Tag: accident

The Inability of the U.S. Government to Enforce Safety Regulations for Firearms and the Consequences of This

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In the U.S., firearms are one of the few products which are exempt from federal consumer product safety regulations. This exemption derives from the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972 which explicitly prevents the Consumer Product Safety Commission from regulating firearms and ammunition. As a direct result, there remains no federal agency responsible for ensuring the safety of firearms prior to firearms being sold to consumers. This legislative policy can be disasterous, as with the case of the SIG Sauer P320 pistol, a firearm which is prone to firing without the trigger having been pulled. The SIG Sauer P320 firearm is effectively always engaged within a cocked position, with the weapon ready to fire even when not intended by the end user (e.g. holstered and on the hip of the end user etc.). The SIG Sauer P320 is a striker fired firearm and does not have a manual safety by default. Early versions of the design had issues in which the internal components (e.g. trigger, sear, striker etc.) could inadvertently engage, causing an unintentional discharge. This has resulted in law enforcement and civilians accidentally harming themselves and others with accidental misfires. As of 2016, 80 people have been harmed by this particular firearm. In 2017, the manufacturer SIG Sauer Inc. offered a voluntary upgrade program, not a recall but rather an offer to modify the design of this firearm to improve safety features, including adjustments to the trigger, sear, and striker mechanisms

The Reason the World Clock Starts in Greenwich, England

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The reason the world clock starts in Greenwich, England is because during the 19th century, the majority of sea charts used Greenwich, England as the Prime Meridian for the 0° coordinate. In addition to this, during the early advent of the British railway network, trains could end up in accidents if the timing of coming into and/or out of stations was off by even a small margin of error. Because the sun rises earlier in some parts of Britain and later in the rest, these variables needed to be compensated for which was accomplished by introducing more accurate clocks and the concept of time zones. Up until this point, horsepower was the fastest way to travel and because of that, sundials which had been invented in and used since the 9th century A.D., were satisfactory. It was only with the emergence of locomotives that this system of time keeping became antiquated

The Causation and Cure for Colorblindness

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Being colorblind is more difficult than most people believe as those affected often cannot match clothing colors, tell when fruit is ripe, tell when meat is cooked, or tell when traffic lights are various colors in certain lighting conditions (e.g. flashing red being mistaken for flashing yellow). Color vision is trichromatic with 3 types of cone cells within the eyes which consist of blue, green, and red, which are sensitive to short, medium, and long wavelengths of light, with each cone permitting an observer to view approximately 100 different shades. When all shades are combined, the human eye can observe approximately 1,000,000 (1 million) different colors. Colorblindness can stem from faulty cone cells or an interruption between the pathway of the cones and the brain. Colorblindness has caused vehicular deaths due to accidents around the world which have occurred most often because a driver perceived a light as yellow when it was red in reality. Neuroscientist Professor Jay Neitz (pronounced “nites”), a color researcher at the University of Washington in the U.S. and his spouse, geneticist Maureen Neitz, have teamed up to try and cure colorblindness. Gene therapy is currently being researched around the world and scientists believe that colorblindness will be cured using gene therapy in the near future. Male squirrel monkeys are naturally red-green colorblind and gene studies have demonstrated that these monkeys can be afforded color vision after having a gene delivered into the cone cells within the eye. The gene produced transforms a subset of the green cones within the male squirrel monkeys eyes to force them to become red cones, red cones which have hijacked the squirrel monkeys neural circuitry which was previously utilized solely for blue-yellow color vision, essentially bifurcating into red-green cones and blue-yellow cones so that the monkeys examined developed full color vision like human beings as of 2019. The Neitz’s confirmed this by providing male squirrel monkeys colorblind examinations which when answered correctly, delivered a small treat of food after having undergone gene therapy. Trials in human beings have yet to start as the Neitz’s believe that this step is still a few years away, but expected to initiate during the 2020’s

The Unfortunate Events Which Lead to the Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Burial Site

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In 1890, Lord Howard Carter took the reigns of the Highclere estate but was rapidly running short of funds. Carter married the daughter of the wealthy banking merchant Alfred de Rothschild. de Rothschild’s daughter Almina came with an $800,000 dowry and Rothschild himself agreed to pay the castles debts of $200,000. Carter loved the invention of the automobile and favored driving as fast as he could. Carter had an accident in Germany and barely fully recovered. Carters physicians suggested he stay in a warm, dry climate which is what prompted him to visit Egypt. Carter eventually ended up bankrolling the discovery of Egypt’s most famous ancient tomb, the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. Carter died 4 months after the discovery due to septicemia after being bitten by a mosquito whilst sitting upon the fringe of the Nile River. Media reports sensationalized this story as a curse due to the fact that as Carter laid dying in Egypt, his dog Susie howled and died at the exact same instant all the way back in England on the Highclere estate