In this image take from a security camera, pedestrians scatter as a car drives through a packed afternoon crowd along the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. At least a dozen people were injured, two of them critically, according to police. (AP Photo/Snapchat)
In this image take from a security camera, pedestrians scatter as a car drives through a packed afternoon crowd along the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. At least a dozen people were injured, two of them critically, according to police. (AP Photo/Snapchat)
In this image take from a security camera, pedestrians scatter as a car drives through a packed afternoon crowd along the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. At least a dozen people were injured, two of them critically, according to police. (AP Photo/Snapchat)
Pedestrians gather as police and fire officials respond after a car drove through a packed afternoon crowd along the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. At least a dozen people were injured, two of them critically, according to police. (AP Photo/Maarten Smitskamp)
An unidentified man looks at a car that came to rest against the entrance of a public restroom after being driven through a packed afternoon crowd along the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. At least a dozen people were injured, two of them critically, according to police. (AP Photo/Maarten Smitskamp)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A car drove into a crowd of people walking along the famed Venice Beach boardwalk early Saturday, injuring a dozen people before the driver fled the busy Los Angeles tourist site.
The driver and sedan had yet to be located more than two hours after the 6 p.m. crash, police Officer Jorge Torres. Police were looking for a dark-colored Dodge Charger or Avenger. The driver was a man described as having sandy blond hair and estimated to be in his mid-20s, authorities said.
Multiple witnesses reported that the driver appeared to be "moving purposefully" and in control of the car as it plowed through the crowd, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said.
Firefighters were surveying the sprawling crowd looking for injured, Humphrey said.
Twelve injured had been counted, with 10 of them hospitalized. Two were hurt seriously and two critically, Humphrey said. He had no details on the identities of the victims or their injuries.
The car was still moving as it drove out of sight of firefighters and the people who were hit.
The Venice boardwalk is a cultural hub in a part of Los Angeles known for its eccentricities. It is home to galleries, restaurants, tattoo shops, skateboard parks and the famous outdoor weight room known as Muscle Beach.
Jogger Daniel Regidor was a short distance from the crash when it happened and as he approached he saw "people screaming, running."
"When I came upon the scene, there were a bunch of people on the ground, bloodied," he told the Los Angeles Times. "Some looked pretty mangled, head injuries, just a lot of blood."
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) ? The opening day of the swimming world championships could have doubled for a Trojan Swim Club meet.
American swimmer Haley Anderson, a recent graduate of the University of Southern California, won the first gold medal of the championships in the 5-kilometer open water and USC-based Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia won the men's event.
"It's a great job for the Trojans today," Mellouli said, thanking his American coaches Catherine Vogt, Jon Urbanchek and Dave Salo. "It's an awesome group."
Anderson was on the U.S. team a few times with Fran Crippen, who died during a sweltering 10K race in the United Arab Emirates in October 2010.
"Fran taught us to be great competitors," Anderson said. "We all learned from Fran and take his memory with us to all open water competitions and live like he lived."
The course ran along the docks, giving spectators a good view of the race in sunny conditions in 75-degree waters and air temperature of 86 degrees.
China's Wu Minxia and Shi Tingmao won the first diving gold medal, earning Wu a record sixth world title in the women's 3-meter synchronized springboard.
The pair's almost flawless execution of all five dives framed by the dramatic backdrop of Barcelona's skyline gave them the top total score of 338.40 points.
Italy's Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape claimed silver with 307.80, while Canada's Pamela Ware and Jennifer Abel took bronze with 292.08.
Wu has won nine world or Olympic gold medals in the 3-meter synchronized springboard. The only major title to escape her was the 2005 world championship when she didn't compete in the event.
Svetlana Romashina won gold synchronized swimming for the solo technical event. Her standout Russian teammate Natalia Ischenko is taking the year off because she's pregnant.
Huang Zuechen of China took silver, and Ona Carbonell took bronze to give host Spain its first medal of the championships.
Romashina earned the 11th world title of her career, to go with her three Olympic golds.
Down at Barcelona's harbor, Anderson's victory erased the bitter disappointment of missing selection for her favored event.
A silver medalist in last year's 10K Olympic race, Anderson finished only eighth in that event at U.S. trials in May on the same day of her graduation from USC. Her only chance to qualify came down to winning the 5K days later, which she did.
Now she has an even bigger title.
"I didn't walk at graduation and I didn't do well in the 10K so it was a pretty tough day," Anderson said. "But I knew if wanted to make the worlds team I had to win the 5K. There really was no other option. I had to put that race out of mind and just win the 5K. I went for it in that 5K to make the team and I've been focused on this 5K ever since then."
Anderson edged Poliana Okimoto of Brazil in a sprint finish, clocking 56 minutes, 34.2 seconds, 0.02 ahead of Okimoto. Another Brazilian, Ana Marcela Cunha, won a group sprint for third and finished 10.5 seconds behind.
Anderson trains under Vogt at USC, and Vogt is the U.S. open water head coach for these championships.
"She wanted to be out front and be smooth and strong and have some good closing speed and she did exactly what we talked about," Vogt said. "She felt like she wanted to take advantage of her event here."
At last year's London Games, Vogt was on Tunisia's staff and coached Mellouli to gold in the 10K.
Having started purely as a pool swimmer, Mellouli's sprinting ability is what sets him apart in the open water. That was evident as he surged ahead of an elite group of rivals as soon as he got within the ropes outlining the finish area.
"I was hoping they wouldn't stay with me," Mellouli said. "Once I put the jets on I was able to take off, finish the race and take the win."
Mellouli clocked 53 minutes, 30.4 seconds. Eric Hedlin of Canada took silver, 1.2 seconds behind, and five-time world champion Thomas Lurz of Germany finished third, 1.8 back.
Including the open water worlds, Lurz had won the 5K title seven consecutive times.
"I knew in the last 50 meters I would not win," Lurz said. "(Mellouli) swims the 100 free five seconds faster than me or more. This is the problem."
Besides the 10K, Mellouli also took bronze in the 1,500-meter freestyle in London to become the first swimmer to win medals in both the pool and open water at the same Olympics. And he won the 1,500 at the 2008 Beijing Games.
The 29-year-old Mellouli had planned to retire after the London Games but he changed his mind a few months later. He only began training again six months ago.
"This year was supposed to be a year off for me," he said. "So to come back here after a solid two months of training and to be on top of the world is quite exciting for me."
A woman has died after an accident on a rollercoaster at the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park in Arlington, Texas.
"We are deeply saddened to share that earlier this evening an adult woman died in the park while on the Texas Giant," Sharon Parker, communications manager for Six Flags Over Texas, told ABC News in a written statement. "Park medical staff and local paramedics responded immediately. Since the safety of our guests and employees is our number one priority, the ride has been closed pending further investigation. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends during this difficult time."
Official details were not immediately available on how the woman died.
For more on this story, see ABC News affiliate WFAA.
Don't stomp on this little robot - not yet, anyway. VELOCIRoACH, a small cardboard hexapod modelled on a cockroach, can run at 2.7 metres per second, placing it among the fastest robots in the world.
Boston Dynamics' LS3, which can trot at up to 3.2 m/s, still holds the speed record for a self-powered robot. VELOCIRoACH ties for second with the company's six-legged RHex. But VELOCIRoACH is by far the fastest for its size: in 1 second, it can skitter 26 times the length of its body.
Duncan Haldane at the University of California, Berkeley, presented VELOCIRoACH this week at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in San Francisco. To maximise the robot's speed, Haldane and colleagues studied the anatomy of a cockroach, which can run at 1.5 m/s, and scaled its body plan up to a workable size.
The secret to VELOCIRoACH's speed is its thin, C-shaped legs. They mimic a roach's legs by acting as springs as they hit the ground 15 times per second. To stay stable as it runs, the robot has three legs on the ground at all times, forming tripods. Its approach to obstacles mimics a roach's as well - rather than trying to avoid them, it runs into them head first, then pops up onto its end and goes over the top.
Elsewhere at the meeting, Nick Kohut, who works with Haldane, presented a similar robot with an added tail. By swinging its tail to the side, TAYLRoACH, which looks more like a lizard than a roach, can make a 90-degree turn in less than a quarter of a second without slowing down from a run.
Haldane says he's now working to improve VELOCIRoACH's body plan so it can withstand an indoor insect's most deadly nemesis: the human foot. The robot can already carry four times its body weight, but Haldane plans to design its materials to pop back up after being flattened. But despite being faster and stronger than a real roach, Haldane says it's unlikely that the robot would outdo its namesake by surviving a nuclear blast.
Cox Communications continued to build on its investment in live TV streaming, unveiling its latest mobile app at a CES presser. Developed in partnership with Cisco, the yet unnamed app will feature 90 live channels, On Demand content and personalized video recommendations for up to eight household members. Folks who don't quite feel the recommendations they receive will also be able to "like," "dislike" or "suspend" them. Cox apparently plans to place its proverbial eggs into this one basket, eventually integrating all its mobile applications into the app. Cox has been busy releasing all sorts of digital offerings in the last few years, including the Cox TV Connect app in late 2011 as well as its Cox Mobile Connect apps. The new app is slated to debut on the iPad first but will be available on more devices by the end of the year. For more details, check out the PR after the break.
Napoli Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani celebrates after scoring, during a Serie A soccer match between Napoli and AS Roma, at the Naples San Paolo stadium, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)
Napoli Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani celebrates after scoring, during a Serie A soccer match between Napoli and AS Roma, at the Naples San Paolo stadium, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)
Napoli Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani celebrates after scoring, during a Serie A soccer match between Napoli and AS Roma, at the Naples San Paolo stadium, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)
Napoli Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani celebrates after scoring, during a Serie A soccer match between Napoli and AS Roma, at the Naples San Paolo stadium, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013. (AP Photo/FRancesco Pecoraro, Lapresse)
LONDON (AP) ? It took something very special to topple Lionel Messi from his position on top of the first AP Global Football rankings survey of 2013, and Edinson Cavani's perfect hat trick for Napoli did it.
Left foot, right foot and header, three goals from the Uruguayan that pushed the Serie A team to a 4-1 victory over Roma and into third place in the league.
"Cavani's perfect hat trick against Roma served only to heighten the speculation of a possible January move away from Napoli," panelist Will Tidey of the San Francisco-based Bleacher Report said.
Messi, who slipped from the leading position he has held since the AP rankings were launched in October, ended up sixth after managing only one goal in Barcelona's 4-0 victory over the weekend. The record-breaking Argentina forward did manage to pick up FIFA's Ballon d'Or on Monday night.
"Edinson Cavani ? with a hat trick in the key match of Serie A ? deserves the title of big gun of the week," Paolo Condo of Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport said.
Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo saved his team with two goals and was voted into second place by the 17 soccer journalists from around the world who give 10 points for their top players and teams, down to one point for 10th.
Ronaldo was awarded 122 points, 15 points behind Cavani's 137.
Manchester United striker Robin van Persie was third, one point behind Ronaldo.
Barcelona remains the clear leader of the team list with 152 points, 44 points ahead of Premier League leaders Manchester United. Napoli climbed into third in the AP rankings, as well as in Serie A, 10 points clear of Sampdoria. Four Italian teams are in the Top 10, although neither of the Milan teams nor Juventus made the grade.
Struggling Sampdoria and 19-year-old rising star Mauro Icardi were both fourth after the Argentine striker, who was born in the same city as Messi, scored both goals to beat league leader Juventus 2-1.
"Icardi's two goals at Juventus were also exceptional," Tom Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said, "and it certainly justified him not being allowed to go home to play for Argentina's under-20 team."
Gazzetta dello Sport's Condo added: "Icardi, a young star, scored against the leaders in the Calcio. Look out for him in the future."
Messi was not even the top Barcelona player in this week's rankings. Pedro Rodriguez, who scored twice in the 4-0 victory over Espanyol, was fifth with 69 points, eight ahead of Messi.
Liverpool striker Luis Suarez was eighth, despite widespread anger in England for what appeared to be a deliberate handball that helped the Uruguayan score the second and winning goal against non-league Mansfield in the FA Cup.
New Chelsea striker Demba Ba also broke into the top 10 for the first time after scoring two goals on his debut for the London team.
Milan midfielder Kevin Prince Boateng was voted into 11th place, even though he barely played. Boateng was applauded by panelists for walking off the field during an exhibition when he was subjected to racist abuse.
"Milan ? Good for them. Change will never come about unless teams take drastic measures against racism. AC Milan was perfectly within their rights walking off the field against Pro Patria," Filip Bondy of The New York Daily News said. "It is really the one and only way to punish fans ? deprive them of their gladiatorial entertainment."
Iowa State computer, electrical engineers working to help biologists cope with big dataPublic release date: 8-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Srinivas Aluru aluru@iastate.edu 515-294-3539 Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa Liang Dong held up a clear plastic cube, an inch or so across, just big enough to hold 10 to 20 tiny seeds.
Using sophisticated sensors and software, researchers can precisely control the light, temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide inside that cube.
Dong an Iowa State University assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, of chemical and biological engineering calls it a "microsystem instrument." Put hundreds of those cubes together and researchers can simultaneously grow thousands of seeds and seedlings in different conditions and see what happens. How, for example, do the plants react when it is hot and dry? Or carbon dioxide levels change? Or light intensity is adjusted very slightly?
The instrument designed and built by Dong's research group will keep track of all that by using a robotic arm to run a camera over the cubes and take thousands of images of the growing seeds and seedlings.
Plant scientists will use the images to analyze the plants' observable characteristics the leaf color, the root development, the shoot size. All those observations are considered a plant's phenotype. And while plant scientists understand plant genetics very well, Dong said they don't have a lot of data about how genetics and environment combine to influence phenotype.
Dong's instrument will provide researchers with lots of data too much for scientists to easily sort and analyze. That's a problem known as big data. And it's increasingly common in the biological sciences.
"We're seeing a proliferation of new instruments in the biological sciences," said Srinivas Aluru, the Ross Martin Mehl and Marylyne Munas Mehl Professor of Computer Engineering at Iowa State. "And the rate of data collection is increasing. So we have to have a solution to analyze all this data."
Aluru is leading a College of Engineering initiative to build research teams capable of solving big data problems in next-generation DNA sequencing, systems biology and phenomics. The researchers are developing computing solutions that take advantage of emerging technologies such as cloud computing and high performance computers. They're also building partnerships with technology companies such as IBM, Micron, NVIDIA, Illumina Inc., Life Technologies Corp., Monsanto Co. and Roche.
The project is one of the three Dean's Research Initiatives launched by Jonathan Wickert, former dean of the College of Engineering and currently Iowa State's senior vice president and provost. The initiatives in high throughput computational biology, wind energy and a carbon-negative economy were launched in March 2011 with $500,000 each over three years. That money is to build interdisciplinary, public-private research teams ready to compete for multi-million dollar grants and projects.
Patrick Schnable, Iowa State's Baker Professor of Agronomy and director of the centers for Plant Genomics and Carbon Capturing Crops, remembers when biologists had no interest in working with computer specialists. That was before they tried to work with billions of data points to, say, accurately predict harvests based on plant genotype, soil type and weather conditions.
"Now we're getting huge, absolutely huge, data sets," Schnable said. "There is no way to analyze these data sets without extraordinary computer resources. There's no way we could do this without the collaboration of engineers."
To date, the computational biology initiative has attracted $5.5 million for four major research projects. One of the latest grants is a three-year, $2 million award from the BIGDATA program of the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The grant will allow Aluru and researchers from Iowa State, Stanford University, Virginia Tech and the University of Michigan to work together to develop a computing toolbox that helps scientists manage all the data from today's DNA sequencing instruments.
Aluru said the research initiative helped prepare Iowa State researchers to go after that grant.
"When the BIGDATA call came in, we had the credibility to compete," he said. "We were already working on leading edge problems and had established relationships with companies."
The initiative, the grants and the industry partnerships are helping Iowa State faculty and students move to the front of the developing field.
"One computing company wanted to set up a life science research group and it came here for advice," Aluru said. "Iowa State is known as a big data leader in the biosciences."
###
Contacts:
Srinivas Aluru, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 515-294-3539, aluru@iastate.edu
Patrick Schnable, Agronomy, 515-294-0975, schnable@iastate.edu
Liang Dong, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 515-294-0388, ldong@iastate.edu
Mike Krapfl, News Service, 515-294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Iowa State computer, electrical engineers working to help biologists cope with big dataPublic release date: 8-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Srinivas Aluru aluru@iastate.edu 515-294-3539 Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa Liang Dong held up a clear plastic cube, an inch or so across, just big enough to hold 10 to 20 tiny seeds.
Using sophisticated sensors and software, researchers can precisely control the light, temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide inside that cube.
Dong an Iowa State University assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, of chemical and biological engineering calls it a "microsystem instrument." Put hundreds of those cubes together and researchers can simultaneously grow thousands of seeds and seedlings in different conditions and see what happens. How, for example, do the plants react when it is hot and dry? Or carbon dioxide levels change? Or light intensity is adjusted very slightly?
The instrument designed and built by Dong's research group will keep track of all that by using a robotic arm to run a camera over the cubes and take thousands of images of the growing seeds and seedlings.
Plant scientists will use the images to analyze the plants' observable characteristics the leaf color, the root development, the shoot size. All those observations are considered a plant's phenotype. And while plant scientists understand plant genetics very well, Dong said they don't have a lot of data about how genetics and environment combine to influence phenotype.
Dong's instrument will provide researchers with lots of data too much for scientists to easily sort and analyze. That's a problem known as big data. And it's increasingly common in the biological sciences.
"We're seeing a proliferation of new instruments in the biological sciences," said Srinivas Aluru, the Ross Martin Mehl and Marylyne Munas Mehl Professor of Computer Engineering at Iowa State. "And the rate of data collection is increasing. So we have to have a solution to analyze all this data."
Aluru is leading a College of Engineering initiative to build research teams capable of solving big data problems in next-generation DNA sequencing, systems biology and phenomics. The researchers are developing computing solutions that take advantage of emerging technologies such as cloud computing and high performance computers. They're also building partnerships with technology companies such as IBM, Micron, NVIDIA, Illumina Inc., Life Technologies Corp., Monsanto Co. and Roche.
The project is one of the three Dean's Research Initiatives launched by Jonathan Wickert, former dean of the College of Engineering and currently Iowa State's senior vice president and provost. The initiatives in high throughput computational biology, wind energy and a carbon-negative economy were launched in March 2011 with $500,000 each over three years. That money is to build interdisciplinary, public-private research teams ready to compete for multi-million dollar grants and projects.
Patrick Schnable, Iowa State's Baker Professor of Agronomy and director of the centers for Plant Genomics and Carbon Capturing Crops, remembers when biologists had no interest in working with computer specialists. That was before they tried to work with billions of data points to, say, accurately predict harvests based on plant genotype, soil type and weather conditions.
"Now we're getting huge, absolutely huge, data sets," Schnable said. "There is no way to analyze these data sets without extraordinary computer resources. There's no way we could do this without the collaboration of engineers."
To date, the computational biology initiative has attracted $5.5 million for four major research projects. One of the latest grants is a three-year, $2 million award from the BIGDATA program of the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The grant will allow Aluru and researchers from Iowa State, Stanford University, Virginia Tech and the University of Michigan to work together to develop a computing toolbox that helps scientists manage all the data from today's DNA sequencing instruments.
Aluru said the research initiative helped prepare Iowa State researchers to go after that grant.
"When the BIGDATA call came in, we had the credibility to compete," he said. "We were already working on leading edge problems and had established relationships with companies."
The initiative, the grants and the industry partnerships are helping Iowa State faculty and students move to the front of the developing field.
"One computing company wanted to set up a life science research group and it came here for advice," Aluru said. "Iowa State is known as a big data leader in the biosciences."
###
Contacts:
Srinivas Aluru, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 515-294-3539, aluru@iastate.edu
Patrick Schnable, Agronomy, 515-294-0975, schnable@iastate.edu
Liang Dong, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 515-294-0388, ldong@iastate.edu
Mike Krapfl, News Service, 515-294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uAQ1ceKDH1oFdfZHQ-QI2BNNMpwfcMrleY6QjILs6gYmj1mpCA8lW4eagzg4iXu8Us0J8pbZCydWRWrvkfLUxGCjWeVD-L0udPut1BDAk=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 8-Jan-2013
Share ]