Hundreds Of Palestinians In Gaza Flee After Israeli Warning

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hundreds of Palestinian families, their children crying, fled Wednesday, as Israel intensified airstrikes on Hamas targets, including homes of the movement’s leaders, following failed Egyptian cease-fire efforts. Before the renewed bombardment, Israel had told tens of thousands of residents of border areas to evacuate their neighborhoods.

The Palestinian death toll in nine days of fighting rose to 204, with some 1,450 wounded, Palestinian health officials said. On the Israeli side, one man was killed and several people were wounded since the fighting erupted on July 8. The renewed bombings came a day after Israel initially accepted an Egyptian truce proposal that called for a halt of hostilities. That was to be followed by talks on the terms of a longer-term cease-fire, including easing Gaza’s seven-year-old border blockade by Israel and Egypt.

Hamas rejected the plan and instead launched more rockets at Israel. The militant group views a significant easing of the blockade as key to its survival, but does not believe Egypt’s current rulers — who deposed a Hamas-friendly government in Cairo last year — can be fair brokers.

As Cairo’s effort collapsed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Hamas will pay a high price for rejecting the truce offer.

The website of the Gaza Interior Ministry said Israel warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes before dawn Wednesday, targeting 30 houses, including those of senior Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahar, Jamila Shanti, Fathi Hamas and Ismail Ashkar.

Zahar was a key figure in Hamas’ violent takeover of Gaza in 2007, while the other three were members of the Palestinian parliament elected in 2006. Many Hamas leaders have gone into hiding since the beginning of the Israeli offensive.

Alongside the air strikes, Israel also told tens of thousands of residents of the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the Zeitoun and Shijaiyah neighborhoods of Gaza City, all near the border with Israel, to evacuate their homes by 8 a.m. Wednesday. The warnings were delivered in automated phone calls, text messages and leaflets dropped from planes.

The Israeli military said in its message that large numbers of rockets were launched from these areas and that Israel plans to bomb these locations.

“Whoever disregards these instructions and fails to evacuate immediately, endangers their own lives, as well as those of their families,” the message said.

On Wednesday morning, hundreds of residents of Zeitoun and Shijaiyah were seen walking in the streets, carrying small bags with belongings.

Older children carried smaller ones, in their arms or on their backs. Some of the women and children cried, looking terrified.

The Wafa Rehabilitation Center in Shijaiyah, which cares for 15 disabled and elderly patients, received several calls demanding the patients evacuate, said its director, Basman Ashi.

He said an Israel shell hit near the building, causing damage to the second floor, but no injuries. Ashi said he won’t evacuate because his elderly patients have nowhere to go.

Four foreign volunteers — from England, the U.S., France and Sweden — have set up camp at the rehabilitation center to deter the military from targeting it.

English volunteer Rina Andolini, 32, said the patients range in age from 12 to over 70 and none can walk or move without assistance. She said there are also 17 Palestinian staff members.

Andolini said the patients are living in a constant state of fear, intensified by the Israeli tank shelling from across the border.

When asked about the situation at the rehabilitation center, the office of the Israeli military spokesman said its residents “have been asked repeatedly to leave.”

“There is a rocket launching site in the area,” the military said, adding that Gaza militants use the center to hide “behind civilians.”

___

Enav reported from Jerusalem.

Fewer Americans Are Trying To Limit This In Their Diets

By Rachael Rettner, Senior Writer
Published: 07/15/2014 05:47 PM EDT on LiveScience

Americans’ interest in low-sodium foods has declined slightly in recent years, and may continue to drop in the future, according to new market research.

In 2010, an estimated 68 percent of Americans said they were trying to cut back on sodium in their diet, but that dropped to an estimated 64 percent in 2013, according to NPD Group, a market research company.

In addition, the percentage of Americans who said they read nutrition labels to find foods’ sodium content dropped from 41 percent to 39 percent over the same three-year period, NPD Group said. [4 Tips for Reducing Sodium in Your Diet]

The findings come as public health messages continue to advocate for people to consume less sodium. The 2010 U.S. federal dietary guidelines recommend that people limit the salt in their diet to 2,300 milligrams per day, and that some people, including middle-age and older adults and people with high blood pressure, limit salt intake to 1,500 mg per day. A 2013 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 90 percent of Americans ages 4 and older consume too much sodium.

“Regardless of the available nutritional information and dietary guidelines, consumers are choosing to focus on what they deem important,” Darren Seifer, a food and beverage industry analyst at NDP, said in a statement. Although people are paying less attention to sodium on nutrition labels, they are paying more attention to protein and sugar, Seifer said.

NPD forecasts that in 2018, the percentage of people who eat foods with low sodium or no salt labels will decrease by 1 percent, compared with 2013 levels.

However, some experts were skeptical about NDP’s interpretation of its findings.

“I think they make a big deal” out of small changes, said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit consumer watchdog group. Jacobsonnoted that the 2010 and 2013 figures cited by NDP differ by just a few percentage points.

Interest in low-sodium foods has grown dramatically over the last decade, Jacobson said, pointing toa 2004 survey from the Food Market Research Institute that found that, at that time, only 7 percent of shoppers looked at the sodium content of their foods, Jacobson said.

“There’s far, far more interest in sodium now than there was 10 years ago, and there will always be year-to-year variations” in the percentage of people who say they are concerned about salt in their diet, Jacobson said.

Still, Jacobsonsaid that, rather than relying on consumers to reduce their sodium intake, food manufacturers and restaurants should lower the amount of sodium in their foods.

“Individuals should read labels and look for lower sodium choices, but the country as a whole has not done that,” Jacobson said. “We’ve had nutrition labeling for 20 years, and it just hasn’t helped reduced sodium intake. The public health solution is to reduce sodium at its source — just don’t put it into the food supply.”

Some chain restaurants have reduced the amount of sodium in their meals slightly in recent years. A CSPI report released earlier this month found that 17 chain restaurants reduced sodium in their foods, on average, by 1.5 percent per year between 2009 and 2013.

CSPI has urged the Food and Drug Administration to set limits on the amount of salt allowed in food. Last month, the FDA said it plans to release sodium targets for the food industry, and meeting the targets will be voluntary.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. FollowLive Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Copyright 2014 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ]]>

Squink Desktop Circuit Board Assembly Machine: Print & Pick & Place

We’ve featured a handful of 3D printers that can lay out conductive tracks on a variety of materials. But that’s just part of the process of making a circuit board; you’ll still need to place a variety of small parts on the board. Large-scale manufacturers have pick-and-place machines to do that for them. If BotFactory succeeds, soon you can have your own pick-and-place machine as well.

squink circuit board printer pick and place machine by botfactory 620x465magnify

BotFactory is working on Squink, a machine that both prints conductive tracks and installs electronic components. After a user uploads his circuit board design to a complementary program, Squink will print tracks using silver-based conductive ink, place conductive glue on the spots where components need to be placed and then install the needed parts on the board. Speaking of boards, BotFactory says Squink can use a variety of materials as substrates.

Squink won’t turn you into a one-man factory, but it should make prototyping faster and more affordable. Pledge at least $2,999 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a Squink as a reward.

[via TechCrunch]

Onni Is A Smart Baby Monitor Made By A Real Mommy And Daddy Team

parents with monitor Satu Niemelä and Erasmus van Niekerk, the husband and wife team behind the Onni baby monitor, knew what they wanted out of a baby monitor. Instead of a cheap black and white camera they wanted full color HD video and instead of looking like a CCTV camera from the Land of Misfit Toys they wanted the design to be pleasing and the software to be usable and easy to manage. Read More

​How San Francisco's Clean Drinking Water Destroyed The 2nd Yellowstone

​How San Francisco's Clean Drinking Water Destroyed The 2nd Yellowstone

Did you know Yosemite Valley used to have an identical twin? It was dammed in the early 1900s to provide San Francisco with water it relies on to this day, but recently, conservationists have been calling for its restoration.http://gizmodo.com/how-san-franci…

Read more…


The World's First Family Robot Could Be Like HAL in Your Home

The World's First Family Robot Could Be Like HAL in Your Home

Meet Jibo. On track to exist next year, Jibo is being marketed as “the world’s first family robot.” The bulbous little guy can read to kids in the living room, recite recipes in the kitchen, take photos in the yard, and perform a handful of other simple tasks. Jibo is also a little bit creepy.

Read more…



Honda's Asimo Robot Gets a Little Bit Better, a Whole Lot Creepier

Honda's Asimo Robot Gets a Little Bit Better, a Whole Lot Creepier

It’s been almost 15 years since Honda first introduced Asimo, the company’s attempt to create a humanoid robot that can walk and perform other human-like tasks . But Asimo’s most recent upgrade introduces something unsettling: a pair of dead black eyes and a permanent smirk that leaves the bot looking more like an unsettling china doll with a secret urge to overthrow its creators.

Read more…



The Blazing Fast Evolution of Land Speed Record Cars

The Blazing Fast Evolution of Land Speed Record Cars

Chasing speed records was, is, and always will be a crucial driving force in developing the kinds of vehicles people dream about. And over the past century, we’ve seen these speed machines go from early records, like 100 kmh (or 62 mph), to supersonic speeds.

Read more…



Fox tried to buy Time Warner — and HBO — for $80 billion

Could Fox News and CNN have the same owner? No, but close. 21 Century Fox has confirmed reports (first published by the New York Times) that it made an $80 billion bid for fellow media conglomerate Time Warner — and was turned down, for now….

Jawbone takes on Weight Watchers with its latest app update

There are things fitness trackers are generally pretty good at. You know, like counting your steps, measuring how many calories you burned. And then there are things fitness trackers are generally bad at. Logging your food intake is a particularly…