"HOUSTON (AP) - Like a scene from the horror movie 'The Birds,' large black grackles are swooping down on downtown Houston and attacking people's heads, hair and backs.
Authorities closed off a sidewalk after the aggressive birds, which can have 2-foot wingspans, flew out of magnolia trees Monday in front of the County Administration Building.
'They were just going crazy,' said constable Wilbert Jue, who works at the building. 'They were attacking everybody that walked by.'
The grackles zeroed in on a lawyer who shooed a bird away before he tripped and injured his face, Jue said. The lawyer was treated for several cuts.
It appears that the birds are protecting their offspring. On Monday a young grackle had fallen out of its nest and adult birds attacked people who got too close, Jue said.
Another bird attacked a deputy county clerk.
'I hit him with a bottle,' said Sylvia Velasquez. 'The other birds came, and one attacked my blouse and on my back.'
Two women came to help her after she fell to the ground, and the birds attacked them as well. The group escaped by running into the building.
'This is a very Hitchcock kind of story. Very Tippi Hedren,' said downtown worker Laura Aranda Smith, referring to one of the stars of Alfred Hitchcock's move 'The Birds.' "
May 18, 2005
May 16, 2005
'Piano Man'
If only we could get Billy Joel to shut up too. :
A helpline set up to identify a mystery man who stunned carers by giving a virtuoso piano performance has been inundated with calls, his social worker said today.
Look here too
Riddle of the Piano Man
The man has not uttered a word since police picked him up walking aimlessly on the streets of Sheerness, Kent, dressed in a dripping wet suit and tie.
All efforts to communicate with the shy and agitated man, aged in his 20s or early 30s, have failed, leaving experts baffled as to his identity and where he is from.
Staff at the Medway Maritime Hospital gave him a pen and paper in the hope he might write his name or even draw his country's flag.
Instead the patient, dubbed the Piano Man, drew highly detailed pictures of a grand piano, showing not only the keys but also the intricate inner workings of the instrument.
His social worker, Michael Camp, showed him a piano in the hospital chapel and to his amazement the man delivered a stunning, two-hour performance of classical playing. Since then, he has written music, but remains mute.
Mr Camp said today: 'The Missing Persons Helpline has been inundated with calls. It's a fantastic response.
It's a fantastic response.
Mr Camp said someone had called local police and given the name and address of who they believe the "Piano Man" may be.
He said: "A name has been given of a possible person from the Sussex area. I haven't been able to phone the person that phoned in to check it out."
He added: "We had one of these before, from the local area, and it sounded promising but ... people start to think 'It might be this person that we know' and it doesn't quite materialise. We'll just have to wait and see."
A helpline set up to identify a mystery man who stunned carers by giving a virtuoso piano performance has been inundated with calls, his social worker said today.
Look here too
Riddle of the Piano Man
The man has not uttered a word since police picked him up walking aimlessly on the streets of Sheerness, Kent, dressed in a dripping wet suit and tie.
All efforts to communicate with the shy and agitated man, aged in his 20s or early 30s, have failed, leaving experts baffled as to his identity and where he is from.
Staff at the Medway Maritime Hospital gave him a pen and paper in the hope he might write his name or even draw his country's flag.
Instead the patient, dubbed the Piano Man, drew highly detailed pictures of a grand piano, showing not only the keys but also the intricate inner workings of the instrument.
His social worker, Michael Camp, showed him a piano in the hospital chapel and to his amazement the man delivered a stunning, two-hour performance of classical playing. Since then, he has written music, but remains mute.
Mr Camp said today: 'The Missing Persons Helpline has been inundated with calls. It's a fantastic response.
It's a fantastic response.
Mr Camp said someone had called local police and given the name and address of who they believe the "Piano Man" may be.
He said: "A name has been given of a possible person from the Sussex area. I haven't been able to phone the person that phoned in to check it out."
He added: "We had one of these before, from the local area, and it sounded promising but ... people start to think 'It might be this person that we know' and it doesn't quite materialise. We'll just have to wait and see."
Personal Nuclear Power: New Battery Lasts 12 Years
Sound Scary to me
A new type of battery based on the radioactive decay of nuclear material is 10 times more powerful than similar prototypes and should last a decade or more without a charge, scientists announced this week.
The longevity would make the battery ideal for use in pacemakers or other surgically implanted devices, developers say, or it might power spacecraft or deep-sea probes.
You might also find these nuclear batteries running sensors and other small devices in your home in a few years. Such devices "don't consume much power," said University of Rochester electrical engineer Philippe Fauchet, "and yet having to replace the battery every so often is a real pain in the neck."
Fauchet told LiveScience the batteries could last a dozen years. They're being developed at Rochester and the technology has been licensed by BetaBatt Inc.
How it works
The technology is called betavoltaics. It uses a silicon wafer to capture electrons emitted by a radioactive gas, such as tritium. It is similar to the mechanics of converting sunlight into electricity in a solar panel.
Until now, betavoltaics has been unable to match solar-cell efficiency. The reason is simple: When the gas decays, its electrons shoot out in all directions. Many of them are lost.
"For 50 years, people have been investigating converting simple nuclear decay into usable energy, but the yields were always too low," Fauchet explained. "We've found a way to make the interaction much more efficient, and we hope these findings will lead to a new kind of battery that can pump out energy for years."
Fauchet's team took the flat silicon surface, where the electrons are captured and converted to a current, and turned it into a three-dimensional surface by adding deep pits.
Each pit is about one micron wide. That's four ten-thousandths of an inch. They're more than 40 microns deep.
Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. Mixed with chemicals that emit light, it is used to illuminate exit signs without electricity -- the sort commonly found in schools and other public buildings.
"It is safe and can be implanted in the body," Fauchet said. "The energetic particles emitted by tritium do not penetrate inside the skin."
Tritium emits only low energy particles "that can be shielded by very thin materials, such as a sheet of paper," said Gadeken of BetaBatt. "The hermetically-sealed, metallic BetaBattery cases will encapsulate the entire radioactive energy source, just like a normal battery contains its chemical source so it cannot escape."
The device is detailed in today's issue of Advanced Materials.
Improvements needed
The manufacturing process is standard to the semiconductor industry, so no other technology breakthroughs are needed to bring the batteries to market. Still, don't expect anything on the store shelves for at least two years, Fauchet said. His team is now working to improve the manufacturing process, aiming for batteries many times more efficient than those announced today.
"If we are as successful as we think we may be, it will take less than five years before this technology is adopted," he said.
A new type of battery based on the radioactive decay of nuclear material is 10 times more powerful than similar prototypes and should last a decade or more without a charge, scientists announced this week.
The longevity would make the battery ideal for use in pacemakers or other surgically implanted devices, developers say, or it might power spacecraft or deep-sea probes.
You might also find these nuclear batteries running sensors and other small devices in your home in a few years. Such devices "don't consume much power," said University of Rochester electrical engineer Philippe Fauchet, "and yet having to replace the battery every so often is a real pain in the neck."
Fauchet told LiveScience the batteries could last a dozen years. They're being developed at Rochester and the technology has been licensed by BetaBatt Inc.
How it works
The technology is called betavoltaics. It uses a silicon wafer to capture electrons emitted by a radioactive gas, such as tritium. It is similar to the mechanics of converting sunlight into electricity in a solar panel.
Until now, betavoltaics has been unable to match solar-cell efficiency. The reason is simple: When the gas decays, its electrons shoot out in all directions. Many of them are lost.
"For 50 years, people have been investigating converting simple nuclear decay into usable energy, but the yields were always too low," Fauchet explained. "We've found a way to make the interaction much more efficient, and we hope these findings will lead to a new kind of battery that can pump out energy for years."
Fauchet's team took the flat silicon surface, where the electrons are captured and converted to a current, and turned it into a three-dimensional surface by adding deep pits.
Each pit is about one micron wide. That's four ten-thousandths of an inch. They're more than 40 microns deep.
Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. Mixed with chemicals that emit light, it is used to illuminate exit signs without electricity -- the sort commonly found in schools and other public buildings.
"It is safe and can be implanted in the body," Fauchet said. "The energetic particles emitted by tritium do not penetrate inside the skin."
Tritium emits only low energy particles "that can be shielded by very thin materials, such as a sheet of paper," said Gadeken of BetaBatt. "The hermetically-sealed, metallic BetaBattery cases will encapsulate the entire radioactive energy source, just like a normal battery contains its chemical source so it cannot escape."
The device is detailed in today's issue of Advanced Materials.
Improvements needed
The manufacturing process is standard to the semiconductor industry, so no other technology breakthroughs are needed to bring the batteries to market. Still, don't expect anything on the store shelves for at least two years, Fauchet said. His team is now working to improve the manufacturing process, aiming for batteries many times more efficient than those announced today.
"If we are as successful as we think we may be, it will take less than five years before this technology is adopted," he said.
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