>>>saddest news this weekend. over 230 people killed in a single, horrifying incident. and beyond the tragedy itself, it made so many people think of their own lives and situations they've been in, and incidents like it in the past. a nightclub in brazil, packed with happy people on a saturday night, listening to a band at 2:30 in the morning. suddenly, a fire. started small and then engulfed the club, filling it with smoke and hundreds of people in a panic. it got more urgent and complicated when some of the victims weren't allowed out. and today we learned of arrests and an investigation that is just getting under way. nbc's
keir simmons
is with us tonight to start us off from
santa maria
, brazil. keir, good evening.
>> reporter: good evening,
brian
. the
death toll
here is almost unimaginable. the gymnasium behind me became a makeshift morgue. more than 230 lives were lost, and scores more are still hospitalized. survivors said it was like a horror movie. a nightclub turned
death trap
.
>>i have been in the nightclub before.
>> reporter: audrey narrowly escaped. what did you see?
>>people crying. people dying in my sight.
>> reporter: hundreds of others, including two of her friends, did not.
>>i lost very
special people
to me.
>> reporter: today, the funerals began. so many dead, the coffins laid out in rows. found here by grieving
loved ones
. on saturday night, they had packed the kiss nightclub. survivors say the band set off pyrotechnics, igniting a fire in the ceiling. it spread in seconds, filling the club with smoke. the crowd panicked. confused
security guards
at first blocked the exits. in the stampede, audrey was nearly trampled. but she could breathe. but someone pulled her to safety. this is the club before the disaster. no windows. the front door, the only exit. early sunday morning, it was chaos. a struggle to revive victims. some survivors searched for
loved ones
. others smashed holes to let people escape. but for most, it was too late. bodies were piled up inside. most overcome by smoke. the bodies have been removed, but you can still smell the smoke and on the sidewalk flowers. the victims' names and faces are now filling brazilian tv and
social media
. many were students, teenagers.
santa maria
is a
university town
.
>>i'm very happy that i'm here. but i cannot explain how i feel about my friends. about the city.
>> reporter: four arrests have been made so far. reportedly, a club co-owner and two band members. brazil is in mourning, as everyone tries to make sense of it all.
brian
, this is the deadliest fire this country has seen in more than half a century. they blocked doors because they thought that
young people
hadn't paid for their drinks, and many back in the u.s. will be reminded of a
terrible tragedy
ten years ago in
rhode island
. again, a packed nightclub, a fire, and panic that ended in tragedy. back then, 100 lives were lost. here in brazil, that
death toll
has more than doubled. and
brian
, tonight, a fourth arrest here.
>>what a terrible story.
keir simmons
starting us off in brazil tonight. thanks.
Concrete is an essential part of our infrastructure.
And it?s all falling apart, as Robert Courland?s 2011 book Concrete Planet makes clear.
The Romans built concrete structures that lasted over 2 thousand years.? Ours will last a century ? at most.
Courland writes that the buildings and monuments we build may last less than a century, despite this, builders, architects, and engineers who know the shortcomings of steel and concrete continue to build structures that will deteriorate.
The problem isn?t the just the concrete; it?s the iron and steel rebar reinforcement inside.? Cracks can be fixed, but when air, moisture, and chemicals seep into reinforced concrete, the rebar rusts, expanding in diameter four or five-fold, which destroys the surrounding concrete, and ultimately destroys the building, road, bridge, dam, levee, home, airport runway, sewage and water pipes, school, canal, power plants, grain elevators, shipping piers, tunnels, and so on.
Courland says that engineers and architects have known about this problem a long time, yet either refuse to admit it or don?t think it matters.? The main theme of this book is that it does matter, as Courland explains in these three excerpts:
1)???? The lifespan of concrete is not only shorter than masonry, it ?is probably less than that of wood?We have built a disposable world using a short-lived material, the manufacture of which generates millions of tons of greenhouse gases.?? Cement is the third largest source of CO2 after autos and coal-fueled power plants.? The World Coal Association states that ?Coal is used as an energy source in cement production. Large amounts of energy are required to produce cement. Kilns usually burn coal in the form of powder and consume around 450g of coal for about 900g of cement produced?.
2)????? ??Even more troubling is that all this steel-reinforced concrete that we use for building our roads, buildings, bridges, sewer pipes, and sidewalks is ultimately expendable, so we will have to keep rebuilding them every couple of generations, adding more pollution and expense for our descendants to bear.? Most of the concrete structures built at the beginning of the 20th century have begun falling apart, and most will be, or already have been, demolished?.
3)????? The world we have built over the last century is decaying at an alarming rate. Our infrastructure is especially terrible:
1 in 4 bridges are either structurally deficient or structurally obsolete
The service life of most reinforced concrete highway bridges is 50 years, and their average age is 42 years?.
Besides our crumbling highway system, the reinforced concrete used for our water conduits, sewer pipes, water-treatment plants, and pumping stations is also disintegrating.? The chemicals and bacteria in sewage make it almost as corrosive as seawater, reducing the life span of the reinforced concrete used in these systems to 50 years of less.?
I?m sure the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) would agree. Below is their 2009 report card for America?s infrastructure (all of these use at least some, if not a lot, of concrete).
C+ Solid Waste
C Bridges
C- Public Parks and Recreation, Rail
D+ Energy
D Aviation, Dams, Hazardous Waste, Schools, Transit
Their 2013 report card will state we need over 3 trillion to fix this. But ASCE says nothing about the short life of concrete anywhere on their website, let alone demand that future projects be built to last.? The ASCE 2013 report card comes out March 19.? I?ll be watching to see if they even mention that we need to build millennia-long lasting concrete buildings, roads, bridges, dams, schools, drinking water pipes and facilities, and levees in the future.
We know there?s a problem, we know how to fix it (the last chapter explains how to make long-lasting concrete), and yet there?s no pressure to do it, because it?s cheaper to do it the wrong way, especially in a time of tight credit.?? To do it right, it costs a bit more up front, but the payback is tens of trillions of dollars in saved future costs. I predict Capitalism?s? short-term? focus will prevent long-lasting concrete projects from coming to fruition.
On top of that, there?s no demand from the public, journalists, engineers, or architects.? There has not been any outcry since this book was published to build with long-lasting concrete in the future that I can find.
Well, have only been two attempts to do something that I could find:
A bill that passed in the Senate (S.775) but failed in the House: The National Infrastructure Improvement Act, to establish a National Commission on the Infrastructure of the United States
The National Institute of Standards and Technology?s Engineering Laboratory has started to fund research to prevent concrete from cracking in a program called REACT: Reducing Early-Age Cracking Today.
Peak Energy and Concrete
It will take a tremendous amount of energy to replace and/or fix our concrete infrastructure, energy that will be less and less available.? Why waste our remaining energy and create vastly more greenhouse gas to make concrete, unless it will be built to last thousands of years like Roman Concrete?
Our descendants won?t be driving everywhere, in fact, they?ll probably wish they could convert the pavement to farmland, which will take centuries even after the cement is gone for the soil to recover ? why not start now?? Stop maintaining roads in the national forests, rural areas, and wherever else it makes sense ?let them return to gravel and eventually fade away.
Perhaps we should even consider DE-paving and DE-damming to restore streams, fisheries, wetlands, and ecosystems for future generations.
We should convert some roads to railways while we still have energy to spend, since trains are around seven times more efficient than trucks.
At this point it seems crazy to build projects with short-term concrete we KNOW will only last for decades.
Eventually buildings over 5 stories tall will be of little use ? why keep building skyscrapers?
Future generations won?t able to build, let alone repair and maintain what we construct.? Once we stop maintaining our concrete (and cement) structures, they will quickly fall apart.
We just won?t have the energy to build and maintain many concrete structures in a wood-based civilization.? Consider all the wood it used to take for a limestone kiln to make 1 cubic yard of lime: a dozen cords of wood (a cord is 4? x 4? x 8).
Another example Courland cites (page 139): Since the Mayans ?used 20 full-grown pine trees to create just 1 cubic meter of lime, the amount of deforestation caused by the need for farmland, plaster, and stucco probably tipped the environmental balance deep in the red?.
I wonder how many trees would be needed to build the 27.1 million cubic meter Three Gorges Dam in China?? ?I suspect even deforesting the earth wouldn?t be enough.
And those of you downstream from the Hoover and other large dams might be interested to know that these are still ?undergoing the curing process, thus forestalling corrosion. It will be interesting for our descendants to discover whether the tremendous weight of these dams will continue to put off the rebar?s corrosion expansion? (page 327).
Failing dams are a double tragedy, since electricity from hydro-power will be especially valuable as one of the few (reliable) energy sources in the future.
And what the hell are the people in the future going to do with all this concrete ? build sheep fences?
LONDON (Reuters) - The United Nations launched an inquiry on Thursday into the use of unmanned drones in counter-terrorism operations, after criticism of the number of innocent civilians killed by the aircraft.
The inquiry, announced in London, will investigate 25 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories.
Most attacks with unmanned aerial vehicles have been by the United States. Britain and Israel have also used them, and dozens more states are believed to possess the technology.
"The plain fact is that this technology is here to stay, and its use in theatres of conflict is a reality with which the world must contend," said inquiry leader Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights.
"It is therefore imperative that appropriate legal and operational structures are urgently put in place to regulate its use in a manner that complies with the requirements of international law."
Criticism of drone strikes centers on the number of civilians killed and the fact that they are launched across sovereign states' borders so frequently - far more than conventional attacks by piloted aircraft.
Retired U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, who authored the U.S. counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, warned earlier this month against overusing drones, which have provoked angry demonstrations in Pakistan.
Data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism say 2,600-3,404 Pakistanis have been killed by drones, of which 473-889 were reported to be civilians.
The U.N.'s Human Rights Council asked Emmerson to start an investigation following requests by countries including Pakistan, Russia and China to look into drone attacks.
The inquiry will examine photographic and forensic material as well as witness statements. The resulting report and recommendations will be presented at the U.N. General Assembly in New York in October this year, Emmerson said.
He said that it he did not expect the inquiry to result in a "dossier of evidence" that would directly point to legal liability, but would help support the relevant states' own independent investigations.
Emmerson said Britain's Ministry of Defense had agreed to fully cooperate and he was optimistic he would receive good cooperation from the U.S. and Pakistani governments.
"We welcome this investigation in the hopes that global pressure will bring the U.S. back into line with international law requirements that strictly limit the use of lethal force," said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project.
"To date, there has been an abysmal lack of transparency and no accountability for the U.S. government's ever-expanding targeted killing program," she said.
It's been just over a week since we departed chilly Las Vegas, and now we've descended on the much warmer Golden State for the music industry's annual winter gathering. That's right, we're here in Anaheim, California for NAMM 2013 to fondle all the latest musical gadgets and attempt to make it through the week with our eardrums still intact. For keeping up with all of the happenings, be sure to take a gander here for all of the latest newsy bits and hands-ons that we'll encounter over the next few days.
For a time this game held the official world record for the most swears in a video game, notching up an impressive 189 f**ks. The vast majority of those effs came courtesy of Detective Washington, whose mouth was seemingly stuck on ?foul?. When asked by his partner, Agent G, if he ever felt like cutting back on all the profanity, Agent Washington?s reply is characteristically succinct and without ambiguity: ?F**k that motherf**ker!?
Despite the sterling work of Washington, the ?most swears in a game? record is currently held by the next commendable proponent of expletives on our list...
Quote: ?I?m gonna rip your motherf**king balls off!?
In the fall of 2010, Hoi-Ying Holman of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) was approached by an international team researching a mysterious microbial community discovered deep in cold sulfur springs in southern Germany.
"They told me what they were doing and said, 'We know what you contributed to the oil-spill research,'" recalls Holman, who heads the Chemical Ecology group in Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division. "They wondered if I could help them determine the biochemistry of their microbe samples."
Holman had co-authored a report in Science about bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico that thrived on the Deepwater Horizon oil plume. Using infrared spectromicroscopy at the Berkeley Synchrotron Infrared Structural Biology (BSISB) facility, which she directs at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), Holman helped determine how the novel bug obtained energy by eating the spilled crude. No stranger to subsurface bioscience, Holman would soon add a new actor to her cast of remarkable microbes.
Not extreme, but weird anyway
The name Archaea means "ancient things," but Archaea were recognized as a distinct domain of life less than forty years ago. First thought to be exclusively extremophiles ? lovers of boiling hot springs, deep-sea black smokers, acid mine runoff, and other inhospitable environments ? more and more archaea are found thriving in moderate and cold environments, almost always as minority members of much larger microbial communities.
A unique exception to this pattern was discovered less than 10 years ago in the Sippenauer Moor in Germany. In microbial mats in this cold sulfur spring's outflow, the SM1 Euryarchaeon lives in roughly equal abundance with bacteria in a community that forms symbiotic "strings of pearls": the archaea fill the "pearls" and filamentous bacteria cover the pearl surfaces and form strings between them. The two kinds of microbes were assumed to be syntrophic ? dependent on each other for nourishment ? but the biochemical details were a mystery.
Christine Moissl-Eichinger of the University of Regensburg was among the SM1 Euryarchaeon's discoverers. Before long what she calls "another amazing lifestyle" of the new archaeon emerged; biofilms that grew deep below the surface of another cold sulfur spring, the nearby Muehlbacher Schwefelquelle. Moissl-Eichinger and her team collected samples of the slime-like biofilm ? which first seemed to be pure SM1 ? on net traps underwater.
To augment their already extensive research, Moissl-Eichinger and Alexander Probst of her staff brought the Regensburg samples to Berkeley Lab, initially attracted by the PhyloChip, a DNA microarray invented by Berkeley Lab's Gary Andersen and Todd DeSantis and their colleagues. Because the PhyloChip probes for the 16S rRNA gene, found in all Bacteria and Archaea, it can quickly and accurately sort through all known species in a sample ? including those, like SM1 and many other microorganisms, that can't be grown in culture.
Probst and DeSantis, both now with Second Genome, Inc., and Andersen were joined by Kasthuri Venkateswaran of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a member of NASA's Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group. Probst wanted to know who was living where in the subsurface sulfur-spring samples; Venkateswaran's interest is understanding the role of Archaea in space and analogous sites. Although SM1 was by far the dominant species in the subsurface community, they found that small amounts of other archaea were present as well ? and about five percent of the community consisted of bacteria.
Bring on the synchrotron
Led by Andersen, the PhyloChip's inventors had contributed to the oil-spill research, and their previous association with Holman brought her and her BSISB colleagues aboard the SM1 research team.
"Lots of biochemical techniques can tell you what's in a sample ? lipids and carbohydrates, for example ? but just because they're there doesn't mean they interact," says Holman's colleague Giovanni Birarda, a member of the BSISB staff. "Synchrotron radiation?based Fourier-transform infrared spectromicroscopy ? SR-FTIR ? takes images and spectra of the same sample, so you can map the chemical relationships by combining the images with spectra that identify where the archaea and bacteria are."
Holman says, "The main difference is in their membrane lipids. Bacterial membrane lipids consist of fatty acids with long alkylic chains" ? functional groups of singly bonded carbon and hydrogen atoms ? "which have only one to two terminal methyl groups," groups with one carbon and three hydrogen. "By contrast, archaeal membrane lipids generally consist of branched and saturated isoprenes" ? a more complex common hydrocarbon ? "and are relatively less alkylic but have more methyl groups."
By revealing the bright spectral signals of alkylic and methyl groups, together with sulfur functional groups, synchrotron FTIR unambiguously identified the sulfate-reducing metabolic activity of the bacteria within the SM1 samples. The archaeal cells themselves showed no such activity, leading the researchers to posit a thriving mutual metabolism of the archaea and bacteria.
In many cases, such syntrophy requires close physical association. Covering the surface of each SM1 cell the researchers found spines made of three protein strands, equipped with terminal hooks where the strands divided. Moissl-Eichinger named them hami, Latin for barbs or hooks. These "nano-grappling hooks" apparently hold the microbial partners together, working in synchronization. The major hami protein is unlike any known proteinaceous archaeal or bacterial filaments.
How SM1 Euryarchaea interact with their bacterial partners may be a model for understanding other syntrophic relations essential to the carbon and sulfur cycles on which Earth's life depends. So far found in just two sites in Germany, the species is the only example yet of an archaeon that dominates a biological ecosystem ? but related species have been found in sulfur springs as far afield as Turkey and may be widespread.
DOE's Office of Science supported building and equipping the BSISB and also supports the ALS. For additional information, see below.
###
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: http://www.lbl.gov
Thanks to DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
Posted on January 20, 2013 by Anne Thornley-Brown, M.B.A. @executiveoasis
With the trend towards shorter and shorter?time frames? it can be challenging to keep team building upbeat and interactive and yet retain the essential ingredients for effective team building.?I have previously blogged about one day team building pitfalls and ?how team building participants are getting shortchanged in the push for shorter team building.?Despite all the cautions, the trend towards short timeframes is clearly not going to disappear any time soon.
While I consider the following formats to be?far from ideal, here are 2 formats for effective team building when a longer session just isn?t possible.
Short Team Building Formats
Business Issue Focus:
15 Minutes:?Session starter Exercise (upon arrival or right after lunch to identify key issues for the session (in pairs and trios)
15 minutes:?CEO briefing to convey relevance to organizational issues and challenges
30 minutes:?Team Briefing by Facilitator to provide overview and zero in on key issues
30 Minutes:?Instructions for short simulation, game or board game, time for teams to confer and ask questions
1 Hour:?Short Brainstorming Exercise Focusing on Issues Identified During Session starter. Here are some ideas for brainstorming?6 Brainstorming Tools.
15 Minutes:?Break
30 Minutes:?Debriefing Questions in Teams
15 Minutes:?Mini-Presentations of Results from Team Exercise.
30 Minutes:?Debriefing.?Use an upbeat method for debriefing.?See my Cvent Blog post with?5 Way to Debrief (Without Boring?Participants)
15 Minutes:?Wrap up and Next Steps
Total: 4 Hours 15 Minutes
What?s missing is any type of business simulation or recreational activity to promote team bonding. The facilitator has to work extra hard to engage participants and retain any element of the fun factor. ?Here are some tips to get the most out of short, on-site team building:
6 Tips for Short Business Issue Focused Team Building
Selecti a theme that parallels and reflects the core issue(s) the organization is confronting.
Reinforce your theme through props, visuals, menu items for break, and background music and videos
Use one very vivid vehicle to present your content during the team briefing (e.g. a skit, short and targeted game). Take a look at my Cvent Blog feature with highlights from The Fresh Conference for a video with a?powerful skit?about dissecting the meeting formats that was used to kick of the team exercise.
Select a unique setting for the team exercise (e.g. outdoors, verandah, shisha tent in the parking lot, patio, gazebos).
Create a visual and tactile interface for the team exercise. (e.g. giant index cards or post-its, butcher block paper covering tables, game boards).
Get groups to use a creative method to report back about their findings (e.g. collages, storyboards, TV commercials, infographics, Pinterest Boards).
To buy yourself more time, begin with an early lunch (i.e. 11:30). Get creative and experiment with?interactive working lunch formats?that reinforce your theme. This will ensure that everyone is present for the start of your session.
To ensure that you session finishes by 4:30. Schedule the CEO briefing for the last 15 minutes of lunch. Be sure to serve his or her table first so that they are finished eating in time to present.
Short Business Simulation Format:
Snack 10:00 Start time of session.?
15 Minutes:?10:15?Session starter Exercise (upon arrival or right after lunch to identify key issues for the session (in pairs and trios)
15 minutes:?10:30?CEO briefing to convey relevance to organizational issues and challenges
30 minutes:?10:45?Team Briefing by Facilitator to provide overview and zero in on key issues
15 Minutes?11:15?? Instructions for simulation, game or activity. (Games or activities must be set up in advance to save time.)
45 Minutes:?11:30?Serve Working Lunch?with interactive format?Over Lunchtime for teams to confer.
15 Minutes: Question period in last 15 minutes when participants are finishing lunch.
2 ?3/4 Hours:?12:15?Game, board game or short simulation ? Some teams may not finish. Be prepared for critical feedback.
15 Minutes:?3:00?Break
30 Minutes:?3:15?Debriefing Questions in Teams??(include questions about possible business applications).
30 Minutes:?3:45?Debriefing
15 Minutes:?4:15?Wrap up and Next Steps
Total: 6 1/2 Hours including lunch
To buy yourself more time, begin with a mid morning break ?(i.e. 10:00) and start your session at 10:30. This will ensure that everyone is present for the CEO briefing.
To ensure that you session finishes by 4:30. Schedule the CEO briefing for the last 15 minutes of lunch. Be sure to serve his or her table first so that they are finished eating in time to present.
Now that you have sampled our innovative team building approaches through this blog, we hope that you will keep Executive Oasis International in mind the next time your company requires team building, an executive retreat or on-site consulting to boost the effectiveness of your teams.
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Filed under: Business Simulations, Business Team Building, Corporate Team Building, On-site Team Building, Short Team Building, Team Building Tagged: | business team building, On-site Team Building, Short Team Building, Team Building Tips
