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UPPER LAKE, Calif. – An Upper Lake man suffered major injuries – including the loss of his eye – as the result of an all-terrain vehicle crash on Thursday night.

Brian Miller, 27, was injured in the collision, which happened at 6:15 p.m. Thursday, according to a report from the California Highway Patrol's Clear Lake office.

The CHP report said Miller was riding a 2002 Yamaha Grizzly four-wheel ATV on private property when the collision occurred.

Miller was backing down a steep incline when the ATV overturned. The CHP report said Miller was thrown from the quad, which then landed on top of him.

The CHP said Miller – who was not wearing a helmet – sustained major injuries, including an open skull fracture and the loss of his left eye.

Alcohol and drugs are suspected to be factors in the crash, which is being investigated by CHP Officer Steve Curtis, according to the report.

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NASA's most advanced mobile robotic laboratory, which will examine one of the most intriguing areas on Mars, is in final preparations for a launch from Florida's Space Coast at 7:25 a.m. PST on Friday, Nov. 25.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission will carry Curiosity, a rover with more scientific capability than any ever sent to another planet.

The rover is now sitting atop an Atlas V rocket awaiting liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

“Preparations are on track for launching at our first opportunity,” said Pete Theisinger, Mars Science Laboratory project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “If weather or other factors prevent launching then, we have more opportunities through Dec. 18.”

Scheduled to land on the Red Planet in August 2012, the one-ton rover will examine Gale Crater during a nearly two-year prime mission.

Curiosity will land near the base of a layered mountain 3 miles (5 kilometers) high inside the crater. The rover will investigate whether environmental conditions ever have been favorable for development of microbial life and preserved evidence of those conditions.

“Gale gives us a superb opportunity to test multiple potentially habitable environments and the context to understand a very long record of early environmental evolution of the planet,” said John Grotzinger, project scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The portion of the crater where Curiosity will land has an alluvial fan likely formed by water-carried sediments. Layers at the base of the mountain contain clays and sulfates, both known to form in water.”

Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as earlier Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. The rover will carry a set of 10 science instruments weighing 15 times as much as its predecessors' science payloads.

A mast extending to 7 feet (2.1 meters) above ground provides height for cameras and a laser-firing instrument to study targets from a distance. Instruments on a 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) arm will study targets up close.

Analytical instruments inside the rover will determine the composition of rock and soil samples acquired with the arm's powdering drill and scoop. Other instruments will characterize the environment, including the weather and natural radiation that will affect future human missions.

“Mars Science Laboratory builds upon the improved understanding about Mars gained from current and recent missions,” said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This mission advances technologies and science that will move us toward missions to return samples from, and eventually send humans to, Mars.”

The mission is challenging and risky. Because Curiosity is too heavy to use an air-bag cushioned touchdown, the mission will use a new landing method, with a rocket-powered descent stage lowering the rover on a tether like a kind of sky-crane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mission will pioneer precision landing methods during the spacecraft's crucial dive through Mars' atmosphere next August to place the rover onto a smaller landing target than any previously for a Mars mission.

The target inside Gale Crater is 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) by 15.5 miles (25 kilometers). Rough terrain just outside that area would have disqualified the landing site without the improved precision.

No mission to Mars since the Viking landers in the 1970s has sought a direct answer to the question of whether life has existed on Mars. Curiosity is not designed to answer that question by itself, but its investigations for evidence about prerequisites for life will steer potential future missions toward answers.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Curiosity was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA's Space Network, managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide space communications services for the rocket. NASA's international Deep Space Network will provide MSL spacecraft acquisition and communication throughout the mission.

For more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl . You also can follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

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This week the grassroots Committee For the Right to Know, a wide-ranging coalition of consumer, public health and environmental organizations, food companies, and individuals submitted the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act to the State Attorney General for title and summary, prior to circulation as an initiative measure for the November 2012 election.

The initiative would require genetically engineered foods (also known as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs) and foods containing GMO ingredients to be clearly labeled, similar to current labels with other nutritional information.

Genetically engineered food is usually plant or meat product that has had its DNA artificially altered in a lab with genes from other plants, animals, viruses or bacteria, in order to produce foreign compounds in that food. This genetic alteration is experimental, and is not found in nature.

The risk of genetically engineered foods is unclear, and unlike the strict safety evaluations required for the approval of new drugs, the safety of genetically engineered foods for human consumption has not been adequately tested, the group said.

Recent studies show that genetically engineering food can create new, unintended toxic substances and increase allergies, cancer risks and other health problems, especially for children.

Experts agree that by labeling genetically engineered food, we can help identify foods that cause health problems, the committee said.

“Because the FDA has failed to require labeling of GMO food, this initiative closes a critical loophole in food labeling law. It will allow Californians to choose what they buy and eat and will allow health professionals to track any potential adverse health impacts of these foods,” says Andy Kimbrell, Director of the Center for Food Safety.

The two most common genetically engineered traits are the expression of an insecticide in the tissue of “Bt Corn” and the expression of a compound in “Roundup Ready Soy” which enables high doses of Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer to be sprayed while the plant survives.

As much as 85 percent of corn in the U.S. is genetically engineered. BT Corn is currently regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency as an insecticide.

Robyn O’Brien, author and founder of the Allergy Kids Foundation says, “I support labeling genetically engineered foods because allergy-sensitive people can exercise caution with essential information to make informed decisions about what they eat.”

Fifty countries including the European Union and Japan have laws mandating that genetically engineered foods be labeled, but the United States does not have such a requirement.

Public opinion polls indicate that over 90 percent of California voters support the labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Efforts to enact labeling laws in Congress and the California legislature have been blocked by big food and chemical company lobbyists. This measure will take the issue directly to the people to decide whether genetically engineered foods should be labeled.

“These genetically engineered foods have been allowed into our food supply without warning, and they aren’t labeled,” said Pamm Larry, founder of the grassroots movement and the Committee For the Right to Know. “The bottom line is Californians have a right to know what’s in the food we eat and feed our children. It’s time to send a strong, direct message to those who govern us, whether they be agency or elected, that we want genetically engineered foods labeled.”

The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act was carefully and specifically written to avoid any unnecessary burden or cost to consumers or producers. California voters are expected to have the chance to vote on the initiative in November 2012.

The full text submitted to the attorney general can be read below.

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November 2011 - California Right to Know Initiative

Congressman Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) is inviting local schools and veterans to participate in the Veterans History Project.

The Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center was created by the U.S. Congress in 2000 to collect, preserve and make accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.

“This project is a valuable history lesson for young people to hear firsthand what serving our nation during war time means,” said Thompson. “The recordings will serve as keepsakes for generations, allowing grandchildren and great grandchildren to learn about their family members who served on the battlefield so they could grow up free.”

The Veterans History Project program comprises individual audio- and video-recorded interviews, original photographs, letters and other historical documents from veterans of every war and conflict since World War I.

Students and veteran “coaches” will be paired with a combat veteran to record the interview. Students are encouraged to consider the Veterans History Project for their senior project and Scout troops are encouraged to include Veterans History Project on their path to Eagle Scout.

Veterans are encouraged to sign up to be interviewed and to be coach mentors and work with students and veterans throughout the project. Interested students, teachers and veterans may call Congressman Thompson’s district office in Napa County at 707-226-9898.

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Net neutrality has survived another challenge.

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate rejected a motion to proceed on its “resolution of disapproval” of the Federal Communications Commission’s Net Neutrality rules.

The resolution failed by a margin of 52-46.

The measure, introduced by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), was an effort to reverse the FCC’s December 2010 rules intended to prevent Internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against content and applications on the Web.

The SavetheInternet.com Coalition reported that calls and emails from citizens across the country led to the vote against the measure.

Craig Aaron, president and chief executive officer of the Free Press Action Fund, said the Senate sent a strong signal to would-be gatekeepers that the free and open Internet needs to stay that way.

“The American public doesn't want phone and cable companies undercutting competition, deciding which websites will work or censoring what people can do online,” Aaron said. “And this shows that the Senate, for today at least, is willing to stand up to extremists who would rather waste time with partisan measures than make good policy.”

He said the fight for real net neutrality continues.

“Now that this appalling legislative stunt is finished, I hope policymakers can return to the actual priority here: strengthening these rules to protect all Internet users, no matter if they connect from their home computer or a mobile phone,” he said. “Free Press will continue to push the FCC to make better rules and to actually enforce them. Today's vote is a major victory for the public, but the fight for the free and open Internet is far from over.”

 

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