Steve Bruin - Bundaburg Boat Sheds - Builder - Planning 1
Testimonial - Steve Bruin - Bundaburg Boat Sheds - Builder - Planning 1.

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Steve Bruin - Bundaburg Boat sheds - Builder - Planning
Testimonial - Steve Bruin - Bundaburg Boat sheds - Builder - Planning.

By: Craig Micheal O #39;Sullivan

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Steve Bruin - Bundaburg Boat sheds - Builder - Planning - Video

Devon Energy (DVN) turned a profit in the fourth quarter, as higher production and selling prices lifted the company.

Devon reported net income of $207 million, or 51 cents a share, versus a loss of $357 million, or 89 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. The year-ago period included an $896 million asset write-down.

Adjusted earnings, which exclude asset charges and other one-time items, rose to $1.10 a share from 78 cents. Revenue ticked 1.7% higher to $2.62 billion.

Wall Street analysts projected an adjusted profit of $1.08 a share and revenue of $2.69 billion.

Average daily production climbed 2.6% during the quarter. Average realized prices before hedging impacts were up 9% for oil and 1% for natural gas.

Also on Wednesday, Devon unveiled a deal to sell most of its conventional assets in Canada to Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ) for $3.125 billion Canadian dollars, or $2.8 billion. The company said it expects to divest its remaining non-core assets in the U.S. by the end of this year.

Oklahoma City-based Devon, which helped pioneer drilling for natural gas, is in the process of turning itself into a bigger player in the oil industry.

The company recently agreed to pay closely held GeoSouthern Energy $6 billion for assets at the Eagle Ford shale formation in Texas. It also plans to combine its U.S. midstream assets with Crosstex Energy (XTXI) to form a publicly traded master limited partnership.

Devon was trading 2.3% higher at $64.34 on Wednesday morning. U.S. shares of Canadian Natural Resources jumped 3.2% to $36.91.

Follow Matthew Rocco on Twitter @MatthewRocco

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Devon Energy Sheds Canadian Assets for $2.8B

An X-ray image of the Cas A supernova remnant shows the blue glow of radioactive titanium-44 that was formed during the star's destruction some 11,000 years ago. NASA

An artist's concept of the NuSTAR satellite in orbit with its long mast fully extended. X-ray-sensitive optics are located at one end of the mast while digital cameras, a solar panel and spacecraft electronics are located at the other.

NASA

"The result we're unveiling today is the first ever map of radioactive material in the remnants of a star that exploded in an incredibly powerful event called a supernova," said Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology.

"This is helping us to untangle the mysteries surrounding how stars explode and in particular, what's happening at the very heart of the explosion. No other telescope could make this map."

18 Photos

For more than 20 Years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been shooting up the universe

But eventually, if a star is massive enough to begin with, only iron is left in the core and fusion stops for good, triggering a final gravitational collapse and the birth of an ultra-dense neutron star or a black hole. In either case, material from the outer regions of the dying sun is pulled inward, crashes into the collapsing core and rebounds, triggering a cataclysmic shock and a flood of penetrating neutrinos.

But in computer simulations, the shock wave can stall out, preventing a supernova from proceeding.

One possible explanation is that powerful jets can form when a spinning star collapses and then blow the sun apart. Another model holds that the core collapse is not symmetrical and that it "sloshes" about, creating bubble-like structures that penetrate the shock front and give the neutrinos a way to blast out.

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NASA X-ray telescope sheds new light on supernova, death of a distant star

SANTA CRUZ -- Like cats are drawn to visions of flushing toilets, so are astrophysicists drawn to black holes swallowing stars.

Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, a UC Santa Cruz professor, laughed when he agreed that a star in the gravitational clutches of a black hole bears a striking resemblance to a flushing toilet. But his research, recently accepted into the "Astrophysical Journal," is no joke.

Many black holes were once stars, but have collapsed in onto themselves. Their incredible mass, packed into a tiny point, creates a huge gravitational pull capable of destroying planets and stars alike.

Ramirez-Ruiz and his team have been working on a computer model that can simulate what happens when a star succumbs to a black hole. He tested the model on visual data published in the prestigious journal, "Nature" in 2012.

That study documented a black hole digesting a star, and said it was a rare helium star as opposed to a run-of-the-mill hydrogen star.

Ramirez-Ruiz and his former graduate student, James Guillochon, were skeptical of the study. Ramirez-Ruiz said that events such as these, known as tidal disruption events, only happen once every 10,000 years. That astrophysicists would see one involving such a rare star seemed like a statistical anomaly. "It's a very, very unlikely situation," Ramirez-Ruiz said.

After scrutinizing the data and putting it into his model, Ramirez-Ruiz and his team found that the shredded star was indeed composed of hydrogen. "We sort of cleared the mystery and said, 'Don't worry, these events are as you would imagine. You see the most common star disrupted by the most common black hole,'" Ramirez-Ruiz said.

Ramirez-Ruiz, 37, has been a professor at UCSC for seven years. He explained that when the universe was young, black holes consumed stars all the time. Now, stars rarely get close enough to black holes to be sucked in by their massive gravitational pull.

When they are, though, the light show is brilliant. As the star approaches, its outermost layers get gobbled up by the black hole while the rest of the gaseous star falls into orbit. Its mass flings and spins around the hole as the star is torn apart by the hole's gravity. The gas of the star heats up so much that when atoms bump into one another the force rips them apart.

Ripping atoms helps to shed light onto the findings in the "Nature" paper that Ramirez-Ruiz and Guillochon helped debunk. In the original paper, the authors could not find evidence of hydrogen and so concluded it was not there.

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Professor sheds light on death of a star

HAMPTON TOWNSHIP, MI (WNEM) -

A sewer line connection issue has some residents crying foul in a Mid-Michigan community.

Hampton Township residentsRussell Gunther and Louis Czuba claim there is a very serious health issue going on in the Bay County community because dozens of residents aren't being required to hook up their homes to the township sewer system.

"I'd like to see some action taken in the right way, to correct this so we can safeguard the health of the township people, that's the number one concern" said Czuba.

The two men have taken their concerns to Hampton Township officials. Township supervisor Tom Foret says it's been on the books since 1965. But he saysthe townshipnever enforced the lawby sending out letters informing residents they need to hook up to the sewer system if they live within two hundred feet of the line because officialsfelt it would puta hardship onresidents of a twelveto 15-thousand dollar expense."We feel if there's no health issue, we don't feel it's right or fair" says Foret.

Foret says township officials have contacted Bay County Health officials about the issue,who say there are no health concerns in relation to septic tanks in the township.He says if a septic tank system fails residents are then required to hook up to the sewer system.

But Gunther disagrees, saying"It boils down to health issues, as far as I'm concerned. Gunther says sewage from septic tankscould seep into the soil and it's not clear where it could go. Heconcerned that septic tanks in his neighborhood could rupture or cause problems."We're trying to clean up our environment" Gunther said.

One thing Gunther and Foret agree on. Gunther says the township fears lawsuits from residents who would be forced to hook onto the sewer system. Foret says that's true.

"For a $15,000 expense they'll hire an attorney and fight it and I don't want to use tax dollars to throw away for not a just cause" said Foret.

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Sewer line controversy bubbles up in Mid-Mich. community

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Two Hoquiam men have been charged with breaking into a laundry room in an effort that netted them $4.50 in quarters.

Michael L. Anderson, 29, and James P. Dudley, 44, both pleaded not guilty in Grays Harbor Superior Court to second-degree burglary charges.

They were arrested Jan. 31, accused of breaking into a locked laundry room in an apartment complex in the 400 block of Queen Avenue in Hoquiam.

Hoquiam Police Department Sgt. Jeremy Mitchell responded, finding a man standing near the laundry room window. The man, later identified as Dudley, looked in the window and ran.

Mitchell found the door locked from the inside, looked in through a window and saw Anderson prying at a laundry machine coin box with a screwdriver, according to court documents.

Mitchell knocked on the window, Anderson looked up, opened the door and surrendered.

In addition to the screwdriver, Anderson had a crowbar matching pry marks on the door.

Sgt. Mitchell also found fresh damage to the washing machines with one suffering severe damage with the coin box removed; it appeared Anderson had secured $4.50 in quarters for his efforts, a Hoquiam Police press release stated.

As detectives responded to help process the scene, a neighbor reported a man was hiding on his back porch nearby. Mitchell identified him as Dudley. Police believe he was acting as lookout.

Both men are held in the Grays Harbor County Jail, Dudley with $25,000 bail, Anderson with $10,000.

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Not guilty pleas in laundry room burglary

EUREKA -- Room and board costs at Eureka College will not go up for the 2014-2015 academic year.

The board of trustees vote, made earlier this month, follows a decision last fall to freeze tuition at this year's rate. The freezes apply to current and incoming students.

The decision to freeze room and board rates as well as tuition for the coming year is another example of how we are helping our students and their families manage the cost of their education, Eureka College President J. David Arnold said in a statement.

Campus housing will remain at $4,100 on average, depending on which residence hall students select. The standard meal plan will cost $4,400.

Tuition is $10,030 per semester or $20,060 for the academic year. This is the second time in the last 10 years the college has frozen tuition.

For most students, the cost to attend is reduced through institutional aid and state and federal educational grants, said spokeswoman Michele Lehman. Incoming freshmen receive an average of $15,000 to $18,000 in financial aid, she said.

In addition to the freeze on tuition, fees, room and board, the college has developed a new institutional aid process. Academic merit scholarships are now calculated based on two categories: students high school grade point averages and their ACT exam scores.

Additional scholarships, called engagement awards, are given to students who exhibit excellence in areas connected to the colleges mission, like community service, leadership and the fine and performing arts.

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Eureka College freezes room and board costs

Published: Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014, 9:00p.m. Updated 12 hours ago

McDonald's is looking to open a new restaurant in Plum this spring.

The new location at the intersection of Route 286 and New Texas Road is replacing the current McDonald's less than a mile away on Route 286 near the Holiday Park Volunteer Fire Department.

While construction is influenced by weather conditions, I expect the McDonald's of Plum building to be complete by late April, said Andy Shaffer, owner and operator of the current restaurant on Route 286.

The new location is expected to have a side-by-side drive-thru.

The feature allows for two people to place orders at the same time.

More than 70 percent of (McDonald's) customers utilize the drive-thru for service, Mark Mox of McIlvried, Didiano & Mox, a consulting, engineering and surveying firm hired by McDonald's for the project said in 2012 when restaurant officials presented a site plan to the Plum Borough Planning Commission.

Borough council in November 2012 voted to approve the new restaurant that will have 46 parking spots.

Mox said a survey of parking at the current site revealed that at the peak hours of business, 27 parking spots are in use 20 for customers and seven for employees.

Forty-six will provide sufficient parking for this business, Mox said.

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New McDonalds coming on Route 286 in Plum