El Paso Mayor John Cook makes short list for world mayor prize

El Paso Mayor John Cook has made the short list to be recognized as the best mayor in the world.

Cook is one of six mayors in North America and one of 25 worldwide in contention to be named the 2012 World Mayor, to be awarded in December.

Cook was unaware earlier this year that several people had nominated him for the prize.

The award is given by the London-based City Mayors Foundation, an international think tank "to promote strong and prosperous cities as well as good local government," the organization's website says. "Established in 2003, City Mayors encourages city leaders from across the world to develop innovative and sustainable solutions to long-standing urban problems such as housing, transport, education and employment."

The award is intended to recognize mayors for their achievements. There is no cash award, but the winner's city will get a sculpture commemorating the honor.

Last year, Cook cast the tie-breaking vote to restore health benefits to gay and unmarried partners of city employees after voters passed a ballot initiative ending the benefits in November 2010.

Thousands signed petitions demanding Cook's recall in a drive that now appears to be dead. People who admire the mayor's stance figure prominently in the Cook's nomination to be World Mayor. Of the 22 who wrote in support of Cook, 13 cited his stance

in the benefits fight. "He has stood firmly for what is right in the face of homophobes and bigots," says one letter, written by Billie J.H., that is posted on the City Mayors Foundation website.

The group also posted a note from an El Pasoan who believed Cook should not be nominated.

I "am outraged because this mayor overturned a vote by the people of El Paso," Mildred G. wrote. "We have a low voter output and now many people are saying there is no point in voting if the mayor can overturn our vote."

Cook couldn't be reached for this story.

To vote for or comment on Cook, go to http://www.worldmayor.com/contest_2012/word-mayor-nominations-2012.html.>

Marty Schladen may be reached at mschladen@elpasotimes.com; 546-6127.

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Design Flaw At San Onofre Power Plant Revealed

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. -- Federal regulators said Monday that a botched computer analysis resulted in design flaws that are largely to blame for unprecedented wear in steam tubes at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, but it isn't clear how the problems can be fixed.

The preliminary findings by a team of Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigators were disclosed nearly five months after the seaside plant was shut down following a break in a tube that carries radioactive water. There is no date to restart either of its two reactors.

The problems center on excessive tube wear in steam generators that were installed at San Onofre during a $670 million overhaul in 2009 and 2010. Tests found some tubes were so badly corroded that they could fail and possibly release radiation, a stunning finding inside the virtually new equipment.

Long unknown was what was causing tubes to vibrate and rub against each other inside the massive machines, manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Greg Werner, who headed the federal team, said a Mitsubishi computer analysis vastly misjudged how water and steam would flow in the reactors. Also, changes intended to improve manufacturing were never thoroughly reviewed in the context of the generator design, resulting in weaker support around bundles of tubes that contributed to vibration, he said.

The plant's operator, Southern California Edison, could face penalties, while problems at the plant have raised fears of a nuclear accident in Southern California and cut off one of the region's important sources of power.

"The ultimate responsibly resides with them ... because they are responsible for safety," said Regional Administrator Elmo Collins, the agency's top official in the western U.S.

When the generators were designed, the crucial tool Mitsubishi used, a computer model, failed to predict conditions inside the machines and resulted in the tube shaking, Collins said.

Edison agreed with the findings.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, Collins said missteps in fabrication or installation were considered as possible sources of the rapid tube decay but "it looks primarily we are pointed toward the design" of the generators.

Collins didn't rule out that one or more of the generators might have to be replaced. "We think it's too early to tell," he told reporters.

The findings were released during a three-hour meeting Monday in which officials also faced sometimes-testy questions from local citizens concerned about safety.

Outside the hearing, protesters from Friends of the Earth and other groups critical of the nuclear industry displayed signs that said "Not another Fukushima" and "Shut unsafe San Onofre."

The group on Monday filed a petition asking the NRC to keep the plant offline until the company amends its license to reflect design changes in the generators.

"This is a safety problem," said Friends of the Earth consultant Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear industry executive and licensed reactor operator who has written several reports on the San Onofre generators. "These changes put the public at risk."

So far, a fix has remained elusive.

"It's not too hard to frame up the problem," Collins told AP. "The answers are very difficult, or they already would have emerged."

The disclosure will rivet new attention on a series of alterations to the equipment design, including the decision to add 400 tubes to each generator and installing V-shaped supports that were intended to minimize tube wear and vibration. According to company documents, each of the replacement generators weighed nearly 24 tons more than the original generators.

The generators were designed to meet a federal test to qualify as "in-kind," or essentially identical, replacements for the original generators, which would allow them to be installed without prior approval from federal regulators.

The agency is reviewing how that was handled.

Inside the guts of the machinery, the original steam generators and the replacements "look substantially different," Collins said.

Company officials and Collins said safety would remain the first consideration at San Onofre. About 7.4 million Californians live within 50 miles of San Onofre, which can power 1.4 million homes.

"These are significant technical issues. They are not resolved yet," Collins said.

The company said in a statement that the Unit 2 reactor likely would remain offline at least through August, pending NRC approval for a restart. It did not project a restart date for Unit 3, where tube damage has been more severe. The company is expected to submit a plan to the NRC later this summer to restart one, or both, reactors, which would have to outline how the company can control the tube damage.

"We know that the outage and the tube wear issue have generated concern in our community," Edison President Ron Litzinger said.

Cracked and corroded generator tubing has vexed the nation's nuclear industry for years.

Decaying generator tubes helped push San Onofre's Unit 1 reactor into retirement in 1992, even though it was designed to run until 2004. The following year, the Trojan nuclear plant, near Portland, Ore., was shuttered because of microscopic cracks in steam generator tubes, cutting years off its expected lifespan.

Westinghouse Electric Corp. weathered a legal battle with five utilities in the 1990s that wanted the company to replace steam generators it manufactured for the Beaver Valley nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania after tubing corroded.

But the troubled San Onofre generators, manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, might be a unique case because of the extensive modifications. Only one other U.S. nuclear plant uses Mitsubishi generators, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station, about 20 miles north of Omaha, Neb., but its generators are smaller than those at San Onofre and have not displayed excessive tube decay, federal officials say.

The cause of the unusual wear has been eagerly anticipated, as Edison prepares to submit a proposal to the NRC to restart one or both of the reactors. The company has suggested the reactors would run for a test period under reduced power to reduce vibration.

"The phenomenon that we think causes this tube-to-tube interaction is definitely proportional to the power," Collins said. "At least in some theoretical sense, that might be part of the answer."

The company has announced that 510 tubes have been plugged, or retired from use, in the Unit 2 reactor, and 807 tubes in its sister, Unit 3. Each of the generators has nearly 10,000 tubes, and the number retired is well within the limit allowed to continue operation.

The steam generators ? two in each reactor ? function something like a car radiator, which controls heat in the vehicle's engine. The generator tubes circulate hot, radioactive water from the reactors, which then heats non-radioactive water surrounding them. That makes steam, which is used to turn turbines to make electricity.

The tubes have to be thin enough to transfer heat, but thick enough to hold up under heavy pressure. They represent a critical safety barrier ? if a tube breaks, there is the potential that radioactivity can escape into the atmosphere. Also, serious leaks can drain protective cooling water from a reactor.

The trouble began to unfold in January, when the Unit 3 reactor was shut down as a precaution after a tube break. Traces of radiation escaped at the time, but officials said there was no danger to workers or neighbors. Unit 2 had been taken offline earlier that month for maintenance, but investigators later found unexpected wear in tubes in both units.

Edison has been facing pressure from some nearby communities and anti-nuclear activists that have raised safety concerns, while the company looks for a solution to the tube problem and a path to restarting the plant. The design of the generators is also under congressional scrutiny.

The plant is owned by SCE, San Diego Gas & Electric and the city of Riverside. The Unit 1 reactor operated from 1968 to 1992, when it was shut down and dismantled.

___

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Fed meets as many await possible help for economy

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Federal Reserve is meeting this week at a time of high alert ? over the slumping U.S. economy, the aftermath of the Greek elections and the shaky financial markets.

Whether that means it will announce any new action when its two-day meeting ends Wednesday isn't certain. But many analysts think the struggles of the U.S. economy and the threats from Europe will compel the Fed to say or unveil something to try to boost confidence.

A major issue is Europe's debt crisis. Do Fed officials think the Greek election results will help steady Europe's economy because Greece now seems likely to remain in the euro currency union? Or do they worry that Europe's crisis remains unresolved and could tip the global economy into recession?

Those concerns have flared just as U.S. employers have reduced hiring. U.S. retail sales and manufacturing output have weakened. The housing market is still far from healthy. Investors are edgy.

Many economists say that if the Fed announces any new step this week, the most likely would be to extend a program called Operation Twist, which is set to expire in two weeks.

Under Operation Twist, the Fed sells shorter-term securities and buys longer-term bonds. The goal is to further reduce long-term interest rates to encourage borrowing and spending.

Some analysts think the Fed's policymakers might want to further assess the economic landscape before intervening. But even if the Fed decides against unveiling any new steps this week, it's expected to at least make clear it's willing to do more.

"I think Fed officials will send a pretty decisive signal that they are prepared to provide more support to boost economic growth and lower unemployment," said Brian Bethune, economics professor at Gordon College in Massachusetts.

If the Fed does unveil new action Wednesday, it might take a bolder step than Operation Twist. It might decide to expand its portfolio of securities through a third round of long-term bond purchases. If it did so, some analysts think the Fed would decide to buy mortgage securities as well as Treasury bonds to try to lower record-low mortgage rates even further to help revive the housing market.

Bethune thinks the Fed will wait until its next meeting at the end of July and that it will announce a third round of bond buying then. Delaying action now would give Chairman Ben Bernanke more time to build support within the Fed.

A less dramatic step would be for the Fed to extend the target date when it expects to begin raising short-term rates beyond its timetable of late-2014.

Yet it's unclear whether any Fed action would help the economy much. Long-term U.S. interest rates have already touched record lows. Businesses and consumers who aren't borrowing now might not be moved to do so if rates slipped a bit more.

And Republican opponents of President Barack Obama would be critical of a Fed move less than five months before U.S. elections because it could be perceived as helping Obama win re-election.

Any new action would be announced in a statement the Fed will issue after its meeting. Later Wednesday afternoon, it will publish updated economic forecasts, and Bernanke will hold his quarterly news conference.

One reason many analysts think the Fed may announce new action this week is that inflation is low. A gauge of U.S. consumer prices fell in May by the most in nearly four years. When price increases slow, Fed officials generally become less concerned that super-low interest rates might ignite inflation.

Others caution that a step such as Operation Twist might offer little benefit, and not only because rates are already at historic lows. The Fed is running out of short-term Treasurys to swap for longer-term bonds.

Still, some analysts, like Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, expect the Fed to announce an extension of Operation Twist for several more months. The program has been in place since September.

Extending Operation Twist could represent a compromise between Fed officials who favor expanding the Fed's portfolio through a third round of bond buying and those who say it's done enough and that further action could feed high inflation later.

Four members of the policy committee ? Vice Chairman Janet Yellen, Atlanta regional bank president Dennis Lockhart, San Francisco regional bank president John Williams and Chicago regional bank president Charles Evans ? signaled earlier this month that they'd consider backing further Fed action.

Other committee members ? such as Dallas regional bank president Richard Fisher and Jeffrey Lacker, head of the Richmond Fed ? have raised concerns about inflation. Complicating matters, the Fed will have two new members joining the debate at this week's meeting. Their views on interest-rate policies aren't known.

The two ? Jeremy Stein, a Harvard economics professor, and Jerome Powell, a former private equity executive ? won Senate confirmation in May. Their arrival brings the seven-member board to full strength for the first time in six years.

Many investors favor another round of bond buying because they think it might lift the stock market as more investors shift money out of low-yielding bonds into stocks. They were disappointed by a recent congressional appearance by Bernanke, who sent no clear signal of the Fed's next move.

The Fed chief spoke after the government issued a dismal jobs report for May. Bernanke said Fed officials need to see whether the economy can expand enough in coming months to accelerate hiring. In light of his comments, some economists say that unless the Fed thinks that turbulence in Europe compels it to act now, it may announce no action this week.

"I think the Fed will be in a wait-and-watch posture," said David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors. "I think the odds still favor a third round of bond buying, but the June meeting will be too soon for the Fed to make that decision."

That reasoning relates, in part, to the sharp drop in gas prices this spring. Retail gasoline is averaging $3.51 a gallon nationally ? 43 cents below the year's peak in early April. Those lower prices give consumers more money to spend and could help revive growth in the second half of the year.

And while Europe's turmoil carries risks for the U.S. economy, it's also helped reduce the cost of U.S. mortgages and other loans. That's because investors seeking safety have poured money into U.S. Treasurys, driving down their rates, which filter through the economy.

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'Seize moment' call at Rio summit

Governments must seize the "historic opportunity" of the Rio+20 summit to put the world on a new sustainable course, says a panel of Nobel laureates, ministers and scientists.

The evidence that society is "on the edge of a threshhold of a future with unprecedented environmental risks" is unequivocal, they conclude.

Their declaration will be presented to government delegations here.

In the main negotiations, nations are reportedly closing in on an agreement.

The Brazilian government, which is now chairing the talks, wants negotiators to finish work on the draft text by the end of Monday.

Heads of government from about 130 countries, and ministers from others, will begin their session on Wednesday and would sign off the text by the end of the week.

While the majority of people here expect a deal to be done, there are warnings from various organisations that it will not go nearly far enough towards sorting out the environment and development issues facing humanity.

Without explicitly criticising the draft agreement, the panel's declaration makes it clear that they agree.

"The combined effects of climate change, resource scarcity, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem resilience at a time of increased demand, poses a real threat to humanity's welfare," they write.

"There is an unacceptable risk that human pressures on the planet, should they continue on a business as usual trajectory, will trigger abrupt and irreversible changes with catastrophic outcomes for human societies and life as we know it."

Continue reading the main story

Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS)

Granting countries the right to gain financially from the exploitation of biological resources discovered on their territory. Aims to prevent biopiracy. Agreement made at the UN CBC meeting in Nagoya, Japan in 2010. Rio+20 will see further discussion particularly of resources from international waters.

The group of more than 30 signatories includes Nobel laureates such as Carlo Rubbia, Walter Kohn, Douglas Osheroff and Lee Tseh Lee, as well as politicians including Brazil's Environment minister Izabella Teixiera and Finland's recently ex-President Tarja Halonen.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Norwegian prime minister and World Health Organization chief who led the Brundtland Commission on sustainable development in 1987, was also on the panel.

Prof Will Steffen from the Australian National University, one of the leading scientists in the group, said he hoped the declaration would make the implications of ministers' choices clear to them.

"There are intrinisic limits to the planet's capacity, and we must recognise that we're transgressing them - in fact, have transgressed some of them," he told BBC News.

"Business as usual is not an option."

Continue reading the main story
  • How able is the planet to meet increasing demand?
  • In 1960, a little over half the planet's land, forests and
    fisheries were needed to meet human consumption.
  • By the late 1970s, consumption was equal to one planet.
  • By the first years of this century, one-and-a-half planets
    were needed to meet consumption.

    This deficit can only be met by the depletion of renewable
    resources and increased pollution.

However, after delegates had had a few days to discuss the Brazilian government's draft text that it issued on Friday evening, many concluded that on many points, a continuation of business as usual is exactly what it promises.

"There's little in this document that changes what happens next week when governments go home," said Jim Leape, director of WWF International.

"This was never going to be a conference that solved everything; but it still can be a conference that puts the world on a different path."

European governments among others are understood to be seeking to strengthen the document.

However, tales from the talks - in which journalists are not permitted - suggest the Brazilians are taking a hardline approach to changes.

One delegate described their approach as "you've had two years to sort it out - there's no more time, so here it is".

Direct endorsement

It is believed that Brazilian President Dilma Roussef wants to present a completed document to G20 leaders meeting in Mexico on Monday and Tuesday.

This would allow leaders of G20 nations who are not coming to Rio, such as US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, to give the document a degree of direct endorsement.

Among areas of disagreement on the current text, the US wants to avoid putting talks on protecting oceans under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the EU wants progress on sustainable development goals (SDGs) that go beyond merely agreeing the principle of having them, and African nations are looking for a speicifc pledge of finance to help them "green" their economies.

But it is unclear whether any of these blocs will object strongly enough to challenge the draft agreement once prime ministers and presidents are here.

Tarja Halonen, who co-chaired UN chief Ban Ki-moon's Global Sustainability Panel, said the Nobel laureates' declaration could and should encourage leaders to raise their ambitions.

"What this says to negotiators is they need to push harder, they must be encouraged to do more," she told BBC News.

"The most important thing we are telling them is the urgency."

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Ryback def. Two local athletes in 2-on-1 Handicap Match

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.?- WrestleMania bound? Not so much. Yet another pair of local competitors ? Dan Delaney & Rob Grymes ? foolishly challenged the undefeated Ryback in a Handicap Match ? and naturally found themselves Shell Shocked. (PHOTOS)

In the shadow of the home for WrestleMania XXIX, a team of Philadelphia wrestlers stood in the middle of the ring at the IZOD Center and claimed that a win against Ryback would propel them to the main event of The Show of Shows. They even sang the theme music to WrestleMania X as they waited for their opponent.

Clearly, they were a bit overzealous, considering the mean streak of the bruiser from Sin City. Ryback made quick work of the pair, screaming ?stupid? at the weak offensive attempt by his challengers before delivering a bone-jarring body splash, then the Shell Shocked, for the victory.

After the pinfall, the undefeated Superstar yelled, ?Feed me three!? still displeased with his competition. It wasn?t the first time he has asked for a trio of challengers, and judging by the support of the fans cheering in the IZOD Center, it may be a matter of time before Ryback gets his wish.

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Concrete Contractor Abbotsford, bc - Choose Concrete Contractor in ...

You had been waiting long enough for the construction of the pool in your backyard where you had just dreamt to spend lazy afternoons in the cool water or have a great family time with some neatly arranged deck chairs by the pool while enjoying the fresh air. But when it actually took place, there was nothing more than disappointment on your face. The laying of the concrete has not been good and it has already started to show cracks on the surface. What a disaster and dreadful end to a surprise most awaited. Who is to blame for this? You or the contractor who has handled the job? Partially both. As the client, it was your responsibility to look for an experienced concrete contractor in Abbotsford, bc rather than passing the job on to some amateur.

Laying concrete is a tough job and there are very few good concrete contractors in Abbotsford, bc who can handle the job efficiently. Not only knowledge of laying the concrete but the art to handle different types of decorative concrete, structural concrete is also important. Moreover, the company with years of expertise in dealing with concrete should also have the right human resource and equipment to give shape to any concrete project that they undertake. What is crucial therefore is to opt for a concrete contractor who offers a range of services starting right from preparation to demolition and sealing.

A good concrete contractor in Abbotsford bc, knows the importance of laying down the perfect base. The initial stages of concrete laying is very crucial for its longevity. It requires a steady hand, clear concepts and ideas and the right tools to carry out the job flawlessly. Concrete contractors should be equipped with compactors for grading, leveling, compacting of the gravel base in preparation for forming and concrete placing.

Once the preparation work is handled, the contractor should also be able to carry out any kind of demolition work that is required. Any experienced concrete contractor in Abbotsfod bc, will be well equipped with sledge hammers, jack hammers, hydraulic breakers for mini-bobcats to large bobcan and mini-hoe to suit large areas as well as small or hard to reach places.

Next is the crucial step of laying or placing the concrete. If you are working with a good contractor you will realize the difference from the finished work. A concrete contractor who has had hands on experience will have power and hand tools to tackle concrete placement needs including power screed, laser levels, string lines and aluminum screeds for critical slopes and levels.

The last part or the finishing touch is laid down by sealing. Any good concrete contractor in Abbotsford, bc who has worked with concrete before will know the use of different kind of base sealers which are helpful in protecting and beautifying various kinds and finishes of concrete. To top it all, the contractor will also carry out an acid wash or pressure wash the concrete to clean prior to sealing.

For a long living concrete, it is therefore vital that the contractor who handles it knows the nature of it. A strong hand is what is required for shaping decorative and structural concrete at its best.

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Video: The Perfect Catch, Part 4

Dateline NBC

'Dateline NBC,' the signature broadcast for NBC News in primetime, premiered in 1992. Since then, it has been pioneering a new approach to primetime news programming. The multi-night franchise, supplemented by frequent specials, allows NBC to consistently and comprehensively present the highest-quality reporting, investigative features, breaking news coverage and newsmaker profiles.

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Strong winds expected to fuel Colorado wildfire

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Triple-Bond: Boron Joins Elite Chemical Club

News | More Science

Boron joins carbon and nitrogen as one of the few elements in the periodic table known to form stable compounds featuring triple bonds. The compound could be useful in organic electronic materials


Image: APS.org

From Nature magazine

An elite chemical club has a new member, after a team in Germany found a way to link two boron atoms together with a stable triple bond. Boron joins carbon and nitrogen as one of the few elements in the periodic table known to form stable compounds featuring triple bonds.

Theory had predicted that such boron structures should be possible, says Holger Braunschweig, a chemist at the University of W?rzburg who led the research. After all, nitrogen?nitrogen and carbon?carbon triple bonds are stable: the nitrogen molecules that make up the majority of our air are held together by a triple bond, for example. And boron is next to carbon and nitrogen in the periodic table, so should have comparable properties. ?One would expect something similar for boron,? says Braunschweig. ?The major problem has been the synthesis.?

Until now, the closest that anyone had come was a molecule made by using a laser to vaporize boron in the presence of carbon monoxide (CO) at very low temperatures. This compound seemed to incorporate a boron?boron triple bond, surrounded by CO groups, but fell apart at temperatures above about -263 ?C.

Braunschweig?s compound, by contrast, is stable up to 234 ?C, if kept isolated from the air. ?Under inert conditions, this is a very stable molecule,? says Braunschweig.

Share and share alike
To make the compound, the team swapped CO for bulky, highly electron-donating chemical groups called N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs). Atoms of main-group elements are generally most stable when they have eight electrons in their outer electron shells. If they don't have this number as single atoms, they often share with their neighbours, each electron pair constituting a single chemical bond. Boron atoms have only three electrons in their outer shells, so in Braunschweig?s compound, two atoms share all six of their electrons between them to make a triple bond. The remaining two electrons are supplied by NHC groups.

Other research teams have attempted to synthesize boron?boron triple bonds using two boron atoms each bearing one NHC group and three bromines. The idea was that the bromines would be removed one by one, and the two boron atoms would come together to form a boron?boron single bond, followed by a double and finally a triple bond. However, the process of forming the single bond was slow, and the bromine-stripped boron atoms tended to first react with the surrounding solvent before reacting with each other of each other.

So Braunschweig?s group started with a precursor that already had one boron?boron bond in place: B2Br4, stabilized with two NHCs. ?This precursor is a very difficult to work with ? it will degrade above -40?C ? but we showed that we could selectively convert this compound first to make the boron?boron double bond, and in the second step to make the triple bond,? says Braunschweig.

Structural integrity
X-ray crystal structures confirmed that the compound possesses true triple bond character. As expected, the distance between the boron atoms was shorter in the triple-bonded structure than in the compound with a double bond, matching closely with predicted figures. The molecule is also linear, just as the equivalent triple-bonded carbon compound would be.

?Braunschweig has elegantly seen the problem of starting with a mononuclear precursor, and used a precursor with a boron?boron bond already in place,? says Cameron Jones, a chemist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, who has worked on theoretical studies of the boron?boron triple bond. The results, he says, although stable under heat, ?are highly reactive species, and they will find applications?.

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Evidence

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Sending an eEvid
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?Your response from Evidence includes two PDF files. One contains the message contents and header, the other includes SHA-256 hashes of the first file and of any attachments. Since any modification of the file would change the hash, this data serves as proof that the file is unchanged. And as the certificate is digitally signed using the timestamp, it's also secured against tampering.

The message's recipient won't have any idea that you've used this service. If you want to be sure the recipient knows you're retaining confirmation, you'll have to say so in the message. OK, technically there are clues in the message header that point to the Evidence servers, but there's no reason for the recipient to go poking around in the message header.

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