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Niall Bradley
Sott.net 2012-09-16 04:29:00
On Thursday morning, 13th September 2012, early risers from all over the southwestern United States - California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico - were stunned by the appearance of a vivid luminescent trail high up in the atmosphere. Photos taken by residents reminded me of the glowing trail seen across the Caucasus on the 7th June 2012 (which I have written about here). My suspicion that we were looking at the arrival and overhead explosion of yet another meteor or cometary fragment (MoCF) solidified when I read some of the ridiculous claims of the US Army that they had test-fired a rocket/missile at 5.30am local time on the 13th of September. Folks contacted law enforcement in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado to report "a crash". A sheriff's deputy in northern New Mexico said he witnessed "an explosion" and part of the object breaking apart from the main body. No one reported a trail moving from the ground upwards, just a very fast-moving dot in the sky that produced a very bright trail mid-atmosphere, indicating that nothing was launched from the ground. Damage control quickly went into operation, with Associated Press reporting that: |
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No new articles. |
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Marion Douet
Planetark.org 2012-09-17 17:05:00
France is to maintain a temporary ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Saturday, dealing a blow to farmers and seed companies who say the move is unjustified and economically harmful. The ban, which targets Monsanto's MON810 maize, the only genetically modified organism (GMO) currently allowed in Europe, was introduced in March after a previous moratorium was annulled by France's top court last November. "The government is keeping its moratorium on the cultivation of GMO seeds currently authorized in the European Union," Ayrault told an environmental conference in Paris. |
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Catherine Herridge, James Rosen and Pamela Browne
FOX News 2012-09-17 00:00:00
An intelligence source on the ground in Libya told Fox News that there was no demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi prior to last week's attack -- challenging the Obama administration's claims that the assault grew out of a "spontaneous" protest against an anti-Islam film. "There was no protest and the attacks were not spontaneous," the source said, adding the attack "was planning and had nothing to do with the movie." The source said the assault came with no warning at about 9:35 p.m. local time, and included fire from more than two locations. The assault included RPG's and mortar fire, the source said, and consisted of two waves. The account backs up claims by a purported Libyan security guard who told McClatchy Newspapers late last week that the area was quiet before the attack. "There wasn't a single ant outside," the unnamed guard, who was being treated in a hospital, said in the interview. |
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News Hounds
Opposing Views 2012-09-16 16:16:00
While Fox News still can't seem to say enough bad things about President Obama, they haven't exactly been uncritical of Mitt Romney lately. In fact, the criticism of Romney has been downright jaw-dropping considering where it's come from. On today's Fox News Sunday, the panel was unanimously critical of Romney, including host Chris Wallace, an obvious Romney supporter - or at least he plays one on TV. Yet, as the panel criticized Romney for not being clear enough on what actual policy alternatives he'd enact and not discussing Afghanistan during the convention, Wallace noted that Romney is "losing ground," "not campaigning with a bold agenda" and asked - with obvious disapproval - why Romney had "absolutely no plans" to give a major foreign policy speech before the debates. |
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Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian 2012-09-16 15:29:00
Nothing tests one's intellectual honesty and ability to apply principles consistently more than free speech controversies. It is exceedingly easy to invoke free speech values in defense of political views you like. It is exceedingly difficult to invoke them in defense of views you loathe. But the true test for determining the authenticity of one's belief in free speech is whether one does the latter, not the former. The anti-US protests sweeping the Muslim world have presented a perfect challenge to test the free speech convictions of both the American right and the Democratic party version of the left. Neither is faring particularly well. |
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Jason Mick
Daily Tech 2012-09-17 15:08:00
Cuts will affect startups, universities, and various government labs Whether you're developing a cure for cancer, or dreaming up solutions to put a human on Mars, there's a chance that you could be out of a job next year. |
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Michael Harper
RedOrbit 2012-09-17 14:23:00
Earlier this year, the Iranian nuclear program was attacked by a powerful and targeted form of cyber weaponry known as the Stuxnet Trojan. Then in May, a cyber-surveillance tool called Flame was uncovered and was later called "the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed" by researchers at Kaspersky Labs. It was later discovered that US military and intelligence agencies - including the CIA and NSA - had worked together with the Israeli military to craft this malicious software in an attempt to impede Iran's nuclear plans. Today, Reuters reports that researchers have discovered three more computer viruses in the wild which were developed by the US military possibly for purposes of espionage and cyber warfare. These new findings are another indication that the US government plans to continue its pursuit of cyber warfare as an extension of national security, particularly where matters in the Middle East are concerned. Researchers from both Symantec Corp and Kaspersky Labs have say that they've found evidence indicating that those behind the Flame project have also collaborated on at least three other pieces of malware which, though identified, have not yet been classified. These researchers found this information as the result of intensive forensic investigation of the control servers used in Flame. These servers were hidden to appear as publishing platforms for a service called "Newsforyou." Later, the servers were programmed to erase any digital footprint that it may have left behind, making tracing this tool extremely difficult. According to the Kaspersky Labs blog post, the creators of this malware designed the UI to look as bland and boring as possible, so as to make it appear "generic and unpretentious." |
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RT.com
2012-09-17 13:07:00
The White House has asked the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals to place an emergency stay on a ruling made last week by a federal judge so that the president's power to indefinitely detain Americans without charge is reaffirmed immediately. On Wednesday, September 12, US District Court Judge Katherine Forrest made permanent a temporary injunction she issued in May that bars the federal government from abiding by the indefinite detention provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, or NDAA. Judge Forrest ruled that a clause that gives the government the power to arrest US citizens suspected of maintaining alliances with terrorists and hold them without due process violated the Constitution and that the White House would be stripped of that ability immediately. Only hours after Judge Forrest issued last week's ruling, the Obama administration threatened to appeal the decision, and on Monday morning they followed through. |
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Matt Williams
The Guardian 2012-09-17 02:28:00
Police in New York have made "multiple" arrests during marches and protests ushering in the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Around 300 people were estimated to have taken part in a rally Saturday, which saw activists head towards Zuccotti Park - the lower Manhattan site which served as base camp for months of demonstration. It was part of three days of action celebrating the anti-capitalist movement, which burst into life a year ago but has long since seen its momentum wane. The main anniversary event will take place on Monday, when activists are expected to attempt to surround the New York Stock Exchange and disrupt morning rush hour traffic in Manhattan's financial district. |
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Ian Black
The Guardian 2012-09-17 02:17:00
Iran has confirmed for the first time that forces from its revolutionary guards corps (IRGC) are in Syria helping Bashar al-Assad's government crush rebels, and warned that it would get involved militarily if its Arab ally came under attack. In a clear public signal of Tehran's continuing support for Assad, the commander of the Islamic republic's elite military formation said that a number of members of the IRGC's Qods force were in Syria, though General Mohammad Ali Jafari gave no further details and claimed this did not constitute "a military presence". It was a surprisingly candid response to persistent claims by western countries, the Syrian opposition and Israel that Iran is actively helping the regime in the 18th month of a bloody war. Lakhdar Brahimi, the veteran Algerian diplomat who replaced Kofi Annan as UN envoy to Syria earlier this month, met Assad in Damascus on Saturday but warned afterwards that any progress would be slow and halting given the yawning gap between government and opposition. "The crisis is dangerous and getting worse, and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world," said Brahimi. | |
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Comment: [...] "the autocratic regime of Bashar al-Assad"... so says a man convicted of raping, torturing and pillaging his own people.
Speaking of funnelling arms and ammunition to Syrian fighters... It's official: British and US intelligence is directing al-Qaeda operations in Syria |
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Matt Williams
The Guardian 2012-09-16 02:10:00
Defence secretary Leon Panetta said Sunday that the US was still on standby to deploy elite forces to protect American interests in cities caught up in a wave of Muslim protest, but that the level of violence appears to be levelling off. The Pentagon had already sent troops to "a number of areas in the region to be prepared to respond to any requests that we receive to be able to protect our personnel and our American property", he said. But Panetta declined to provide more details on reports that the military may be moving additional forces so they can respond to unrest in any of a number of cities of concern to the US. "I think our approach right now is to not do anything until we've been requested to do it by the state department," Panetta told reporters travelling with him to Asia. But he noted that "I think that we have to continue to be very vigilant because I suspect that ... these demonstrations are likely to continue over the next few days, if not longer." |
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Ed Hightower
World Socialist Web Site 2012-09-15 23:04:00
On Monday prosecutors in Liberty County, Georgia indicted five men for illegal gang activity including burglaries, thefts and car break-ins, alleging they were all part of a militia group calling itself FEAR, or, Forever Enduring, Always Ready. In August, prosecutors indicted three other men, including purported FEAR leader Isaac Aguigui, for the murder of a former member and his girlfriend last December, allegedly out of concern that the couple would reveal the group's existence and its plans. One of the accused in the murders, Army private Michael Burnett, 26, pleaded guilty to two charges of manslaughter in order to avoid the death penalty. Burnett testified at a court hearing in August that Aguigui, a private at Fort Stewart, Sergeant Anthony Peden and Private Christopher Salmon led former soldier Michael Roark, 19, and his girlfriend, 17-year-old Tiffany York, into a secluded woodland area near the Fort and shot them execution style. Roark had recently left the Army. Aguigui and his cohorts were concerned that he and York would expose their terrorist plots and FEAR's existence at Fort Stewart, Burnett said. He said that Aguigui introduced him to "the manuscript ... a book about true patriots," and said that FEAR wanted to "give the government back to the people." According to prosecutor Isabel Pauley, Aguigui sought to recruit soldiers who were disillusioned or in trouble, showing them an article about a video game where soldiers take over the government and gauging their reaction before encouraging them to join. Aguigui called this process "the awakening." |
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Vanessa Gera and Randy Herschaft
Associated Press 2012-09-16 00:27:00
Warsaw, Poland - The American POWs sent secret coded messages to Washington with news of a Soviet atrocity: In 1943 they saw rows of corpses in an advanced state of decay in the Katyn forest, on the western edge of Russia, proof that the killers could not have been the Nazis who had only recently occupied the area. The testimony about the infamous massacre of Polish officers might have lessened the tragic fate that befell Poland under the Soviets, some scholars believe. Instead, it mysteriously vanished into the heart of American power. The long-held suspicion is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't want to anger Josef Stalin, an ally whom the Americans were counting on to defeat Germany and Japan during World War II. Documents released Monday and seen in advance by The Associated Press lend weight to the belief that suppression within the highest levels of the U.S. government helped cover up Soviet guilt in the killing of some 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners in the Katyn forest and other locations in 1940. The evidence is among about 1,000 pages of newly declassified documents that the United States National Archives released and is putting online. Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who helped lead a recent push for the release of the documents, called the effort's success Monday a "momentous occasion" in an attempt to "make history whole." Historians who saw the material days before the official release describe it as important and shared some highlights with the AP. The most dramatic revelation so far is the evidence of the secret codes sent by the two American POWs - something historians were unaware of and which adds to evidence that the Roosevelt administration knew of the Soviet atrocity relatively early on. The declassified documents also show the United States maintaining that it couldn't conclusively determine guilt until a Russian admission in 1990 - a statement that looks improbable given the huge body of evidence of Soviet guilt that had already emerged decades earlier. Historians say the new material helps to flesh out the story of what the U.S. knew and when. |
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Peter Eyre
Was the "Innocence of Muslims" a combined MOSSAD/CIA/MI5/DVD PSYOPS film?
Eyre Intenational 2012-09-15 13:54:00
""The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack. ... Make no mistake: We will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people. ... We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, but there is absolutely no justification for this type of senseless violence, none." ........my question would be what would happen if the offenders are intel operatives?
Cameron said: |
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UK Telegraph
2012-09-16 05:45:00
Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war. Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world's petroleum traded by sea. A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south. | |
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Comment: Strange how this tiny little nation, Israel,
can control the movements of the war machines of the world's major
nations. Has anyone had enough of Israel yet?
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Michael Tarm & Jason Keyser
Huffington Post 2012-09-15 04:11:00
Undercover FBI agents arrested an 18-year-old American man who tried to detonate what he believed was a car bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar, federal prosecutors said Saturday. Adel Daoud, a U.S. citizen from the Chicago suburb of Hillside, was arrested Friday night in an undercover operation in which an agent pretending to be a terrorist provided him with a phony car bomb and watched him press the trigger, prosecutors said. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, which announced the arrest Saturday, said the device was harmless and the public was never at risk. Daoud is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to damage and destroy a building with an explosive. He remains in custody pending a detention and preliminary hearing set for Monday in federal court. |
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Makini Brice
Medical Daily 2012-09-17 11:33:00
Journalists have uncovered large quantities of illegal and potentially contaminated bush meat being sold in one of the busiest food markets in east London. Bush meat is wild terrestrial animals hunted for commercial gains. It is considered the opposite of livestock, which is raised for the express purpose of being slaughtered for food. The Ridley Road Market in Dalston, in east London, is apparently known to be a hotbed of illegal activity. It is reported that butchers there conduct sales of illegal "smokies," a delicacy made by charring goat and sheep with a blowtorch. At least two stores were found to sell "grass cutter" or cane rats, possibly imported from Ghana, where they are a luxury. The practice of "smokies" has been outlawed due to public health and animal welfare concerns. The practice has also been linked to mafia-style gangs in Wales, who steal sheep and goats and slaughter them in unlicensed houses. |
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Michael Allen
Opposing Views 2012-09-17 16:28:00
Cristian Fernandez was 12 years old when he smashed his brother's head against a bookcase, killing the two year old. Now 13, Fernandez is being tried as an adult for murder in Jacksonville, Florida. If convicted, he could spend life behind bars, reports the Daily Mail. |
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John Hollis
Atlanta Blackstar 2012-09-17 14:28:00
The Boy Scouts of America may have been tacitly complicit in the sexual assaults of hundreds of boys by failing to report the predators to police and hiding the allegations from parents and the public. A Los Angeles Times study of 1,600 confidential files dating from 1970 to 1991 found that scouting officials often urged admitted offenders to quietly resign and helped many of them cover their tracks. Volunteers and employees suspected of abuse were allowed to cite bogus reasons for their departures such as business demands, "chronic brain dysfunction" and even duties at a Shakespeare festival. The paper discovered the details in the organization's confidential "perversion files," a blacklist of alleged molesters that the Scouts have used internally since 1919. BSA lawyers around the country have been fighting in court to keep the files from public view. The blacklist often didn't work as men expelled for alleged abuses sometimes slipped back into the program, only to be accused of molesting again, the paper reported. A more extensive review by the newspaper has shown that Scouts sometimes abetted molesters by keeping allegations under wraps. In the majority of cases, the Scouts learned of alleged abuse after it had been reported to authorities. But in more than 500 instances, the Scouts learned about it from victims, parents, staff members or anonymous tips. In about 400 of those cases - 80 percent - there is no record of BSA officials reporting the allegations to police. In more than 100 of the cases, officials actively sought to conceal the alleged abuse or allowed the suspects to hide it, The Times found. BSA officials declined to be interviewed for the Times article. In a prepared statement, spokesman Deron Smith said, "We have always cooperated fully with any request from law enforcement and today require our members to report even suspicion of abuse directly to their local authorities." The files reveal a culture in which even known molesters were shown extraordinary deference. |
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Larisa Brown
DailyMail.Co.Uk 2012-09-17 13:57:00
Controversial airport 'strip-search' scanners are to be scrapped after they failed to get approval from European bosses. Experts feared the 'naked' body scanners, which use X-ray technology to show up hidden explosives or weapons, could emit harmful levels of cancer-causing radiation. New trials of the device, which display a 'naked' image of the person being scanned - were blocked by the European Commission last November.
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PreventDisease.com
2012-09-17 14:00:00
More 6-year old girls, some younger, are beginning to think of themselves as needing to be sexy, pretty, skinny and even as sex objects according to a new study of elementary school children. Nearly half of the 3- to 6-year-old girls in a previous study by University of Central Florida psychology professor Stacey Tantleff-Dunn and doctoral student Sharon Hayes said they worry about being fat. About one-third would change a physical attribute, such as their weight or hair color. The number of girls worried about being fat at such a young age concerns Tantleff-Dunn because of the potential implications later in life. Studies have shown that young girls worried about their body image are more likely to suffer from eating disorders when they are older. The media's portrayal of beauty likely is one of the strongest influences on how they perceive their bodies because children spend so much time watching movies and television, Tantleff-Dunn said. "The genetic and environmental origins of pregnancy-associated cancers are likely to pre-date the pregnancy but the hormones and growth factors necessary for a baby to develop may accelerate the growth of a tumour," Roberts said. Eating disorder experts say prepubescent girls are developing eating disorders as young as 5 and 6 years old. They may be getting their obsession from parents who are preoccupied with their own body images, and media images of skinny pop stars like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, the experts say. Children learn (unhealthy) mainstream attitudes towards food and weight at a very young age. The number of children younger than 12 entering the hospital for eating disorders increased 119 percent between 1999 and 2006. |
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Gidget Fuentes
Military Times 2012-09-16 10:25:00
San Diego - Forget the H1N1 pandemic. Could a future crisis arise from an outbreak of viruses that destroy brain cells and render people violently catatonic, like zombies? The far-fetched scenario of a government grappling a zombielike threat - think movies like Night of the Living Dead or, more comically, Zombieland - has captured the attention and imagination of Brad Barker, president of the security firm HALO Corp. Next month, his outfitwill incorporate - no kidding - zombies into a disaster-crisis scenario at the company's annual Counter-Terrorism Summit in San Diego, a five-day event providing hands-on training, realistic demonstrations, lectures and classes geared to more than 1,000 military personnel, law enforcement officials, medical experts, and state and federal government workers. HALO will take over the 44-acre Paradise Point resort in the city's popular Mission Bay and create a series of terrorist scenarios, with immersive Hollywood sets including a Middle Eastern village and a pirates' haven. Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, aformer CIA and National Security Agency director, and Mexico Interior Secretary Alejandro Poiré Romero will speak during the summit, which runs Oct. 30 to Nov. 2. Barker calls the scenario "Zombie Apocalypse." That phrase took off last year after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unveiled a campaign aimed at underscoring the importance of being prepared for major emergencies, natural disasters and pandemics. In the CDC's Preparedness 101 program, fictional zombies are used to drive home the message that Americans must be ready for any emergency - even the kind that, hypothetically, could stem from a brain-eating virus pandemic. Zombies also star in a 40-page comic book the CDC published, a tongue-in-cheek take on the serious scenario of a mutated virus that quickly spreads as the government dispatches its military to maintain order while infectious disease specialists scour for a vaccine. |
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Sou Vuthy
Phnom Penh Post 2012-09-14 13:33:00
Even before dawn, a few hundred people have gathered to sit in line, reminiscent of the queues of waiting patients which snakes outside the grounds of the Kantha Bopha Hospital during pandemics. They have travelled from different cities and provinces to get a chance to be healed by Ray Rong, a resident of Prey Veng's Svay Chrum village. Rong is known far and wide as one of the best healers in the area, and the blessing water and herbal medicines he gives to patients are claimed to defeat a hundred different kinds of diseases. Many other traditional healers proffer the same goods, but there's one important difference: Rong is only three years old. Still too young to speak clearly, Ray Rong is the third child of five to Tep Saray and Un Saroeurn, a pair of impoverished farmers. In the last couple of months, the boy has risen to fame on the back of claims that he has healed hundreds of people. Every day, at least two hundred patients, including some from across the border of nearby Vietnam, wait outside his house to get blessed water and medicine. Some of Rong's patients travel hundreds of kilometers and spend several nights sleeping near the toddler's house in the hopes of getting a chance to meet him. The 60-year-old Yay Hom was one of Ray Rong's patients, who brought incense, candles, cake and pure drinking water as an offering to the child healer. "I have to wait for my turn to be called in and see the healer," she says. "I have suffered from diabetes for 10 years. My blood sugar level was never less than 410 mg/dL." (Healthy blood sugar levels range from 70-180 milligrams per deciliter.) "I took medication and saw other doctors, but I never felt better. After the holy child gave me magic water to drink and some fig fruits, my blood sugar level dropped to 110 mg/dL." |
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Nina Golgowski
Police are on the lookout for a 4ft tall suspect with a likely under-developed voice.Dailymail.co.uk 2012-09-17 12:21:00 An unusual wanted ad posted by police in Washington, D.C. on Sunday night described their suspect as being merely 6 or 7 years old. While with a group of boys described as being between the ages of 7 and 14, the child's accused in connection to a robbery at a McDonald's restaurant. |
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Chris Hedges
TruthDig 2012-09-17 12:22:00
In January I sued President Barack Obama over Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorized the military to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely, strip them of due process and hold them in military facilities, including offshore penal colonies. Last week, round one in the battle to strike down the onerous provision, one that saw me joined by six other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, ended in an unqualified victory for the public. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, who accepted every one of our challenges to the law, made her temporary injunction of the section permanent. In short, she declared the law unconstitutional. Almost immediately after Judge Forrest ruled, the Obama administration challenged the decision. Government prosecutors called the opinion "unprecedented" and said that "the government has compelling arguments that it should be reversed." The government added that it was an "extraordinary injunction of worldwide scope." Government lawyers asked late Friday for an immediate stay of Forrest's ban on the use of the military in domestic policing and on the empowering of the government to strip U.S. citizens of due process. The request for a stay was an attempt by the government to get the judge, pending appeal to a higher court, to grant it the right to continue to use the law. Forrest swiftly rejected the stay, setting in motion a fast-paced appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly, if her ruling is upheld there, to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Justice Department sent a letter to Forrest and the 2nd Circuit late Friday night informing them that at 9 a.m. Monday the Obama administration would ask the 2nd Circuit for an emergency stay that would lift Forrest's injunction. This would allow Obama to continue to operate with indefinite detention authority until a formal appeal was heard. The government's decision has triggered a constitutional showdown between the president and the judiciary. "This may be the most significant constitutional standoff since the Pentagon Papers case," said Carl Mayer, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs. |
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The Guardian
2012-09-16 04:03:00
The US state department has ordered non-essential staff from its embassies in Sudan and Tunisia to leave with their families and warned its citizens against travelling to the two countries owing to concerns over rising anti-American violence. "Given the security situation in Tunis and Khartoum, the state department has ordered the departure of all family members and non-emergency personnel from both posts, and issued parallel travel warnings to American citizens," said a spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland. In Tunisia, the warning advised Americans that the international airport in Tunis was open and encouraged all US citizens to depart on commercial flights. It said Americans who chose to remain in Tunisia should use extreme caution and avoid demonstrations. On Friday, protesters climbed the walls into the US embassy in Tunis, torching cars, attacking the entrance building and setting fire to a gym and a neighbouring American school. |
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Dalya Alberge
The Observer 2012-09-15 00:00:00
The former girlfriend of the leading novelist of the beat generation Jack Kerouac has revealed details of their affair and his descent into bizarre behaviour on finding fame, in a new book to be published more than 40 years after his death. Joyce Johnson, an accomplished author, also dispels the myth that Kerouac's writing was effortlessly spontaneous. Where he claimed his novel On the Road was written in a blast of energy during three weeks in 1951 she recalls that he spent years revising his work and carefully crafted each paragraph. Her book is just part of a revival of the cult that surrounded Kerouac which has this year prompted three feature films and a documentary, as well as books and an exhibition at the British Library. |
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Carbonated TV
2012-09-14 07:22:00
She has been bullied, ridiculed and stared at with mysterious looks since her childhood. And above all, she was dubbed 'world's ugliest woman' by insensitive cyber bullies when she was in high school. For Lizzie Velasquez life was never as simple as it was for others. Born with a rare medical condition, Velasquez has no adipose tissue and cannot create muscle, store energy, or gain weight. She has zero percent fat in her body and weights only 60 pounds (22 kg). But despite all her physical complications her spirits and level of motivation has always been sky high. After years of misery and self-doubt, Lizzie Velasquez from Austin, Texas says she can finally shrug off the hurtful comments about her looks as 'just words'. When people in their comments on a 8-second-long YouTube video named as 'The World's Ugliest Woman' encouraged her to kill herself and called her a 'monster', she instead of paying heed to such insensitivity designed four goals for herself: to become a motivational speaker, to publish a book, to graduate college, and to build a family and a career for herself. Lizzie is 23-years-old now, she has been a motivational speaker for seven years and has given various workshops on multiple topics like dealing with bullies, embracing uniqueness and overcoming obstacles. Her first book called Lizzie Beautiful came in 2010 and her second Be Beautiful, Be You arrived earlier this month. Above all, she is a senior majoring in Communications at Texas State University. |
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Wheels
2012-09-10 14:15:00
Triscadecaphobia (or triskaidekaphobia) is the fear of the number 13 as a harbinger of bad luck. And it's why new car sales will likely slump in the 2013 model-year. Believers will want nothing to do with an "unlucky" 2013 car, and even non-believers might shun these autos fearing lower future resale values. Rationally, we can dismiss such beliefs as nonsense, but the fact is that our society often accommodates this common superstition. For example, high-rises rarely, if ever, have a 13th floor - usually skipping from 12 to 14 in the numbering. Many developers also by-pass "13" when numbering homes in new communities. In Ireland, known for its lucky charms (and inspiring a kids' cereal here by the same name), an auto industry group estimates 2013 car sales will plummet by one-third. To help counteract this, officials are being asked to change the car registration system to alter the year prefix to become "131" and "132" instead of the dreaded "13" alone. So what's the solution for North America? As a knee-jerk reaction, automakers might just jump ahead and call them "early" 2014 models. But then, that would bring us into the realm of tetraphobia where the number "4" is avoided because it's pronounced much like the word for "death" in Cantonese and other Asian languages. The number "14," as in the year 2014, is considered even more unlucky ("sure death") than "4" by itself. |
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BBC
2012-09-15 11:48:00
The Czech government has banned the sale of all spirits containing more than 20% alcohol following a spate of poisoning that has left 19 people dead. The ban covers all outlets including restaurants and hotels. The poisonings have been blamed on bootleg vodka and rum tainted with the industrial chemical methanol and sold cheaply at markets and outdoor kiosks. Czech police have arrested 10 people and seized 5,000 litres of spirits, as well as counterfeit labels. Health Minister Leos Heger said the unprecedented ban was effective immediately and applied nationwide. "Operators of food and beverage businesses... are banned from offering for sale (and) selling... liquor containing alcohol of 20% and more," he announced on national television. The deaths - which began to emerge earlier this month - have been described as the Czech Republic's worst case of fatal alcohol poisoning in 30 years. |
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RT
2012-09-14 00:00:00
A just released analysis of recent census statistics reveal that more than one-in-five children in the United States lives in poverty. Demographers have mulled through US Census Bureau figures from 2011 to discover that economic conditions in the US may be even worse than what experts had previously suggested. In addition to the continuously stagnant unemployment level, poverty among Americans remains at record levels. "The take-away is that the number of people living in poverty continues to be appallingly high," Julie Zaebst, policy manager with the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, tells the Philly Inquirer. "This despite the economy being in recovery." And as the poor continue to suffer, America's elite are in better standing than ever. While incomes for the country's bottom 40 percent of wage-earners remained relatively stable last year when compared with statistics from one year earlier, the top one percent of Americans saw their wages increase by around 6 percent, further widening the gap between the haves and have-nots. According to the latest figures, the youth of the US are hit hardest. While adults make up a significant proportion of the population living below the poverty line, 21.9 percent of all children in the country - more than one in five - are poor. By comparison, only 8.7 percent of adults over the age of 65 live in similar standing. |
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| Secret History |
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Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience 2012-09-17 13:13:00
A giant poolside mosaic featuring intricate geometric patterns has been unearthed in southern Turkey, revealing the far-reaching influence of the Roman Empire at its peak. The mosaic, which once decorated the floor of a bath complex, abuts a 25-foot (7-meter)-long pool, which would have been open to the air, said Michael Hoff, a University of Nebraska, Lincoln art historian and director of the mosaic excavation. The find likely dates to the third or fourth century, Hoff said. The mosaic itself is an astonishing 1,600 square feet (149 square meters) - the size of a modest family home. "To be honest, I was completely bowled over that the mosaic is that big," Hoff told LiveScience. [See Photos of the Roman Mosaic] The first hint that something stunning lay underground in southern Turkey came in 2002, when Purdue University classics professor Nick Rauh walked through a freshly-plowed farmer's field near the ancient city of Antiochia ad Cragum. The plow had churned up bits of mosaic tile, Hoff said. Rauh consulted other archaeologists, including experts at the local museum in Alanya, Turkey. The museum did not have funds to excavate more than a sliver of the mosaic, so archaeologists left the site alone. Last year, with a new archaeological permit for the site in hand, museum archaeologists invited Hoff and his team to complete the dig. |
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Ice Age Art - Trove of early ceramics shows the mindset of ancient humans: More metaphor, less blood
Allana Mitchell
We know them best for their stone tools and intrepid mammoth hunting.
But new discoveries in Croatia suggest that ice age humans made
evocative ceramic art far more regularly than once believed. Thirty-six
fragments of fired clay, excavated in the Vela Spila cave on an island
off the Adriatic coast, make up the second-largest collection found so
far of the earliest human experiments with ceramic art. They are 15,000
to 17,500 years old -- the first European evidence of ceramic art after
the ice sheets stopped spreadingStar Tribune 2012-09-15 20:13:00
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Benjamin Radford
LiveScience 2012-09-14 16:49:00
Atlantis is a legendary "lost" island subcontinent often idealized as an advanced, utopian society holding wisdom that could bring world peace. The idea of Atlantis has captivated dreamers, occultists, and New Agers for generations. In the 1800s, mystic Madame Blavatsky claimed that she learned about Atlantis from Tibetan gurus; a century later, psychic Edgar Cayce claimed that Atlantis (which he described as an ancient, highly evolved civilization powered by crystals) would be discovered by 1969. In the 1980s, New Age mystic J.Z. Knight claimed that she learned about Atlantis from Ramtha, a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit who speaks through her. Thousands of books, magazines and websites are devoted to Atlantis, and it remains a popular topic. |
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Benjamin Radford
Discovery News 2012-09-15 07:19:00
A British television series called Wild Pacific is resurrecting the claim that the huge statues on Easter Island were created (or influenced) by extraterrestrials. According to one news story, the show asks,"Did extraterrestrials visit Earth, as... the TV series Wild Pacific speculates? Who built the giant stone Moai of Easter Island that's been called 'a solemn reminder of a fallen alien civilization?' These and other questions... can never be fully answered, states Wild Pacific narrator Mike Rowe." The idea that extraterrestrials visited ancient civilizations has been around for decades, a theory most prominently promoted by Erich von Daniken, author of the best-selling classic work of pseudoscience Chariots of the Gods?: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past. Von Daniken believes, for example, that ancient Egyptians had neither the intelligence nor the tools to create the pyramids at Giza -- thus they must have been made by aliens. Similar claims have been made about the Mayan pyramids in Central America and the giant drawings in the Nazca desert of Peru; archaeologists and other scientists have long since discredited Von Daniken's theories. The Wild Pacific program makes statements such as that "the great stone origins on Easter Island [have] vexed experts for decades: Who built these giant stone statues and how did they get there on this remote Pacific Island?" |
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Matthew Rosenbaum
ABC News 2012-09-14 07:28:00
The mystery of King Tut's death might finally be solved, according to one scientist who argues that the secret to the young Pharaohs demise is hidden in plain sight. Dr. Hutan Ashrafian, a lecturer and surgeon at the Imperial College London, says the key to the mystery lies in the art of the time, which depicted King Tut with highly feminine features, including enlarged breasts. The enlarged breasts, he argues, are indicative of a condition known as gynecomastia, which, when added to a host of historical and familial evidence, indicates that Tutankhamun might have suffered and eventually died from temporal lobe epilepsy. Ashrafian says the first clue is in the relatively early deaths of other rulers who were directly related to Tutankhamun. "For all of them to die sequentially at younger ages is a sign of a genetic inheritance of some sort," Ashrafian said, adding "you could argue one of them died in battle, one of them was poisoned but none of them did die in battle. They could have been poisoned, of course, but it's very odd for sequential pharaohs who were aware that they could have been killed to be killed at such a young age." |
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| Science & Technology |
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Stephen Smith
Thunderbolts.info 2012-09-13 17:03:00
Million-degree plasma in the Orion Nebula comes not from the kinetic excitation of cold gas, but from the electric currents of space. For many years astrophysical theories of stellar and galactic development have been relegated to the processes of mechanical action. Everything we see and all the forces that shape the evolution of the incredible structures we have discovered have been attributed to the collapse of cold gas through gravitational influence. Conventional viewpoints attribute galaxies, stars, planets, comets and stardust itself to the whirling vortices of compressed matter. Compression heats gas as it is drawn together by gravity, as the theory suggests. Clouds of hydrogen a thousands times less dense than a puff of smoke are somehow able to elicit an inflow toward a common center, creating a region of increased density that coaxes even more material to collect there and so on. Eventually, the atoms within the gas cloud can no longer resist the inward attraction - it falls into the well of nuclear fusion, converting the hydrogen into helium and releasing a self-sustaining storm of radiation. A star is born. |
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Makini Brice
Medical Daily 2012-09-17 10:05:00
It is said that eyes are the window into a person's soul. But can they also be a window into a person's personality? One study, published in Current Psychology, thinks that they can. Researchers from the University of Queensland and the University of New South Wales found that eye color could be an indicator of how agreeable a person is. The researchers found that Northern Europeans with lighter-colored eyes tended to be less agreeable and more competitive than their peers. The study was conducted in Australia. Researchers conducted a study among 336 participants, 63 percent of whom were Northern European in ancestry. Study participants were asked to report their eye color, as well as answer a series of questionnaires that measured aspects of their personalities, like agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. |
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Associated Press
2012-09-17 16:04:00
Russian scientists are claiming that a gigantic deposit of industrial diamonds found in a huge Siberian meteorite crater during Soviet times could revolutionize industry. The Siberian branch of Russian Academy of Sciences said that the Popigai crater in eastern Siberia contains "many trillions of carats" of so-called "impact diamonds" good for technological purposes, not for jewellery, and far exceeding the currently known global deposits of conventional diamonds. Nikolai Pokhilenko, the head of the Geological and Mineralogical Institute in Novosibirsk, told the RIA Novosti news agency on Monday that the diamonds include other molecular forms of carbon. He said they could be twice as hard as conventional diamonds and therefore have superlative industrial qualities. He said the minerals could lead to a "revolution" in various industries. "But they can't upset a diamond market because it is shaped by diamonds for jewelry purposes." |
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Kelly Beatty
After thinning to practically nothing last year, Jupiter's North
Equatorial Belt has erupted with a broad dark band full of bright and
dark spots that can be observed with backyard telescopes.Sky&Telescope 2012-09-17 15:56:00 The King of Planets has been putting on quite a show lately. Last week two observers spotted a bright fireball in Jupiter's midsection, the sixth such impact to be witnessed since the late 1970s. But even before that fleeting flash, the planet had been roiling with a vigorous outbreak of activity in its North Equatorial Belt. The NEB is one of two iconic dark bands that bound the planet's brighter Equatorial Zone, an Oreo-cookie arrangement that's visible even in the smallest of backyard telescopes. You might recall that the South Equatorial Belt disappeared in mid-2010, apparently masked by bright, high-altitude clouds. It returned to view by year's end.
Now the NEB is taking its turn in the spotlight. Last year the dark band started narrowing, its northern edge gradually whittling away. This in itself wasn't unusual - the same thing has occurred every few years for decades, most recently in 2009. According to John Rogers, who heads the Jupiter Section of the British Astronomical Association, these thinnings often precede a rapid expansion. |
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ScienceDaily
2012-09-17 15:03:00
A new image portrays a beautiful view of the galaxy NGC 7090, as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxy is viewed edge-on from Earth, meaning we cannot easily see the spiral arms, which are full of young, hot stars. However, a side-on view shows the galaxy's disc and the bulging central core, where typically a large group of cool old stars are packed in a compact, spheroidal region. In addition, there are two interesting features present in the image that are worth mentioning. First, we are able to distinguish an intricate pattern of pinkish red regions over the whole galaxy. This indicates the presence of clouds of hydrogen gas. These structures trace the location of ongoing star formation, visual confirmation of recent studies that classify NGC 7090 as an actively star-forming galaxy. Second, we observe dust lanes, depicted as dark regions inside the disc of the galaxy. In NGC 7090, these regions are mostly located in lower half of the galaxy, showing an intricate filamentary structure. Looking from the outside in through the whole disc, the light emitted from the bright center of the galaxy is absorbed by the dust, silhouetting the dusty regions against the bright light in the background. |
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Stuart Clark
The Guardian 2012-09-17 14:53:00
Let the science begin! Curiosity begins its quest to determine whether Mars was once habitable, metre by metre, rock by rock This is the moment the scientists have been waiting for. Nasa's Mars Curiosity rover will begin driving today in search of the first rock to analyse with its robot arm. After five and a half weeks of instrument checks, software updates and test drives, today the scientists take over from the engineers. Searching for the right rock could take days or weeks depending upon what the rover happens to pass. Curiosity will make slow but steady progress, driving at no more than 40 metres per Martian day, or sol as the scientists call them, before radioing its progress back to Earth. From now on, the science team will meet as soon as the data is received to determine what has been achieved and what they would like to do next. This could be driving to a new location, analysing a rock or soil sample, or taking images. |
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ScienceDaily
2012-09-17 14:59:00
Eight billion years ago, rays of light from distant galaxies began their long journey to Earth. That ancient starlight has now found its way to a mountaintop in Chile, where the newly-constructed Dark Energy Camera, the most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created, has captured and recorded it for the first time. That light may hold within it the answer to one of the biggest mysteries in physics -- why the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Scientists in the international Dark Energy Survey collaboration announced this week that the Dark Energy Camera, the product of eight years of planning and construction by scientists, engineers, and technicians on three continents, has achieved first light. The first pictures of the southern sky were taken by the 570-megapixel camera on Sept. 12. "The achievement of first light through the Dark Energy Camera begins a significant new era in our exploration of the cosmic frontier," said James Siegrist, associate director of science for high energy physics with the U.S. Department of Energy. "The results of this survey will bring us closer to understanding the mystery of dark energy, and what it means for the universe." |
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Clara Moskowitz
SPACE.com 2012-09-17 06:00:00
Houston - A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel - a concept popularized in television's Star Trek - may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say. A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, however subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy. Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially brining the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science. "There is hope," Harold "Sonny" White of NASA's Johnson Space Center said here Friday (Sept. 14) at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting to discuss the challenges of interstellar spaceflight. |
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Webwire
2012-09-14 13:51:00
Chino Valley, Arizona - To celebrate the possibilities dowsing offers, 17 international experts will be presenting their knowledge and use of dowsing at the inaugural Dowsing World Summit, held online here, beginning September 25th and lasting for 4 weeks. If ever people think of dowsing, they think of an old man using a stick to find water. But dowsing is so much more than that. It is a simple skill, easily learned, and documents date it back to at least the 16th century to the time when it was used to locate minerals as well as water. Anecdotal evidence places it back even earlier. Einstein himself respected dowsing and what it implied. He said: "I know very well that many scientists consider dowsing as a type of ancient superstition. According to my conviction this is, however, unjustified. The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time." In this unique online event here, presenters from Canada, the US, The UK and Australia will explain how they use this natural skill in areas such as Feng Shui, animal communication, health and even in the garden as well as in finding water. |
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Michael Cooney
Network World 2012-09-15 04:40:00
The European Space Agency today said it would develop a radar system that will be capable of tracking space hazards such as asteroids and orbital debris. ESA and France's Office National d'Etudes et Recherches Aérospatiales - research center will work with five other partners in France, Spain and Switzerland to this month design a test surveillance radar and develop a $6 million demonstrator model. ESA says the radar will make use of what's known as "bistatic" technology where the radar emitter and receiver are set up at separate locations and the energy is emitted continuously. For the new test radar, the emitter will be located at a former airport near Crucey-Villages, about 100 km west of Paris, while the receiver will be near Palaiseau, to the south of Paris. Conversely in 2010 ESA contracted with Spain's Indra Espacio SA to develop a test radar that uses a "monostatic" approach where the radar emitter and the receiver are at the same spot and the energy is emitted in discrete pulses, the ESA stated. | |
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Comment: "Threatening asteroids" passing between here
and the moon are not what they are really focused on (although the
increased presence of near-miss asteroids certainly points to us passing
through denser concentrations of cometary debris). The fact that
they're planning such things also makes a farce out of the official
stance that there is nothing to fear from space.
Beyond civilian space programmes operated by agencies like the ESA, what the deep-state military types are up to is something else entirely. They appear to be actively tracking cometary bodies, meteors and so on, entering our atmosphere, then launching missiles in the vicinity in order to mask the celestial phenomenon as a military one: Disguising Celestial Intentions US Military claims it launched three test missiles over Southwestern US |
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Alan Boyle
NBC News Cosmic Log 2012-09-14 20:58:00
Eight years ago, NASA's Opportunity rover came across strange-looking spheres that were nicknamed Martian blueberries - and now the rover has sent back a picture showing a different flavor of Marsberry that has the experts scratching their heads. "This is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission," Cornell astronomer Steve Squyres, the rover mission's principal investigator, said today in a news release. The golf-cart-sized Opportunity rover used the microscopic imager on the end of its robotic arm to take a super-close look at the spherical shapes. These particular berries, measuring as much as one-eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) in diameter, cover an outcrop called Kirkwood in the Cape York segment of Endeavour Crater's western rim. "Kirkwood is chock full of a dense accumulation of these small spherical objects," Squyres said. "Of course, we immediately thought of the blueberries, but this is something different. We never have seen such a dense accumulation of spherules in a rock outcrop on Mars." Iron-rich Martian blueberries first came to light soon after Opportunity headed out from its landing site on Mars' Meridiani Planum in early 2004. The fact that they have layers of a mineral called hematite suggests that the spherules were formed by the action of mineral-laden water percolating through rocks. That's how similar spherules formed on Earth, where they're known as thunderballs, shaman stones or Moqui marbles. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Abdoulaye Massalatchi
Floods could wipe out most of Niger's main rice harvest this year as
rain-swollen rivers rose to 50-year highs across West Africa, spreading
devastation, a regional official said.Planetark.org 2012-09-17 17:28:00 At least 81 people have been killed in Niger since annual rains caused flooding along the banks of the Niger River, raising its waters to their highest levels since the 1920s. The country and surrounding region are still struggling to overcome food shortages caused by poor rains last year. "In Niger ... most of the rainy season rice crop, estimated at over 80,000 metric tons (88,185 tonnes), risks being destroyed this year," Tiena Coulibaly, a Malian government minister told Niger's state television. Coulibaly was speaking after chairing a meeting of ministers in Niamey focused on tackling food shortages and increasing production. The comments were broadcast on Friday after a meeting on Thursday. |
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Robert Felix
"Unprecedented" cold and snow in Iceland.Ice Age Now 2012-09-16 16:38:00 Thousands of sheep (13,000) buried alive in snowdrifts is nothing short of disastrous. Here's a video showing the rescue of a sheep buried by snow.
Snow in North Iceland in early September is not unheard of but snowfall of two to three meters overnight at this time of year - when the sheep are still in highland pastures - is highly unusual. Two to three meters (7-11 feet) of snow overnight! That's a small taste of what the mammoths experienced. |
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Steven Goddard
Day 256 Antarctic ice is the highest ever for the date, and the eighth
highest daily reading ever recorded. All seven higher readings occurred
during the third week of September, 2007 - the week of the previous
Arctic record minimum.Real Science 2012-09-17 15:15:00
NSIDC does not mention the record Antarctic cold or ice on their web site, choosing inside to feature an article about global warming threatening penguins.
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Simon Garner
An awe-struck filmmaker has told of the moment he witnessed one of nature's rarest phenomena - a fire tornado.
Yahoo News 2012-09-17 06:40:00
Chris Tangey had been out in Alice Springs, Australia, scouting locations for a new movie. After finishing he went over to help workers at a cattle station when he was confronted by one of nature's most intimidating spectacles. Just 300 metres away was a 30-metre high fire swirl which "sounded like a fighter jet", despite there being no wind in the area. A fire tornado, also know as a fire devil, is caused when a column of warm, rising air comes into contact - or causes - a fire on the ground. These fire whirls are known to last for around two minutes on the very rare occasions they take place. |
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Agence France-Presse
A day after watching a film about being lost at sea, Toakai Teitoi was
trapped in his own nightmare, drifting in a wooden boat for 15 weeks -
before a shark helped to rescue him.2012-09-16 10:03:00 The 41-year-old Kiribati policeman and father-of-six relived his harrowing voyage in the central Pacific when he arrived in Majuro on Saturday on the Marshall Islands fishing boat which picked him up last week.
He told of sleeping with the body of his brother-in-law who died during the ordeal, suffering severe dehydration and praying to be found alive. Mr Teitoi's drama began on May 27 after he had flown from his home island of Maiana to the Kiribati capital of Tarawa to be sworn in as a policeman. Following the ceremony, he watched a film about four men from Kiribati who were lost at sea. Only two survived by the time they were washed ashore in American Samoa six weeks later. It was then that he changed his mind about flying home and joined his brother-in-law Ielu Falaile, 52, on what was supposed to be a two-hour sea journey back to Maiana in a 15-foot wooden boat. But after stopping to fish along the way and sleeping overnight, they woke the following day to find they had drifted out of sight of Maiana and soon after ran out of fuel. "We had food, but the problem was we had nothing to drink," he said. As dehydration took hold, Mr Teitoi, a Catholic, said he turned to prayer as it gave him strength. But Falaile's health began failing and he died on July 4. |
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NBC News Photo Blog
2012-09-17 07:05:00
Typhoon Sanba, packing winds of 137 kilometers (85 miles) per hour, slammed into South Korea on Monday, bringing torrential rains across the country and shutting down flights, ferry services and cutting power to many. At least one person died and tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate. Full story. |
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Megan Farokhmanesh
The Verge 2012-09-15 02:51:00
A bug allowing Death Knight players in World of Warcraft to cast plagues on friendly targets sparked an epidemic last night, reports WoW Insider. The bug has since been patched. Unlike the infamous Corrupted Blood plague in 2005, which caused mass deaths server-wide, the bug was not contagious to other characters. Infected Death Knights could only plague characters voluntarily, and as WoW Insider reports, "decided global extinction was the path to success when presented with the ability to enact it." The Death Knight plague occurred only a day after Corrupted Blood's 7th anniversary on September 13th. A screenshot gallery of the plague's carnage is available at WoW Insider. | |
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Comment: Yes, it's only an online game, but could it be symbolic of reality to come?...
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Sophie Knight
Reuters 2012-09-15 23:27:00
When Toshitsugu Fujii became head of a Japanese task force on disaster response at Mount Fuji, he was confronted with a startling oversight. Japan had no plan in place to deal with a disaster in which an earthquake sparks a volcanic eruption at the country's most famous landmark. Fujii said a tremor "greatly increases" the chance of an eruption in a country that has experienced nearly 12,000 earthquakes since the magnitude 9.0 tremor that led to disaster on March 11, 2011. "They always forget about the volcanoes," he said. "The government has never included Mt. Fuji in its earthquake scenarios." |
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CBS New York
2012-09-16 05:12:00
Since June 28 The Situation Has Deteriorated On 92nd Street; Residents Fume; Repair work not expected to finish until end of October It's gone from bad to worse. A massive sinkhole has turned from traffic nightmare to sickening situation in Brooklyn. A sewer main broke more than two months ago in Bay Ridge, creating a huge hole in the street. And as CBS 2's Dave Carlin reported Friday night, the stench has now become a major problem. Misery is how 92nd Street residents describe the slow, tedious work on the enormous sinkhole, which first formed back on June 28 and is still not close to being repaired. Workers have been going down more than 70 feet to fix a busted 110-year-old sewer pipe. The hole has unleashed a non-stop sickening smell. |
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TheStar.com
Nicaragua boosted its responses to volcanic activity in the northwestern
region Saturday, as the San Cristobal volcano acted up for the second
time in a week. Authorities installed 43 radio communication stations
along the Pacific coast to monitor San Cristobal and another volcano,
Telica.2012-09-15 20:20:00 The radio posts aim to "ensure improved monitoring of seismic and volcanic behavior in the area," said civil defense chief Colonel Nestor Solis, enabling authorities to issue more accurate warnings sooner. A number of towns near San Cristobal, located some 135 kilometers (83 miles) northwest of the capital, were evacuated last week after the volcano began rumbling, sending a column of smoke and ash high into the sky, before subsiding. On Saturday, the 1,745-meter (5,725-foot) tall volcano again spewed "abundant gas emissions moving toward the northeast" and increased seismic tremor and sulfur concentrations, according to the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies, or INETER. |
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SpaceWeather
For the past week, solar wind has been buffeting Earth's magnetic field, turning skies around the Arctic Circle beautiful shades of green.
But not every green sky is caused by the aurora borealis. Last night,
for example, pilot Brian Whittaker was flying 34,000 feet over the
Atlantic Ocean when he witnessed verdant hues caused by a completely
different phenomenon--airglow. Here is the picture he took from the cockpit window:
2012-09-15 13:59:00
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Comment: This is not "airglow". A pilot, even flying at
high altitude, would not see airglow. An astronaut on the Space Station
might. This "airglow" nonsense is obviously intended to obfuscate the
fact that there is something seriously different happening in our skies
and, like increased frequency of noctilucent clouds appearing further
south, is probably another effect from denser concentrations of comet
dust/meteor smoke in the upper atmosphere.
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UK Guardian
2012-09-15 04:31:00
Sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its smallest extent ever recorded, smashing the previous record minimum and prompting warnings of accelerated climate change. Satellite images show that the rapid summer melt has reduced the area of frozen sea to less than 3.5 million square kilometres this week - less than half the area typically occupied four decades ago. Arctic sea ice cover has been shrinking since the 1970s when it averaged around 8m sq km a year, but such a dramatic collapse in ice cover in one year is highly unusual. A record low in 2007 of 4.17m sq km was broken on 27 August 2012; further melting has since amounted to more than 500,000 sq km. |
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Daily News and Analysis
2012-09-14 04:23:00
After reports of black caterpillars in Jogeshwari, the insects have made their way to Juhu Koliwada and Anushakti Nagar in Chembur. However, the civic authorities are still wondering how to tackle the menace. "The caterpillars are creeping all over the place," said Kinberly D'souza, a class 10 student living in Juhu koliwada (Santa Cruz west). In Chembur, Sena workers stuffed the caterpillars in a bag and showed it to Narendra Barde, assistant commissioner of M-west ward. "He has assured us that the insects would be cleared within 15 days," said Bhau Korgaonkar, Shiv Sena vibhag pramukh of the area. Rahul Khot, entomologist and in charge of collection department of Bombay Natural History Society, said that it was a natural phenomenon and usually caterpillars breed towards end of monsoon. "The sudden outbreak must have baffled the residents," said Khot. |
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Dominic Gilchrist
The Independent 2012-09-14 04:14:00
A plague of "super-slugs" has arrived in the UK from Spain, travelling on imported salads and flowers. The Spanish invaders are mating with species already found in Britain to create a "mutant" species which threatens to eat its way through our crops and native slug species. The giant Spanish slug, which can grow up to 15cm long, has already travelled as far as Wales. They produce hundreds more eggs than native slugs meaning they are capable of overrunning British species. They could also spread parasites and diseases that could wipe out native slugs. |
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Monica Garske
NBC San Diego 2012-09-14 04:02:00
Two ground squirrels tested positive for plague at the Cedar Grove Campground on Palomar Mountain, County Vector Control officials announced Thursday. The squirrels were trapped during routine monitoring and represent a low-risk of transmission because their exposure to plague was not recent, officials said. Still, officials are posting plague-warning signs at Cedar Grove and the nearby Doane campground as a precaution for campers and hikers in the area. They're also conducting flea-control measures on the squirrels since plague is a bacterial disease that can be transmitted to humans through the bite of infected fleas on wild rodents. County Vector Control officials said campers should set up tents away from squirrel burrows and avoid feeding or playing with squirrels. If you become ill within one week of visiting a known plague area, you should immediately contact a doctor. Symptoms include sudden fever, chills and tender, swollen lymph nodes. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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Deborah Pfeiffer
castanet.net 2012-09-11 06:02:00
Let me start by saying the UFOs in this story are Unidentified Falling Objects; and now (as Paul Harvey would say) the rest of the story. The cause of the fire burning in the hills above Peachland is as yet unknown, but some say it could have been the result of a meteor shower in the Okanagan. Several residents report seeing fiery streaks in the sky around the same time as the Trepanier Creek Wildfire that started near Trepanier Linear Park Sunday afternoon. "I was driving north up Highway 97 when I saw a really, really bright light coming straight down, off to the right over the lake," said Philip Hare of Kelowna. "It was so close I felt like I could touch it, then it was gone. Then I heard about the fire and thought that was way too coincidental for me." Hare reported the sighting at 3 p.m., the fire started around the same time. "It was a flash of bright white, blue hot with flames." |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Denise A Justin
Opposing Views 2012-09-17 16:05:00
A woman who tried to help her friend save a cat that was choking on a mouse contracted Bubonic plague from the diseased feline, Portland health officials announced on Friday, September 14. "Black Plague," or Bubonic plague, is a bacterial illness spread through the bite of infected fleas or through direct contact with an infected animal or person. Although the disease is now rare, Bubonic Plague killed an estimated 25 million Europeans in the Middle Ages and was once called the "Black Death." There have been about seven cases a year in the U.S., according to public health statistics. |
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ScienceDaily
A Chinese research team, led by Anhui Medical University and BGI, has
found strong genetic evidence of a link between mutations of the
mevalonate kinase gene (MVK) and disseminated superficial actinic
porokeratosis (DSAP). It is a major step toward discovering the genetic
pathogenesis of DSAP, and sheds light on its further molecular diagnosis
and treatment.2012-09-17 14:52:00 The latest study was published online in Nature Genetics. DSAP is a rare, non-cancerous, non-contagious skin disorder that causes dry, itchy lesions on the arms and legs. It usually begins to develop in adolescents and reach near-complete penetrance by the third or fourth decade of life. The accumulated sun exposure is a risk factor for DSAP. DSAP is a chronic disorder; it can be treated, but it cannot be cured. In this study, Chinese researchers performed exome sequencing in two affected and one unaffected individuals who belong to a DSAP family. Through variants analysis and data filtering, they supposed that MVK gene emerged as the only candidate gene located in previously defined linkage region linked to DSAP. Then they confirmed the co-segregation between the identified novel deleterious mutation and DSAP phenotype within the family. |
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ScienceDaily
Kids who get migraine headaches are much more likely than other children
to also have behavioral difficulties, including social and attention
issues, and anxiety and depression. The more frequent the headaches, the
greater the effect, according to research out now in the journal Cephalagia, published by SAGE.2012-09-17 14:48:00 Marco Arruda, director of the Glia Institute in São Paulo, Brazil, together with Marcelo Bigal of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York studied 1,856 Brazilian children aged 5 to 11. The authors say that this is the first large, community based study of its kind to look at how children's behavioural and emotional symptoms correlate with migraine and tension-type headaches (TTH), and to incorporate data on headache frequency. Children with or suffering from migraine had a much greater overall likelihood of abnormal behavioral scores than controls, especially in somatic, anxiety-depressive, social, attention, and internalizing domains. Children with TTH were affected in the same domains as migraine sufferers, but to a lesser degree. The study used internationally validated headache questionnaires as well as the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to assess emotional symptoms. The researchers trained school teachers in how to walk parents through questionnaires step by step. |
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ScienceDaily
Research carried out at the University of South Carolina has identified novel mechanisms through which dioxin, a well-known environmental contaminant, can alter physiological functions, according to a study published online in the journal PLOS ONE.2012-09-17 14:43:00 The research team, which included Narendra Singh, Mitzi Nagarkatti and Prakash Nagarkatti of the USC School of Medicine, demonstrated that exposure to dioxin (TCDD) during pregnancy in an experimental mouse model can cause significant toxicity to the fetus, and specifically to the organs that produce the immune cells that fight infections. They found that dioxin alters small molecules called microRNAs, which can affect the expression of a large number of genes. The study examined over 608 microRNAs, and 78 of these were significantly altered following exposure to dioxin. On the basis of the pattern of changes in these molecules, the team was also able to predict that dioxin can alter several genes that regulate cancer. Many other physiological systems were also affected, including those involved in reproductive, gastrointestinal, hematological, inflammation, renal and urological diseases as well as genetic, endocrine and developmental disorders. |
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Elizabeth Renter
NaturalSociety 2012-09-16 14:10:00
Further presenting non-stick cookware dangers, a new study published in this month's Archives of Internal Medicine reveals a relation between PFOA (the chemical in Teflon, used in nonstick pans among other things) and heart disease. While scientists are cautious, as they always are, to say they are definitively linked, some say steering clear of the chemical "just in case" wouldn't be a bad idea. Cooking up Heart Disease According to the study published in the journal The Jama Network, researchers looked at PFOA presence and incidence of heart disease, heart attack, or stroke. About 98 percent of Americans have traces of PFOA in them, those with the highest levels of the chemical were found to have double the odds of heart disease when compared with those having the lowest levels. Also, those with higher PFOA, had a 78 percent higher risk of peripheral heart disease - where arteries narrow and harden. Researchers say there is no hard evidence that the PFOA causes heart diseases or otherwise increases someone's risk, merely that the conditions "co-exist."
But this isn't the first time perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has been associated or found co-existing with other health problems. The Environmental Working Group has it classified as a "likely carcinogen," meaning it could lead to cancer. Even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it was likely to cause cancer. |
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Margie King, Health Coach
GreenMedInfo 2012-09-16 05:00:00
You've heard it repeatedly: there are two kinds of cholesterol: the good high density lipoprotein (HDL) and the "bad" low density lipoprotein (LDL). Now a researcher at Texas A&M University has come to the defense of LDL and says that it may not be so bad after all. In fact, it helps build muscle. According to Steve Riechman, a researcher in the Department of Health and Kinesiology, the study reveals that "LDL is not the evil Darth Vader of health it has been made out to be in recent years." In a study published in the Journal of Gerontology, Riechman and colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh, Kent State University, the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine examined 52 adults from ages 60 to 69. The participants were in generally good health, but not physically active, and none of them were participating in a training program. To the researchers' surprise, after the subjects completed fairly vigorous workouts, the participants who had the highest levels of LDL cholesterol had gained the most muscle mass. According to Riechman, the study shows that we need a certain amount of LDL to gain more muscle mass. "There's no doubt you need both - the LDL and the HDL -- and the truth is, it (cholesterol) is all good," said Reichman. Cholesterol is a type of fat found in all humans and serves many necessary functions in the body. For instance, it's been called the mother of all hormones. Any attempt to remove all the 'bad' cholesterol from your body would cause serious problems. In fact, low levels of cholesterol can be hazardous to your health. |
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Michelle Henderson
A reduced variety of gut bacteria in newborns at high risk of allergies
could determine whether those children develop eczema, a study shows.News.newsnine.msn.au 2012-08-20 10:06:00 In the largest study of its kind, Melbourne researchers investigated 98 babies at high risk of allergic disease. Of those, almost 34 per cent developed eczema in their first year of life while 24 per cent had a least one positive skin prick allergy test to food or other allergens. |
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ScienceDaily
2012-09-16 10:04:00
The genetic building blocks behind the human heart's subtle control system have finally been identified. An elaborate system of leads spreads across our hearts. These leads -- the heart's electrical system -- control our pulse and coordinate contraction of the heart chambers. While the structure of the human heart has been known for a long time, the evolutionary origin of our conduction system has nevertheless remained a mystery. Researchers have finally succeeded in showing that the spongy tissue in reptile hearts is the forerunner of the complex hearts of both birds and mammals. The new knowledge provides a deeper understanding of the complex conductive tissue of the human heart, which is of key importance in many heart conditions. Forerunner of conductive tissue "The heart of a bird or a mammal -- for example a human -- pumps frequently and rapidly. This is only possible because it has electrically conductive tissue that controls the heart. Until now, however, we haven't been able to find conductive tissue in our common reptilian ancestors, which means we haven't been able to understand how this enormously important system emerged," says Bjarke Jensen, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University. Along with Danish colleagues and colleagues from the University of Amsterdam, he can now reveal that the genetic building blocks for highly developed conductive tissue are actually hidden behind the thin wall in the spongy hearts of reptiles. The new results have just been published in the journal PLoS ONE. |
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Allopathic medicine reaches new lows: British doctors administering illegal street drugs to patients
Conal Urquhart
The Guardian 2012-09-15 03:54:00
The patient sits on a hospital gurney. The doctor asks how she feels, takes her blood pressure and gives her a capsule to swallow. She is then led to a brain scanner that resembles a giant washing machine, and she lies in front of it before it sucks her in. Doctors study a series of vivid images of her head and brain, looking for activity before she is allowed to leave the scanner. The patient is asked who she would like to have with her at this moment. She replies: "My husband." When asked how she feels, she replies: "Light. It's pleasant. There's an airiness and openness to the senses. A slight heightening of sensory perception, which I liked. The visual feeling is vivid. The colours are lush, which I enjoy. I might be a bit more alert to sounds. I feel physically relaxed and that is a pleasure." The patient is the writer, Lionel Shriver, and she has just taken the drug MDMA as part of an experiment that will be shown on Channel 4 at the end of this month. She is one of six volunteers who also include the actor Keith Allen and a former MP who will be shown taking the drug and undergoing a series of tests, some of which will be done in the scanner in order to see the change in brain activity caused by MDMA. | |
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Comment: Again we see that conventional medicine and
Big Pharma have absolutely zero interest in curing people. They prefer
to effectively lobotomise people by hooking them on drugs that will only
accelerate the decline in their health in the long-run.
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Elizabeth Renter
NaturalSociety 2012-09-15 14:34:00
NASA knows a thing or two about keeping air clean, sending astronauts into space with a limited amount of breathable air for months on end. After-all, they can't simply open a window when things get stuffy in space. What NASA researchers have learned about air quality in the home concerning air-cleaning plants, however, is refreshing to say the least. They've found several common houseplant varieties can essentially clean the air of certain chemicals. They tested a variety of plants to see which was best at removing carcinogens like trichloroethylene, formaldehyde, and benzene. But, these chemicals aren't in my home - you might be thinking. And you would be wrong. Cleansing the air with Air-Cleaning Plants According to the NY Times:
And with asbestos, formaldehyde, and other VOCs leaching off every wall of our home, it's no surprise that indoor pollution may be causing 50% of illnesses worldwide. Those headaches you have on a regular basis, where the cause just can't be pinpointed, may actually be a result of poor air quality in your home. The good news is that you can cleanse the air with air-cleaning plants - what better way to solve a problem than with nature. Taken from NASA's 'Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollutant Abatement' report, it reads:
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Collette Wieland
KGW 2012-09-14 15:13:00
Portland - Many cancer patients are now turning to mushrooms to help fight off the deadly disease. Rob Nesbitt, who was a track star in high school, was affected by an aggressive form of brain cancer three years ago. At 51, he started getting headaches and was complaining of stress and fatigue. He decided to go in and get checked out. "They did the second MRI, and they came in and said we're taking you to the emergency room," Nesbitt said. "I had two tumors. One was about the size of a golf ball, the other one a little bit smaller." While Oncologists used chemotherapy to treat Nesbitt's cancer, he turned to a naturopathic doctor to help keep his immune system strong. That's when he started taking a series of supplements including mushroom extracts. |
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Articles.timesofindia.timesofindia.com
2012-09-14 13:36:00
Parental divorce triggers stroke risk by three times in males, especially if the event takes place before they turn 18, as compared to peers from intact families, says a new study. Women from divorced families did not have a higher risk of stroke than women from intact families, the study found. Globally, stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases account for 10 percent of deaths, making stroke the second leading cause of death. |
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CBS News
2012-09-15 05:44:00
A plague outbreak could be extremely deadly, so much so that officials warn it can be used in a bioterror attack. Now U.S regulators have approved use of a powerful Johnson & Johnson antibiotic to treat and prevent the extremely rare but potentially deadly bacterial infection. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also approved Levaquin, known generically as levofloxacin, to reduce risk of people getting plague after exposure to the bacteria that causes it, called Yersinia pestis. Comment: Yersinia pestis was NOT the cause of the plague that wiped out two thirds of Europe's population in the 14th century: New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection Plague mainly occurs in animals. People can get it from bites from infected fleas or contact with infected animals or humans. About 1,000 to 2,000 human cases occur worldwide each year. The bacteria are also considered a potential culprit in a bioterrorism act, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC says it can be used in an aerosol attack to cause "pneumonic plague" in those who breath it in within six days of exposure. | |
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Comment: Antibiotics will be pretty useless against something so ferocious as a real plague from comet-borne viruses.
If and when the real plague reaches us from the upper layers of the
atmosphere, watch them link it to al Qaeda and rally their Authoritarian
Followers around the need for quarantines, concentration camps, RFID
microchips, etc.
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CBS News
2012-09-05 04:05:00
A 7-year-old girl is recovering in a Colorado hospital after being diagnosed with the Black Death, scientifically known as the bubonic plague. The parents of 7-year-old Sierra Jane Downing thought she had the flu when she felt sick days after camping in southwest Colorado. When she had a seizure, her father rushed her to the local hospital in Pagosa Springs. The emergency room doctor who saw Sierra Jane for the seizure and a 107-degree fever late Aug. 24 wasn't sure what was wrong either, and called other hospitals before the girl was flown to Denver. A pediatric doctor racing to save the girl's life at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children got the first inkling that she had bubonic plague. Dr. Jennifer Snow first suspected the rare disease after factoring in the girl's symptoms, a history of where she'd been and an online journal's article on a teen with similar symptoms. | |
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Comment: The plague associated with the 'Black Death'
in the Middle Ages is NOT "scientifically known as" the bubonic plague.
That fleas carried by rats spread the Black death plague is just one
theory that has since been discarded in favour of comet-borne viruses:
New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection While little Sierra Jane Downing may have contracted something unusual and similar to the Black Death plague, it's unlikely that she really contracted 'the plague' because otherwise it would be spreading like wildfire and people everywhere would be dropping like flies. |
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Washington Post
A woman who tried to help her friend save the life of a choking cat also
contracted the plague from the disease-stricken feline over the summer,
health officials said Friday.2012-09-15 03:50:00 The central Oregon woman, who asked not to be identified, has recovered since contracting the disease in June. She was treated after showing early symptoms. The two had found a stray cat in distress, choking on a mouse. They were bitten when they tried unsuccessfully to help the animal. The 60-year-old Gaylord spent nearly a month on life support. The woman, identified only as a Gaylord family friend, was out of the area when she started showing symptoms, including fever, chills and pain in the lymph nodes. She was treated with antibiotics at a Portland hospital. |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Nikki Tucker
Medical Daily 2012-09-17 16:21:00
Researchers from the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas, Dallas and University of Texas, Southwestern, discovered brain-based differences in women suffering from anorexia. Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that causes an individual to obsess about his or her weight. Many individuals suffering from anorexia may starve themselves in order to prevent weight gain. Researchers used fMRI to observe the brain function in participants. Women were instructed to evaluate their own characteristics compared to a friend. The study tasks included self-evaluation, friend evaluation and reflected evaluation, which assessed an attribute about one's self as perceived by a friend. The stduy was led by researchers Dr. Dan Krawczyk, associate professor at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and psychiatry at UT Southwestern, and Dr. Carrie McAdams, assistant psychiatry professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, According to Dr.Krawczyk, women who are suffering from anorexia demonstrated different types of brain activation compared to non-anorexic women. |
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ScienceDaily
Hear the word "party" and memories of your 8th birthday sleepover or the
big bash you attended last New Year's may come rushing to mind. But
it's exactly these kinds of memories, embedded in a specific place and
time, that people with depression have difficulty recalling.2012-09-17 14:39:00 Research has shown that people who suffer from, or are at risk of, depression have difficulty tapping into specific memories from their own past, an impairment that affects their ability to solve problems and leads them to focus on feelings of distress. In a study forthcoming in Clinical Psychological Science, a new journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientists Hamid Neshat-Doost of the University of Isfahan, Iran, Laura Jobson of the University of East Anglia, Tim Dalgleish of the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council, Cambridge and colleagues investigated whether a particular training program, Memory Specificity Training, might improve people's memory for past events and ameliorate their symptoms of depression. |
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RedOrbit
2012-09-17 13:52:00
Genetic analysis of different types of worker bees has for the first time demonstrated a link between reversible chemical tags on an organism's DNA and their behavioral patterns. Andy Feinberg, a professor of molecular medicine and the director of the Center for Epigenetics at Hopkins' Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences, and colleagues used a method they called CHARM (comprehensive high-throughput arrays for relative methylation) to investigate the location of the DNA methylation biochemical process in the brains of both "nurse" bees and "forager" bees. They chose 21 of each type of worker bee, all approximately the same age, and discovered 155 regions of DNA that had different tag patterns in each of the two bee types, the researchers explained in a Sunday statement. The bulk of those were genes that have been known to affect the status of other genes, they said, and once the differences were identified, Feinberg and his colleagues set out to discover whether or not they were permanent. Knowing that nurses can switch jobs, so to speak, if there are a lack of foragers in a hive (and vice-versa), they removed all of the nurses and observed for several weeks while the hive restored the balance. Once that was completed, they again studied the DNA methylation patterns to determine whether or not the tags had changed in the foragers that became nurses. |
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Roxanne Palmer
International Business Times 2012-09-12 10:37:00
People that are lucky enough to survive strokes often have another hurdle to clear once they're discharged: depression, which affects about a third of stroke survivors. Now a small study of 36 stroke survivors suggests that men are more likely to be stalked by the black dog than women. Researchers measured the participants for signs of depression, and found that male subjects were more likely to feel depressed by their precarious health than the female participants. "Male stroke survivors in the US who subscribe to traditional health-related beliefs may be accustomed to, and value highly, being in control of their health," lead author and University of Cincinnati researcher Michael J. McCarthy said in a statement Wednesday. "For these individuals, loss of control due to infirmity caused by stroke could be perceived as a loss of power and prestige. These losses, in turn, may result in more distress and greater depressive syndromes." Tackling the problem of male stroke survivor depression is a tricky one. One study from a group of Kent State University researchers found that Web-based intervention methods were helpful for the wives and caregivers of male stroke victims, but had little effect on the survivors themselves. McCarthy acknowledged that his group's study is a bit limited by its small, non-diverse sample size. |
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Maia Szalavitz
Time 2012-09-04 10:33:00
Every day, we face thousands of decisions both major and minor - from whether to eat that decadent chocolate cupcake to when to pursue a new romantic relationship or to change careers. How does the brain decide? A new study suggests that it relies on two separate networks to do so: one that determines the overall value - the risk versus reward - of individual choices and another that guides how you ultimately behave. "Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex," says Jan Glascher, lead author of the study and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, referring to the seat of higher-level reasoning in the brain. Study co-author Ralph Adolphs, a professor of psychology at Caltech, explains the distinction by way of a grocery shopping example: "Your valuation network is always providing you with information about what's rewarding around you - the things you want to buy - but also lots of distracting things like junk food and other items popping into your vision off the shelves." Cognitive control is what keeps this network in check. "To be able to get to the checkout counter with what you planned, you need to maintain a goal in mind, such as perhaps only buying the salad you needed for dinner," says Adolphs. "That's your cognitive control network maintaining an overall goal despite lots of distractions." |
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| High Strangeness |
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No new articles. |
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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The Onion
2012-09-13 22:52:00
JACKSONVILLE, FL - Criticizing the Obama administration's response to the current crisis in Libya and Egypt, Mitt Romney told reporters Wednesday that we should never, under any circumstance, apologize for the values that make this country great, such as our belief in the right to practice religion without persecution, our commitment to the freedom of assembly, or the overwhelming xenophobia that led to the relocation and internment of more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II. "As Americans, we should never feel the need to question who we are or what we stand for, whether it's our strong commitment to family or whether we're rounding up a group of innocent people, separating them from their friends and loved ones, and putting them into what are essentially overcrowded prisons because they happen to be of Japanese descent," Romney told the assembled press corps, adding that free speech and concentration camps are American ideals that should be cherished, not second-guessed. |
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Power Buzz
2012-09-15 08:04:00
Allison Matera was just too nice. She couldn't figure out a way to politely tell her churchgoing friends and community that she wanted out. So, instead, she told her choir she was dying of cancer. She kept the ruse going for almost a year. For a while, she would give them updates on her treatment in person. When she stopped going to church, Matera told everyone she was checking in to a hospice to die. Finally she phoned the pastor, posing as a nurse, and informed him of her "death" January 18, 2007. But I guess she missed the old gang, and appeared at her own funeral, pretending she was a sister. The jig was up shortly thereafter. |
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Kyle Wagner
Gizmodo 2012-09-14 14:19:00
So this is a new one. Dr. Pepper made an aggressively silly ad about the "Evolution of Flavor." It shows an early-evolution man finding a can of Dr. Pepper, and BOOM, full-fledged homo sapiens. Funny! And again, willfully goofy. And then it started a culture war. Here are some highlights from the flame fest: Frank Suarez Trin, your punishment will be more severe because you use the lord's name to spew your hatered. You're the one thats going to hell. Alex Nichols EVOLUTION IS GAY!!!!!!!! Colton Chambers Drink Pepper, Hail Satan. Mark Ritner dr. pepper is made with addictive mugwump jism and satan's ball sweat! if you drink it, you'll be cursed with a permanent priapism! |
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John Hodgman
The Daily Beast 2012-09-14 15:53:00
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