Army warns unrest pushing Egypt to the brink

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) - Egypt's army chief said political unrest was pushing the state to the brink of collapse - a stark warning from the institution that ran the country until last year as Cairo's first freely elected leader struggles to curb bloody street violence.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a U.S.-trained general appointed by President Mohamed Mursi last year to head the armed forces, added in a statement on Tuesday that one of the primary goals of deploying troops in cities on the Suez Canal was to protect the waterway that is vital for Egypt's economy and world trade.

Sisi's comments, published on an official army Facebook page, followed 52 deaths in the past week of disorder and highlighted the mounting sense of crisis facing Egypt and its Islamist head of state who is striving to fix a teetering economy and needs to prepare Egypt for a parliamentary election in a few months that is meant to cement the new democracy.

Violence largely subsided on Tuesday, although some youths again hurled rocks at police lines in Cairo near Tahrir Square.

It seemed unlikely that Sisi was signaling the army wants to take back the power it held for six decades since the end of the colonial era and through an interim period after the overthrow of former air force chief Hosni Mubarak two years ago.

But it did send a powerful message that Egypt's biggest institution, with a huge economic as well as security role and a recipient of massive direct U.S. subsidies, is worried about the fate of the nation, after five days of turmoil in major cities.

"The continuation of the struggle of the different political forces ... over the management of state affairs could lead to the collapse of the state," said General Sisi, who is also defense minister in the government Mursi appointed.

He said the economic, political and social challenges facing the country represented "a real threat to the security of Egypt and the cohesiveness of the Egyptian state" and the army would remain "the solid and cohesive block" on which the state rests.

Sisi was picked by Mursi after the army handed over power to the new president in June once Mursi had sacked Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, in charge of Egypt during the transition and who had also been Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years.

The instability has provoked unease in Western capitals, where officials worry about the direction of a powerful regional player that has a peace deal with Israel. The United States condemned the bloodshed and called on Egyptian leaders to make clear violence was not acceptable.

DEEPLY POLARISED

The 58-year-old previously headed military intelligence and studied at the U.S. Army War College. Diplomats say he is well known to the United States, which donates $1.3 billion in military aid each year, helping reassure Washington that the last year's changes in the top brass would not upset ties.

One of Sisi's closest and longest serving associates, General Mohamed el-Assar, an assistant defense minister, is now in charge of the military's relations with the United States.

Almost seven months after Mursi took office, Egyptian politics have become even more deeply polarized.

Opponents spurned a call by Mursi for talks on Monday to try to end the violence. Instead, protesters have rallied in Cairo and Alexandria, and in the three Suez Canal cities - Port Said, Ismailia and Suez - where Mursi imposed emergency rule.

On Tuesday, thousands were again on the streets of Port Said to mourn the deaths of two people in the latest clashes there, taking the total toll in Mediterranean port alone to 42 people. Most were killed by gunshots in a city where weapons are rife.

Mohamed Ezz, a Port Said resident speaking by telephone, heard heavy gunfire through the night. "Gunshots damaged the balcony of my flat, so I went to stay with my brother," he said.

Residents in the three canal cities had taken to the streets in protest at a nightly curfew now in place there. The president's spokesman said on Tuesday that the 30-day state of emergency could be shortened, depending on circumstances.

In Cairo on Tuesday afternoon, police again fired teargas at stone-throwing youths in a street near Tahrir Square, the center of the 2011 uprising. But the clashes were less intense than previous days and traffic was able to cross the area. Street cleaners swept up the remains of burnt tires and other debris.

The police have been facing "unprecedented attacks accompanied by the appearance of groups that pursue violence and whose members possess different types of weapons", the state news agency reported, quoting the Interior Ministry spokesman.

Street flare-ups are a common occurrence in divided Egypt, frustrating many people desperate for order and economic growth.

WARY MILITARY

Although the general's comments were notably blunt, Egypt's military has voiced similar concerns in the past, pledging to protect the nation. But it has refused to be drawn back into a direct political role after its reputation as a neutral party took a pounding during the 17 months after Mubarak fell.

"Egyptians are really alarmed by what is going on," said Cairo-based analyst Elijah Zarwan, adding that the army was reflecting that broader concern among the wider public.

"But I don't think it should be taken as a sign that the military is on the verge of stepping in and taking back the reins of government," he said.

In December, Sisi offered to host a national dialogue when Mursi and the rivals were again at loggerheads and the streets were aflame. But the invitation was swiftly withdrawn before the meeting went ahead, apparently because the army was wary of becoming embroiled again in Egypt's polarized politics.

Protests initially flared during the second anniversary of the uprising which erupted on January 25, 2011 and toppled Mubarak 18 days later. They were exacerbated in Port Said when residents were angered after a court sentenced to death several people from the city over deadly soccer violence.

Since the 2011 revolt, Islamists who Mubarak spent his 30-year rule suppressing have won two referendums, two parliamentary elections and a presidential vote.

But that legitimacy has been challenged by an opposition that accuses Mursi of imposing a new form of authoritarianism. Mursi's supporters says protesters want to overthrow Egypt's first democratically elected leader by undemocratic means.

The army has already been deployed in Port Said and Suez and the government agreed a measure to let soldiers arrest civilians as part of the state of emergency. Sisi reiterated that the army's role would be to support the police in restoring order.

Mursi's invitation to rivals to a national dialogue with Islamists on Monday was spurned by the main opposition National Salvation Front coalition, which described it as "cosmetic".

The presidency said a committee would be formed to look at changes to the constitution, but it ruled out changing the government before the parliamentary election.

Mursi's pushing through last month of a new constitution which critics see as too Islamic remains a bone of contention.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia and Abdelrahman Youssef in Alexandria; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Peter Millership)

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US says Iran blast reports not credible

WASHINGTON: The White House on Monday dismissed reports of an underground explosion at Iran's Fordo atomic plant and also accused the Islamic Republic of adopting delaying tactics on nuclear talks.

Iran had previously condemned reports in sectors of the US and Israeli media about the alleged blast as "western propaganda" designed to influence the outcome of its stalled nuclear dialogue with Western powers.

"We have no information to confirm the allegations in that report, and we do not believe the report is credible," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

The reports cited the conservative American news website WND, which reported that an explosion at the Fordo facility on January 21 had caused major damage and trapped workers.

Iran has several times accused Israel and the United States of taking action to sabotage its nuclear program, through assassinations of its scientists and unleashing computer malware against its facilities.

The Fordo site is dug into a mountain near the holy city of Qom, some 150 kilometres south of Tehran, to protect it against air strikes.

Iran says it has been targeted previously, and blamed an explosion that reportedly cut the power supply to Fordo on saboteurs.

The site, whose existence was revealed by major powers in 2009, began in late 2011 to enrich uranium to purities of 20 per cent, a process at the heart of US and western concerns that Iran is trying to make a nuclear bomb.

The last round of Iran's talks with the so-called P5+1 -- the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia -- held June in Moscow ended with a stalemate, as did previous rounds.

The sides have failed to agree on a new stage of talks, blaming each other for uncertainty over a date and venue. The US side has said Iran was offered talks in Istanbul at the end of this month, but never confirmed.

"Iran, not for the first time, has been continually putting forward new conditions as a delaying tactic," Carney said.

"Negotiations about negotiations is a familiar tactic that only results in further isolation and more pressure on Iran."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the ball is in Iran's court after the US proposed "another set of dates and another range of venues in February."

She said the US had been extremely "open and flexible" but that Washington had to ensure the talks were held in "a venue that's not politicised."

"I don't think we're going to Tehran, for example," she added. Tehran and Washington have not had diplomatic relations since the storming of the US embassy in the Iranian capital in 1979 and the subsequent hostage crisis.

- AFP/jc

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Artists use real-time MRI footage to create music video

Sivu - Better Man Than He. from Adam Powell on Vimeo.

Some see, not to mention make, art in unusual places. And so it is with U.K.-based musician Sivu, who is letting viewers peer inside his mind while he sings -- literally.

Reportedly inspired by the work being done on children born with cleft lips and palates at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, Sivu lay in an MRI scanner for almost three hours and sang his new single, "Better Man Than He," repeatedly. The resulting music video is an edit of that footage, relying on nothing but the relatively new real-time medical imaging technique often used to capture the subtle movements of organs, joints, and more.

Sivu and music video director Adam Powell are crediting doctors Marc E. Miguel and Andrew David Scott, as well as Barts hospital, for their help in the production.

The word is still out on whether Sivu was harmed in the making of this film, but because MRI does not use ionizing radiation -- the high-energy radiation currently used in CT scans that may damage DNA -- the FDA reports that there are "no known harmful side-effects associated with temporary exposure to the strong magnetic field used by MRI scanners."

Prolonged exposure, however, can result in a slight warming of the body. There's got to be a good pun in there somewhere.

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Study: Penicillin, not Pill, launched sex revolution

History points to The Pill as one of the main triggers of the cultural revolution of the 1960s. The "Swinging 60s" were a time of sexual revolution. But one economist argues it was a far less sexy pill -- penicillin -- that was a major force behind changing sexual mores.

"It's a common assumption that the sexual revolution began with the permissive attitude of the 1960s and the development of contraceptives like the birth control pill," Andrew Francis, an economist at Emory University, said in a press release. "The evidence, however, strongly indicates that the widespread use of penicillin, leading to a rapid decline in syphilis during the 1950s, is what launched the modern sexual era."

Dr. Francis, who conducted an analysis recently published in "Archives of Sexual Behavior," argues that penicillin reduced the risks associated with sex. He compares it to the economic law of demand: when the cost of a good falls, people buy more of the good.

Penicillin was discovered in 1928, but was not widely used until World War II. The U.S. government had to deal with the very real problem of soldiers contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Penicillin was found to be an effective cure for the most damaging: syphilis.

"The military wanted to rid the troops of STDs and all kinds of infections, so that they could keep fighting," Francis said. "That really sped up the development of penicillin as an antibiotic."

After the war, penicillin became widely prescribed, and syphilis rates fell accordingly. Between 1947 and 1957, the incidence of syphilis fell by 95 percent - all but eliminating it as a consequence of sexual activity.

The analysis also unearths dire warnings from doctors of that era. Spanish physician Eduardo Martinez Alonso, writing in the 1950s, pointed to penicillin as a way for immoral people to get away with risky behavior. "The wages of sin are now negligible," he wrote. "One can almost sin with impunity, since the sting of sinning has been removed."

Dr. Francis analyzed data from state and federal health agencies between the 1930s and 1970s. The analysis looked at three measures of sexual behavior: the illegitimate birth ratio; the teen birth share; and the incidence of gonorrhea.

27 Photos

Dangerous sex: 27 vintage STD posters

"As soon as syphilis bottoms out, in the mid- to late-1950s, you start to see dramatic increases in all three measures of risky sexual behavior," Francis said.

While this does not discount the impact of the birth control pill - which Ms. Magazine co-founder Letty Cottin Pogrebin once called "the most revolutionary development of the 20th century" - it does shine a light on an unheralded warrior in America's cultural revolution.

The fact that this unusual analysis comes from an economist is no surprise - at least to economist Andrew Francis.

"People don't generally think of sexual behavior in economic terms," he said, "but it's important to do so because sexual behavior, just like other behaviors, responds to incentives."

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Boy Scouts to Discuss Lifting National Gay Ban

The Boy Scouts of America, under growing pressure from troops across the country to end its 100-year-old ban on gay leaders and members, said today it is "discussing" ending its national discrimination policy, leaving such decisions to the discretion of individual troops.

"Currently, the BSA is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation," BSA spokesman Deron Smith said in a prepared statement.
"This would mean there would no longer be any national policy regarding sexual orientation, and the chartered organizations that oversee and deliver Scouting would accept membership and select leaders consistent with each organization's mission, principles, or religious beliefs."

Individual members and parents would be able to set policy guidelines as they see fit when organizing their troops and leadership, according to the statement.

The BSA will review the matter at its regularly scheduled board meeting next week, Smith said.

Rich Ferraro, a spokesman for the gay advocacy group GLAAD, pointed to two factors upon hearing the announcement today.

"I think it was a mix of the change.org petitions and the corporate sponsors that had dropped out," Ferraro said.

Last September, the Intel Foundation announced it would end $700,000 in annual donations to the Boys Scouts. The Merck Foundation also severed its ties in December.

"UPS adopted a new policy that stated that grantees had to follow their nondiscrimination policy," Ferraro said. "There were also more in the coming weeks that were dropping their support of Scouts."

Several U.S. councils have tried to buck the longtime ban, putting the issue to a vote with their local parents in recent months, including a Boy Scout troop in California and a Cub troop in Maryland.

"I am extraordinarily excited," said Eagle Scout Zach Wahls, who has spent the past seven months heading up Scouts for Equality, which advocates for ending the ban. "It's a positive step, and big change.

"This is absolutely a step in the right direction, but we have a long way to go," Wahls, 21, said today. "Discrimination has no place in scouting."

Wahls, whose parents are lesbians, was a YouTube sensation two years ago when he testified before the Iowa legislature on same-sex marriage.

He delivered a petition in June from change.org with more than 1 million signatures, demanding that the Boy Scouts end the ban on openly gay membership.

"Once an Eagle Scout, always an Eagle Scout," Wahls said at the time. "I am unwilling to quit because of a single policy. They do so many things right."

The policy change under discussion would allow individual groups -- religious, civic or educational ones -- to determine their own rules.

"The national organization has to make it clear to all units that being anti-gay is unacceptable," said Wahls, who identifies as straight. "What happens next is little unclear, but it seems the Boy Scouts of America is starting to thaw on this issue."

BSA's Smith said, "The Boy Scouts would not, under any circumstances, dictate a position to units, members, or parents. Under this proposed policy, the BSA would not require any chartered organization to act in ways inconsistent with that organization's mission, principles or religious beliefs."

In October, California Boy Scout
Ryan Andresen of Moraga, Calif., was denied the coveted Eagle Scout award, even though he had completed all the requirements because he is gay.

His mom, Karen Andresen, was so upset by the troop's decision that she posted a petition on change.org.

A local troop committee approved his award, but the council did not send it on to the national organization because of the gay ban.

Advocacy groups have been vocal on the issue.

"The Boy Scouts of America have heard from scouts, corporations and millions of Americans that discriminating against gay scouts and scout leaders is wrong," GLAAD President Herndon Graddick said. "Scouting is a valuable institution and this change will only strengthen its core principles of fairness and respect."

Until now, the Boy Scouts have stood firm on the issue, even taking it to the highest court.

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Violence flares in Egypt after emergency law imposed

CAIRO (Reuters) - A man was shot dead on Monday in a fifth day of violence that has killed 50 Egyptians and prompted the Islamist president to declare a state of emergency in an attempt to end a wave of unrest sweeping the biggest Arab nation.

Emergency rule announced by President Mohamed Mursi on Sunday covers the cities of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. The army has already been deployed in two of those cities and ministers agreed a measure to let soldiers arrest civilians.

A cabinet source told Reuters any trials would be in civilian courts, but the step is likely to anger protesters who accuse Mursi of using high-handed tactics of the kind they fought against to oust his military predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt's politics have become deeply polarized since those heady days two years ago, when protesters were making the running in the Arab Spring revolutions that sent shockwaves through the region and Islamists and liberals lined up together.

Although Islamists have won parliamentary and presidential elections, the disparate opposition has since united against Mursi. Late last year he moved to expand his powers and pushed a constitution with a perceived Islamist bias through a referendum. The moves were punctuated by street violence.

Mursi's national dialogue meeting on Monday to help end the crisis was spurned by his main opponents.

They say Mursi hijacked the revolution, listens only to his Islamist allies and broke a promise to be a president for all Egyptians. Islamists say their rivals want to overthrow by undemocratic means Egypt's first freely elected leader.

Thousands of anti-Mursi protesters were out on the streets again in Cairo and elsewhere on Monday, the second anniversary of one of the bloodiest days in the revolution which erupted on January 25, 2011 and ended Mubarak's iron rule 18 days later.

"The people want to bring down the regime," they chanted Alexandria. "Leave means go, and don't say no!" they shouted.

VOLLEYS OF TEARGAS

Propelled to the presidency in a June election by the Muslim Brotherhood, Mursi has lurched through a series of political crises and violent demonstrations, complicating his task of shoring up the economy and of preparing for a parliamentary election to cement the new democracy in a few months.

Instability in Egypt has raised concerns in Western capitals, where officials worry about the direction of a key regional player that has a peace deal with Israel.

In Cairo on Monday, police fired volleys of teargas at stone-throwing protesters near Tahrir Square, cauldron of the anti-Mubarak uprising. A car was torched on a nearby bridge.

A 46-year-old bystander was killed by a gunshot early on Monday, a security source said. It was not clear who fired.

"We want to bring down the regime and end the state that is run by the Muslim Brotherhood," said Ibrahim Eissa, a 26-year-old cook, protecting his face from teargas wafting towards him.

The political unrest has been exacerbated by street violence linked to death penalties imposed on soccer supporters convicted of involvement in stadium rioting in Port Said a year ago.

As part of emergency measures, a daily curfew will be imposed on the three canal cities from 9 p.m. (1900 GMT) to 6 a.m. (0400 GMT). Residents have said they will defy it.

The president announced the measures on television on Sunday: "The protection of the nation is the responsibility of everyone. We will confront any threat to its security with force and firmness within the remit of the law," Mursi said, angering many of his opponents when he wagged his finger at the camera.

He offered condolences to families of victims. But his invitation to Islamist allies and their opponents to hold a national dialogue was spurned by the main opposition National Salvation Front coalition. Those who accepted were mostly Mursi's supporters or sympathizers.

SENDING A MESSAGE

The Front rejected the offer as "cosmetic and not substantive" and set conditions for any future meeting that have not been met in the past, such as forming a government of national unity. They also demanded that Mursi declare himself responsible for the bloodshed.

"We will send a message to the Egyptian people and the president of the republic about what we think are the essentials for dialogue. If he agrees to them, we are ready for dialogue," opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei told a news conference.

The opposition Front has distanced itself from the latest flare-ups but said Mursi should have acted far sooner to impose security measures that would have ended the violence.

"Of course we feel the president is missing the real problem on the ground, which is his own policies," Front spokesman Khaled Dawoud said after Mursi made his declaration.

Other activists said Mursi's measures to try to impose control on the turbulent streets could backfire.

"Martial law, state of emergency and army arrests of civilians are not a solution to the crisis," said Ahmed Maher of the April 6 movement that helped galvanize the 2011 uprising. "All this will do is further provoke the youth. The solution has to be a political one that addresses the roots of the problem."

Rights activists said Mursi's declaration was a backward step for Egypt, which was under emergency law for Mubarak's entire 30-year rule. His police used the sweeping arrest provisions to muzzle dissent and round up opponents, including members of the Brotherhood and even Mursi himself.

Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch in Cairo said the police, still hated by many Egyptians for their heavy-handed tactics under Mubarak, would once again have the right to arrest people "purely because they look suspicious", undermining efforts to create a more efficient and respected police force.

"It is a classic knee-jerk reaction to think the emergency law will help bring security," she said. "It gives so much discretion to the Ministry of Interior that it ends up causing more abuse, which in turn causes more anger."

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia and Abdelrahman Youssef in Alexandria; Editing by Giles Elgood, Peter Millership and Alastair Macdonald)

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Morsi declares emergency, curfews in Egypt riot-hit areas

CAIRO: President Mohamed Morsi on Sunday declared a state of emergency in three provinces hit by rioting which has left dozens dead, warning he was ready to take further steps to confront threats to Egypt's security.

Emergency measures would come into effect in the provinces of Port Said, Suez and Ismailia "for 30 days starting at midnight (2200 GMT Sunday)," Morsi said in an address on state television.

Curfews would be imposed on the same three provinces from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am, he added.

"I have said I am against any emergency measures but I have said that if I must stop bloodshed and protect the people then I will act," Morsi said.

He warned that he was ready to take further measures unless there is an end to the deadly unrest that has swept Egypt since Friday, when protests to mark the second anniversary of the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak turned violent.

"If I must I will do much more for the sake of Egypt. This is my duty and I will not hesitate," the president warned.

He also held out an olive branch to the opposition and political leaders across Egypt, inviting them for talks on Monday, saying "there is no alternative to dialogue".

He added in his brief address: "There is no going back to freedom and democracy... the rule of law and social justice that the revolution has paved."

The opposition has threatened to boycott upcoming parliamentary polls if Morsi did not find a "comprehensive solution" to the unrest.

The National Salvation Front, the main coalition of parties and movements opposing the ruling Islamists, said it would "not participate" in the polls unless a "national salvation" government was formed.

Morsi's comments came after rioting sparked by death sentences being passed on football fans for deadly violence in 2012 rocked Egypt's Port Said for a second straight day on Sunday, leaving another six people dead and more than 460 injured, according to medics.

Crowds attempted to storm three police stations in the canal city and others torched a social club belonging to the armed forces, looting items inside, security officials said.

The latest casualties, among the six a teenager shot in the chest, add to the toll of 31 people including two anti-riot police killed in the Mediterranean city on Saturday.

Unrest also erupted on Sunday in Suez, another canal city, where protesters surrounded a police station, lobbed Molotov cocktails at security forces and blocked the road leading to the capital, security officials said.

And in the capital, clashes broke between police and protesters who accuse Morsi of betraying the goals of the revolution that ousted Mubarak, highlighting deep political divisions in the country now ruled by Islamists.

The rioting in Port Said began on Saturday after a Cairo court handed down death sentences on 21 supporters of the local football club, Al-Masry, in the wake of football violence in 2012 that left 74 people dead.

Morsi insisted that the verdicts that triggered the violence "must be respected by all of us."

He condemned the violence as "a violation of the law and a violation of the revolution."

The president also said he had instructed the interior ministry to "use all decisive force against those who attack the security of the people, government buildings, those who use weapons, block roads, those who throw stones on innocents..."

Residents of Port Said earlier Sunday carried out the grim task of burying those killed the previous day, with bodies wrapped in white shrouds being carried in open coffins by a sea of mourners along the city's main avenue.

"Our city is being hit by the interior ministry!" and "Down with Brotherhood rule!" chanted the crowd, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood from which Morsi draws his main support.

A brief burst of gunfire sent mourners running in several directions amid chaotic scenes, which later degenerated into rioting again.

Clashes during the night in Cairo near Tahrir Square - symbolic heart of the 2011 uprising that ousted Mubarak - continued sporadically during the day and into Sunday evening, witnesses said.

The US and British embassies, located just minutes from Tahrir Square, closed their services to the public for the day.

Egypt was under a state of emergency for more than three decades in the wake of the assassination of president Anwar Sadat in 1981 and until May last year, a month before the election of Morsi.

Ending the state of emergency - which allowed authorities to detain people without charge and them them in emergency security courts - was a key demand of protesters who toppled Mubarak in 2011.

- AFP/de

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Boeing battery solution may keep 787 grounded until 2014

This Boeing 787 Dreamliner made the aircraft's first commercial flight. It's seen here at Narita airport near Tokyo just before takeoff.

(Credit:
All Nipon Airways)

A battery expert and chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has some suggestions for how Boeing can solve its airplane battery woes, one of which could keep the fleet grounded until 2014.

The problems with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, which was grounded earlier this month by Federal Aviation Administration order, could be solved by switching from the current lithium-ion batteries to nickel metal-hydride (NiMH) batteries, Donald Sadoway told Forbes. However, switching to NiMH batteries, which have a better safety track record, could result in a lengthy certification process that could take up to a year to complete, Forbes reports.

After a series of onboard fires earlier this month, the FAA on January 16 ordered all airlines to park their fleets until the much-hyped airplane's onboard batteries are proven safe to operate. The order followed Japan Airlines' grounding its 787s after a battery fire forced the evacuation of an All Nippon Airways flight.

Sadoway says Boeing's choice of the lithium-ion battery was consistent with the airplane maker's goal to reduce the 787's weight, thus saving money on its cost of operation. However, he said lithium-ion batteries were more prone to spontaneous combustion due to "organic electrolyte which makes it volatile and flammable."

Sadoway told Forbes that in his examination of the 787's lithium-ion battery, he was surprised by a seeming lack of a cooling mechanism for the batteries.

"In a large format battery, heat can be generated faster than it dissipates to the surroundings with the result that the temperature of the battery can rise to dangerously high levels which leads to bloating and ultimately fire," he said.

But designing, building, and testing a new control system for the NiMH batteries could take a year, Sadoway said.

Short of replacing the batteries outright, Sadoway also suggests Boeing create vents in the battery box that allows them to dissipate heat, as well as install temperature sensors to ensure that batteries stay within a safe range.

A Boeing representative told CNET that the company was withholding comment until its investigation is complete.

Boeing said it was working with the FAA to develop a solution to the problem that would allow airlines to resume operation of the 787s as soon as possible. Boeing has shipped about 50 Dreamliners to carriers around the world, including ANA, Japan Airlines, Air India, and United Airlines, which is the only U.S. airline that has taken delivery of the aircraft.

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A look at past deadly nightclub fires

Rescue workers are seen outside the Cocoanut Grove club in Boston, Mass., Nov. 28, 1942, after fire tore through the nightclub, killing 492 people. / AP

A fire that swept through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday and killed 232 people appears to be the deadliest in more a decade.

Here is a look at some of the biggest nightclub fires in the past century:

• A blaze at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia, broke out in December 2009, when an indoor fireworks display ignited a plastic ceiling decorated with branches, killing 152.
• A December 2004 fire killed 194 people at an overcrowded working-class nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after a flare ignited ceiling foam.
• A nightclub fire in the U.S. state of Rhode Island in 2003 killed 100 people after pyrotechnics used as a stage prop by the 1980s rock band Great White set ablaze cheap soundproofing foam on the walls and ceiling.
• In China's worst nightclub disaster in recent years, a fire blamed on a welding accident tore through a disco in the central city of Luoyang in December 2000, killing 309 people.
• A fire at the Ozone Disco Pub in 1996 in Quezon City, Philippines, killed 162 people, many of them students celebrating the end of the school year.
• In 1977, 165 people perished and more than 200 were injured when the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, which touted itself as the Showplace of the Nation, burned to the ground.
• A fire killed 492 people at Boston's Cocoanut Grove club in 1942, the deadliest nightclub blaze in U.S. history. The fire led to the enactment of requirements for sprinkler systems and accessible exits with emergency lights not linked to the regular lighting system.
• In 1940, a fire ignited the decorative Spanish moss draping the ceiling of the Rhythm Night Club in Natchez, Mississippi, killing 209 people. Hundreds of patrons ran to the only exit. The windows had been boarded shut to keep unwanted guests from sneaking in.

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Brazil Nightclub Fire: 232 Dead, Hundreds Injured

Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing more than 230 people as panicked partygoers gasped for breath in the smoke-filled air, stampeding toward a single exit partially blocked by those already dead. It appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.

Witnesses said a flare or firework lit by band members may have started the blaze.

Television images showed smoke pouring out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless young men who had attended a university party joined firefighters using axes and sledgehammers to pound at windows and walls to free those trapped inside.

Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper that firefighters had a hard time getting inside the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance."

Teenagers sprinted from the scene desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, Silva said.

Another survivor, Michele Pereira, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage when members of the band lit flares that started the conflagration.

Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images

"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."

Guitarist Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, started playing at 2:15 a.m. "and we had played around five songs when I looked up and noticed the roof was burning"

"It might have happened because of the Sputnik, the machine we use to create a luminous effect with sparks. It's harmless, we never had any trouble with it.

"When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working"

He confirmed that accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.

Police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that the toll had risen to 233 with the death of a hospitalized victim. Officials counted 232 bodies that had been brought for identification to a gymnasium in Santa Maria, a major university city with about 250,000 residents at the southern tip of Brazil, near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay.

An earlier count put the number of dead at 245.

Federal Health Minister Alexandre Padhilha told a news conference that most of the 117 people treated in hospitals had been poisoned by gases they breathed during the fire. Only a few suffered serious burns, he said.

Brazil President Dilma Roussef arrived to visit the injured after cutting short her trip to a Latin American-European summit in Chile.

"It is a tragedy for all of us," Roussef said.

Most of the dead apparently suffocated, according to Dr. Paulo Afonso Beltrame, a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of Santa Maria who went to the city's Caridade Hospital to help victims.

Beltrame said he was told the club had been filled far beyond its capacity during a party for students at the university's agronomy department.

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