We cannot afford to monitor all killer asteroids, warns Nasa

Nasa is charged with spotting most of the asteroids that pose a threat to Earth, but doesn't have enough money to complete the task, according to a new report.

The space agency was charged with finding 90 per cent of the potentially deadly rocks hurtling through space by 2020.

However, Nasa has not received the funding needed to build the necessary telescopes, according to the report by the National Academy of Sciences.

Nasa estimates there are around 20,000 asteroids and comets in our solar system - each exceeding 460ft in diameter - which are potential threats.

So far, scientists have found 6,000 of these objects using the current telescope system.

Disaster movies like Armageddon and near misses in previous years may have scared people and alerted them to the threat. But when it comes to monitoring, the academy concluded 'there has been relatively little effort by the US government'.

Rocks between 460ft and 3,280ft in diameter can devastate an entire region, said Lindley Johnson, Nasa's manager of the near-Earth objects programme.

It is widely believed that an asteroid, possibly measuring 13,200ft, wiped out the dinosaurs 65million years ago.

Nasa calculated that to spot the asteroids as required by law would mean spending about £480million between now and 2020, either with a new ground-based telescope or a space observation system, Mr Johnson said.

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Oil settles above $70 as dollar falls

NEW YORK -- Oil prices rose Thursday, holding above $70 a barrel as a weaker dollar pushed investors toward energy commodities.

Benchmark crude for September delivery added 36 cents to settle at $70.52 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude prices climbed 59 cents to settle at $73.48 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Oil prices should be depressed right now, given the tepid demand for gasoline and a growing surplus of crude in the U.S. But Newedge analyst Antoine Halff said the tactic of buying oil contracts as a hedge against inflation is "back with a vengeance."

Benchmark crude, which is priced in dollars, tends to rise when the dollar falls as foreign investors gain more buying power. It's recently become a convenient place to park large amounts of cash as the dollar loses ground to other currencies.

Investors also have been pumping money into oil based on general enthusiasm about the path of the global economy. This week, analysts with Barclays Capital went as far as predicting that the recession already has ended in many countries, and oil demand will surge in the second half of the year.

Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, said it's mostly wishful thinking.

"None of the statistics really point to anything happening on the ground in terms of demand," Kloza said. "It seems like there's very comfortable amounts of crude oil out there."

Meanwhile, government reports showed that the economy remains on shaky ground.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that retail sales fell 0.1 percent last month. Economists expected a gain of 0.7 percent. And the Labor Department said initial jobless claims grew more than expected to a seasonally adjusted 558,000.

The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration also said natural gas stockpiles grew last week. The country's natural gas inventory can be used to measure energy demand in the U.S., since many power plants use it to produce electricity.

The build in natural gas was less than expected, though inventory levels are now 20 percent above their five-year average for this time of year.

The U.S. Dollar Index fell Thursday, a day after the Federal Reserve said it would hold interest rates at record lows.

The central bank also will continue an emergency program to buy Treasury securities until October. The program is meant to lower mortgage rates and other consumer debt, but some economists see it as inflationary, making it look like the government is printing money to fix the economy.

At the pump, retail gas prices ticked higher overnight to a new national average of $2.647 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular unleaded is 13 cents more expensive than it was a month ago, but it's $1.14 cheaper than last year.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for September delivery gave up less than a penny to settle at $2.0192 a gallon. Heating oil rose 1.07 cents to settle at $1.9028 a gallon. Natural gas for September delivery lost 14.3 cents to settle at $3.336 per 1,000 cubic feet.

The great popularity of chess

This piece is inspired by Florencio B. Campomanes, honorary president of the World Chess Federation, whom I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time a few days ago in Baguio City. We met through mutual friend Ed de Jesus, president of the University of the Cordilleras, who had invited me to lead a workshop with his faculty on the ABCs of survey research (which I will write on next time).

Despite his age, the maestro is well-recovered from a recent bad car accident, and his mind is as sharp as ever. Campo (as he likes being addressed) asked me if there is any survey on how many Filipinos play chess, and at what age do they begin. He believes that national excellence in chess comes from mass participation in it, if possible starting at the age of five.

Campo’s question can be answered, partially, from the national Survey of Leisure Time and Sports (LTS), done on March 30-April 2, 2008 for the International Social Survey Program, of which Social Weather Stations is a member. Such surveys only cover adults, which in the Philippines means people aged 18 and up.

The LTS survey has separate items on sports which are also physical activities (of which the most popular among Filipinos is, naturally, basketball) and those which are non-physical, called “games” instead. It asks: “Thinking about games rather than sports or physical activities, what type of game do you play most frequently?”

Chess is the No. 1 game. It turns out that chess is the Filipinos’ most popular game, meaning non-physical sport. Those citing it as the game they play most frequently are 15.6 percent in the country. This projects to 8.5 million adult chess players nationwide, based on a population of 54.1 million Filipino adults when the survey was done.

Chess is relatively more popular in Metro Manila, where it is cited by 20 percent, than in the rest of Luzon (18 percent), in Visayas, and in Mindanao (the last two both 12 percent).

Chess is much more a man’s game (26 percent) than a woman’s game (5 percent).

Chess gets less popular as people get older—with percentages of 21 in the 18-24 age group, 20 in the 25-34 group, 17 in the 35-44 group, 13 in the 45-54 group, and 5 among those of 55 and up.

The popularity of chess grows with education and socio-economic class. It is the favorite game of only 1 percent of those who didn’t finish elementary school, 10 percent of those with some high schooling, 20 percent of those with some college, and 26 percent of college graduates. Only 11 percent of class E adults, compared to 24 percent of class ABC adults, call chess their favorite game.

I certainly agree with Campo that children should play chess. I learned it at age seven (and am a low-grade player) and recall that almost all my relatives and friends of the same age could also play chess. But another survey is needed to get numbers on chess-playing among children of age 5 to 17.

Incidentally, another item of the LTS survey finds that 90 percent of Filipino adults agree, and only 5 percent disagree, that “Taking part in sports develops children’s character.”

Other popular games: The second most popular is card games (of all types). This was cited by 9.5 percent, which amounts to 5.1 million players.

Third are video games, a category including computer games, playstation, pinball etc., which was cited by 5.1 percent (2.7 million players).

Tied for fourth, at 4.0 percent (2.2 million players) each, are gambling games (lotto, jueteng, casino games, etc.) and board games (scrabble, monopoly, etc.) At sixth, with 2.2 percent (1.2 million players), is word/number games (crosswords, sudoku). Seventh is dominoes: 1.4 percent or 0.8 million. Eighth is mahjong: 1.2 percent or 0.7 million. Fifty-five percent said they do not play any game.

Sports and national pride. To the LTS question, “How proud are you when the Philippines does well in international sports or games competition,” 74 percent said very proud (talagang ipinagmamalaki) and 19 percent said somewhat proud (medyo ipinagmamalaki). Only 7 percent were either not very proud or not proud at all.

National pride in sports tends to rise with education—from 63 percent among elementary dropouts to 78 percent among college graduates.

On the statement “The Philippine government should spend more money on sports,” it turns out that opinions are divided—47 percent agreeing and 36 percent disagreeing. It seems to me that the Philippines has achieved so much in four international sports—billiards, bowling, boxing and chess—even without much help from the government.

* * *

Support agrarian reform. The other evening, I attended a screening of Ditsy Carolino’s “Lupang Hinarang,” a very moving documentary film of the struggles of the Sumilao farmers, who walked 1,700 kilometers from Bukidnon to Malacañang, and of Task Force Mapalad (of Negros), who went on a 29-day hunger strike in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform.

By the standards of the early centuries of Christianity, the farmer-marchers and the hunger-strikers can be called saints, for having kept faith in the pursuit of justice through peaceful means. The farmers shot dead by goons of landlords are true martyrs. Rural unrest will simply not end without genuine agrarian reform—even if delayed by a hundred years, as in Mexico. The fruits of the farmers’ sufferings, as painfully recorded by Ditsy, will come sooner if Congress passes legislation for meaningful agrarian reform.

To host a “Lupang Hinarang” screening, write lupanghinarang@gmail.com.

To lobby Congress on agrarian reform, look up http://peace.net.ph/carpercampaign. More information is at http://carpernow.multiply.com and http://lupanghinarang.com.

(Contact SWS: www.sws.org.ph or mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.)