Experienced Turbulence on Flights

Would you like tea or coffee with that, sir? The chaotic in-flight mess after sudden bout of turbulence hit jet as dinner was served

• Meals ended up in aisles and coffee on the ceiling after plane lost altitude
• Eleven passengers and one crew member were injured on the flight
• One passenger took pictures of the mess and posted them online

By James Rush
PUBLISHED: 02:22 GMT, 4 June 2013 | UPDATED: 00:53 GMT, 5 June 2013

We may have all experienced turbulence on flights, but when a rough patch is so bad that the ceiling ends up covered in coffee then you know it's serious.
Passengers on a recent Singapore Airlines flight were left surrounded by a chaotic mess after their flight fell 20 metres when it hit severe turbulence.
A total of 11 passengers and one crew member were injured on flight SQ308 from Singapore to London last Sunday.

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Passengers were left surrounded by this chaotic mess after the plane hit turbulence

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Flight attendants were told to immediately take their seats just before the aircraft hit the turbulence

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Coffee can be seen on the ceiling of the Singapore to Heathrow flight following the turbulence

Singapore Airlines passengers rocked by EXTREME turbulence

One passenger on the flight, who saw his coffee end up on the ceiling, managed to take pictures of the destruction which he posted to Instagram.
Alan Cross told ABC News that passengers had been warned to expect turbulence and that the breakfast service would be temporarily suspended.
A short while after the seat belt sign came on, the captain issued an abrupt order for all flight attendants to take their seats immediately.

Mr Cross said the subsequent turbulence felt 'like being in an elevator with a cut cable or free-falling from some amusement park ride.'
He said everything that was not tied down, including people, hit the ceiling.
The airline told The Australian: 'Eleven passengers and one crew member sustained minor injuries when the aircraft experienced a sudden loss of altitude and were attended to by medical personnel on arrival at Heathrow Airport. Seat-belt signs were on at the time and meal services had already been suspended.'

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Mr Cross said anything that wasn't tied down hit the ceiling when the plane lost altitude

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Mr Cross said the cabin crew and passengers were 'amazing' in the aftermath, as 'a calm and efficient clean-up' was underway

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A total of 11 passengers and one crew member were injured on the flight

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Plane: The incident took place on a Singapore Airlines aircraft similar to the one pictured here

HOW TURBULENCE CAN STRIKE AIRCRAFT AT ANY TIME

Turbulence during air travel is caused when bodies of air moving at different speeds meet and cause movements in the atmosphere.
The phenomenon is most common in jet streams and near mountain ranges, as these tend to cause more disruption in the air.
Turbulence can also be caused by thunderstorms, although these are more easily avoided as they can be tracked by technology.
It is experienced on nearly every commercial flight, but is usually not dangerous as pilots can escape it within minutes.
However, a tiny handful of incidents have caused serious injuries or even death.
BOAC Flight 911 crashed near Mt Fuji in Japan in 1966 after flying through severe storms, killing all 124 people on board.
More recently, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 826 died from her injuries in 1997 after the aircraft dropped 30 metres in the middle of the flight.

Within just an hour, the carnage had been almost completely tidied up and the plane was practically back to normal.
Mr Cross said: 'The cabin crew was amazing in the aftermath, as were fellow passengers who helped everyone around them then in a calm and efficient clean-up.'
He said crew checked for injuries before cleaning up the mess and gave passengers boxes of chocolates as they departed at Heathrow, where they were met by paramedics.
The vast majority of passengers are not affected by turbulence on anything like this scale, but some research suggests that unsettled flights could become the norm thanks to global warming.
Earlier this year scientists claimed climate change could result in flights from London to New York getting much bumpier in the future.
Researchers from East Anglia and Reading universities analysed supercomputer simulations of the atmospheric jet stream over the North Atlantic, concluding that climate change will increase air turbulence.
They found the chances of hitting significant turbulence will rise by 40 to 170 per cent by 2050, with the likeliest outcome being a doubling of the airspace containing significant turbulence at any time.
Dr Paul Williams from the University of Reading and the University of East Anglia’s Dr Manoj Joshi said the average strength of turbulence will also increase, by between 10 and 40 per cent.
Dr Williams said: ‘Most air passengers will have experienced the uncomfortable feeling of mid-flight air turbulence. Our research suggests that we'll be seeing the “fasten seatbelts” sign turned on more often in the decades ahead.'

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Just what is a gifted child

ASKING "WHAT IS a gifted child?" is a good question to start with.
The label "gifted" is considered by many to be unfortunate, with its connotations of good fortune and superiority, and more significantly its implied labelling of others as "ungifted". But it has nonetheless been commonly used in academic literature and in general conversation - in the latter field it has of course been abused as well.

A definition constructed by the NSW Parents and Citizens Association and accepted by their 2000 Annual Conference expresses it this way:

"Gifted/talented children are those children who possess an untrained and spontaneously expressed natural ability in at least one ability domain significantly beyond that typically seen in children of the same age. Giftedness comes in many forms and levels. It is found in students of all socio-economic groups, and of diverse personalities and backgrounds. It can be combined with other exceptionalities/special needs such as learning disabilities, socio-economic disadvantage, geographic isolation, Aboriginality and having English as a second language."

Note the emphasis on potential rather than achievement as the defining characteristic. There may be many constraints that prevent the potential from being realized, such as those mentioned in the last sentence above. Of course, the emphasis on potential or natural ability, raises the question of how this can be detected or measured.

The United States Office of Education definition (Marland 1982) suggests gifted and talented students are those "who have outstanding abilities, are capable of high performance and who require differentiated educational programs (beyond those normally provided by regular school programs) in order to realise their contribution to self and society".

The last element, that of the need of this group of children for differentiated educational response, is of course the prime reason why gifted children need the label - it is not a label to be worn proudly as if earnt, but rather an indication of special need, even if this special need is different from those who are more often associated with the "special needs" label.
The same source suggests demonstrated achievement or potential ability can be in:

• general intellectual ability
• specific academic aptitude
• creative or productive thinking
• leadership ability
• visual and performing arts
• psychomotor abilities

This idea of different types of gifts has been developed by Howard Gardner in his theory of multiple intelligences. The key point is to realise that gifts and gifted children don't all come in the same box, their gifts and talents may be across many fields or particular to one. And gifted children can have learning difficulties or disabilities too. A child may have an extraordinary talent in reading and comprehension but need remediation in mathematics. Indeed some of the more difficult (perhaps tragic) cases of a child unable to find an educational fit occur when he or she is gifted and suffers specific learning difficulties at the same time. These Gifted Learning Disabled (GLD) children often have neither of their needs met - their erratic performance is neither superior enough or depressed enough to gain them access to special provisions that might alleviate their frustrations and often low self-esteem.

Gifted and talented students can show the same diversity of personalities and learning styles as other groups of students. They too, for example, can be inhibited and slow to respond. Some may be exceptionally or profoundly gifted in one or more areas. Consequently the "gifted" label covers a wide range of student abilities and needs and any one standard "gifted program" may well not meet a particular gifted child's needs - ideally an appropriately tailored program should start with an appraisal of the needs of that child.

A range of 2-5% is often used to demarcate the gifted within a particular domain, but whatever cut-off is used is artificial. Even if measurement were perfect (which it is not) there is far more difference between a child at the top 0.1% and top 1% levels than between those that are just included or just excluded.

Whereever possible sharp demarcation lines should be avoided. Instead the use of clearly described programs (including what is expected and the work standards involved) and self-nomination should be preferred. This allows for the huge range of aspects (many poorly measurable) that can make up giftedness in a particular area, and also avoids many of the conflicts that surround gifted programs.
Taking the many areas in which gifts and talents might lie into account, possibly some 15-20% of the overall population are "gifted" in one or more areas. Gifted children are not rare. This group still includes a wide range of abilities. Highly gifted children are rarer, and exceptionally and profoundly gifted children much more so. Moreover their needs can be sharply different, and only poorly met by programs aimed at the general "gifted" child.

Gifted children are not always easy to identify. Potential does not always show in achievements. There can be many impediments that block or misdirect the development of the ability. Gagne (1995) has developed this understanding of the role of the child's motivation and of factors in the child's environment (family, school, peers, etc) that may hinder the child's ability being realized into achievements. Not all gifted children are achievers. Many hide their potential in order to try to fit in with their class. No wonder then, that even teachers are not typically good at identifying gifted children, although research suggests that, with training in gifted and talented education, teachers can significantly improve their record at identification (Gear 1978, Pegnato & Birch 1959).
It is not simply a matter of IQ testing though this can identify unidentifed giftedness of certain types. Rather use of multiple identification criteria from a variety of sources is generally most effective, with inclusion of a child in the event of doubt. A school, looking particularly for academic giftedness, might use all of the following:

• teacher nominations (these are far more accurate with pre- and inservice training in gifted education),
• behavioural checklists (there are many lists of characteristics that students gifted in one or more areas may exhibit),
• parent nominations (via parent questionnaire as to the child's characteristics, interests and home achievements at time of enrolment, and an openness throughout the student's time at the school for the parent to raise concerns and highlight any discrepancies between home and school performance),
• peer nominations (with questions such as "who would you turn to with such and such a problem?"),
• self nominations (made easier when specific programs are advertised and open to the whole school - well-hidden talents can be discovered this way),
• standardised tests, and
• IQ tests (including tests which are designed to minimise culture or language bias, eg Ravens).

Identification by parents is often accurate, despite the myth that parents always think their children are bright. Parents are in the best position to know the child and its inner strivings, and their major difficulties are often not having a ready comparison (particularly in the case of only or eldest children), and of overcoming, when appropriate, the desire not to appear to be "pushy". Behavioural checklists often assist with the first difficulty, and a consideration of the alternatives, particularly with problems at school, generally encourages some sort of advocacy role.
© David Farmer 19 February 1997 - This piece has been adapted from text I wrote for an educational video/booklet package Meeting the Needs of Gifted Students in the Regular Classroom

My emotion is down. ..having hemorrogic dengue fever

I just gone through one of a difficult phase in life..down with haemorrhagic dengue fever. It started on Wednesday 8/1/2014 at about 1.00 pm, when I suddenly felt tired and drowsy..I tried to take a break but it's would not work at all.

Once I reached home, my body temperature had shoot up to 39.5 c and to suppress the fever, my dad gave a paracetamol for interval of 6 hours and did sponging for every 4 hours but it's still won't work.

On following Thursday, my dad and I rushed to the clinic to get  checked up and prescription. The Dr who examined me, prescribed a paracetamol, antibiotic and cough syrup. It still won't worked.

On Friday, we went to Hospital Selayang. I did my first blood test, and the results showed my platelet number being 245. My cousin, Dr Anis, informed me to go for drip because of dehydration. She confirmed that I got viral fever since there's no dengue symptoms yet.
During the weekend, my fever rose and dropped. My parents did sponging and took paracetamol for every 6 hours. Fever looks settled on Sunday but came back about 4 pm so we went to HUKM for further blood test. It revealed a platelet number of 135, a sudden drop and advised us to do blood test every day at nearest hospital or clinic.

Immediately upon reaching home, I started to vomit and the whole night till morning, I vomited 9 times. the next morning, my parents rushed me to the Emergency Room of Ampang Hospital and ended on the hospital for 3 days starting with a platelet level of 35. I was treated in the ward on drip for two days and blood tests every four hours and hourly monitoring. It is very tiring....down I felt....and worried since the registration for UKM is around the corner...worried I'll miss registration.

On the second day, doctor stopped giving me drip and gave me blood tests every six hours since my platelet increased to 45 on the second day and 50 on the following day. On the third day, I was moved to Ward 4A and my last platelet before freedom from ward was 76, but my liver enlargement still persistent which my liver ALT was 104.

The following text will show the symptoms of dengue fever.

Symptoms of Dengue Fever

Symptoms, which usually begin four to six days after infection and last for up to 10 days, may include

• Sudden, high fever
• Severe headaches
• Pain behind the eyes
• Severe joint and muscle pain
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Skin rash, which appears three to four days after the onset of fever
• Mild bleeding (such a nose bleed, bleeding gums, or easy bruising)

Sometimes symptoms are mild and can be mistaken for those of the flu or another viral infection. Younger children and people who have never had the infection before tend to have milder cases than older children and adults. However, serious problems can develop. These include dengue haemorrhagic fever, a rare complication characterized by high fever, damage to lymph and blood vessels, bleeding from the nose and gums, enlargement of the liver, and failure of the circulatory system. The symptoms may progress to massive bleeding, shock, and death. This is called dengue shock syndrome (DSS).

People with weakened immune systems as well as those with a second or subsequent dengue infection are believed to be at greater risk for developing dengue haemorrhagic fever.

Diagnosing Dengue Fever

Doctors can diagnose dengue infection with a blood test to check for the virus or antibodies to it. If you become sick after traveling to a tropical area, let your doctor know. This will allow your doctor to evaluate the possibility that your symptoms were caused by a dengue infection.

Treatment for Dengue Fever

There is no specific medicine to treat dengue infection. If you think you may have dengue fever, you should use pain relievers with acetaminophen and avoid medicines with aspirin, which could worsen bleeding. You should also rest, drink plenty of fluids, and see your doctor. If you start to feel worse in the first 24 hours after your fever goes down, you should get to a hospital immediately to be checked for complications.

I would like to give my honest gratitude to my lovely cousin Dr Anis and her riend, Dr Rahul from Selayang Hospital, and to the team of parademics and doctors at paediatric ward of Ampang Hospital for their excellent service and giving special attention to me. May God bless you.

Good bye..Looking forward to study at QuadP

To all my dear friends, I wish all of you a happy new year ! I hope god blesses you all with luck and happiness in this new step of life. Throughout the year of 2013 was one of the best years of my life!. I have successful for two consecutive years secured place for a summer camp, at Pusat permata Pintar Negara. In year 2012, I attended Mathematical Reasoning Course and in 2013 for Invention (Reka Cipta) Program. Further, I have passed UKM 3 exam and been accepted for Foundation Program at the same place. This year I have to stop my uncontrollable addiction to games, and looking forward to look new set of friends and to achieve more brilliant things in life and I hope year 2014 would bring me and all of you dear friends an even more brighter future than we had in the past year. Also to all my friends of Stella Maris, I'm surely going to miss all of you. It has been such a blessing meeting you all and it has been and amazing journey being together for last 2 years. Even though it’s very short but still feels as if the two years of our friendship will continue forever. I hope we all can meet up again in future functions. Looking back it's like yesterday I stepped into primary school. All the times that I've spent with my friends at SAYFOL INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, KL for 5 years from year 2006 till 2011 (from age of 5 till age of 10) and later at STELLA MARIS PRIMARY SCHOOL, Ampang for 2 years from 2012 till 2013 were wonderful. Sometimes, I think to myself, time goes by so fast; this 20th of January, 2014 is fast approaching and I will register for Foundation Program, at Pusat Permata Pintar, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). I'm looking forward to a new chapter in my life transformation from ordinary school life to campus life. I feel kind of worry and uncertainty. I remember going to the previous school and having fun with my dearest friends especially at Sayfol International School and with teachers like Ms Sathy, Ms Halima etc. For the past few days I'm having high fever and I couldn't talk that much because I was actually feeling downbeat and worried. I really pray hard for a speedy recovery. Anyway, I can't tell you how much I feel, to say good bye to my friends even though my schooling life at Stella Maris was very short only 2 years. Frankly speaking I'm not really gel with you guys in first 3 months but later I become a new competitor at this school specially in Math’s, Science and English . What I couldn't forget that how I'm really struggled learning Bahasa Malaysia and my first year really horrified. After three months I was slowly catching up with BM subject, although that's tough but it is possible. I was thinking about the jokes, the laughs, the work, the friendship and the teachers. I cannot deny that till to date, I still cannot erase my good time at Sayfol International School because that was my first school and I spend longer time at that school. I was having fun time with friends all corner of the planet. Most of us aren't going to see each other very often. Many of you made my day. The dares and challenges. I had such a great year with you all. Thank you so much for all the help. It really means a lot to me. In about nine days, I will face a new phase of life in UKM. It's quick.. I hope you guys will not forgotten me. I'm sorry for all the bad things that I did to you guys. To my great teachers Mr Teh, Pn Effa, Pn Nora, Mr Francis, Pn Rina, En Jailani, Mr Alex, Mrs Chan, Ms Anne, Pn Sofea and others..thank you very much. I love all you so much.

REGROWING BONE NATURALLY

Bioengineers and surgeons have been making waves in bone tissue engineering, allowing them to heal and regrow broken bones without the need for bone grafts or metal plates. Early last year, 18-year-old Nikita (not her real name) was seriously injured in a car accident in India that killed both her parents. The Indian teenager’s skull was shattered in the crash and she had a large, palm-size hole in her skull. A desperate uncle took her to neurosurgeon Sharan Srinivasan in Bangalore. Dr Srinivasan took one look at the injury and called materials engineer Prof Teoh Swee Hin in Singapore, an expert in coaxing bone to grow back on biodegradable bone plugs and scaffolds. Prof Teoh, now at Nanyang Technological University, and his team put together a spider-web like titanium frame, which held in place sheets of flexible, biodegradable scaffolds infused with Nikita’s own bone marrow. Besides producing red blood cells and some white blood cells, bone marrow also contains the cells that are, or will turn into, the main component of bone. Now, a year and a half on, the hole in Nikita’s skull has healed. “I went to Bangalore in August, a year after the surgery, and I could not recognise her,” Prof Teoh said. Around the world, there have been about 10 such cases in the past three years, Prof Teoh said. Bone tissue engineering is used to help patients who have lost bone to cancer – in accidents, or in some types of brain surgery which involve drilling holes in the skull - to regrow and remodel damaged bone. The technology, which started a decade ago with producing tiny bone plugs the size of a five-cent coin, has now advanced to a stage where it could provide a safer, less painful treatment for people who have larger areas of bone damage. Experts from Singapore and around the world were in town for the sixth Bone Tissue Engineering Congress, or Bone-Tec, at Nanyang Technological University earlier this month. At the congress, Prof Teoh presented a surprising new finding: Bone grew back most where the curved titanium frame was exerting force on the surrounding area. It is not clear exactly why bone growth follows these lines of force, although doctors have long known that bone needs stresses such as weight-bearing exercise for bone health, Prof Teoh said. “In Nikita’s case, we won’t know till five years later whether the bone is hard enough; we hope that it will continue to remodel and in due time it’ll be almost perfect.” Regrown bone has other benefits, he added. When large titanium plates or pieces are used, the patient’s body may reject them, and there is a risk of infection about three to four years later. Dr Goh Bee Tin of the National Dental Centre has used Prof Teoh’s biodegradable plastic scaffolds to repair the jaws of about 20 patients. Currently, patients have their own bone grafted from a hip or leg, but this means extra surgery and pain, Dr Goh said. Other work in bone tissue engineering revolves around improving the biodegradable scaffolds. National University of Singapore doctoral student Wang Zuyong and colleagues from other universities and hospitals here found that stretching a thin plastic film created tiny grooves that aligns stem cells as they develop, helping nerves and vessels to grow true. The plastic film is made of the same polycaprolactone material as the fine-meshed scaffold sheets or pieces, and will also degrade as tissue grows. At the same time, Prof Teoh and his colleagues developed a bioreactor that spins on two axes, rather than the conventional reactors that spin on one axis like a roast on a spit. They found that bone grown using the bioreactor that spins on two axes is stronger and has fewer dead cells, as such bioreactors mimic the mechanical forces present in the body. Now, the two-axis bioreactor technology has been licensed to home-grown start-up QuinXell Technologies. Still, others work at the level of cells. Professor Charles James Kirkpatrick of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, who presented at the congress, studies how bone cells “talk” to their surrounding environment when they are implanted, to encourage blood vessels to grow in and through the bone to feed it with nutrients and oxygen. And at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s Institute of Medical Biology, Dr Simon Cool and Dr Victor Nurcombe study how sugars called heparan sulfates control cell growth. Heparan sulfate-treated scaffolds could be used instead of putting large doses of growth factors straight into patients’ bodies, which some studies have shown to carry the risk of tumours. While simply implanting or transplanting bone is relatively straightforward, the challenge facing researchers is to remodel bone and get blood vessels and nerves to regrow accurately, Prof Teoh said.

Awan aneh di luar sistem suria

Awan aneh di luar sistem suria Awan aneh di luar sistem suria Imej yang dirakam teleskop Hubble menunjukkan awan aneh di dua planet luar sistem suria. Los Angeles: Ahli kaji bintang mengesan awan aneh di atmosfera dua planet di luar sistem suria, dengan dua kertas penyelidikan menunjukkan jenis mendung di dunia asing itu mungkin sebenarnya fenomena biasa berbanding yang disangka sebelum ini. Namun ia bukanlah awan yang sama dengan yang ada di Bumi dan besar kemungkinan terhasil daripada bahan seperti zink sulfida atau potassium klorida. Awan di Bumi, sebaliknya mengandungi gabungan titisan air dan ais. Dua pasukan penyelidik berasingan memeriksa data daripada Teleskop Angkasa Lepas Hubbel berkaitan dengan planet luar sistem suria GJ 1214b dan GJ 436b. Terletak 42 tahun cahaya dari Bumi, GJ 1214b adalah contoh utama planet super-Bumi manakala GJ 436b pada jarak 36 tahun cahaya adalah Neptun panas. Biasa wujud Super-Bumi adalah planet dengan jisim antara Bumi dan Neptun manakala Neptun panas, seperti namanya, adalah versi panas planet Neptun. Ia mengekalkan orbit dekat dengan bintang tidak sampai satu unit astronomi secara kasar jarak purata dari Bumi ke matahari, atau sekitar 144 juta kilometer. “Kami tahu awan mesti ada untuk sebahagian planet, tetapi kini kami ada keputusan menunjukkan awan itu sebenarnya biasa wujud,” kata pakar astronomi di Institut Teknologi California di Pasadena, Heather Knutson, yang juga penulis utama kajian mengenai GJ436b kepada Space.com. Kaji komposisi planet Komposisi planet dikaji apabila ia melalui bintang. Apabila transit itu berlaku, molekul yang membentuk atmosfera eksoplanet itu menghalang bahagian berbeza spektra cahaya. Dengan merakamkan seksyen mana yang membuat laluan dan yang mana tidak, pakar astronomi boleh menyimpulkan apa yang membentuk planet berkenaan. Bagi GJ 1214b, pemerhatian itu diketahui kerana tidak mendedahkan petanda sebarang atmosfera langsung. Ia bermakna awan tebal menghalang cahaya atau planet berkenaan dihasilkan daripada molekul berat seperti air, dengan graviti menekan bahan itu menjadi lapisan nipis dan mampat. AGENSI