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Joshua Holland
AlterNet 2012-08-19 02:34:00
Scientific research into the way we think explains the reasons decent people wind up supporting horrific policies. Earlier this year, Democratic operatives looking for the best way to define Mitt Romney discovered something interesting about Paul Ryan's budget. The New York Times reported that when the details of his proposals were run past focus groups, they found that the plan is so cruel that voters "simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing." In addition to phasing out the Earned Income Tax Credit that keeps millions of American families above the poverty line and cutting funding for children's healthcare in half, Jonathan Cohn described the "America that Paul Ryan envisions" like this: Many millions of working-age Americans would lose health insurance. Senior citizens would anguish over whether to pay their rent or their medical bills, in a way they haven't since the 1960s. Government would be so starved of resources that, by 2050, it wouldn't have enough money for core functions like food inspections and highway maintenance. |
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David Freeman
Huffington Post 2012-08-27 18:24:00
It's no secret that politicians can be driven by outsized egos. I mean, who among us really thinks he or she deserves a seat in Congress -- or a desk in the Oval Office? But can egotism alone explain why so many elected officials seem to get caught telling lies, having affairs, committing financial improprieties or engaging in other scandalous behavior? Not everyone is convinced that it can, and some in the blogosphere have gone so far as to wonder if bad-boy (and bad girl) politicians are actually psychopaths. And a recent article in The Atlantic asks of these pundits: Could they be right? If these pundits mean that the targeted office-seekers are evil or "crazy," probably not. But if they are pointing out that politicians and psychopaths share certain characteristics, they could be on to something. |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Barry Grey
World Socialist Website 2012-08-28 16:22:00
The world was spared one day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida thanks to the arrival of Hurricane Isaac, which forced the organizers to delay the proceedings until Tuesday. For the next three days, however, the degradation and corruption of the American political system will be on full display. There is in this year's quadrennial conventions an unabashed flaunting of the role of corporate money in what passes for American democracy that goes beyond even the debased levels of previous presidential elections. The Republicans go out of their way to present themselves as the paid stooges of corporate America. The Democrats are a bit more devious - but only a bit. |
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Kranti Kumara
World Socialist Website 2012-08-28 16:09:00
The supreme government auditing authority of India, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), has released three damning reports accusing India's Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of facilitating the looting of public wealth by the biggest domestic corporations to the tune of Rs. 38 trillion (about US $75 billion). This staggering sum eclipses by far the unprecedented $40 billion losses estimated by CAG in the 2G (second generation) mobile-phone spectrum allocation scandal that rocked the Indian establishment in the latter half of 2010. The CAG reports examine the handover of coal fields to private corporations for free, the privatization of the New Delhi airport, and the licensing and status of "ultra mega-power projects," electric generation projects that are each meant to generate at least 4000 Mega Watts using coal. The 2004-2011 period covered by the CAG reports coincides with the term in office of the current Congress Party-dominated UPA alliance, which first came to power in 2004 and won a second term in 2009. |
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Michelle Celarier
New York Post 2012-08-09 15:56:00
The Standard Chartered Bank executive whose expletive-filled anti-US rant stands at the center of allegations that the bank improperly did business with Iran appears to be Richard Meddings. Meddings, 54, the Oxford-educated finance director at the UK bank, angrily dismissed concerns by his New York colleagues in 2006 that doing business with Iran's despotic regime could sully the bank's image, it is alleged. "You f - ing Americans," Meddings shot back. "Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians?" The rant was contained in a report by New York's Department of Financial Services, which may suspend Standard's banking charter because it did business with Iran for nearly 10 years - in violation of US law. | |
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Comment: Be aware of who is the master.
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Fars News Agency
2012-08-28 07:11:00
An Iranian official underlined failure of the US and EU ban on Iranian crude supplies, announcing that the country has increased daily exports to over 2 million barrels this week. "Fortunately, the efforts made by Iran to increase oil exports and confront the sanctions have yielded results," the informed source told FNA on the condition of anonymity on Tuesday. He stated that Iran's oil exports have reached the pre-sanctions level, "A daily volume of over 2mln barrels of crude oil has been exported from Iran to different destinations in recent days." In June, Iran announced that it will increase its crude oil exports to 3 million barrels per day (bpd) by the next three years. |
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Agence France-Presse
2012-08-28 11:41:00
Jerusalem - Former Israeli soldiers who served in the occupied territories say that mistreatment of Palestinian children by troops is "routine" and occurs even at times of relative calm. A collection of over 30 testimonies published on Sunday by Breaking the Silence, a group of ex-servicemen critical of army practices, says physical violence, often arbitrary, is used against very young children. "The testifiers depict a routine in which Palestinian minors, often under 10 years of age, are treated in a manner that ignores their young age," says the 72-page booklet. Entitled "Children and Youth: Soldiers' Testimonies 2005-2011," it covers a period after the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, of 2000-2005. "Although the events described here took place after the peak of the second intifada, at a time perceived as calm and uneventful from a 'security' standpoint, the reality that emerges from the testimonies shows that harsh treatment of Palestinian children continues unabated," it says. |
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Fars News Agency
Iran's permanent envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali
Asqar Soltaniyeh reiterated Tehran's commitment to continued cooperation
with the UN nuclear watchdog agency and its full compliance with the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and IAEA statute.2012-08-28 05:16:00 Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) foreign ministers here in Tehran on Tuesday, Soltaniyeh stated that Tehran has not ignored its commitments "even for a moment" and always showed the necessary cooperation with the IAEA. "Over 5,000 man-day inspections have been made of Iran's nuclear facilities during the last few years," Soltaniyeh reminded, adding, "Despite these inspections, no evidence has ever been found since 10 years ago to substantiate diversion in Iran's nuclear activities." On Sunday, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereidoon Abbasi also underlined Tehran's preparedness to continue talks with the IAEA. "We are ready to cooperate with the IAEA in the framework of technical issues and on the basis of logical arguments," Abbasi said in Tehran at the time. "When they intend to visit a place, they should present enough reasons to be allowed to carry out further inspections and talks" based on those reasons, he added. Iran and the IAEA on Friday held daylong talks in Vienna, Austria. The talks were held between Iran's Residing Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali Asqar Soltaniyeh as head of Iran's negotiating team and Herman Nackaerts, the agency's Deputy Director-General and Head of the Department of Safeguards. |
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Joe Vialls.com
2002-09-11 11:09:00
"T" Stands For "Torture" In The Brave New Gulag Archipelago. The illegal return of murder suspect Ian Huntley to secure psychiatric prison for another 28 days of drugs and "truth therapy", highlights the reintroduction of Witch Trials and Inquisitions in the "War on Terror" There is a precedent for Huntley's psychiatric abuse. During 1996, Australian remand prisoner Martin Bryant was held in illegal strict solitary confinement for 150 days, and "helped" by psychiatrists and psychologists until he finally pleaded guilty to the Port Arthur massacre. At no time did Australian police ever try to corroborate Bryant's false "guilty" pleas. Ian Huntley, who stands accused of the murder of British ten-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, was rushed from Rampton high-security psychiatric prison to a court at Peterborough in Cambridgeshire at noon on 10 September 2002. Having run the gauntlet of the obligatory media hate mob pre-positioned outside in the street, Huntley was rapidly processed through the Magistrates Court to the [higher] Crown Court in less that one hour, an all time record for the British legal system which normally allows eight days for this process. Once in the Crown Court, Huntley was charged with attempted "Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice", for allegedly lying to police during their investigations. Having been charged with this further startling offence, Ian Huntley was immediately remanded back to Rampton high security psychiatric prison for a further 28 days of psychiatric evaluation. |
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Peter Allen
Daily Mail, UK 2012-08-28 04:51:00
French Interior Minister Manuel Valls today ordered police to destroy a Roma camp in his political powerbase and to deport illegal immigrants living there. Officers armed with truncheons and shields moved in to the settlement in the Paris suburb of Evry, where he was mayor for 11 years from 2001. By late morning more than 70 people including women and children had been evicted from caravans and makeshift huts, with most expected to be returned to Romania. The raid is particularly significant because it shows the Socialist firebrand is determined to 'clean up illegal immigrants in his own back yard', said a party colleague. The source added: 'Valls particularly wants to end the Roma problem - by breaking up a camp in his constituency he is showing he means business.' A deportation order for residents of the camp was signed by the local Socialist mayor Francis Chouat who said: 'In addition to being unhealthy, the site is extremely dangerousness.' |
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Harriet Sherwood
The Guardian 2012-08-28 03:24:00
Judge finds no fault in military investigation that cleared defence force of responsibility for protester being killed by bulldozer The death of the pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie was not caused by the negligence of the Israeli state or army, a judge has ruled, dismissing a civil lawsuit brought by the family. Corrie's death was an accident for which the state of Israel was not responsible, said the judge at Haifa district court. There had been no fault in the internal Israeli military investigation clearing the driver of the bulldozer that crushed Corrie to death in March 2003 of any blame. The judge said the driver had not seen the young American activist. Corrie could have saved herself by moving out of the zone of danger as any reasonable person would have done, said Judge Oded Gershon. He ruled that no compensation would be paid and the family would not have to pay costs of the case. |
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Julian Borger
The Guardian 2012-08-28 03:17:00
The French president, François Hollande, has urged Syria's divided opposition to form a provisional government, saying Paris would give it official recognition. The announcement on Monday came as Syrian fighter plane attacks on eastern suburbs of Damascus killed at least 60 people, according to opposition activists. Hollande's intervention was aimed at increasing pressure on Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad but it also revealed differences with other western capitals. American officials said the announcement was premature. "We're nowhere near that yet," one said. Washington and London have been more guarded in their dealings with Syrian opposition groups which they see as too fractured and ineffective to form an alternative government. |
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Eric London
World Socialist Website 2012-08-27 02:46:00
Last week's report by Washington, D.C. political blog The Hill details the vast wealth of the nation's legislative representatives and serves as an indictment of the anti-democratic nature of the American political system. The "50 Wealthiest Lawmakers" list shows that dozens of congressional politicians have amassed huge fortunes while simultaneously slashing the wages, benefits and social services of the American people. In other words, not only are these members of Congress overseeing a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the ruling class; they are also profiting from this transfer. The report reveals the bipartisan composition of the extremely wealthy in congress. Seven of the top 10 richest members of congress are Democrats; overall, Republicans make up 60 percent of the list. |
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Fars News Agency
2012-08-27 06:38:00
Syria's National Reconciliation Minister Ali Heydar blasted Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar for practicing the western and Israeli policies in the region. "Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar put the policies of the West and Israel into effect in the region," Heydar told reporters in a press conference here in Tehran on Monday, and added, "There is a great difference between those who present a plan against Syria, that is the US and Israel, with those who practice these plans, that is, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia." He voiced his country's anger at the three regional states, and said, "We believe as long as the US policy on Syria remains unchanged, these states won't change their policies either, and this status will continue until after the US presidential election." Heydar, who is in Tehran to attend a summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) from August 26 to 31, further underlined Syria's strong confrontation against terrorist and armed rebel groups. | |
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Comment: More info on the continued atrocities in Syria can be had by reading the following:
'Free Syrian Army' aka 'al-Qaeda' aka US, Israel and British Mercenaries, Use Syrian Man as 'Suicide Bomber' State-Sponsored Terrorism - Western Journalists Embedded With 'al-Qaeda' in Syria |
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| Society's Child |
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Michael E. Miller
Phoenix New Times 2012-08-23 16:54:00
As Republicans prepared to renominate Richard Nixon for president, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson had a crank-fueled moment of clarity inside his Miami Beach hotel room. "This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves," Thompson wrote in his classic Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72. "We are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable." Within 24 months, after shredding the Constitution and carpet-bombing Cambodia to hell, Nixon sneaked out of the White House like the "drooling red-eyed beast" Thompson had known him to be all along. Now, 40 years later, the Republican National Convention is returning to Florida. On August 30, Mitt Romney will don a sleek suit and flash his Vaseline smile to a sea of pale-skinned delegates in Tampa. He will compliment the city on hosting the $123 million four-day orgiastic event. And he will implore the crowd to obey the banners hung from the rafters: "Believe in America." |
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Megan Gannon
LiveScience 2012-08-28 14:10:00
Authorities say they have seized eight Siberian tiger skins in a sting operation in Russia, a grim recovery hinting that black-market demand for the big cats remains high. Acting on a tip, local police raided a home in Arseniev, a tiny city near Russia's border with North Korea, where they found the eight skins, including the hides of four cubs, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). A suspect, whose name has not been released, was taken into custody, WWF officials said. A preliminary investigation indicated that the suspect was engaged in illegal trade in the Chinese market, according to the conservation group. And there were clues that more than just these eight cats were killed. While no skins of nursing female tigers were found, one of the skinned cubs was suckling, suggesting the baby's mom also may have been killed and sold. |
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NBC News
2012-08-28 10:35:00
A gas pipeline explosion Tuesday in Collin County, Texas, has injured one person, according to local reports. The fiery blast happened at a construction site along a state highway near McKinney, Texas. Live video from NBCDFW.com showed flames and plumes of smoke and several pieces of charred construction equipment. The fire caused a power outage and shut down down traffic in the area, according to NBCDFW.com. McKinney police told Southeast Texas' 12NewsNow.com the explosion happened when a backhoe accidentally hit a 12-inch high-pressure natural gas line, and said one construction worker was hurt. The worker was transported to the hospital, but no details were immediately available on his condition. The explosion happened at 8:30 a.m. local time, WFAA.com, a Dallas-Fort Worth news station, said. Power was expected to be restored within about an hour and a half, according to WFAA.com. At about 9:45 a.m., the supply to the gas line was shut down and the fire slowly went out as the gas burned off, reported NBCDFW.com. No evacuations were ordered. McKinney is about 30 miles north of Dallas. |
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Brenda Jackson
It was a quiet Sunday morning as the motorist made his way along a
country road in Muskingum County. But what he drove upon spoke of a
night of terror and horrible violence.The Columbus Dispatch 2012-08-28 09:28:00 "I have a woman right here. She's burnt severely. She's been raped, and she's been beat up," the man told a 911 dispatcher. The woman, he said, was lying in the middle of the road, naked and scorched over much of her body and with a rope around her neck. She can be heard moaning on the tape. "We need a medic," the man says. The dispatcher asks the man whether the victim can give her name. He replies that she's so injured, "I can barely understand her." Seven minutes after the 8:34 a.m. call, the same man calls 911 again, imploring the medics to get there quickly because "she's a mess." |
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Hal Herzog
Representative Todd Akin of Missouri made two mistakes when he claimed
"From what I understand from doctors, it's really rare. If it's a
legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing
down."Huffington Post 2012-08-27 08:43:00 His first mistake was linguistic. The term "legitimate rape" is an oxymoron. "Legitimate rape" does not exist. End of story. His second mistake was believing the "doctors" who gave him the idea that the female body can "shut the whole thing down." (According to the LA Times, the "doctors" was one Jack C. Wilke, a prominent anti-abortionist physician and past president of the National Right To Life Committee.) But is there evidence to support this claim? After all, in some species, females do have the ability to rid their body of unwanted semen. Chickens, for example. Researchers at the University of Sheffield studied this phenomenon in flocks of free-ranging chickens. The scientists found most sexual interactions between roosters and hens are coerced. (I was not surprised; I used to raise chickens.) I was surprised, however, to learn that hens had the ability to eject sperm from their reproductive tracts. Further, hens are choosy about it. The researcher found that hens were much more likely to eject the semen of low-ranking "forced copulators" than the rapists at the top of the social hierarchy who presumably have better genes. In spiders, this is called "sperm dumping." |
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rt.com
2012-08-27 22:01:00
One of America's most dangerous cities is planning to eliminate its entire police department, laying off all 270 of its cops. The city of Camden has been struggling with a budget deficit for years. In 2011, it was named the poorest city in New Jersey. In an attempt to save millions, its officials decided to get rid of the entire city police force. Instead residents of Camden will have to rely on the new police department, which will be operated by Camden County. And here is the secret for saving money - the new Metro Division of the Camden County police will not have collective bargaining. "This is a creative way to break a union and break the financial obligations you have to a union," Scot DeCristofaro, spokesman for the Camden Fraternal Order of Police, told National Public Radio. Camden city officials say that the transition is necessary to be able to afford the costs of making the city safer. |
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NBC News
2012-08-28 06:05:00
Two teenagers charged in connection with the death of a five-year-old New York girl whose body was dumped in a trash can were expected to make their first court appearance since their arrests. Authorities said a 16-year-old and Tyler Best, 18, were scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday morning in Niagara Falls City Court. An autopsy of the body of Isabella Tennant was also scheduled. (NBC News Digital did not name the youngest defendant because of his age) The arrests came after Best went to police Monday morning and led them to a garbage can containing a trash bag holding Isabella's body. Best told them he had helped the younger teen dispose of it after the boy had killed her, police said. |
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Daily Mail, UK
2012-08-28 04:38:00
Baghdad's embattled residents can finally get their milkshakes, chili-cheese dogs and buckets of crispy fried chicken. Original recipe or extra spicy, of course. A wave of new American-style restaurants is spreading across the Iraqi capital, enticing customers hungry for alternatives to traditional offerings like lamb kebabs and fire-roasted carp. The fad is a sign that Iraqis, saddled with violence for years and still experiencing almost daily bombings and shootings, are prepared to move on and embrace ordinary pleasures - like stuffing their faces with pizza. Iraqi entrepreneurs and investors from nearby countries, not big multinational chains, are driving the food craze. They see Iraq as an untapped market of increasingly adventurous eaters where competition is low and the potential returns are high. 'We're fed up with traditional food,' said government employee Osama al-Ani as he munched on pizza at one of the packed new restaurants last week. 'We want to try something different.' |
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Jim Mann
A man dressed in a military-style "Ghillie suit" who was attempting to
provoke a Bigfoot sighting was struck by two vehicles and killed on U.S.
93 South of Kalispell Sunday night.Daily Inter Lake 2012-08-27 21:29:00 "He was trying to make people think he was Sasquatch so people would call in a Sasquatch sighting," Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Jim Schneider said. "You can't make it up. I haven't seen or heard of anything like this before. Obviously, his suit made it difficult for people to see him." The Flathead County Sheriff's Office identified the man as Randy Lee Tenley, 44, of Kalispell. Schneider said Tenley's motivations were ascertained during interviews with friends who were not in the immediate area but were nearby when the man was struck at about 10:30 p.m. "Alcohol may have been a factor," Schneider said. "Impairment is up in the air." Tenley was on the southbound side of the highway, about a half mile south of the highway's intersection with Rocky Point Road. "He was in the right-hand lane of travel and the vehicle was unable to avoid him and struck him," Schneider said of the first vehicle driven by a 15-year-old girl from Somers. A second vehicle driven by a 17-year-old Somers girl also struck Tenley as he laid on the highway. Ghillie suits are commonly used by military snipers and some that are advertised on the Internet have a Bigfoot-like appearance. "This one was a store-bought version, just a commercial Ghillie suit that was pre-made," Schneider said. Tenley was pronounced dead at the scene. |
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Ye Jun
Several local parents have leveled fraud charges against the organizer
of a 100,000 yuan ($15,728) summer course that promised to teach their
children to read a book in less than 20 seconds, local media reported
Monday.Global Times 2012-08-27 21:12:00 The organizer, the Shanghai Xinyu Education Training Center, advertised that it could help students learn to identify a playing card while blindfolded, among other feats of extrasensory perception (ESP), according to a report in the Oriental Morning Post. The 10-day course ended Friday. About 30 children between 7 and 17 years old took part in the course, which was taught out of a makeshift classroom in a hotel in Qingpu district. On the last day of the course, a teacher with a microphone checked how many students had mastered the skills, according to the newspaper. "I found that my child learned nothing except how to cheat," a parent surnamed Yang told the Oriental Morning Post. The teachers there claimed that they could help students learn to correctly identify a playing card even after covering their eyes, but Yang found that his child could only do it by peeking through the cloth blindfold. A father of an 11-year-old told the newspaper that he confronted the training center and got his money refunded. |
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Nidal al-Mughrabi
Reuters 2012-08-27 18:04:00
Gaza will no longer be "liveable" by 2020 unless urgent action is taken to improve water supply, power, health, and schooling, the United Nations' most comprehensive report on the Palestinian enclave said on Monday. "Action needs to be taken now if Gaza is to be a liveable place in 2020 and it is already difficult now," U.N. humanitarian coordinator Maxwell Gaylard told journalists when the report was released on Monday. Five years into an Israeli blockade supported by Egypt, and living under one-party rule, Gaza's population of 1.6 million is set to rise by 500,000 over the next eight years, say the authors of the U.N.'s most wide-ranging report on the territory. | |
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Comment: It looks like Israel's slow-motion ethnic-cleansing perpetrated on Gaza is bearing fruits.
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| Secret History |
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Deadline Detroit
2012-08-27 12:58:00
Metro Detroiters love to celebrate their local history, especially when it involves the noble, magnificent and world-class chapters of the past: The auto industry. Motown Records. The Underground Railroad. Diego Rivera. Coney Islands. On the other hand, local history has its crazy uncles. Those are chapters that are fascinating and important, yet rarely discussed, hidden in the back room. Henry Ford's anti-Semitism, the Free Press' 19th Century racism and the auto companies' early abuse of workers come to mind. Then there is the granddaddy of all forgotten local history. The subject no one talks about, virtually ever. The most overlooked topic of them all. Slavery. Slavery in Detroit has remained an enormous secret. It is an essential chapter in Detroit's 311-year story, but it has been pushed back into archives and covered up by decades of neglect and denial. Few people, even well-informed college graduates, know anything about it. Yet slavery is a phenomenon that played a key role in the growth of Detroit, and it lasted about 120 years, more than a third of Detroit's existence. When metro Detroiters talk about slavery, they talk about black men and women picking cotton in Georgia and Mississippi because that is what students in southeastern Michigan learn in school. Yet slavery is very much homegrown. What has been called the "national sin" is also Detroit's sin. It is the origin of our racial crisis, our peculiar institution, our "necessary evil." Slavery belongs to Detroit just like slavery belongs to Charleston, Monticello and New Orleans. Many roads, schools and communities across southeast Michigan carry the names of old, prominent families that owned slaves: Macomb, Campau; Beaubien; McDougall; Abbott; Brush; Cass; Hamtramck; Gouin; Meldrum; Dequindre; Beaufait; Groesbeck; Livernois and Rivard, among many others. Detroit's first mayor, John R. Williams, the namesake of two streets in Detroit - John R and Williams - owned slaves. The Catholic Church in Detroit was heavily involved in slavery - priests owned slaves and baptized them, and at least one slave worked on the construction of Ste. Anne's Church around 1800. The men who funded the founding of the Free Press in 1831 were ex-slave owners, and the paper supported slavery during the national debate before the Civil War. The work of slaves was a key to Detroit's growth. And just like in the South, slavery in Detroit was reinforced by violence. Slaves worked without any pay for their entire lives, under threat of the lash and death. Owners used their power over slaves to steal their labor and enrich themselves. Slaves arrived in Detroit stripped of their identity, culture, family and often their name. They were frequently maimed from torture. Slaves died, often young, and were buried in graveyards that were soon forgotten, and then paved over by later generations of Detroiters, and their bones remain underfoot in America's blackest big city, and their stories continue to be unknown in a region where race always has been a consuming issue. |
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| Science & Technology |
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Charles Q. Choi
SPACE.com 2012-08-28 13:50:00
Building a universe from scratch that brims with galaxies resembling those around us is now possible on supercomputers for the first time, researchers say. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a spiral galaxy with a broad disk and outstretched arms, as are many in our cosmic neighborhood, such as Andromeda, the Pinwheel and the Whirlpool galaxies. Spiral galaxies are common, but past computer models that aimed to accurately simulate the birth and evolution of the universe over billions of years had trouble creating them. Instead, they often generated lots of blobby galaxies clumped into balls. New computer simulations can now recreate the kind of galactic communities seen in our universe, starting with the observed afterglow of the Big Bang and evolving forward in time. Harvard's Odyssey supercomputer allowed simulations that compressed nearly 14 billion years into only a few months. "We've created the full variety of galaxies we see in the local universe," said study author Mark Vogelsberger at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The new software is called Arepo and was created by Volker Springel at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies in Germany. Previous simulations divided space into a fixed grid of cubes, with each cube simulating the behavior of substances within that space. |
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John Bohannon
ScienceNow 2012-08-28 12:35:00
If you ever wanted proof that scientists are emotionally reserved, just take a look at their faculty pictures. A study of the photos of thousands of academics on university home pages reveals an apparent bias in the way that researchers present themselves to the world: They are more likely than their arts and humanities colleagues to present their right cheeks to the camera, rather than their left. The study suggests that could indicate a desire on the scientists' part to project cool-headed rationality. Emotions flickering across the face do seem to have a leftward bias. In his 1872 study of the muscular control of smiles and frowns, Charles Darwin found that facial expression tends to begin with the muscles on the left side of the face; the final, overall emotional expression also tends to be accentuated on the left side, he noted. Neuroscientists investigating the asymmetry of facial expression now know that the left side of the face is controlled by nerves that originate from the right side of the brain, where facial expressions are processed. So the left-sided bias makes sense strictly from a wiring point of view. And there is some evidence to suggest that people are in some way aware of this facial expression asymmetry when sitting for a photograph. A 1973 Nature study showed that people tend to present the left side of their face when posing for a portrait, and that the bias is even more pronounced in women than in men. Left- versus right-facing photographs also seem to affect perceptions of the photographic subjects. In a 2010 paper published in the journal Laterality, study participants were more likely to guess that photographic subjects were scientists if the photographs showed their right cheeks, and more likely to place them in the arts and humanities if the photos showed their left cheeks. The reason, it was proposed, is that right-sided expressions are associated with logic and a lack of emotion. |
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Daily Mail, UK
2012-08-28 04:29:00
It is a freezing landscape of ice and snow. But venture a few metres under the surface, as diver and photographer Alexander Semenov did, and you enter the dream-like world of translucent 'lion's mane' jellyfish. The marine biologist Alexander Semenov has spent more than two years in the hostile environment of the ultra-remote White Sea Biological Station, on the western coast of Russia. Whenever he gets down-time, he floats his way beneath the surface, to capture images of the beautiful, if occasionally painful, creatures of the deep. The underwater photographer breaks through arctic sea ice dropping into a cold -2C water - although still warmer than the -30C world up above. |
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Alan Boyle
NBC News Cosmic Log 2012-08-27 17:45:00
It's been compared to a fluffy dog, a Pokemon character and a Power Rangers villain - but whatever it is, the Venezuelan poodle moth has captured the Internet like Mothra in a bad Japanese movie. Now it's up to the experts to figure out exactly where this moth belongs on the tree of life. The first thing to emphasize is that the poodle moth is no phony [alleged] concoction like the jackalope, dogerpillar or chupacabra. Its cute, furry, scary look is totally in line with what's expected for a neotropical ornamental moth. In fact, cryptozoologist Karl Shuker found a similar picture of a white, fuzzy critter known as Diaphora mendica, or muslin moth, a member of the lepidopteran family Arctiidae. The Venezuelan poodle moth is even more bizarre-looking than your run-of-the-mill muslin moth. That's largely due to the details that zoologist Arthur Anker of Brazil's Federal University of Ceara captured in the photograph he took in the Gran Sabana region of Venezuela's Canaima National Park several years ago. |
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Dennis Normile
ScienceNow 2012-08-27 15:10:00
Are you a morning lark or a night owl? Scientists use that simplified categorization to explain that different people have different internal body clocks, commonly called circadian clocks. Sleep-wake cycles, digestive activities, and many other physiological processes are controlled by these clocks. In recent years, researchers have found that internal body clocks can also affect how patients react to drugs. For example, timing a course of chemotherapy to the internal body time of cancer patients can improve treatment efficacy and reduce side effects. But physicians have not been able to exploit these findings because determining internal body time is, well, time consuming. It's also cumbersome. The most established and reliable method requires taking blood samples from a patient hourly and tracking levels of the hormone melatonin, which previous research has tied closely to internal body time. Now a Japanese group has come up with an alternative method of determining internal body time by constructing what it calls a molecular timetable based on levels in blood samples of more than 50 metabolites - hormones and amino acids - that result from biological activity. The researchers established a molecular timetable based on samples from three subjects and validated it using the conventional melatonin measurement. They then used that timetable to determine the internal body times of other subjects by checking the levels of the metabolites in just two blood samples from each subject per day. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Mark Holmberg
In a season of growing concern about the West Nile Virus, a mysterious
illness that has killed millions of mosquito-eating bats has added to
the worry about that infection, and about bats in general.WTVR 2012-08-28 17:47:00
It's called white nose syndrome, a fungal growth on the noses and wings of many species of bats, some of them already endangered. It was first observed in a cave in New York in 2006 and has spread throughout much of the northeastern United States. |
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BBC News
2012-08-28 16:00:00
A powerful storm bearing down on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans is now a hurricane, US forecasters say. Hurricane Isaac, boasting winds of at least 75mph (120km/h), is likely to make landfall by Tuesday night. The storm is expected to hit New Orleans seven years after the much stronger Hurricane Katrina. US President Barack Obama has warned residents in the path of the storm they should not "tempt fate" and should heed evacuation warnings. |
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Becky Barrow and Jason Groves
Daily Mail, UK 2012-08-28 05:20:00
Families face punishing food price rises triggered by a catastrophic U.S. drought, experts warned yesterday. They said the American crisis is forcing up the global price of crops used to make staples such as bread and pasta. Meat is also tipped to cost much more because animal feed costs have soared, again because of the drought. The miserable summer in the UK has made the situation worse because even common vegetables such as potatoes and peas are having to be imported from as far away as South Africa, Guatemala and Israel. British farmers say heavy rain and lack of sunshine has decimated or delayed harvests. In the U.S., more than 35 states have declared disaster areas due to drought. Arable land covering an area larger than Belgium and Luxembourg combined has been abandoned. | |
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Comment: It's not just the severe drought in the US
this summer that is responsible for the coming leaps in food prices. The
warning signs have been there for years, with climate change brought on
by cosmic events, crop failures, crop diseases and atrocious
agricultural conditions in the food industry all contributing to a food
crisis of unimaginable proportions.
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BBC
2012-08-28 04:17:00
At least five Chinese fishermen have been killed and 10 others are missing after their boats capsized as Typhoon Bolaven hit South Korea, officials say. The two boats were just off Jeju island when they capsized. The South Korean coast guard rescued 12 crew members, while six others swam to shore. Three other people have also died in separate incidents in the country. The typhoon has cut power to tens of thousands of homes. Trees have been felled and many flights cancelled. A total of 33 people were on board the two ships when they were hit by high waves and winds, the coast guard said. Several crew members were hauled to safety by rescue personnel using ropes. A search is continuing for those still missing, emergency personnel said. |
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Sheilaaliens
Best view of damage @03:44. A mini tornado tears through the Municipal
Cemetery in Guatemala City, with strong winds lifting roofs and pulling
trees. No major injuries or deaths were reported.YouTube 2012-08-26 04:03:00 Source: Reuters
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Justin Berk
Examiner.com 2012-08-26 03:35:00
It has been a turbulent day that started with a band of heavy rain lined up on the west side of the Chesapeake Bay through Annapolis before dawn. There was a short break, but storms began spinning up rapidly around lunchtime. Literally. Please note that a storm does not have to have a warning to be deadly. Lightning kills! A storm spinning over Virginia has a tropical depression type of feel to it. This is what led to the incredible storms on the Delmarva Saturday. We had evening views from Ocean City, which got their flooding at night. Consider that 4-8 inches of rain fell on the Delmarva Saturday, and that could repeat for us today. While the original system is well inland, a new wave of Low Pressure has formed near the coast. Combine that with High Pressure in New England, and the funneling of very humid winds off of the Atlantic Ocean is helping to generate widespread storms. Enough circulation in the atmosphere is helping a few of these storms to spin up rapidly. |
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Eli MacKinnon
Life's Little Mysteries 2012-08-27 17:25:00
A "swarm" of earthquakes that touched off Sunday morning in southern California was still rolling along Monday afternoon, registering more than 300 small to moderate quakes that could be felt from Arizona to San Diego. The swarm is unusual but not as rare as you might think. During an earthquake swarm, an affected area experiences a rapid-fire series of temblors that are all similarly proportioned, so that no one shock emerges as the obvious source of the rest. According to Julie Dutton, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, diffuse clusters like these are far less common than earthquakes that arrive as one big shake followed by a series of smaller aftershocks. Dutton estimates that the USGS records about 30 to 40 notable swarms a year, compared with 20,000 to 30,000 total earthquakes. Because swarms are rooted in the same kind of plate movements and stresses that cause more traditional quakes, she thinks that a large part of the phenomenon's apparent scarcity is based on semantics. Swarms "are really hard to characterize," she told Life's Little Mysteries. "It's all the same mechanisms. It's just a different way of finding equilibrium in the environment." Where did the swarm start? The current swarm originates just outside of the small farming town of Brawley, Calif., about 30 miles (45 km) north of the state's border with Mexico. According to Dutton, swarms with magnitude ranges close to the current one arrive in that area at the rate of one or two per decade, with the most recent one hitting in 2005. The 2005 swarm, which topped out with a 5.1-magnitude event, was surpassed by yesterday's high of 5.5, the cut-off magnitude at which seismologists expect to start seeing casualties in developed countries, according to USGS geophysicist Paul Caruso. But there have been no reported injuries from the Brawley quakes, and Caruso said Monday morning saw a considerable slowing in the area's seismic activity. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Adam Aspinall
Mirror News, UK 2012-08-28 14:42:00
After travelling millions of miles through the galaxy, a blazing meteor finally went out with a bang above a Welsh town. The force of the explosion at 11pm last night rattled windows, set off car alarms and woke up children. One resident described it as "like a bomb going off". Amateur astronomers had watched its progress as it sped over North West England and North Wales before it blew up over Cwmbran in South Wales. Homeowner Steve Edwards, 56, said: "There was an enormous boom - It sounded like a bomb going off. "The force of it shook the windows in my house, woke up my children and caused car alarms to start going off in the streets. "I'm just glad none of it landed on my roof." Another witness, Nathan Jones, 34, said: "I've never seen something so amazing in my life. "It had a heat trail behind, it was orange and white and very bright, and also seemed very close. "It looked like it was skimming through the atmosphere due to the curved path it was taking." |
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lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com
Initial Reports2012-08-28 04:18:00 27AUG2012 latimer rainhill, united kingdom 23:17gmt 3 seconds right to left bright blue and orange brighter than moon none visible blue fireball with orange centre and long blue tail 27AUG2012 Adam Barry Town South Glamorgan Wales 23:15pm 2 n/a green no sound sun no no 27AUG2012 Andy Jones New Mills, Derbyshire, UK 23:18 GMT 3 seconds E - W Green Very Bright like a firework No Directly under the moon |
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lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com
Initial Sighting Reports2012-08-28 04:06:00 25AUG2012 Maryann Morgan Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada 20:00 - Atlantic Time Zone, UTC - 4 Longest I ever saw. By the time we saw it fly in front of us overhead, NOT high up, it then lasted upwards of 10 seconds but was going strong before we noticed it. We actually saw the fireball extinguish itself - THAT, I have never seen so clearly before. Northern - Slightly West Appeared large fireball clearly seen, with a tail and no sound associated with it. Mini Sun - we clearly saw the entire end of the fire. Parts could not be seen falling off, but the tail was evident, thick and obvious behind it. I was going for a walk with my daughter and our dog with a flashlight in hand as it was seriously getting dark. By the time it caught the attention of my peripheral vision, I was astonished that it was so close, so low in the sky and appeared to be only a few stories above where we were. We watched it for what seemed like forever, for a fireball. I've seen two other fireballs in my area over the years and the rest were 'shooting stars' but nothing like this one. In total, it probably lasted between 8 and 12 seconds, maybe even longer and we clearly seen it - the fire, it going out and the ashes that fell as a result. It was amazing to behold. 25AUG2012 Erin Durkee Enfield, Nova Scotia, Canada 9:00 AST 15-20 seconds, traveling towards the North East. Perhaps towards Middle or Upper Stewiacke Was like a ball of fire, it seemed very low and disappeared down behind the trees. just very bright, like a ball of fire no no 25AUG2012 Reagan McAdam Fredericton 21:00 Atlantic Time 10 sec Right to Left (East of Fredericton to North) from Hanwell NB looking toward Fredericton. Orange and yellow (some red). No sound. More than one tail, breaking up, large. Bright as moon, yet none. |
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Comment: This fireball event was also witnessed across the border in Massachusetts and Maine.
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Cindy Day
CTV News 2012-08-27 13:36:00
The summer of 2012 will go down as one of the best! The days have been incredible but so have the nights. Backyard astronomers have been over the moon with the clear skies and in many cases fog free nights. The big boys are thrilled too! This past weekend at Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, members from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada brought their telescopes out and shared the sky with over 300 people over two nights. Friday at midnight, Tim Doucette snapped this image of an extremely bright blue meteor flying through our atmosphere. This is a 15 second exposure with the Milky Way in the background! Fabulous! Tim has been staring at the night sky for a long time, but he says it was the second or third brightest meteor he's ever seen. Based on the direction and point of origin, he doesn't believe it was a Perseid. The next night, just after 9pm, they saw, in the western sky, what appeared to be another fireball burning up in the atmosphere and it lasted about 10 seconds. What a weekend for the gang in the park. Viewing from the city is not usually quite as good, but it doesn't hurt to look up, you never know what you might see! |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo 2012-08-28 09:00:00
Newly published research has raised concern about the possibility that statin drugs are damaging the eyes of those taking them. Titled, "Age-related cataract is associated with type 2 diabetes and statin use," and published in the journal Optometry and Vision Science, researchers found that those taking statin drugs had 48% higher risk of pathological eye lense changes (nuclear sclerosis and cortical cataract) associated with increased opacity, i.e. cataracts. As far back as 1990 research published in the journal of Experimental Eye Research discussed the potential that statin drugs have cataractogenic properties noting "[statin drugs] may result in an increased concentration of inhibitor [statin] in the outer cortical region of the lens where cholesterol synthesis is critical, thereby resulting in the development of opacities."[i] Other studies can be found supporting the cataract-statin link, which are located for your convenience on our database here: Statin-Cataract Research. Statin drugs have now been linked to over 300 adverse health effects, including, ironically, statin-induced cardiotoxicity itself. Beyond the obvious problem of statin-associated muscle damage (78 studies) - remember, the heart is a muscle - there is the equally concerning problem of statin-induced neurotoxicity (53 studies). Given the fact that that the heart is a highly innervated muscle, that is, nerve-dense muscle, the primary justification for prescribing them appears to be defunct, especially considering that the chemical class is, according to an accumulating body of clinical evidence, contributing to two orders of magnitude greater adverse health effects than their purported therapeutic ones. |
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ScienceDaily
Lack of sleep is linked to more aggressive breast cancers, according to
new findings published in the August issue of Breast Cancer Research and
Treatment by physician-scientists from University Hospitals Case
Medical Center's Seidman Cancer Center and Case Comprehensive Cancer
Center at Case Western Reserve University.2012-08-28 13:46:00 Led by Cheryl Thompson, PhD, the study is the first-of-its-kind to show an association between insufficient sleep and biologically more aggressive tumors as well as likelihood of cancer recurrence. The research team analyzed medical records and survey responses from 412 post-menopausal breast cancer patients treated at UH Case Medical Center with Oncotype DX, a widely utilized test to guide treatment in early stage breast cancer by predicting likelihood of recurrence. All patients were recruited at diagnosis and asked about the average sleep duration in the last two years. Researchers found that women who reported six hours or less of sleep per night on average before breast cancer diagnosis had higher Oncotype DX tumor recurrence scores. The Oncotype DX test assigns a tumor a recurrence score based on the expression level of a combination of 21 genes. |
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ScienceDaily
The Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011, which hit the
north-east coast of Japan with a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale,
was one of the largest ocean-trench earthquakes ever recorded in Japan.
The tsunami caused huge damage, including 15,861 dead and 3018 missing
persons, and, as of 6 June 2012, 388,783 destroyed homes.2012-08-28 13:43:00 Following an investigation of the ambulance records made by doctors in the Miyagi prefecture, close to the epicentre of the earthquake and where the damage was greatest, cardiologist Dr Hiroaki Shimokawa and colleagues from the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine at Sendai, Japan, found that the weekly occurrence of five conditions -- heart failure, acute coronary syndrome (including unstable angina and acute MI), stroke, cardio-pulmonary arrest and pneumonia -- all increased sharply soon after the earthquake occurred. Such reactions -- in ACS, stroke and pulmonary embolism -- have been reported before, said Dr Shimokawa, in Japan, China and the USA. However, these studies reported only the short-term occurrence of individual CVD events, and the mid-term CVD effects of such great earthquakes remain to be elucidated. To this end, the study examined all ambulance transport records in the Miyagi prefecture from 11 February to 30 June for each year from 2008 to 2011 (ie, four weeks before to 16 weeks after 11 March, a total of 124,152 records). Incidence records from before, during and after the earthquake disaster were compared, the aftershocks counted and recorded according to a seismic intensity of 1 or greater. |
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ScienceDaily
Being physically fit during your 30s, 40s, and 50s not only helps extend
lifespan, but it also increases the chances of aging healthily, free
from chronic illness, investigators at UT Southwestern Medical Center
and The Cooper Institute have found.2012-08-28 13:33:00 For decades, research has shown that higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels lessen the risk of death, but it previously had been unknown just how much fitness might affect the burden of chronic disease in the most senior years -- a concept known as morbidity compression. "We've determined that being fit is not just delaying the inevitable, but it is actually lowering the onset of chronic disease in the final years of life," said Dr. Jarett Berry, assistant professor of internal medicine and senior author of the study available online in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers examined the patient data of 18,670 participants in the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study, research that contains more than 250,000 medical records maintained over a 40-year span. These data were linked with the patients' Medicare claims filed later in life from ages 70 to 85. Analyses during the latest study showed that when patients increased fitness levels by 20 percent in their midlife years, they decreased their chances of developing chronic diseases -- congestive heart failure, Alzheimer's disease, and colon cancer -- decades later by 20 percent. |
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ScienceDaily
Separated and divorced couples are increasingly using emails, texting
and social media to communicate with their ex-partners about their
children. However, when ex-spouses use that technology to withhold or
manipulate information, the children are the ones who suffer most,
according to a University of Missouri family studies expert. A new study
suggests divorce counselors should teach separated parents effective
ways to use communication technology in order to maintain healthy
environments for their children.2012-08-28 13:29:00 Lawrence Ganong, a professor of human development and family studies at MU, found that ex-partners who were cooperative with one another used emails and texting to facilitate effective co-parenting, while couples who did not get along used communication technology to avoid confrontations and control their former partners' access to their children. "Technology makes it easier for divorced couples to get along, and it also makes it easier for them not to get along," said Ganong, who also is a professor of nursing at MU. "Parents who use technology effectively can make co-parenting easier, which places less stress on the children. Parents who use communication technology to manipulate or withhold information from the other parent can cause pain to the child." Ganong and his colleagues interviewed 49 divorced parents individually about the quality of their relationships with their ex-partners. |
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ScienceDaily
In a study to decipher clues about how prostate cancer cells grow and
become more aggressive, Johns Hopkins urologists have found that
reduction of a specific protein is correlated with the aggressiveness of
prostate cancer, acting as a red flag to indicate an increased risk of
cancer recurrence.2012-08-28 13:22:00 Their findings are reported online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Aug. 27, 2012. The team focused on a gene called SPARCL1, which appears to be critically important for cell migration during prostate development in the embryo and apparently becomes active again during cancer progression.Normally, both benign and malignant prostate cancer cells express high levels of SPARCL1, and reduce these levels when they want to migrate. The team correlated this reduction or "down regulation" of SPARCL1 with aggressiveness of prostate cancer. "Our findings should allow physicians to not only pinpoint those patients whose cancers are destined to return after surgery, but could also reveal a potential new option for treatment," says Edward Schaeffer, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of urology, oncology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Prostate Cancer Multidisciplinary Clinic. |
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ScienceDaily
After waking up, the concentration of the stress hormone cortisol in
saliva rises considerably; this is true not only for grown-ups but for
babies as well. A research team from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and
from Basel has reported this finding in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.2012-08-28 13:16:00 "This gives us a new, non-invasive and uncomplicated possibility to already research the activity of the stress system during infancy," Prof. Dr. Gunther Meinlschmidt, of the Clinic of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the LWL University Hospital of the RUB, said. The information not only open doors to the pursuit of as-yet unresolved research inquiries, but could also be used in the future to diagnose illnesses in the hormone-producing organs, such as the adrenal gland, of infants. |
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9 News MSN.com
An outbreak of gastroenteritis has landed more than 3500 people in NSW hospitals over the past fortnight.2012-08-27 22:01:00 NSW Health says primary school-aged children and people in aged care facilities, hospitals and child care have been struck down by the epidemic. NSW Health Director of Health Protection, Dr Jeremy McAnulty, says viral gastroenteritis is highly infectious and warns those afflicted to stay away from vulnerable people in hospitals and aged care facilities. "These outbreaks are mostly caused by infection with a virus, most often norovirus or rotavirus, and spread easily from person to person," Dr McAnulty said in a statement. "It is vital that if you or your family contract gastroenteritis that you stay home from work or keep a child home from school if they are sick." People with the virus should avoid preparing food for others until at least 48 hours after recovery, he said. Good hygiene is also essential to avoid contracting the virus by washing hands thoroughly with soap and running water for at least 10 seconds before handling and eating food, and after visiting the bathroom. Symptoms include nausea and diarrhoea. People who are concerned should visit their local GP. |
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Will Parker
Science A Gogo 2012-08-27 21:35:00
Duke University scientists have discovered how breast milk, but not infant formula, fosters colonies of microbiotic flora in a newborn's intestinal tract that aid nutrient absorption and immune system development. The new findings add to existing evidence showing how mother's milk protects infants from infections and illnesses. In the new study, appearing in Current Nutrition & Food Science, the researchers grew bacteria in samples of infant formula, cow's milk and breast milk. For the infant formula, the researchers used three brands each of popular milk- and soy-based products. Breast milk was donated and processed to separate different components, including proteins, fats and carbohydrates. The team also tested a purified form of an antibody called secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), which is abundant in breast milk and plays a role in establishing an infant's immune system. The infant formulas, the milk products and the SIgA were incubated with two strains of E. coli bacteria - necessary early inhabitants of the gut that are helpful cousins to their more dangerous variety associated with food poisoning. |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Daily Mail, UK
2012-08-28 05:16:00
Children who watch films with a high sexual content tend to lose their virginity earlier and have more partners, a study has found. Not only are they more promiscuous, they are also more likely to engage in risky sex by not using condoms. The six-year study of more than 1,200 teens refers to sexual content in films but campaigners against online porn say it could equally apply to videos on the internet. They point out that children can now see a lot more sexual imagery online than they ever did at the cinema - meaning that the effect will be magnified. Pornographic images and videos are freely available on the net, many on sites with no age verification procedures at all, putting children at risk. The NSPCC warns that young male teens are now pressurising their girlfriends to copy what they see on porn films downloaded from the internet. Other reviews have found that exposure to porn makes boys more likely to view girls as sex objects. The Daily Mail is campaigning for an automatic block on online porn. Over-18s would be able to see adult material only if they specifically opted in. |
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| High Strangeness |
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Stuart Minting
The Northern Echo 2012-03-26 16:37:00
A Labour politician has stunned his town council colleagues by claiming his "real mother" is a 9ft green alien with eight fingers. Councillor Simon Parkes, who was elected to represent Stakesby ward on Whitby Town Council last month, said although he has had hundreds of close encounters with extra-terrestrials, it will not interfere with his mission to help residents at the seaside resort. Speaking on YouTube, Coun Parkes said he first saw an alien at the age of eight months, when "a traditional kite-shaped face", with huge eyes, tiny nostrils and a thin mouth appeared over his cot. He said: "Two green stick things came in. I was aware of some movement over my head. I thought, 'they're not mummy's hands, mummy's hands are pink'." He added: "I was looking straight into its face. It enters my mind through my eyes and it sends a message down my optic nerve into my brain. |
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Johnbosco Agbakwuru
All Africa 2012-08-25 14:02:00
Calabar - The sudden appearance of a mysterious hand during a crusade organized at the headquarters of the Glorious Assemblies Ministries popularly known as Christ Endtime Military Academy, Calabar, Cross River State is now a subject of discussion among residents of the city. The mysterious hand which appeared on the fourth day of the programme radiated with light and pierced through the ceiling of the church building before young boys who were part of the programme noticed it with amazement. Though many people have insinuated many things concerning the hand, the General Overseer of the Church, Pastor Timmy Larry described the hand as the hand of Jesus Christ and that a day before the mysterious hand appeared, a lady saw a vision that a mighty hand came from behind and lifted and smashed a man. Larry explained that "the mysterious appearance of the hand came up on the fourth day of the programme. |
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Lee Speigel
Huffington Post 2012-08-28 08:24:00
Despite the fact the UK's Ministry of Defense officially ended its UFO investigations in 2009, it appears that the British Civil Aviation Authority decided -- unbeknownst to the public -- to continue collecting reports that involved UFOs with possible flight safety issues. "They were only interested in sightings that definitely had a bearing on aircraft or flight safety, and were no longer interested in reports from the public, who'd seen things in the sky and reported them to the Civil Aviation Authority," said David Clarke, the official UK National Archives consultant and a journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University.
Clarke, seen at right, told the Huffington Post that the Civil Aviation Authority -- a different government department from the MoD -- kept separate records of UFO cases, "not only by the aircrew, themselves, but also anything unusual that was seen by air traffic controllers on the ground at at airports." Through the filing of Freedom of Information requests, Clarke found that the Royal Air Force specifically requested any UFO reports submitted to the Department of Transport would no longer be forwarded to the MoD. The RAF specifically states that "members of the public who make such reports are not encouraged to believe an investigation will take place." It's now known that British air traffic controllers have been receiving UFO reports on almost a regular basis. |
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colourufo
Please make comment, score my capture, and shared who interested this
UFO Phenomena. I filmed the Aeroplane and the cloud formations then 4
object flying V shape formations from the Sydney, towards Camden city.
Making straight line. Then disappeared. This video belong me Laszlo
Novak as colourufo, Anna: as szinesufo, and Paul as Theufonsw. We are
filmed together.YouTube 2012-08-25 08:03:00
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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