A urine-filled jam container was found concealed in the plumbing of the Titans Stadium dressing area. The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority was given the jar according to the Gold Coast Titans. Toronto plumbers bring you this story.

Bomb Detection 

The police said that the jar was found hidden in the infrastructure at a dressing room when they were carrying out bomb detection exercises at the Robina stadium belonging to the club last week.

This comes after details of an investigation report were released by the Australian Crime Commission that said that drug use was quite widespread in Australian professional sports. The investigations had been conducted for a year.

David May, Titans CEO confirmed the incident saying that the jar may be more than 5-years old adding that many teams have used the room.

May said that the most important thing was that the jam jar filled with urine had been found. It was hidden in a stadium dressing room inside the plumbing and it has been handed over to the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA).

The Titans CEO said that the place for the investigation to be done is the ASADA as they would provide information as investigations are done. The tests on the contents of the jar will be done and released at a later date though a time limit has not been set.

David Lloyd, the stadium manager at Robina said that when the police found the jam jar they did not tell management of the incident.

Lloyd noted that the jar could have been there for years. It is thought that the jar had been left for use by athletes who were not drug free when they came up for random testing.

Titans CEO May, said that the club had a zero-tolerance rule on drugs, which it strictly enforces. He said that he was confident that the club was completely compliant with the standards regulated and set by the agencies that deal with anti-doping issues.

May referred any questions asked to Stadiums Queensland.

Drug-Free

Michael Voss, the coach of Brisbane Lions said that he was confident that his team was drug-free.

The Lions players, like all other AFL teams have to undergo random tests and also have their own internal codes and team doctors. Voss said that the issue should be closely scrutinized for all players under the board so as to ensure that they were free and clean of drugs. He said that though the players were aware and all were aware and that everything had to be passed through their team doctors.

Anta Plumbing will track the developments for you.

A new way to measure rainfall was announced by Dutch researchers. It can now be done by using mobile phone networks as plumbing services has found out.

Depleted Rain Gauges

Aart Overeem, at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute is the man who looked for an alternate way to measure rain. Traditional rain gauges used in rain measurement have been depleted over the years, making collection of data difficult.

According to Overeem, researchers have been toying with the idea of using microwave radio connections that transmit phone calls in measuring rainfall. He said that it has been widely known that the rain can influence signal strength in telecommunication. The late 90s saw some of his colleague researchers show that the strength of signals become weaker when there is rainfall.

He explains that for radio links, the electromagnetic signals typically travel from the antenna of a telephone tower and goes to the antenna on another tower. So when rain begins to fall, signals get weaker. The more the rain droplets, as well as the size, the bigger the decline in the signal power received at the end of the microwave link.

Study

Overeem carried out tests for 12 days. He then compared the mobile phone network data with that of rainfall data gathered the traditional way. The results of the study were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The results showed that the data collected via phone networks was quite accurate.

Overeem however, notes that more research would probably be needed to ensure that reliable and accurate rainfall maps were received the entire year. He says that once the additional work was done then the new technique of measuring rainfall would spread very quickly.

Africa Benefits  

The case of Africa was cited as one of the regions that would benefit, as mobile phones were accessible and telecommunication networks and infrastructures were in place, but rain gauges were limited.

Countries such as Australia, U.S. and those in Europe that possess weather radar, could use the microwave-link information collected to better adjust the radar images of rainfall. Weather radars provide very detailed measurements, particularly over large areas and are quite useful and can be used in the management of responses to such concerns as floods.

Plumbing Toronto has learned that the researchers’ hope is that using the phone data will receive the approval of phone companies so that information is made available to all.