dominican Republic have few affordable options for dental care, specifically dental implants, which replace missing teeth. Instead of donating money to fund schools or programs in the tiny country, Evans and Moline decided to take matters into their own hands.


The two friends and the rest of their dental cohorts worked from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. for four days straight during their stay in Santo Domingo. The dentists received a warm welcome from their patients, who were extremely grateful for the opportunity to receive affordable treatment from renowned professionals.


“They were very appreciative of receiving treatment,” said Evans, “even though it was just with local anesthesia. There was no gas, no general anesthesia. I have patients here in Las Vegas who say, ‘I’ve got to have [full anesthesia],’ and things like that. Not there.”


According to U.S. News and World Report, the most common solution for tooth replacement among dentists for several decades was the fixed bridge. In the past several years, dental implant technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, making it the preferred option to replace missing teeth.


The success rate of dental implants has been reported in scientific literature as 98%, but this percentage is far lower in underdeveloped nations like the Dominican Republic. The dental tools that Evans and Moline had at their disposal were not even remotely close to U.S. standards, which made procedures more challenging.


“Nowadays, you have guided implants,” Evans said. “You can place it to within the millimeter of where it goes. There, we didn’t have that.”


Yet the dentists didn’t let the substandard tools stop them from helping Dominicans improve their smiles. The islanders were only charged $50 U.S. dollars for the entire procedure, which typically costs $2,000 for Americans.


While philanthropy was a primary factor in the dentists’ decision to make the trip, they also got a chance to hone their skills in difficult circumstances. Evans noted that he felt quite pleased with himself once the trip was complete.


“It made me feel good,” he added. “It makes you feel you’ve done something for someone who you know couldn’t afford to have it done. The giver usually wins.”

By now you’ve certainly heard about the looming legal battle between Apple and the U.S. government. If you have access to a computer and internet it would be almost impossible to not have heard at least one comment, perspective, or show of support for one side or the other. What you may not have heard yet, though, is the most recent way Apple’s team of lawyers plan to go about their defense.

According to Wired, Apple’s lawyers are prepared to invoke one of the country’s most protected and valued rights — that being the First Amendment, and specifically their freedom of speech. There are actually two ways they plan to approach this delicate issue.

The first, and considered a more shallow of an argument by experts in the field, is that technical coding is a language and therefore speech. For the government to compel (force) Apple to create the backdoor encryption code they have publicly and vehemently spoken out against would be the equivalent of forcing them to say something they don’t want to say.

The next point is really a continuation of that line of thinking, but bolsters their argument in the eyes of experts. In order for Apple to do what the Federal Bureau of Investigation is asking them, they would need to create an entirely new version of their iOS software that would specifically eliminate the very security protections they’ve built into their phones. To see that through, the company would also have to use its digital “signature” key to sign the software, thus signalling to the phone’s software to accept the encryption.

This is the part that makes it particularly interesting to people like Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties for the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School.

“The human equivalent of the company signing code is basically saying, ‘We believe that this code is safe for you to run,’” Granick told Wired. “So I think that when you force Apple to cryptographically sign the software, it has a communicative aspect to it that I think is compelled speech to force them to do it.”

The courts actually have some precedent already set in this area. In the mid 1990s, the case of Bernstein v. U.S. Department of Justice established that code is a form of speech and is, in fact, protected under the First Amendment. Apple is known for efficiency — an iPhone 6, for instance, takes just under two hours to charge using a 12-watt USB power adapter — but it seems likely this case will be a long, drawn out war with Constitutional Rights being invoked.

Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney working on another amicus brief for the Electronic Frontier Foundation agreed with Granick’s assessment.

“In the computer security world the digital signature is affirmation that not only is this code genuine, but it’s intended,” Cardozo said. “[I]f Apple signs this [software tool], it’s the computer version of Apple saying, ‘Yes this is us; yes we meant to do this; and yes it’s a genuine representation of our will.’”

Clearly Apple has taken a stand that would be in stark contrast to that notion if compelled to create this backdoor encryption, but ultimately it will be up to the courts to decide if they agree with such logic.

Chinese officials have recently announced that they will be relocating more than 9,000 people in order to build “the world’s largest radio telescope” during 2016, TIME reports.

The project, titled the Five Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), will cost as estimated $180 million USD and will be located in the southwestern province of Guizhou.

According to Chinese news source Xinhuanet, several members of the Guizhou Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) made an agreement with the government last year to have residents relocated before the facility is built.

All residents within five kilometers (approximately three miles) are being “evacuated,” Xinhuanet reports, so that “a sound electromagnetic wave environment” can be created for the telescope.

When the construction is complete, FAST is expected to span 500 meters in diameter, making it the world’s largest facility of its kind. At the moment, the largest radio telescope is located in Puerto Rico at the Arecibo Observatory and is only 300 meters in diameter.

In order to make room for the facility, the government has agreed to resettle approximately 9,110 residents, who are currently living in Pingtang County and Luodian County, into four new settlements in September. According to Mirror, the government is paying each household 12,000 yuan (roughly $1,800 US) as compensation — although the majority of these residents are already living in poverty and aren’t likely to find much better lodgings with such a bare-bones compensation package.

For Americans, the notion of being forcibly relocated by the government is hard to fathom, especially on such a big scale as China will be seeing. Americans generally move to new residences by choice, usually for career aspirations or to live into a better neighborhood. Very rarely are homeowners forced to vacate their properties without having any say in the matter.

It’s likely that these 9,000 Chinese residents aren’t too thrilled by their government’s decision either, but it’s far too late for construction of the telescope to be stopped now.

What exactly makes fried foods so impossible to ignore?

Pawan Takhar, a researcher and “food scientist” at the University of Illinois decided to use an interesting new method to find out the answer: an X-ray machine.

As reported by UPI, , Takhar and his team of researchers conducted a study on fried foods using an X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) machine to create 3-D images of fried potato disks that had been deep-fried for varying lengths of time.

Because X-ray machines can accurately scan and map items that are incredibly small — sometimes as small as .5 mm in length — Takhar found that the resulting 3-D images would be able to accurately depict the microstructures of the food as more oil saturated it.

Researchers used russet potatoes cut into disks that measured 45 mm in diameter and 1.5 mm thick. The disks were fried at 190 degrees Celsius for 20, 40, 60, or 80 seconds and then freeze-dried before being scanned and examined to understand how the oil was distributed.

When food is deep-fried, Phys.org explains, the food is immersed in hot oil and water in the food evaporates very quickly. This results in steam pressure, and the pressure builds up so much that it affects the microstructure and the porosity of the food. As the food becomes more porous, “pathways” of pores open up and allow more oil to seep in.

Using the X-rayed images, the researchers were able to see how different porous pathways formed when the same type of food was heated for different lengths of time. The pathways are very complex at first and make it difficult for oil to penetrate past the surface. As the food heats up, the pathways become looser and the oil is able to soak farther into the food.

This is exactly what makes fried foods — especially french fries — so tempting, Takhar says. The foods are cooked at a very high temperature for a very short length of time and this results in a crispy exterior and softer interior.

Takhar has been studying frying for about 10 years now and he still says that researchers probably “only understand about 10 percent of what is taking place during frying.” Hopefully, he says, this recent research will help food scientists figure out how to make healthier foods just as tempting as fried foods — and without any frying involved.

A vicious cyber-attack against the electronic toys maker VTech has resulted in more than 6.3 million children becoming vulnerable online. The hackers gained access to both photos and chat logs.

VTech has responded to the nightmare by updating its End User License Agreement, adding the caveat that the company cannot provide 100% guarantee that it wont be hacked again.

The toy maker also shifted some responsibility onto the parents. “You acknowledge and agree that any information you send or receive during your use of the site may not be secure and may be intercepted or later acquired by unauthorized parties,” the company said in a statement.

Commenting on the move, security expert Jonathan Lierberman, the VP of Product Strategy at Lieberman Software, commented that it was only a matter of time before every online business has Terms and Conditions that limit their liability in cases of cybercrime.

Indeed, online crime and data breaches pose a mounting problem. According to 24/7 Wall Street, the latest count from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) shows that there has been a total of 69 data breaches recorded through Feb. 9, 2016, and almost 1.4 million records have been exposed since the beginning of this year.

The largest data breach involved medical information on 950,000 subscribers to a company’s health insurance products. The data, stored on six hard drives, is still unaccounted for.

Data breaches pose serious problems for businesses that store crucial and private information in the cloud or online — and not just as serious liabilities. They are a serious internal risk, as almost 35% of all data breaches can be traced back to current employees.

The government and military sector has suffered about five data breaches this year, while the medical sector has suffered the largest percentage, at 34.8%. The educational sector has seen 10 data breaches so far in 2016.

At this rate, online businesses will be scrambling to protect their customers — and themselves against their customers in the event of loss of information.

Preschool has always been known as a place for toddlers to explore their creativity, but a famous author is now saying that today’s childcare is too focused on educational development.


According to the Huffington Post, Erika Christakis, a renowned author and childhood development specialist at Yale University, recently released her newest book, “The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups.”


In the book, Christakis argues that preschools are now too rigid and structured, as opposed to the preschools of yesteryear that catered to a child’s imagination.


Christakis believes that this new focus on scholastic development is preventing children from being themselves, which in turn leads them to become less inquisitive and hinders their potential moving forward.


“Why, when kids are so programmed to learn, are they having trouble? We know they’re having trouble because we have an actual epidemic of preschool expulsions, kids are being medicated off-label as early as two or three [years old] with attention management drugs, and also we have more anecdotal evidence that parents are very frustrated,” said Christakis.


Families spend an average of 7.8% of their monthly income on childcare, so it wasn’t surprising when parents began demanding an increased focus on education in preschools.


However, Christakis creates a distinction between scholastic and cognitive development, claiming that it’s more important to grow a child’s mind than it is to fill their brains with information.


“An academic focus is not necessarily a cognitively rich focus,” Christakis said. “What you lose in a preschool environment with those kinds of expectations is things like open-ended free play, [which] can be squeezed in favor of more narrowly targeted skills like alphabet awareness.”


Preschool curriculum has been a national topic of debate for several years, and those who endorse changes to the current system just lost one of their most fervent supporters.


According to The Sacramento Bee, Bev Bos, an author, teacher, and play-based learning advocate, recently passed away at the age of 81. Those who knew her say that no one was as passionate about helping children grow than Bos.


“She taught us and gave us the ability to trust our children, that they are capable,” said Dina Miller, who worked with Bos at the Roseville Community Preschool.


As for Christakis and her new book, the author is also fighting to expand preschool availability for low-income children. While some may not agree with her opinions, the publication is sure to cause rumblings within the world of childcare.