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Omar Mashjari
With the world's media attention focused on Yemen's fight against
Al-Qaeda, you would probably be forgiven for not knowing that Yemenis
are facing the worst hunger crisis since records began. The term 'food
insecurity' is increasingly being associated with the once
self-sufficient but improvised Yemen. In fact over 44% of Yemen's population will face a lack of food to eat this year alone
and the UN says that 5m Yemenis are considered "extremely food
insecure". The causes of this crisis range from a lack of political
stability caused the 2011 revolution, failure to control and plan on
behalf of the Yemeni government and the inability of donors states such
as the US to view Yemen beyond the 'terrorism goggles'.Huffington Post 2012-08-22 17:41:00 As it currently stands there are no two ways about it, Yemen is no longer on the brink of a catastrophic food crisis, but rather is now in the midst of a food catastrophe. Oxfam last September warned that Yemen was at breaking point, today one can freely admit that Yemen has broke. For example in al Hodeidah and Hajjah, one in three children are malnourished, which is double the standard emergency level. While the UN estimates that 267, 000 Yemeni children are facing life threatening levels of malnutrition. Yemen's food crisis presents a number of challenges to Yemenis across the political, economical and social spectrum. The previously already poor are on the verge of death, the once slim middle class are finding it hard to pay for life necessities, whilst the rich and often elite, find it much easier to spend their wealth.But it is children who bear the brunt of Yemen's food price escalation, as mothers are reportedly taking their children out of school to beg on the streets. |
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Bianca Hall
Laws passed today will allow authorities to collect and keep
Australians' internet records, including their web-browsing history,
social media activity and emails.The Sunday Morning Herald 2012-08-22 17:37:00 Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said the laws would help police track cyber-criminals around the globe, and would give authorities the power to find people engaged in forgery, fraud, child pornography, and infringement of copyright and intellectual property. The laws will also allow Australia to accede to the Council of Europe Convention on Cyber-crime, which has 34 members. |
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BBC
2012-08-22 17:34:00
Belize is in danger of defaulting on its debt after it missed a $23m (£14.6m) bond payment due on Monday. The government still has a 30-day grace period to pay the interest, but said it was unlikely to be able to do so. Creditors accuse Belize of trying to force a Greek-style debt restructuring on holders of the $550m bond, which represents half its public debt. The row has drawn attention to Caribbean countries' growing debt burden amid falling tourism revenues. Much of the region depends on tourists from Europe and the US for its income, but the global financial crisis has cut visitor numbers severely. |
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CNN
2012-08-22 04:48:00
A book company said Wednesday that it will release on September 11 a firsthand account of the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Christine Ball, director of marketing and publicity for Dutton, a subsidiary of Penguin Group USA, said the book was written by a Navy SEAL under a pen name. The book is entitled No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden. A Department of Defense official said the SEAL is no longer on active duty. U.S. Special Operations Command has not reviewed the book or approved it, the official said. Officials only recently became aware the former SEAL was writing a book but were told it encompasses more than just the raid and includes vignettes from training and other missions. They would like to see a copy, the official said, to make sure no classified information is released or the book contains any information that might out one of the team members. Officials have been told that some of the profits are going to charity. |
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Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Information Clearing House 2012-08-22 17:03:00
After more than 10 years of war against al Qaeda and the accompanying global "war on terrorism," we have failed to learn that our actions create reactions. Our presence creates destabilization, then radicalization. Occupations create insurgencies. In Afghanistan, we have fueled the very insurgency we struggle to fight. Al Qaeda had relatively little if any presence in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the subsequent destruction and violence, enabled al Qaeda to flourish. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are now conducting an accelerated campaign of relentless attacks and suicide bombings in Iraq. Last year's intervention in Libya is another example. The U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies spurred a civil war, taking sides despite persistent questions about the nature of the opposition. The war and the chaos that followed have allowed radical groups to gain another foothold. |
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Seumas Milne
The Guardian 2012-08-21 16:56:00
Considering he made his name with the biggest leak of secret government documents in history, you might imagine there would be at least some residual concern for Julian Assange among those trading in the freedom of information business. But the virulence of British media hostility towards the WikiLeaks founder is now unrelenting. This is a man, after all, who has yet to be charged, let alone convicted, of anything. But as far as the bulk of the press is concerned, Assange is nothing but a "monstrous narcissist", a bail-jumping "sex pest" and an exhibitionist maniac. After Ecuador granted him political asylum and Assange delivered a "tirade" from its London embassy's balcony, fire was turned on the country's progressive president, Rafael Correa, ludicrously branded a corrupt "dictator" with an "iron grip" on a benighted land. The ostensible reason for this venom is of course Assange's attempt to resist extradition to Sweden (and onward extradition to the US) over sexual assault allegations - including from newspapers whose record on covering rape and violence against women is shaky, to put it politely. But as the row over his embassy refuge has escalated into a major diplomatic stand-off, with the whole of South America piling in behind Ecuador, such posturing looks increasingly specious. Can anyone seriously believe the dispute would have gone global, or that the British government would have made its asinine threat to suspend the Ecuadorean embassy's diplomatic status and enter it by force, or that scores of police would have surrounded the building, swarming up and down the fire escape and guarding every window, if it was all about one man wanted for questioning over sex crime allegations in Stockholm? |
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NBC News
Russia rebuffed President Barack Obama's threat of unilateral action
against Syria Tuesday, as officials said 2,500 refugees fled across the
border into Turkey in just 24 hours - one of the highest daily refugee
flows of recent weeks.2012-08-22 05:45:00 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking after meeting China's top diplomat, said Moscow and Beijing were committed to "the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law ... and not to allow their violation". Obama on Monday threatened "enormous consequences" if his Syrian counterpart used chemical or biological arms or even moved them in a menacing way. The president used some of his strongest language yet to warn Assad not to use chemical or biological weapons - after Syria acknowledged for the first time that it had such weapons and could use them if foreign countries attacked it. | |
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Comment: Could Western media be more complicit in fanning the flames and justifying U.S. intervention?
The reference to Iraq and Saddam by Russia's Lavrov is weak in stating facts. It could be the media who isn't expressing his words or it could be Lavrov isn't sharing the obvious. Saddam got his WMD's from the United States to fight against Iran well before the first Gulf war. "..Still had the receipts.."
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The Extinction Protocol
2012-08-22 08:37:00
The odds the United States will slip back into recession next year have risen, ratings agency Standard & Poor's said, citing risks from the European debt crisis and budget tightening at year-end. The US ratings firm raised the chance of the US falling into recession to 25 percent, up from a 20 percent chance estimated in February, as the world's largest economy struggles to recover from a severe 2008-2009 slump. It also pointed to the looming possibility of the government being forced by existing law to severely cut spending and increase taxes on January 1, the so-called fiscal cliff that would crunch the economy. "Economic activity has downshifted sharply from earlier this year," S&P said in a report on North American credit conditions amid global uncertainty, dated August 20. "At the same time, possible contagion from the European debt crisis, the potential so-called 'fiscal cliff', and the risk of a hard landing for China's economy have added greater uncertainty to US economic prospects," it said. |
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Kenneth Shortgen Jr.
examiner.com 2012-08-20 18:35:00
On Aug. 17, Germany became the latest country to remove longstanding protections for civilian populations from military intervention in domestic conflicts. In a new court ruling, which repealed laws created out of the Nazi era in Germany, the government can now use the military against citizens in extreme cases, joining the U.S. and other nation states who have removed the dividing line between civilian and military policing. The German military will in future be able to use its weapons on German streets in an extreme situation, the Federal Constitutional Court says. The ruling says the armed forces can be deployed only if Germany faces an assault of "catastrophic proportions", but not to control demonstrations. - BBC | |
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Fars News Agency
2012-08-21 04:50:00
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi announced on Tuesday that the number of military products manufactured by the Iranian Defense Ministry has witnessed a 21% growth this year. Addressing a ceremony on the occasion of the National Day of the Defense Industry today, Vahidi said that defense products in Iran are unique in terms of quantity and variety, irrespective of all the pressures and restrictions imposed against Iran in the global market. "We in Iran's defense industry have 1,436 different products with an almost limited market and that means we have been able to commercialize through indigenization," the minister underlined. He announced that the defense ministry produced 192 products in the last Iranian year (ended on March 19), and added, "We at the defense ministry had a 21% growth in production, 178% increase in technology and inventions, 286% growth in academic projects and a 138% boost in the number of the industrial projects which have been accomplished." |
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Agence France-Presse
German spies are stationed off the Syrian coast and are passing on
information designed to help rebels in their fight against President
Bashar al-Assad, a newspaper reported on Sunday.2012-08-21 18:14:00 Agents from Germany's foreign intelligence service (BND) are operating on ships off the coast with technology allowing them to observe troop movements 600 kilometres (400 miles) inside the country, said the Bild am Sonntag weekly. |
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Comment: See:
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Fars News Agency
2012-08-21 03:14:00
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey left Afghanistan shortly after two rockets damaged his plane in Bagram airbase. Two rockets hit Dempsey's plane when it was parked at Bagram Airbase, north of Kabul, late on Monday night and slightly wounded two ground staff. They also damaged a nearby helicopter. Dempsey, who had been in the country for talks with NATO and Afghan commanders on a string of recent shootings, left the country on another aircraft. Before leaving Afghanistan, Dempsey met his Afghan counterpart General Sher Mohammad Karimi, who raised the issue of insider attacks by local forces that have killed 10 American occupiers in the past two weeks. Following the meeting with General Karimi, Dempsey told reporters "this time, without prompting, when I met General Karimi, he started with a conversation about insider attacks - and, importantly, insider attacks not just against us, but insider attacks against the Afghans, too". The US top army general escaped the rocket attack unharmed as he was not aboard the plane when it was hit by the [alleged] insurgents. "He was nowhere near the aircraft. We think it was a lucky shot," NATO senior spokesman Colonel Thomas Collins said. |
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| Society's Child |
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MyFox DC
2012-08-22 04:12:00
Cockeysville, Maryland - A Cockeysville woman has been charged with manslaughter after police say she left her 91-year-old mother on the toilet for two days. A grand jury returned an indictment against 65-year-old Sharon Caslow last week after the death of 91-year-old Audrey Caslow was ruled a homicide. Sharon Caslow had previously been charged with abuse of a vulnerable adult. Baltimore County medical workers found Audrey Caslow on a toilet on Jan. 17 at the home she shared with her daughter. Police say Sharon Caslow told officers she knew her mother had been in the bathroom for two days, but didn't ask for help. Audrey Caslow died 10 days later. Medical examiners ruled that Audrey Caslow died of renal failure. Sharon Caslow's public defender did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Source: The Associated Press |
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Ken Kusmer
Indianapolis - A prison inmate coordinated a methamphetamine ring that
involved at least two Indiana prisons using cellphones and drugs
smuggled in by guards, according to a federal indictment unsealed
Wednesday that charges 40 people in connection to the scheme.2012-08-22 00:00:00 At least three inmates are among those charged, including the alleged ringleader, Oscar Perez, who's serving time for murder and attempted murder. At least 17 people appeared in court Wednesday in Indianapolis after about 300 FBI agents fanned out across the state and made arrests. Prosecutors said the defendants were flight risks, and the judge ordered them to remain in custody. The activity, which also included heroin trafficking, occurred at the Westville Correction Facility in northern Indiana and the Wabash Valley Correction Facility in southwestern Indiana, according to the indictment. |
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Houston Mitchell
Los Angeles Times 2012-08-22 11:30:00
Lois Goodman, 70, who has served as a line judge for several years at tennis' U.S. Open, was arrested in New York on Tuesday in connection with the alleged April 17 beating death of her husband at their Woodland Hills home. Goodman was in New York preparing for this year's U.S. Open, which begins there next week. She initially told police that her husband, Alan Goodman, 80, had fallen down the steps, had a heart attack and managed to get back upstairs to his bed, but prosecutors said Tuesday that they believe otherwise. "She bludgeoned him to death with a coffee mug," said Jane Robison, a district attorney's spokeswoman. "It was a homicide. He had multiple sharp-force injuries," said Ed Winter, assistant chief of investigations for the Los Angeles County coroner's office. Lois Goodman was profiled in a Times article in 1994 and described herself as a lifelong tennis fan.
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Josh Halliday
The Guardian 2012-08-21 16:48:00
The hacking group Anonymous claims to have brought down British government websites in protest at the handling of Julian Assange's bid to avoid extradition to Sweden. The self-styled hacktivist group targeted the websites of No 10 and the Home Office early on Tuesday under what it called "Operation Free Assange". Hackers said they had also brought down websites belonging to the justice department and Department for Work and Pensions in the attack. Anonymous vowed to continue targeting government websites as the diplomatic temperature around the WikiLeaks founder continued to rise. The online DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks, which also hit sites in Sweden, came as the Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa warned Britain that attempting to enter his country's embassy in London would be an act of diplomatic suicide. |
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Amber Stegall
WAFB 2012-08-22 12:38:00
Baton Rouge, Louisiana - A Miami, Florida man is in police custody after an undercover operation caught him trying to meet a 14-year-old East Baton Rouge Parish teen for sex. Officials say he bought a bus ticket for the teen to go to Miami to meet him. According the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, Samuel Woodside, 45, was arrested at the Greyhound Bus Station in Miami, Florida on Saturday, August 18. EBRSO says Woodside is accused of communicating with who he believed was a 14-year-old girl over the internet in July and August. An undercover EBRSO detective was actually posing as the child as part of a Sheriff's Office Internet Crimes Against Children Unit initiative. Woodside is accused of sending sexually explicit photos to the girl, along with an invitation to come to Miami to participate in sex acts with himself and others. According to EBRSO, he discussed with the girl on multiple occasions that she would be used to make money for him by performing sex acts with others. Woodside allegedly purchased a bus ticket for the child to travel from Baton Rouge to Miami. Woodside was arrested when he arrived at the bus station in Miami to pick up the child. |
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Emily Feldman
NBC News Philadelphia 2012-08-22 04:23:00
The man had a ticket and had made it through airport security US, Louisiana - A 37-year-old man was taken into custody after rushing on to an empty plane parked at a gate at Baton Rouge's Metropolitan airport and barricading himself in the cockpit. The American Eagle commuter jet had landed in Baton Rouge Tuesday afternoon when Andrew Aleffi, who was inside the gate, rushed past attendants and boarded the aircraft, NBC station WVLA reported. Passengers and crew had already exited and the plane was being refueled and prepped for its next flight when Aleffi boarded. A law enforcement official told NBC News that the man, who had a ticket and made it through security without incident, tried to communicate with the tower but apparently did not know how to use the radio nor fly the plane. Power to the plane had been cut off and the aircraft was inoperable. The man did not have any weapons when he was taken into custody by the Baton Rouge Police and he was not on any no-fly lists. |
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Shaun Smillie
IOL News 2012-08-21 10:07:00
Johannesburg - A new breed of moneyed Vietnamese are fuelling the involvement of criminal networks to secure South African rhino horn. Traffic, a wildlife trade-monitoring network, has released a comprehensive report on SA's rhino-poaching crisis. It points to an increased demand for horn in Vietnam, contributing to the deaths of almost two rhinos a day in SA. "Vietnam, since 2003, has rapidly grown to become the world's largest recipient of both legal and illegal sources of horn from South Africa," reads the report, entitled "The South Africa-Vietnam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus". "Vietnam in the 1980s and 1990s was on no one's radar. Now, with double-digit economic growth, there is suddenly growth in the trade," said Tom Milliken, one of the authors of the report. Speaking at the launch of the report last night in Rosebank, Milliken said increased personal wealth in Vietnam was driving the horn trade. His report identifies four types of rhino-horn consumers in the south-east Asian country. These include not only the terminally ill, but also users who take the horn as a detoxifying agent for alcohol and rich food. |
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The Globe and Mail
2012-08-22 12:59:00
To the surprise of right-wing commentators, it is possible to be too lefty for the BBC. The British public broadcaster, which is often criticized by conservatives for its political slant, will not allow a statue of George Orwell to grace the entrance of its new headquarters, reportedly because the idea is too partisan. Orwell, who worked briefly at the BBC, earned international renown through his writing, aiming his pen at imperialism,unbridled capitalism, the Spanish civil war,revolutionary excess, and totalitarianism. In 2008 he was named the second-best British writer since the war, trailing only Philip Larkin in a list compiled by the Times of London. But in spite of his fame -- and a range of targets that has seen him claimed by both the right and the left -- outgoing BBC Director-General Mark Thompson was apparently quick to dismiss the idea of Orwell's statue at the broadcaster's entrance. "I met Mark Thompson at a BBC reception and mentioned the project," Baroness Joan Bakewell, a supporter of the George Orwell Memorial Trust, told the Daily Telegraph. "He said, 'Oh no, Joan, we can't possibly. It's far too left-wing an idea'." | |
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Comment: Comment: The British branch of the Ministry of Truth could hardly allow a monument to its greatest critic now, could it?
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ABC News
2012-08-22 04:38:00
Horrifying undercover footage from inside a Californian slaughterhouse shows incompetent workers standing on the mouth and nostrils of a cow to suffocate it after failing to kill the animal with a bolt-gun. The shocking video, which allegedly demonstrates rampant animal abuse and suffering from inside Central Valley Meat Co., has led the the U.S. Department of Agriculture to shut down the slaughterhouse which was a major supplier of their National School Lunch Program and In-N-Out Burger. The sad film produced by animal rights group Compassion Over Killing reveals how already sick cows are stunned when they are unable to walk to their deaths and shows how they are hoisted up by their legs onto conveyor-belts even if the bolt-gun has failed to kill the animal.
Most of the animals slaughtered by CVM are 'spent' dairy cows who are no longer economically viable as milk-producers to the dairy industry. And now USDA regulators who shut down the slaughterhouse after viewing the animal welfare video are investigating whether beef from sick cows reached the human food supply. The investigation will determine whether sick cows were slaughtered and whether meat products from the company should be recalled, said Justin DeJong, a spokesman for the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service. There is no indication any of the cows slaughtered at the Central Valley Meat plant were diseased and the USDA did not order a recall of beef coming from the plant. A spokesman for In-N-Out Burger said that CVM provided between 20 to 30 percent of the meat used by their restaurants and that it canceled its contract immediately. The west cost burger chain has a loyal following and is regulalry patronised by Hollywood celebrities such as the soccer player David Beckham. On the firm's website the chain claims to make its own hamburger patties 'using premium cattle selected especially for In-N-Out Burger', and says it pays 'a premium' for this. In a statement to ABC News, the company's chief operating officer, Mark Taylor said, 'In-N-Out Burger would never condone the inhumane treatment of animals, and, in fact, all of our suppliers must agree to abide by our strict standards for the humane treatment of cattle.' The agency suspended operations Monday at Central Valley Meat Co. in Hanford after receiving the video Friday from the animal welfare group Compassion Over Killing (COK). The footage shows animals bleeding and thrashing after being repeatedly shot in the head with a pneumatic gun in unsuccessful efforts to kill them for slaughter. Federal regulations say that to avoid unnecessary suffering during slaughter, animals must be rendered unconscious by a single shot to the head from a pneumatic gun that fires a bolt through the skull to pierce the brain. The USDA said investigators are trying to determine whether the cows in the video were just lame or sick, which would render them unfit for human consumption. 'That's the main issue right now,' said DeJong of the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service. Central Valley Meat Co., owned by Brian and Lawrence Coelho, declined to comment on the video, saying company officials had not seen it. |
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Rieke Havertz
The Christian Science Monitor 2012-08-17 03:32:00
Germany's conservative coalition, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, is planning to pay mothers who stay at home to care for their children. The draft law has touched off debate between those who see this as offering more people the option of staying at home and those who see it as a missed opportunity to expand access to affordable child care outside the home. Private daycare or nannies are uncommon in Germany, and most often only chosen if government-funded or church-funded daycare is not available. But the government system struggles to handle the demand, especially in large cities like Berlin, Munich, or Hamburg, where parents scramble to register for daycare even before their child is born. Private daycare for little children is on the rise, but expensive. The proposed law, which is scheduled to be debated for a second time in parliament at the end of August, might ease some of the burden on the system. Women would receive 150 euros per month (about $190) if they decide to look after their children ages 1 to 3 at home rather than sending the child to government-funded daycare. | |
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Comment: While the debate rages about what is best for
the mothers and their children, it would be nice for mothers to have a
choice, rather than be forced into the workplace. There are studies
confirming that children raised in the home are healthier:
Study: Working moms have unheathier kids Mother's Employment Increases Children's Health Risks |
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David Edwards
The Raw Story 2012-08-16 16:12:00
Televangelist Pat Robertson on Thursday cautioned his viewers to think twice before adopting disadvantaged children that had been sexually abused or deprived of food because they could grow up "weird." During Thursday's edition of The 700 Club co-host Kristi Watts read a letter from a woman who wanted to know why men stopped dating her when they learned that she had adopted three daughters from three different countries. "Can I answer?" Watts asked. "I was going to say because they're dogs. ... That's just wrong on every level." "No, it's not wrong," Robertson disagreed. "A man doesn't want to take on the United Nations, and this woman's got all these various children and blended family. What is it?" |
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Meir Ohayon
Parents in southern city threatening to hold strike if district
court does not revise decision to integrate illegal migrants' children
in local school systemYnetnews 2012-08-21 17:59:00 Less than a week before the new school year is set to begin, parents in Israel's southern city of Eilat are threatening to hold a strike in the city's schools. The reason: A Beersheba District Court decision on the integration of illegal migrants' children in the city education system. The migrants called the threat insulting and racist.
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Comment: The things some countries will do to protect their xenophobic and racist identities. See:
Israel falsifies documents to deport Sudanese migrants - reports |
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| Secret History |
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K. Venkateshwarlu
The Hindu 2012-08-22 15:22:00
A prehistoric druidical rock worshipping place and shelter resembling those in Europe and Africa, have been discovered amid the hillocks skirting Chittivalsa village in Srikakulam district by a freelance archaeologist, K. Venkateswara Rao recently. The cluster of unique oval-shaped standing rock formations each measuring about eight metres in height and 28 metres in circumference and having well-defined ledge cuts and postholes used for wooden canopy like shelter, could have been a habitation and a place of worship. That a prehistoric circular hut existed here is indicated by circular postholes found on boulders opposite to the cluster of standing rocks within a radius of 3.05 metres. Quite surprisingly, the rocks are well protected as the place continues to be revered as 'Pandavulapancha,' 'Pandavuladoddi' and 'Demudurallu' (stones of God) in the local legend, the belief being Pandavas lived in the rock shelter for some time during their 'aranyavasa' and the place belongs to God. Pandavulapancha, the name given to a naturally formed cavern containing five rock beds is located on the rear side. These beds are hewn on the large inclined rock aligned in the north-south direction, another proof of prehistoric people living there. The cavern was later occupied by Jain ascetics by making some alterations to the beds and chiselling channels around the bed enabling free flow of rain water. |
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Sky & Telescope
2008-06-25 13:24:00
It's not every day that a famous historical event, scrutinized by generations of classical scholars, can be re-dated by two astronomers and their college honors class. But that's exactly what Donald W. Olson and Russell Doescher of Texas State University did, with the help of students Kellie Beicker and Amanda Gregory. They report their findings in the August 2008 Sky & Telescope, which has just hit the newsstands.. Tipped off by Don in advance, I was fortunate to be able to join the team's research trip to the southern coast of England last summer. The white cliffs of Dover, subject of a memorable song from World War II, were also the setting for a much earlier clash of civilizations. Along this very shore, Julius Caesar first landed with two legions of Roman soldiers in 55 BC. Caesar, in his first-hand account of the invasion, carefully noted the phase of the Moon, the approach of the equinox, and above all the unexpected ocean tides his fleet encountered. So it's a simple matter for any astronomer to determine the precise date of the invasion, right? Wrong! No lesser astronomers than Edmond Halley and George B. Airy carefully studied the astronomical aspects of 55 BC in hopes of letting historians know the exact date and location where Caesar and his legions came ashore. But Airy and Halley disagreed with each other. And what's more, they both got it partly wrong, as Olson's Texas State team found out on their research trip. |
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| Science & Technology |
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Irene Klotz
News Daily 2012-08-22 17:29:00
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took a 16-minute drive on Wednesday, its first since reaching the Red Planet to search for habitats that could have supported microbial life. The $2.5-billion, two-year mission, NASA's first astrobiology initiative since the 1970s-era Viking probes, kicked off on August 6, with a risky, but successful landing on at a site NASA has named "Bradbury Landing," a nod to the late science fiction author and space aficionado Ray Bradbury. Aside from a quick steering test earlier in the week, the one-ton rover had stood firmly on its six wheels since touching down inside an ancient impact basin called Gale Crater, located in the planet's southern hemisphere near the equator. At 10:17 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Curiosity became a rover, trudging out a total of 15 feet, turning 120 degrees and then backing up 8 feet to position itself beside its first science target -- a scour mark left behind by the rover's descent engine. Most of Curiosity's drive time was spent taking pictures, including the first images of the rover's tread marks in the Martian soil. |
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ScienceDaily
2012-08-22 17:24:00
Carnegie scientists are the first to discover the conditions under which nickel oxide can turn into an electricity-conducting metal. Nickel oxide is one of the first compounds to be studied for its electronic properties, but until now scientists have not been able to induce a metallic state. The compound becomes metallic at enormous pressures of 2.4 million times the atmospheric pressure (240 gigapascals). The finding is published in Physical Review Letters. "Physicists have predicted for decades that the nickel oxide would transition from an insulator -- a compound that does not conduct electricity -- to a metal under compression, but their predictions have not previously been confirmed," remarked team leader Viktor Struzhkin of Carnegie's Geophysical Laboratory. "This new discovery has been a goal in physics that ranks as high as achieving metallic hydrogen, but for metal oxides." The outer shells of atoms contain what are called valence electrons, which play a large role in electrical and chemical behavior. Metals generally have one to three of these valence electrons, while non-metals have between five and seven. Metals are good conductors of electricity because the valence electrons are loosely bound, so the electrons are free to flow through the material. |
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ScienceDaily
2012-08-22 17:19:00
In orbit around Earth is a wide range of satellites that we rely on for everything from television and radio feeds to GPS navigation. Although these spacecraft soar high above storms on Earth, they are still vulnerable to weather -- only it's weather from the sun. Large solar flares -- or plasma that erupts from the sun's surface -- can cause widespread damage, both in space and on Earth, which is why researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) are working to learn more about the possible precursors to solar flares called plasma loops. Now, they have recreated these loops in the lab. "We're studying how these solar loops work, which contributes to the knowledge of space weather," says Paul Bellan, professor of applied physics at Caltech, who compares the research to studying hurricanes. For example, you can't predict a hurricane unless you know more about the events that precede it, like high-pressure and low-pressure fronts. The same is true for solar flares. "It takes some time for the plasma to get to Earth from the sun, so it's possible that with more research, we could have up to a two-day warning period for massive solar flares." The laboratory plasma loop studies were conducted by graduate student Eve Stenson together with Bellan and are reported in the August 13 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. |
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ScienceDaily
Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a reliable method to turn the
clock back on blood cells, restoring them to a primitive stem cell state
from which they can then develop into any other type of cell in the
body.2012-08-22 16:58:00 The work, described in the Aug. 8 issue of the journal Public Library of Science One (PLoS One), is "Chapter Two" in an ongoing effort to efficiently and consistently convert adult blood cells into stem cells that are highly qualified for clinical and research use in place of human embryonic stem cells, says Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and the Kimmel Cancer Center. "Taking a cell from an adult and converting it all the way back to the way it was when that person was a 6-day-old embryo creates a completely new biology toward our understanding of how cells age and what happens when things go wrong, as in cancer development," Zambidis says. "Chapter One," Zambidis says, was work described last spring in PLoS One in which Zambidis and colleagues recounted the use of this successful method of safely transforming adult blood cells into heart cells. In the latest experiments, he and his colleagues now describe methods for coaxing adult blood cells to become so-called induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPS) -- adult cells reprogrammed to an embryonic like state, and with unprecedented efficiencies. |
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THN Security Analyst
The Hacker News 2012-08-21 15:52:00
It is now possible to hack the human brain ? YES ! This was explained researchers at the Usenix Conference on Security, held from 8 to 10 August in Washington State. Using a commercial off-the-shelf brain-computer interface, the researchers have shown that it's possible to hack your brain, forcing you to reveal information that you'd rather keep secret. In a study of 28 subjects wearing brain-machine interface devices built by companies like Neurosky and Emotiv and marketed to consumers for gaming and attention exercises, the researchers found they were able to extract hints directly from the electrical signals of the test subjects' brains that partially revealed private information like the location of their homes, faces they recognized and even their credit card PINs. Brain-computer interface or BCIs are generally used in a medical setting with very expensive equipment, but in the last few years cheaper, commercial offerings have emerged. For $200-300, you can buy an Emotive or Neurosky BCI, go through a short training process, and begin mind controlling your computer. |
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Michael Hanlon
Mail Online 2012-08-21 15:09:00
Trebles all round at JPL (well it would be, but this being the US alcohol is strictly banned at NASA's planetary exploration facility in Pasadena) after the successful arrival on the planet Mars of the mega-rover Curiosity. When I first heard how they were planning to get more than a tonne of nuclear- powered kit down on to the Martian surface in one piece I thought they were joking. 'You're going to use parachutes?' Yup. 'Then retro-rockets?' You betcha. 'Fine, but then you are going to dangle the thing on four steel cables, lower it gently to the ground from a hovering rocket-powered mothership, those cables are going to automatically detach then the mothership is going to scoot off and crash out of harm's way. And all this with absolutely no control from Earth?' You have understood correctly. |
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Rachel Allen
Cambridge News, UK 2012-08-21 08:54:00
A Cambridge professor has tackled the issue of spontaneous combustion - using belly pork. Prof Brian J Ford is a research biologist and author of more than 30 books, most about cell biology and microscopy but he has turned his attention to the mechanisms behind why people 'explode'. He said in an article in New Scientist: "One minute they may be relaxing in a chair, the next they erupt into a fireball. "Jets of blue fire shoot from their bodies like flames from a blowtorch, and within half an hour they are reduced to a pile of ash. "Typically, the legs remain unscathed sticking out grotesquely from the smoking cinders. Nearby objects - a pile of newspapers on the armrest, for example - are untouched." The first record of spontaneous combustion dates back to 1641 when Danish doctor and mathematician Thomas Bartholin described the death of Polonus Vorstius - who drank wine at home in Milan, Italy, one evening in 1470 before bursting into flames. Since then more reports of spontaneous combustion have been filed and linked to alcoholism - though the link was later disproved. |
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Charles Choi
LiveScience 2012-08-22 12:01:00
The older a father is, the more likely he will pass new mutations to his children, upping the chances of disease, researchers say. "A 36-year-old father gives twice more new mutations to his child than a 20-year-old father does, and a 50-year-old father gives about four times the number of mutations," said researcher Kari Stefansson, chairman and CEO of deCODE Genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland. "This is not a subtle effect - this is a very, very large effect. And it increases the probability that a mutation may strike a gene that is very important, which can lead to a disease." Past studies have linked a father's age at conception to the risk of schizophrenia, autism and other mental disorders. The new research links new mutations to these same diseases - mutations seen in patients but not in their parents. Genetic errors crop up in the body over time, and scientists had conjectured that older parentsaccumulate more mutations in their sperm and egg cells than younger ones. To better understand the rate at which novel mutations emerge over time, researchers sequenced the entire genomes of 78 Icelandic trios of parents and offspring. The scientists found that the age of the father at conception was by far the dominant factor in determining the number of novel mutations in children. |
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Nina Golgowski
Photographed using a specialized microscope whose viewing stage is
chilled to -170C, scientists in Maryland are showing a whole new side to
what's caught on the tip of our tongues.Daily Mail, UK 2012-08-20 13:47:00 Using a low-temperature scanning electron microscope, researchers at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center have captured an astonishing new view on naturally-occurring snowflakes. Shipping in the samples collected from snow banks or during fresh snow fall from around the country, the researchers study their composition for their effects on our ecosystem.
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Phenomenica
2012-08-22 04:06:00
Scientists have discovered that a tiny particle within a protein allowed humans to become the most intelligent creatures on the planet. Researchers from the University of Colorado found that the protein domain issue known as DUF1220 holds the key to understanding why our brains are so much bigger and more complex than any other animal, the Daily Mail reported. DUF1220 is a protein domain of unknown function that shows a striking human-specific increase in copy number is considered important to human brain evolution. Humans have more than 270 copies of DUF1220 encoded in their DNA, far more than other species. "This research indicates that what drove the evolutionary expansion of the human brain may well be a specific unit within a protein - called a protein domain - that is far more numerous in humans than other species," Professor James Sikela from the University said. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Environment News Service
2012-08-22 04:01:00
Sacramento, California - Wildfires that have destroyed homes, forced evacuations and caused road closures prompted California Governor Jerry Brown to issue an emergency proclamation today for three northern California counties at their request. "I find that conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property exist due to the fires in the counties of Plumas, Shasta, and Tehama," the governor said in his proclamation. "The fires have destroyed residences and threaten thousands of homes and other structures, causing residents to be evacuated, roads to be closed, and emergency shelters to be opened." The Ponderosa Fire near Manton in Tehama County has now burned 24,323 acres and is 50 percent contained. The fire was started by lightning on August 18 and has spread to neighboring Shasta County. Thousands of people have been ordered to leave their homes as the blaze in thick forest threatens rural communities. About 3,500 homes in an area along the border of Tehama and Shasta counties are threatened as the fire continues to expand. On Saturday, the Shasta County Sheriff's Office closed Highway 44 between Shingletown and Viola and evacuated area residents from at least 700 homes. Since then, security details have been patrolling the evacuated areas and will remain until the residents are allowed to return to their homes. "At this time it is too early to speculate when Highway 44 road closure will be lifted," the Shasta County Sheriff's Office said this morning. "Law enforcement and fire personnel are evaluating the fire. We are looking at the weather and safety conditions hour by hour in hopes to allow the residents to return to their homes safely." "Resources are stretched thin and fire suppression activities are still in effect," said the sheriff's office. "We do not want to lift closures prematurely and open up the area with unsafe conditions." |
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Julie Tate
The Washington Post 2012-08-22 12:24:00
A tropical storm gathering strength in the Caribbean forced the U.S. military on Wednesday to postpone the latest hearings for the five detainees charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as officials evacuated staff members and others from Guantanamo Bay. Tropical Storm Isaac is forecast to make landfall Saturday morning near the U.S. naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba, according to the National Weather Service. It is expected to become a hurricane by Thursday. On Wednesday, a military spokesman at the Guantanamo detention center said most of the detainees are housed in concrete structures that can withstand the effects of hurricane-force winds; those who are not will be transferred to secure structures. Officials said they are also preparing to evacuate nonessential personnel, representatives of human rights groups and reporters from the island. Residents of the base, meanwhile, were told to expect destructive winds and were advised to secure loose objects in their yards that could "become projectiles." The last major storm to threaten Naval Station Guantanamo Bay was Tropical Storm Tomas in November 2010. It passed just east of Cuba but brought heavy rain and 60 mph winds, causing substantial flooding in the region. |
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Time.com
2012-08-22 11:20:00
Close to 100 tows sit motionless in the shriveled Mississippi River along an 11-mile stretch outside of Greenville, Miss. For every day a single towboat sits idle, it costs about $10,000. So when you've got at least 97 of them stranded, those costs start piling up quickly. As the Midwest experiences its worst drought in 50 years, the Mississippi River is hitting water levels not seen since 1988, a year viewed by those in the industry as a benchmark of hard times. Back then, hundreds of barges sat idle near the same location that they're sitting today: Greenville. Until now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had successfully kept river traffic moving by dredging the river, keeping it at a depth of at least nine feet along its 2,300-mile length all summer, only closing ports here and there temporarily. But barges and towboats have now piled up near Greenville, forcing the Coast Guard to close an 11-mile stretch to shipping this week. That closure will really start to pinch shipping operators who use the country's inland waterways to deliver a host of commodities, goods and products across the U.S. |
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DailyMail.co.uk
An amateur shutterbug happened upon a stunning scene as a pod of
humpback whales emerged from the water as a curious crowd of watchers
gathered around.Retiree Bill Bouton was driving in San Luis Obispo,
California on Saturday when he glanced over at the coast to see a group
of the massive mammals feeding in the shallow waters, which has been
occurring occasionally in the area over the past few days.2012-08-20 08:54:00
The 69-year-old managed to pull his car over and set up his camera tripod near the water's edge to capture snapshots of the event. Boaters and kayakers in the waters had cameras of their own poised to take pictures, fearlessly advancing toward the hungry animals, typically from 39 - 52 ft (12 - 16 metres) in length with an average weight of around 79,000 lb (36,000 kilograms). Bouton explained on NBC's Today Show on Monday how he had spent most of the morning that day trying to photograph birds nearby but had been unsuccessful finding any compelling subjects. |
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Chillymanjaro
Salt water is threatening drinking water in the New Orleans area. Due to
low water levels in the Mississippi River, salt water has been moving
far upriver and was at the outskirts of New Orleans by August 15,
reaching about 145 km (89 miles) north of the mouth of the Mississippi.
The Mississippi River's volume of water flow has fallen to a level that
allows saltwater to intrude upstream into the Mississippi River above
the Head of Passes according to USACE Team New Orleans.
The Mississippi River has been closed temporarily as contractors placed
a pipeline in the Mississippi River to build an underwater barrier that
the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) says will stop the advance of
salt water.TheWatchers.com 2012-08-17 14:16:00
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Karuan Nunes Bertoluci
Amazing and strange sound in the sky in Brazil (São Paulo) on the morning of August 22, 2012, approximately 4:27 (AM).YouTube 2012-08-22 10:00:00 The sound was so loud and intense that made wake up and look in the sky where the noise was very loud.
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VietNamNet Bridge
2012-08-21 04:01:00
Nam Cuong Group, the investor of expanded Le Van Luong road, claimed the construction of USilk City apartment buildings as the reason causing the sinkhole on the road. Meanwhile, the investor of USilk City laid the blame on downpours. On August 20, the hole kept spreading to more than 20m wide, 30m long and 7m deep, causing serious traffic jams on Hanoi's key role. The hole is very close to the USilk City apartment building, invested by the Song Da Thang Long JS Company. The hole can continue expanding. According to Nam Cuong Group, the investor of Le Van Luong Road, said that the road was broken because of the construction of the foundation of the USilk City building, which is located close to the road. |
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The Extinction Protocol
2012-08-21 00:00:00
The long days of northern summer are coming to an end, and auroras are appearing in the darkening Arctic skies. "Yesterday I saw my first stars since last spring, and tonight the first auroras!" reports Fredrik Broms, who sends this picture from Kvaløya, Norway: "It felt almost unreal to see them dancing across the light blue sky where only Jupiter, Venus and the brightest of the stars were visible," adds Broms. "I saw both green and red rays dancing over my head while standing barefoot in the grass - a somewhat unusual combination here in Tromsø! The return of the auroras was most welcome after a summer without any stars (save one)." More arctic auroras are in the offing tonight as a high-speed solar wind stream buffets Earth's magnetic field. NOAA forecasters estimate a 25% to 30% chance of polar geomagnetic storms. |
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The China Post
2012-08-20 08:08:00
Taipei -- Tropical Storm Tembin (天枰) has been upgraded to a typhoon and is likely to turn northwest toward Taiwan today, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. If the typhoon turns as forecast, its eye may make landfall on Taiwan's east coast Thursday, according to the weather bureau. As of 8 a.m., the eye of Tembin was located 620 kilometers southeast of Eluanbi, off the southernmost tip of Taiwan, moving at a speed of 8 km per hour in a northerly direction. Tembin, the 14th storm of the Pacific typhoon season, is packing winds of 119 kph, with gusts of up to 155 kph, and has a radius of 150 km, the bureau said. The typhoon is likely to move toward Taiwan on a northwesterly track Tuesday and take a more westerly turn Wednesday, the bureau said. A sea warning for Tembin is likely to be issued Tuesday morning and areas around Taiwan should be prepared for strong winds and heavy rain Wednesday to Friday, the bureau warned. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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chillymanjaro
Small asteroid 2012 DA14 will make an extremely close approach on
February 15, 2013. It will pass by Earth at distance of about 27,000 km
(17,000 miles/no closer than 0.000181 AU)
from the center of the Earth; within about 3.5 Earth radii of the
Earth's surface. This near-Earth asteroid was discovered on February 22,
2012 by LaSagra Observatory in the mountains of Andalusia in southern
Spain. Asteroid 2012 DA14 is thought to be about 45 meters in diameter
and his estimated mass about 130,000 metric tons.TheWatchers.com 2012-08-22 14:02:00 (Planetary Radio features Jaime Nomen discussing La Sagra's discovery of 2012 DA14. Listen here!)
Its orbit is almost circular but still enough elliptical to pass near Earth two times per year. The preliminary orbit shows that 2012 DA14 has a very Earth-Like orbit with a period of 366 days. On February 16, 2012 it was about 2.5 million km (1.5 million miles) away (about 6 times the distance to the Moon). |
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| Health & Wellness |
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ScienceDaily
People with Parkinson's disease performed markedly better on a test of
working memory after a night's sleep, and sleep disorders can interfere
with that benefit, researchers have shown.2012-08-22 17:13:00 While the classic symptoms of Parkinson's disease include tremors and slow movements, Parkinson's can also affect someone's memory, including "working memory." Working memory is defined as the ability to temporarily store and manipulate information, rather than simply repeat it. The use of working memory is important in planning, problem solving and independent living. The findings underline the importance of addressing sleep disorders in the care of patients with Parkinson's, and indicate that working memory capacity in patients with Parkinson's potentially can be improved with training. The results also have implications for the biology of sleep and memory. The results were published this week in the journal Brain. "It was known already that sleep is beneficial for memory, but here, we've been able to analyze what aspects of sleep are required for the improvements in working memory performance," says postdoctoral fellow Michael Scullin, who is the first author of the paper. The senior author is Donald Bliwise, professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine. |
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ScienceDaily
Spouses of people who suffer a sudden heart attack (an acute myocardial
infarction) have an increased risk of depression, anxiety, or suicide
after the event, even if their partner survives, according to new
research published online in the European Heart Journal. They suffer more than spouses of people who die from, or survive, other conditions.2012-08-22 17:06:00 The study, which is the first to investigate this and to compare it with people whose spouse died or survived from something other than a heart attack, also found that men were more susceptible to depression and suicide after their wife's survival or death from an acute myocardial infarction (AMI), than women. Using Danish registries, including the National Civil Status Registry that shows whether people are married or not, researchers in the USA and Denmark compared 16,506 spouses of people who died from an AMI between 1997 and 2008 with 49,518 spouses of people who died from causes unrelated to AMI. They also matched 44,566 spouses of patients who suffered a non-fatal AMI with 131,563 spouses of people admitted to hospital for a non-fatal condition unrelated to AMI. They looked at the use of antidepressants and benzodiazepines (used for treating anxiety) before and up to a year after the event, records of contact with the health system for depression, and suicide. |
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Associated Press
2012-08-22 16:42:00
Boston - Researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV. The patients' immune systems become damaged, leaving them unable to fend off germs as healthy people do. What triggers this isn't known, but the disease does not seem to be contagious. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health led a study in Thailand and Taiwan of more than 100 people with the disease. Most of them make substances that block a chemical that helps the body clear infections. The study is in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. |
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ScienceDaily
A compound found in green tea could be a weapon in treatments for
tackling cancer, according to newly published research at the University
of Strathclyde.2012-08-22 17:03:00 The extract, known as epigallocatechin gallate, has been known to have preventative anti-cancer properties but fails to reach tumours when delivered by conventional intravenous administration. However, in initial laboratory tests at the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, researchers used an approach which allowed the treatment to be delivered specifically to the tumours after intravenous administration. Nearly two-thirds of the tumours it was delivered to either shrank or disappeared within one month and the treatment displayed no side effects to normal tissues. The tests are thought to be the first time that this type of treatment has made cancerous tumours shrink or vanish. In the tests, on two different types of skin cancer, 40% of both types of tumour vanished, while 30% of one and 20% of another shrank. A further 10% of one of the types were stabilised. |
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ScienceDaily
University of Maryland (UM) researchers and collaborators report in the journal Science Signaling
that skeletal muscle degeneration in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)
is worsened by stiffening of the microtubule cytoskeleton that provides
structure inside muscle cells.2012-08-22 16:53:00 Duchenne muscular dystrophy occurs in about 1 out of every 3,600 male infants and "worsens quickly," according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It is caused by a defective gene for a protein (dystrophin) in the muscles and there is no known cure. The unique interdisciplinary study identifies new potential therapeutic targets for intervening in this devastating disease, says Christopher Ward, PhD, associate professor at the UM School of Nursing and senior author of the study. "We show that an enhancement in the microtubule network structure, a stiffening, underlies dysfunction in Duchenne muscular dystrophy," says Ward. |
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ScienceDaily
Animals that literally have holes in their brains can go on to behave as
normal adults if they've had the benefit of a little cognitive training
in adolescence. That's according to new work in the August 23 Neuron,
a Cell Press publication, featuring an animal model of schizophrenia,
where rats with particular neonatal brain injuries develop
schizophrenia-like symptoms.2012-08-22 16:47:00 "The brain can be loaded with all sorts of problems," said André Fenton of New York University. "What this work shows is that experience can overcome those disabilities." Fenton's team made the discovery completely by accident. His team was interested in what Fenton considers a core problem in schizophrenia: the inability to sift through confusing or conflicting information and focus on what's relevant. "As you walk through the world, you might be focused on a phone conversation, but there are also kids in the park and cars and other distractions," he explained. "These information streams are all competing for our brain to process them. That's a really challenging situation for someone with schizophrenia." |
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ScienceDaily
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have shown that 30 minutes
of daily training provide an equally effective loss of weight and body
mass as 60 minutes. Their results have just been published in the
American Journal of Physiology.2012-08-22 16:41:00 Forty percent of Danish men are moderately overweight. For thirteen weeks, a research team at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences followed 60 heavy -- but healthy -- Danish men in their efforts to get into better shape. Half of the men were set to exercise for an hour a day, wearing a heart-rate monitor and calorie counter, while the second group only had to sweat for 30 minutes. Research results show that 30 minutes of exercise hard enough to produce a sweat is enough to turn the tide on an unhealthy body mass index: "On average, the men who exercised 30 minutes a day lost 3.6 kilo in three months, while those who exercised for a whole hour only lost 2.7 kg. The reduction in body mass was about 4 kg for both groups," reports Mads Rosenkilde, PhD student, Department of Biomedical Sciences. |
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ScienceDaily
Scientists at Georgia State University have found that the ability to
hear is lessened when, as a result of injury, a region of the brain
responsible for processing sounds receives both visual and auditory
inputs.2012-08-22 16:34:00 Yu-Ting Mao, a former graduate student under Sarah L. Pallas, professor of neuroscience, explored how the brain's ability to change, or neuroplasticity, affected the brain's ability to process sounds when both visual and auditory information is sent to the auditory thalamus. The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. The auditory thalamus is the region of the brain responsible for carrying sound information to the auditory cortex, where sound is processed in detail. When a person or animal loses input from one of the senses, such as hearing, the region of the brain that processes that information does not become inactive, but instead gets rewired with input from other sensory systems. In the case of this study, early brain injury resulted in visual inputs into the auditory thalamus, which altered how the auditory cortex processes sounds. |
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ScienceDaily
In the case of aggressive fibromatosis, the good news is that it is a
slow-growing benign tumor. The bad news is that this abdominal tumor
often recurs after surgical removal. This is particularly true among
children. While headway has been made in isolating causes of this
recurrence in adults, it is less clear in children.2012-08-22 16:28:00 The current issue of the journal Pediatric and Developmental Pathology includes a study of the role of the protein -catenin in pediatric aggressive fibromatosis. Researchers analyzed the expression and mutation status of -catenin in this tumor. Although it is rare, with only two to four cases per million people, aggressive fibromatosis shows infiltrative growth. The tumor is benign, but it can harm other structures within the body and cause organ dysfunction, so it is often removed. However, pediatric aggressive fibromatosis has a recurrence rate of 75 percent, higher than that of adults. Through immunohistochemistry, the current study analyzed biopsy samples from 32 patients, 21 of whom were experiencing recurrent cases of the tumor. All patients were between the ages of 3 and 15. The study found that abnormal expression of -catenin appears to be frequent in pediatric aggressive fibromatosis. |
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Nick Collins
The Telegraph 2012-08-22 15:24:00
Farmers may have played their part in the obesity epidemic by fattening their livestock with antibiotics, a study suggests. By altering the fine balance of gut bacteria which influence our metabolism, even small amounts of the drugs entering the food chain could have caused obesity rates to rise, researchers claim. Although the use of antibiotics on farms is now banned in the EU due to the risk of germs becoming drug-resistant, it was commonplace in the 1950s and is still permitted in the US. Prof Martin Blaser of New York University, who led the study, said: "The rise of obesity around the world is coincident with widespread antibiotic use, and our studies provide an experimental linkage. "It is possible that early exposure to antibiotics primes children for obesity later in life." |
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Dr. Mercola
In the wake of shocking reports on how the FDA, terrified of being outed
for its questionable practices, spied on its own employees in the hopes
of rooting them out before they could become whistleblowers, a new
story has emerged on how deep the deceit goes. From marginalizing safety
reports to not reading them at all―and then going ahead and approving
the drugs in question―the FDA once more stands accused of being little
more than a rubber-stamping agency for Big Pharma.Mercola.com 2012-08-13 13:51:00 Explosive revelations of an intensive spy operation by the FDA on its own scientists emerged last month. Using sophisticated spy software, the agency tracked and logged every move made by the targeted individuals. The program even intercepted personal emails and copied documents on their personal thumb drives. The targeted scientists had expressed concern over the agency's approval of dangerous medical imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies, which they believe expose patients to dangerous levels of radiation. Now, another whistleblower has stepped forward, and what he has to say about the agency's drug safety reviews is shocking even to the jaded... Former FDA Reviewer Speaks Out About Systemic Suppression of Safety Ronald Kavanagh was a drug reviewer for the FDA in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research from 1998 to 2008. In a recent interview he reveals how the FDA bypassed or ignored safety issues on major drugs approved during his employment. In an interview for the online news magazine Truth-Out, he tells Martha Rosenberg1: "In the Center for Drugs [Center for Drug Evaluation and Research or CDER], as in the Center for Devices, the honest employee fears the dishonest employee.According to Kavanagh, people would be shocked if they knew just how malleable safety data is. As examples, he points out that human studies are typically too short and contain too few subjects to get a clear picture of potential risks. In such a scenario, even a single case of a serious adverse event must be taken very seriously, and data from other longer term safety studies also need to be carefully analyzed. Kavanagh claims he has seen drug reviews where the medical safety reviewer completely failed to make such evaluations prior to the drug's approval. |
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Jonathan Ball
BBC 2012-08-21 22:13:00
A pair of widely used chemicals in the form of tiny "nanoparticles" have been shown to spread throughout a crop plant or affect growth and soil fertility. The use of nanoparticles is increasing, yet their environmental impact is poorly understood. A report published in PNAS shows that nanoparticles present in exhaust gases and some fertilisers adversely affect soybean growth and surrounding soil. The nanoparticles harmed bacteria that the plant relies on for growth. A nanoparticle is defined as a particle that has at least one diameter that is less than 100 nanometres (nm). A nanometre is a length measurement that exists at the microscopic end of the size spectrum - you can fit one million nanometres into one millimetre. |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Connie K. Ho
RedOrbit 2012-08-22 16:53:00
Loss of muscle functioning in the body. Difficulty transferring message from the brain to muscles. These are just a few traits of paralysis that scientists examined in terms of its relationship to speech. A recent study by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology, researchers revealed a code in the brain that helps pronounce vowels. According to the researchers, human speech sounds are based on coordinated movement of structures near the vocal tract. The researchers were able to break down the code in brain cells that helps individuals in speech and pronunciation. They believe that this discovery could help scientists restore speech for those who suffer paralysis due to injury or disease. "We know that brain cells fire in a predictable way before we move our bodies," noted Dr. Itzhak Fried, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, in a prepared statement. "We hypothesized that neurons would also react differently when we pronounce specific sounds. If so, we may one day be able to decode these unique patterns of activity in the brain and translate them into speech." In the project, the investigators followed 11 UCLA epilepsy patients that had electrodes implanted in their brains to record the origin of their seizures. The researchers were able to track the neuron activity when the patients spoke one of five vowels or any syllables that contained vowels. With the help of Technion, the UCLA team examined the process the neurons underwent to encode vowel articulation at the single-cell and collective level. |
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Wynne Parry
LiveScience 2012-08-22 16:02:00
According to some theories on how self-awareness arises in the brain, Patient R, a man who suffered a severe brain injury about 30 years ago, should not possess this aspect of consciousness. In 1980, a bout of encephalitis caused by the common herpes simplex virus damaged his brain, leaving Patient R, now 57, with amnesia and unable to live on his own. Even so, Patient R functions quite normally, said Justin Feinstein, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Iowa who has worked with him. "To a layperson, to meet him for the first time, you would have no idea anything is wrong with him," Feinstein said. Feinstein and colleagues set out to test Patient R's level of self-awareness using a battery of tools that included a mirror, photos, tickling, a lemon, an onion, a personality assessment and an interview that asked profound questions like "What do you think happens after you die?" Their conclusion - that Patient R's self-awareness is largely intact in spite of his brain injury - indicates certain regions of the brain thought crucial for self-awareness are not. Brain anatomy Self-awareness is a complex concept, and neuroscientists are debating from where it arises in the brain. Some have argued that certain regions in the brain play critical roles in generating self-awareness. The regions neuroscientists have advocated include the insular cortex, thought to play a fundamental role in all aspects of self-awareness; the anterior cingulate cortex, implicated in body and emotional awareness, as well as the ability to recognize one's own face and process one's conscious experience; and the medial prefrontal cortex, linked with processing information about oneself. Patient R's illness destroyed nearly all of these regions of his brain. Using brain-imaging techniques, Feinstein and colleagues determined that the small patches of tissue remaining appeared defective and disconnected from the rest of the brain. |
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| High Strangeness |
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BBC News
2012-08-21 14:42:00
A husband and wife have been left puzzled after hundreds of tiny yellow plastic balls rained in their garden. Dylis Scott and her husband Tony were in their garage on Monica Road, Leicester, on Sunday when the balls fell from the sky during a storm. Mrs Scott said they started hitting the car and garage door and "shooting at me". The Met Office said it was possible for weather systems to lift things such as dust and deposit them many miles away. In January it was reported that 3cm diameter blue balls came raining down during a hailstorm in Bournemouth, Dorset. Theories on what the balls could have been included crystals used in floral displays or ammunition for a toy gun. 'Heck, what's happening?' On Sunday Mrs Scott said she had gone inside after she heard thunder while she was painting outside. "Suddenly all these little tiny, bright yellow balls came down with the rain, and they were hitting the car, hitting the garage door, and shooting at me," the 70-year-old said. "I looked outside and all over the lawn were all these yellow balls. And it was absolutely pelting down. "I thought 'Heck, what's happening?' I'm only doing painting and they are sending all these yellow balls down." Mrs Scott also saw some of the balls deposited down the road. Most of the balls have now disappeared and Mr Scott thinks they were washed away by the rain. |
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Erik Rosales
KMPH 2012-08-21 09:18:00 Something strange was spotted in the sky over Dos Palos, and it was captured on camera. The unidentified flying object was spotted by several flying in the valley about a month ago, around July 2012. Cruz Nava says, "I saw it in the sky and we were trying to figure out what it was. All I know is that it looked strange." Although Dos Palos residents don't have a clue what it was, and neither do scientists at the National Weather Service out of Hanford. They said they haven't seen a weather balloon that looks like that ever. |
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xxxdonutzxxx
YouTube 2012-08-15 08:57:00 Comment: There is hardly any description for this video. You can see three lights arranged in a triangular pattern. The lights seem to rotate a bit and at the end of the video, they fade away.
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UFO Casebook
2012-08-18 08:48:00
LaPorte, Indiana - 09-09-11 I was on my back porch sitting after working all day on it seeing what I needed for tomorrow. Suddenly, this light caught the corner of my eye. At first I thought it was a shooting star until I saw it stop and hover for about a minute, then shoot in the other direction. Then it stopped again, then I saw another one and they were chasing each other. I ran to get my mom and wife which I live with and grabbed my camera, but the battery was dead. So I put it on the charger 45 minutes, and later it was still there so I got one good picture taken. Camera - Casio EX-Z35 |
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Tony Lucas
Centre for Fortean Zoology - New Zealnad 2012-08-19 08:35:00
There have been many encounters with unknown creatures off the coast of New Zealand, with the East coast being particularly favoured. There is a very good reason for this, running parallel to New Zealand's coastline is the Hikurangi Trench. A deep gouge on the ocean floor, that descends in places to depths of 3,750 metres (12,300 ft).[ (Lewis, Collott, & Lallemand, 1998, pp. 441-468.) New Zealands unique oceanography These deep troughs bring a wealth of nutrient rich organisms to the surface allowing for a mass of biodiversity to flourish in the nutrient rich upper waters. Krill are profuse here along with smaller fish species which create a nutrient rich environment for larger predatory animals such as Giant Squid, which in turn are preyed upon by Sperm Whales. So there is no deficit of vast food supplies for large predatory animals cruising the depths of New Zealand's coastline. Where the Hikurangi Trench joins up with the Tonga Trench, the area is heavily spotted with areas of geothermal activity which provide warm waters as well as a warm current which flows from the equatorial region. This area of the Tonga Trench has a rich diversity of marine life previously undiscovered until recent expeditions. This is a very harsh environment where reshaping of the seafloor is happening continually, to quote from the results of a joint project between the Universities of Durham and Oxford, and funded by the National Research Centre. |
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Scott Corrales
Inexplicata 2012-08-21 07:53:00
The concept of other creatures sharing our planet - creatures that do not fit into the accepted taxonomy - can be challenging under the best of circumstances. While it is true that great portions of the Earth remained unexplored, or poorly explored, these mysterious entities are not in the middle of the Guyana Highlands but manifesting themselves in our reality: in the farmland of Argentina and Chile, in rural North America, and even in the Pyrenean region between France and Spain. Sightings and encounters are so fleeting that they are best discounted as optical illusions or the product of active imaginations. Perhaps the ancients had a better grasp of the situation. In polytheistic societies filled with deities and tutelary spirits, it was perhaps easier to find a place in the order of things for beings that deviated from the norm - hence the satyrs, dryads and nymphs and tritons of Greece and Rome. Yet even this freer order could be confronted by prodigies ("monstra", from which the word "monster" originates) that challenged the wise. Some two thousand years ago, the Roman historian Pausanias had the opportunity to witness an unusual sight: the carcass of what was described as "a Triton" --one of the sea-god Neptune's helpers--allegedly slain after having come ashore to kill the cattle of the inhabitants of the Greek city of Tanagra. Pausanias reported the creature had "hard, dense scales and stank." Was the learned Pausanias describing a crocodile carcass, perhaps, or something that would even defy explanation today? |
