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Laurie Goodstein
The New York Times 2012-09-18 14:09:00
Cambridge, Mass. - A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: "Jesus said to them, 'My wife ...'" The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, "she will be able to be my disciple." The finding was made public in Rome on Tuesday at an international meeting of Coptic scholars by the historian Karen L. King, who has published several books about new Gospel discoveries and is the first woman to hold the nation's oldest endowed chair, the Hollis professor of divinity. The provenance of the papyrus fragment is a mystery, and its owner has asked to remain anonymous. Until Tuesday, Dr. King had shown the fragment to only a small circle of experts in papyrology and Coptic linguistics, who concluded that it is most likely not a forgery. But she and her collaborators say they are eager for more scholars to weigh in and perhaps upend their conclusions. |
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RT
2012-09-17 00:00:00
Hundreds of police barricaded the New York Stock Exchange as Occupy Wall Street protesters swarmed the Financial District for the movement's one-year anniversary, with over 180 reportedly arrested. Police made 180 arrests by Monday evening, primarily for "disorderly conduct" or impeding "vehicular or pedestrian traffic." Witnesses had previously reported on Twitter that demonstrators were being arrested for "blocking pedestrian traffic." A well known local artist named Molly Crapabble was sitting in a police van when she wrote on her Twitter page that people were being "yanked off of the sidewalk" by police. The final tally will ultimately be higher, as at least seven people were arrested after falling on the Bank of America building later in the afternoon. Several more arrests were subsequently reported after demonstrators marched to the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan and the adjacent Goldman Sachs Tower. Around half a dozen protesters staged a sit-in protest outside of the Goldman Sachs headquarters and refused orders by police to disperse. |
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David Corn
Mother Jones 2012-09-17 21:23:00
<
During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthy contributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who support President Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them. Fielding a question from a donor about how he could triumph in November, Romney replied: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what...These are people who pay no income tax. |
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| Puppet Masters |
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Umberto Bacchi
International Business Times 2012-09-18 05:42:00
Three British warships joins 30-nation minesweep exercise, seen by military analysts as warning to Tehran to toe the line British warships have joined a major naval exercise in the Persian Gulf as tensions between Israel and Iran over Tehran's nuclear power programme increase. British forces are taking part in a joint operation conducted by the navies of more than 30 countries to sweep the area - a major transit point of maritime trade - clean of mines. "The UK is committed to a standing presence in the Gulf to ensure freedom of navigation in international waters such as the Straits of Hormuz," said defence secretary Philip Hammond. "Disruption to sailing in the strait would threaten regional and economic growth. Any attempt by Iran to do this would be illegal and unsuccessful." The show of strength in exercises that include naval deployment by Saudi Arabia, the US and France was designed to warn off Tehran from contemplating disrupting trade routes in the ongoing diplomatic poker game over its nuclear ambitions and Israel's threat of a strike. The Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman is one of the most heavily used trade waterways in the world. Some 35 percent of the world's oil shipments - about 18 million barrels a day - pass through the 21-mile-wide channel. |
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CBC News
2012-09-18 09:12:00
Trial of Wang Lijun in Chengdu city's intermediate court concludes without verdict China signalled Tuesday it will be lenient with an ex-police chief enmeshed in a political scandal roiling the country's leadership, saying he co-operated with investigators who brought down a top Chinese politician's wife for the murder of a British businessman. Wang Lijun's trial in Chengdu city's Intermediate Court concluded Tuesday without a verdict after two half-day sessions that were closed to the foreign media. Afterward, a court spokesman summarized the proceedings for reporters, saying Wang initially covered up the murder of Briton Neil Heywood. But, the spokesman said, Wang later turned himself in and provided information to investigators that led to a murder conviction against Heywood's business associate Gu Kailai, the wife of Chongqing Communist Party chief Bo Xilai. She received a suspended death sentence. The proceedings bring Chinese leaders a step closer to resolving the scandal that exposed seamy infighting and buffeted a delicate transfer of power to new leaders expected to take place next month. |
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Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul
Market Daily News 2012-09-18 16:08:00
Speaking with Infowars' Alex Jones, former Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Dr. Steve Pieczenik says Israel plans to attack Iran before the U.S. elections of Nov. 6., and, that an attack on Iran will assuredly kickoff WWIII, according to him. Moreover, Pieczenik, a man whose career inspired the character Jack Ryan of the Tom Clancy book series, says the 'October Surprise' will not take place in October. Instead, the big surprise will come earlier, in late September. Dr. Pieczenik says the specific date of the strike on Iran is Sept. 25th or 26th, Yom Kippur - the Jewish holiday, which commences in the year 2012 at sundown on the 25th, and ends at nightfall, the following day. "It [an Israeli attack on Iran] could be earlier than October, because we have Yom Kippur. And I predicted on your radio show, and I predicted to our national security people, privately, that Benjamin Bibi Netanyahu would start something on Rosh Hashanah," says Pieczenick. "This [prediction] was over a year ago, and I said it on your radio show. He was as predictable as a clock, and the Israelis will be very predictable, on Yom Kippur," he adds. Pieczenik says it's clear to him that Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu has already planned to attack Iran and has been desperately trying to enlist the U.S. to back him up. But, with or without U.S. direct help, Pieczenik is certain that Israel will attack Iran. | |
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Comment: We don't usually publish predictions as
specific as this one because they have a tendency to be wrong. However,
this one is interesting because of Pieczenik's background, as well as
his comments on 9-11 and on the killing of the American ambassador in
Libya. His biography appears on his website:
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ABC15.com
2012-09-18 15:49:00
A judge has ruled that police in Arizona can immediately start enforcing the most contentious section of the state's immigration law, marking the first time officers can carry out a requirement that officers, while enforcing other laws, question the immigration status of those suspected of being in the country illegally. The decision on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton is the latest milestone in a two-year legal battle over the requirement. It culminated in a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that upheld the provision on the grounds that it doesn't conflict with federal law. Opponents who call the requirement the "show me your papers" provision responded to the Supreme Court decision by asking Bolton to block the requirement on different grounds, arguing that it would lead to systematic racial profiling and unreasonably long detentions of Latinos if it's enforced. Other less controversial parts of the law have been in effect since July 2010, such as minor changes to the state's 2005 immigrant smuggling law and a ban on state and local government agencies from restricting the enforcement of federal immigration law. But those provisions have gotten little, if any, use since they were put into effect. |
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Fars News Agency
2012-09-18 01:47:00
The Iranian Navy officially launched a heavy submarine after the subsurface vessel was overhauled by the country's experts. Tareq 901 submarine was launched in Iran's Southern port city of Bandar Abbas on Tuesday at the order of Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and Commander in Chief Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. In May, Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari lauded Iranian experts' success in repairing heavy submarines, saying their outstanding capabilities and mastery of the hi-tech used in naval vessels display the failure of enemy sanctions and pressures. He said the submarine, called Tareq, is now fully ready to be dispatched to the high seas. He pointed to the Supreme Leader's recent alarming remarks that enemies are trying to display Iranians as an incapable nation, and said, "Today we show that 'We Can', and that our ability is way beyond the enemy's imaginations." Last year, the Iranian Navy's Tareq-class submarine, 'Younus', managed to set a new record in sailing the international waters and high seas for 68 days. Iran's Younus submarine, sailing alongside warships of the 14th fleet of the Iranian Navy, returned home in early June 2011 following an over two-month-long mission in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The deployment of the Iranian submarine in the Red Sea was the first such operation by the country's Navy in far-off waters. |
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Fars News Agency
2012-09-18 02:19:00
Iran on Tuesday launched a home-made missile destroyer at the order of the Commander in Chief, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. The Islamic Republic of Iran Sahand (IRI Sahand) missile destroyer was officially launched by the Iranian Navy in Iran's Southern port city of Bandar Abbas minutes ago. Also today, the Iranian navy launched a heave submarine, named Tareq, after the subsurface vessel was overhauled by the country's experts. In June 2012, Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said the country plans to build new vessels and submarines in a bid to further boost its naval capabilities. "New surface and subsurface vessels will join the Islamic Republic of Iran's Navy fleet in the near future," Sayyari told FNA at the time, adding that the Navy is due to build new vessels. |
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BBC News
The US and Japan have agreed to set up a second missile defence system
on Japanese soil in an effort to counter the ballistic missile threat
from North Korea, officials say. US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta made
the announcement in Tokyo with Japan's defence minister. But the exact
location of the system has not yet been determined.2012-09-17 10:52:00 While both sides insist the system is not aimed at China, analysts say the decision is bound to a
nger Beijing. Mr Panetta's trip comes amid fresh tensions between Japan and China over disputed islands known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, after Japan sealed a deal to buy three of the islands. Japan and the US have worked on a joint missile defence system over the years. This new system would enable Japanese ships to cover other parts of the region, officials say. "[It] will enhance the alliance's ability to defend Japan, our forward deployed forces and the US homeland from a ballistic missile threat posed by North Korea," Mr Panetta said. In April, North Korea conducted a failed long-range rocket launch that it said was an attempt to put a satellite into orbit. Critics said the launch was a disguised test of missile technology, banned under UN resolutions. |
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Inquirer News
2012-09-17 10:48:00
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called for diplomatic efforts to resolve a worsening territorial spat between Japan and China on Monday, the day after warning disputes could draw East Asia into war. Speaking after meetings in Tokyo with senior Japanese figures, Panetta urged "calm and restraint on all sides" in a row over disputed islands that has rapidly escalated in the last week into sometimes violent protests in China. "Obviously we're concerned by the demonstrations and the conflict over the Senkaku islands," Panetta said, referring to the Japanese-administered archipelago that China claims and calls Diaoyu. "It is extremely important that diplomatic means on both sides be used to try to constructively resolve these issues," he said, adding a resolution of the dispute has to be based on "clear principles" and international law. "It's in everybody's interest for Japan and China to maintain good relations and to find a way to avoid further escalation," said Panetta, pounding the podium for emphasis. Panetta arrived in Tokyo on Sunday evening after days of anti-Japanese protests had rocked cities across China, with diplomatic missions being targeted in some instances. |
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Diane Barnes
The United States could move forward early next year with a planned
trial initiative to offer anthrax vaccine to select nonmilitary
emergency personnel, a senior Homeland Security Department official told
lawmakers last week.Global Security Newswire via Yahoo News 2012-09-18 08:54:00 The plan, details of which were reported by Global Security Newswire in April, would give participating state and local emergency personnel the option of accepting a course of anthrax vaccination doses from the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile of medical countermeasures. The project would examine the potential to more widely distribute the countermeasure to first responders on a voluntary basis. The department is putting the "final touches" on preparations for "soliciting groups who would be interested in participating in this pilot project," Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Garza said on Thursday at a joint hearing convened by two House Homeland Security subcommittees. Garza said that the department was still fielding questions on the project from state agencies, local offices, and nongovernmental groups. Homeland Security was working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recruit two federal offices and two state offices in the trial initiative, according to earlier reporting. |
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Press TV
The Yemeni government says the United States has deployed 50
Marines in Sana'a to boost security at the US Embassy in response to the
recent violent upheavals over an anti-Islam movie. 2012-09-17 05:39:00
"We would not accept any foreign forces, but the unit in the US Embassy is an exceptional case," the government said in a statement issued late on Sunday. The statement added that the Marines will leave the country as soon as the security situation improves. On Friday, the Pentagon announced that it had sent Marines to Yemen after demonstrators stormed the US Embassy in Sana'a in protest over an anti-Islam film made in the US. |
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Eltaf Najafizada
Bloomberg Businessweek 2012-09-18 03:35:00
A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a minivan near the airport in Afghanistan's capital Kabul today, killing nine foreign civilians and three Afghans, according to police. The Hizb-e-Islami, a militant group led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and allied to the Taliban, carried out the attack in retaliation for an anti-Islam video that has triggered deadly protests across the Muslim world, Zubair Siddiqi, a spokesman for Hizb-e-Islami, said by phone. He said the bombing was carried out by a 22-year-old woman named Fatema. General Mohammad Zahir, the head of Kabul police's crime investigation department, confirmed in a phone interview that foreigners had been the target of the attack. Those who died worked at the international airport, Associated Press reported, citing Zahir. Ayub Salangi, Kabul's police chief, said the dead may include citizens of South Africa, France and Russia. Militants have threatened to step up their attacks in Afghanistan after the movie that ridicules the Prophet Muhammad was posted to the Internet. Hizb-e-Islami's fighters are mainly based in Afghanistan's northeast. Its chief, Hekmatyar, is a former Afghan prime minister and Mujahideen leader during the country's civil wars of the 1990s when he helped end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan with support from Pakistan. |
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John Sifton
Human Rights Watch 2012-09-17 00:00:00
Americans love shrimp, there's no doubt about it. Per capita consumption in the United States stands at about four pounds a year, the country's most consumed seafood. The popularity stems from multiple qualities: its durability when frozen, ease of cooking, and culinary versatility, articulated famously by Bubba in the movie Forrest Gump: "pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp." Shrimp is also very easy to farm. Although there was a time when most shrimp consumed in the United States was caught by shrimpers working the coast of Louisiana, today most of it comes from aquaculture farms in Asia. According to the USDA, the leading country of origin is now Thailand, and the United States is Thailand's largest export market. But the American appetite for shrimp now poses challenges for U.S. companies that import it. |
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Financial parasitism and looting are the "new normal:" Latest moves by Fed and European Central Bank
Nick Beams
World Socialist Web Site 2012-09-17 21:44:00
Financial parasitism and looting are the "new normal." The decision by the US Federal Reserve Board to provide indefinite support to financial markets under a third round of so-called quantitative easing (QE3), announced last week, coupled with the earlier decision by the European Central Bank (ECB) to intervene in the bond markets, marks a new stage in the breakdown of the global capitalist economy that began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The moves by the world's major central banks to pump more money into the global financial system signify that four years after financial markets stood on the brink of collapse in September 2008, there is no prospect of a return to what were once considered "normal" conditions. Far from lessening its support to the banks and financial institutions, the Fed is increasing it. The earlier interventions were implemented with time limits. In its latest decision, the Fed has given an indefinite commitment. As the headline of one article in the Financial Times put it, "Fed Sets Its Sights on Infinity and Beyond." |
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RT.com
2012-09-17 22:42:00
The former US Ambassador to Israel predicts that war between with Iran is likely to occur in early 2013.Martin Indyk, the former Ambassador, said there may be about six months left to negotiate a solution that would avoid war - but he thinks this is unlikely. Joining a roundtable of foreign policy experts to discuss the latest Middle East protests and Israel's concern over Iran, Indyk's predictions were dire. "There is still time, perhaps six months, even by Prime Minister Netanyahu's own time table to try to see if a negotiated solution can be worked out," he said on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday. "I'm pessimistic about that. If that doesn't work out - and we need to make every effort, exhaust every chance that it does work - then I am afraid that 2013 is going to be a year in which we're going to have a military confrontation with Iran." While Indyk said that Iran does not have nuclear weapons at this point, it is only a matter of time before the US will need to take military action. | |
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Comment: When will we see that needed 'red line' drawn for the U.S. and Israeli governments?
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| Society's Child |
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Samantha Tata and Jonathan Lloyd
The burning body was discovered near 94th Street and Grand AvenueNBC 4 2012-09-18 02:09:00
A body was found burning in a South Los Angeles street Monday night, according to fire officials. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene in the 300 block of West 94th Street between Broadway and Grand Avenue (map), said Brian Humphrey with LAFD. The initial report from a passer-by was received at about 10 p.m., said LAPD Lt. Gerald Woodyard. Aerial video showed a charred body in the road not far from the sidewalk. Anyone with information can call 213-485-4341. |
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Rosalind Rossi, Stefano Esposito, Lauren Fitzpatrick and Maudlyne Ihejirika
Sun Times 2012-09-18 04:39:00
The Chicago teachers' strike is over. The Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates voted Tuesday to end its strike after seven days, meaning classes will be in session Wednesday for 350,000 Chicago Public Schools students. "Everybody is going back to school," said Jay Rehak, a delegate from Whitney Young High School. Delegate Mike Bochner said "an overwhelming majority" of delegates voted to suspend the strike on a voice vote. "I'm really excited, I'm really relieved," said Bochner, a teacher at Cesar Chavez elementary. At a press conference a short time after the vote, CTU President Karen Lewis said the vote was approved by a margin of "like 98 percent to 2." "There are some people that are going to be die-hard hold-outs," she said. " ... We said that it was time, that we couldn't solve all the problems of the world with one contract. And it was time to suspend the strike." Chicago Public Schools wasted no time embracing the news. A banner went up on its website shortly after the vote. "Information alert: CTU leadership has chosen to end the strike. All CPS schools will be re-open Wednesday, September 19," it read. "Chicago Teachers Union leadership has chosen to end the strike. All Chicago Public Schools will re-open on Wednesday, September 19, and all CPS students are expected to be back in the classroom." |
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CBS Sacramento
California, Elk Grove - A disabled Elk Grove woman who was allegedly
beaten by her 11-year-old son has died, according to Elk Grove police.2012-09-18 02:03:00
Police say 51-year-old Tracey Gipaya died of a pre-existing condition and they do not anticipate filing any new charges against the boy. Investigators say the 11-year-old boy was arrested at his elementary school last week for allegedly beating his own mother so badly that she was hospitalized. He has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse. "She did have injuries to her arms, to her legs, to her back and other areas that we believe were a direct result of her son causing the abuse," Elk Grove Police Officer Chris Trim said when the boy was arrested |
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Dorothy Tucker
Public school parents frustrated by the length of the Chicago teachers'
strike are looking for other educational options, and the city's charter
schools have reported a record number of calls.CBS Chicago 2012-09-17 01:41:00 CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker some parents are just asking questions, but others are enrolling their children for classes at charter schools.
Five-year-old Anthony spent his first week of school at Jesse Owens Elementary Community Academy. But, after the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike, and the walkout dragged on several days, Anthony's mom got fed up and Anthony is now enrolled at Lloyd Bond Charter School. "It was just very stressful for me, and I started to get angry, because I'm like 'Why is it lasting this long?" Leondra Smith said. She is among nearly 30 parents who enrolled their children in charter schools since last week. According to the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, 12 percent of Chicago students attend charter schools. That percentage is expected to grow, because calls to charter schools from frustrated CPS parents have jumped from an average of 10 a day to nearly 70. |
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Eileen Marable
Dvice 2012-09-17 00:00:00
The use for unmanned drones increases every day. This time it's to keep an eye on the beaches of Queensland, Australia to look out for swimmers in trouble - and, of course, any sharks lurking too close. Surf Life Saving Australia will be deploying the Aerobot Ring, a co-axial hexacopter, in a trial of the drones' effectiveness. The drones are roughly three feet wide and have a payload capacity of around 15 pounds for a flight time of 15 minutes. They'll carry cameras to keep an eye on the water, as well as life buoys to drop to those in distress. Plus, there's a siren to warn people of potential trouble before it happens. Should the tests prove to be successful, Brett Williamson, head of Surf Life Saving Australia would like to see the trials expanded to patrol many of Australia's remote beaches unmanned by lifeguards. |
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Victoria Cavaliere
New York Daily News 2012-09-18 02:30:00
School attorneys find such activities are not exempt under state law banning gender discrimination. A school district in Rhode Island has ended its traditional father-daughter and mother-son sanctioned events, saying they violate a state gender discrimination law. The move came after a single mother complained that her daughter had not been able to attend her father-daughter dance. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to school officials on behalf of the mother, the Providence Journal reported. School attorneys looked into the matter and found that national Title IX legislation exempts activities like father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames. However, Rhode Island state law does not, the lawyers said. The school then moved to ban such events. |
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Click Orlando
2012-09-18 06:50:00
Sanford, Florida - A Sanford man was arrested on allegations of beating his live-in girlfriend with her own dog. Michael Wayne Jones, 42, was arrested Thursday on charges of domestic battery by strangulation, criminal mischief and animal cruelty. According to Sanford police, Jones got into a fight with his girlfriend and she attempted to drive away. ones, however, grabbed her dog and started swinging the animal in the air, said police, who added that Jones then beat his girlfriend with the dog. Police said Jones also started choking his girlfriend before fleeing on a bike while carrying the dog. He was later located and arrested. The woman, who police said had red marks on her neck, and the dog were not seriously injured. Jones was booked into the Seminole County jail. |
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The Smoking Gun
2012-09-18 00:00:00
WARNING! This article contains graphic content! A Florida farmhand arrested for having sexual contact with a miniature donkey explained to cops that the Sunshine State was "backwards" since its residents "frown on zoophilia," according to a police report. Carlos Romero, 31, was collared yesterday and charged with misdemeanor sexual activity with an animal. Investigators report that a witness last month spotted Romero, pictured in the mug shot at right, "up against the rear of the donkey" apparently having sex with the animal. Romero--who was shirtless and had his pants down--pulled away from the donkey when he spotted the witness, who had been delivering a horse to the barn he rents. When interviewed Friday by cops, Romero made a series of shocking admissions. |
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Matt Pearce
Los Angeles Times 2012-09-18 09:34:00
Officials evacuated Louisiana State University on Monday after yet another bomb threat forced students to leave a campus. A caller phoned in a vague threat to 911 that was received by the East Baton Rouge Parish emergency center at 10:32 a.m., university spokesperson Kristine Calongne told the Los Angeles Times. University officials blasted out an evacuation notice on social media platforms a little over an hour later, at 11:37 a.m. By Monday evening, law enforcement officials were allowing students to return to dorms and some other facilities while continuing to inspect the rest of the campus. Classes were canceled for the day. "We have a huge campus, so it takes a little time," Calongne said. Unless police find a bomb, the threat looks to be yet another hoax - the fourth to strike an American university in the past week. The trend is a tough one for school officials who must protect students even from potentially spurious threats since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and a gunma's rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007. |
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Fox News
2012-09-18 00:00:00
Three passenger planes were quarantined and investigated for 90 minutes at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday after an apparent hoax call about a possible hijacking. Fox 5 News reports that it appeared to be part of a coordinated hoax at airports across the country claiming there were hijackings planned on the flights, according to the Port Authority Police Department. Someone anonymously called in a threat about an American Airlines flight from San Francisco and a FinnAir flight from Helsinki saying there were terrorists hiding in the wheel well. The New York Post reported that the caller said he received the information from a member of an unnamed Muslim terrorist group. |
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Sky News
2012-09-13 09:58:00
A shaman has admitted trying to cover up the death of an American teenager who died after eating an hallucinogenic plant by burying him in the grounds of his Amazon retreat. Kyle Nolan, 18, died after drinking extracts of a psychedelic plant called ayahuasca during a ritual in the Madre de Dios jungle region of Peru. He was reported missing ten days later when he failed to return to the US. His mother Ingeborg Oswalo, from northern California, travelled to Peru and launched a media appeal for information after police failed to find him. He was eventually traced to the Shimbre Shamanic Centre, near Tres Islas, but shaman Jose Manuel Pineda Vargas, 58, told them he had disappeared from the area. He later confessed to burying him in the grounds of the retreat, and was arrested with two other men who helped cover up the death. |
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Tiffany Kaiser
DailyTech 2012-09-17 18:10:00
Halliburton lost a 7-inch radioactive cylinder used for hydraulic fracturing. Oil company Halliburton has lost an important instrument for its drilling processes somewhere in Texas, and if touched by humans, it could be harmful. Halliburton recently announced that is lost a 7-inch radioactive cylinder that is used for hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is a process where oil and gas companies insert water and other components underground to break up subterranian formations. By doing this, natural gas is free to leak to the surface. However, Halliburton slipped up and lost this 7-inch radioactive cylinder somewhere in West Texas. While the cylinder doesn't produce radiation in a way that would kill humans quickly, it's still dangerous. The Texas Department of State Health Service warns that humans should stay back 20-25 feet if they come in contact with it. |
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Yahoo! News
2012-09-18 00:00:00
Mexico City - More than 130 inmates escaped through a tunnel from a Mexican prison on the border with the United States in one of the worst jailbreaks the country's beleaguered penal system has suffered in recent years. Homero Ramos, attorney general of the northern state of Coahuila, said 132 inmates of the prison in the city of Piedras Negras had got out through the tunnel in an old carpentry workshop, then cut the wire surrounding the complex. Corrupt prison officials may have helped the inmates escape, said Jorge Luis Moran, chief of public security in Coahuila, adding that U.S. authorities had been alerted to help capture the fugitives if they try to cross the border. The jailbreak is a reminder of the challenges that await Enrique Pena Nieto, the incoming president, who has pledged to reduce crime in the country after six years of increased gang-related violence under President Felipe Calderon. Many of Mexico's prisons are overcrowded and struggle to counter the influence of criminal gangs that can use their financial muscle to corrupt those in charge. Ramos said that the state government of Coahuila was offering a reward of 200,000 pesos ($15,700) for information leading to the capture of each fugitive. The Piedras Negras complex housed a total of 734 inmates, and the tunnel through which the prisoners escaped was about 1.2 meters (four feet) wide, 2.9 meters (9-1/2 feet) deep and seven meters (23 feet) long, Ramos said. |
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Sophia Tareen
Time 2012-09-18 00:00:00
Chicago - Teachers across the nation's third-largest city will be poring over the details of a contract settlement Tuesday as the clock ticks down to an afternoon meeting in which they are expected to vote whether to end a seven-day strike that has kept 350,000 students out of class. Some union delegates said they planned to take a straw poll of rank-and-file teachers to measure support for a settlement that includes pay raises and concessions from the city on the contentious issues of teacher evaluations and job security. But many warned the outcome was still uncertain two days after delegates refused to call off the walkout, saying they didn't trust city and school officials and wanted more details. "It takes a lot to start a strike. You don't want to prematurely end it," said Jay Rehak, an English teacher and union delegate who planned to survey his colleagues at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School before voting at a meeting scheduled for 3 p.m. Pressure has mounted on the teachers to come to a decision quickly on the tentative contract, which labor and education experts - and even some union leaders - called a good deal for the Chicago Teachers Union. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, irked by the union's two-day delay in voting on whether to send children back to school, took the matter into court Monday. A judge has called a hearing for Wednesday morning to rule on the city's request for an injunction ordering the teachers back to work. Widespread support from parents also appeared to be waning as the strike begins to drag. At least one parent group has sprung up and organized to express its frustrations with the kids being out of class after the teachers decided to stay out on Sunday. |
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Kazunori Takada and Chris Buckley
Yahoo! News Canada 2012-09-17 00:00:00
Some major Japanese brandname firms announced factory shutdowns in China on Monday and urged expatriates to stay indoors ahead of what could be more angry protests over a territorial dispute between Asia's two biggest economies. China's worst outbreak of anti-Japan sentiment in decades led to weekend demonstrations and violent attacks on well-known Japanese businesses such as car makers Toyota and Honda, forcing frightened Japanese into hiding and prompting Chinese state media to warn that trade relations could now be in jeopardy. Another outbreak of anti-Japan sentiment is expected across China on Tuesday, the anniversary of Japan's 1931 occupation of parts of mainland China. "I'm not going out today and I've asked my Chinese boyfriend to be with me all day tomorrow," said Sayo Morimoto, a 29-year-old Japanese graduate student at a university in Shenzhen. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the government would protect Japanese firms and citizens and called for protesters to obey the law. "The gravely destructive consequences of Japan's illegal purchase of the Diaoyu Islands are steadily emerging, and the responsibility for this should be born by Japan," he told a daily news briefing. The islands, called the Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China. China and Japan, which generated two-way trade of $345 billion last year, are arguing over the uninhabited islets in the East China Sea, a long-standing dispute that erupted last week when the Japanese government decided to buy some of them from a private Japanese owner. |
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| Secret History |
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Associated Press
2012-09-15 17:27:00
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 last week 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 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners in the Katyn forest and other locations in 1940. Newly declassified documents The evidence is among about 1,000 pages of newly declassified documents that the U.S. National Archives released and is putting online. Democratic 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. 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. |
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Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News 2012-09-18 10:49:00
The first ever Etruscan pyramids have been located underneath a wine cellar in the city of Orvieto in central Italy, according to a team of U.S. and Italian archaeologists. Carved into the rock of the tufa plateau --a sedimentary area that is a result of volcanic activity -- on which the city stands, the subterranean structures were largely filled. Only the top-most modern layer was visible. "Within this upper section, which had been modified in modern times and was used as a wine cellar, we noticed a series of ancient stairs carved into the wall. They were clearly of Etruscan construction," David B. George of the Department of Classics at Saint Anselm, told Discovery News. As they started digging, George and co-director of the excavation Claudio Bizzarri of the Parco Archeologico Ambientale dell'Orvietano noted that the cave's walls were tapered up in a pyramidal fashion. Intriguingly, a series of tunnels, again of Etruscan construction, ran underneath the wine cellar hinting to the possibility of deeper undiscovered structures below. After going through a mid-20th century floor, George and Bizzarri reached a medieval floor. Immediately beneath this floor, they found a layer of fill that contained various artifacts such as Attic red figure pottery from the middle of the 5th Century B.C., 6th and 5th century B.C. Etruscan pottery with inscriptions as well as various objects that dated to before 1000 B.C. |
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Matti Friedman
Israeli archaeologists digging on the route of a planned highway have
found new ruins from a 1,500-year-old Jewish town, the Israel
Antiquities Authority said Sunday.Times of Israel 2012-09-18 10:58:00 The remains of two Jewish ritual baths and two public buildings were uncovered in a salvage dig ahead of the paving of a new section of Israel's Highway 6, a north-south toll road eventually slated to run much of the length of the country.
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| Science & Technology |
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Cathy Kolf
Johns Hopkins Medicine 2012-09-16 17:27:00
Johns Hopkins researchers link reversible 'epigenetic' marks to behavior patterns. Johns Hopkins scientists report what is believed to be the first evidence that complex, reversible behavioral patterns in bees - and presumably other animals - are linked to reversible chemical tags on genes. The scientists say what is most significant about the new study, described online September 16 in Nature Neuroscience, is that for the first time DNA methylation "tagging" has been linked to something at the behavioral level of a whole organism. On top of that, they say, the behavior in question, and its corresponding molecular changes, are reversible, which has important implications for human health. According to Andy Feinberg, M.D., M.P.H., Gilman scholar, professor of molecular medicine and director of the Center for Epigenetics at Hopkins' Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences, the addition of DNA methylation to genes has long been shown to play an important role in regulating gene activity in changing biological systems, like fate determination in stem cells or the creation of cancer cells. Curious about how epigenetics might contribute to behavior, he and his team studied a tried-and-true model of animal behavior: bees. Working with bee expert Gro Amdam, Ph.D., associate professor of life sciences at Arizona State University and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Feinberg's epigenetics team found significant differences in DNA methylation patterns in bees that have identical genetic sequences but vastly different behavioral patterns. |
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Megan Gannon
LiveScience 2012-09-18 15:18:00
Scientists say they have new evidence to support the idea that a space rock crashed into Earth about 12,900 years ago, wiping out some of North America's biggest beasts and ushering in a period of extreme cooling. If such an impact took place, it did not leave behind any obvious clues like a crater. But microscopic melted rock formations called spherules and nano-sized diamonds in ancient soil layers could be telltale signs of a big collision. The mix of particles could only have formed under extreme temperatures, created by a comet or asteroid impact. Researchers first reported in 2007 that these particles were found at several archaeological sites in layers of sediment 12,900 years old. Now an independent study published in the (Sept.17) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) says those findings hold up. |
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Adam Frank
The "rebels" who fight the Big Bang theory are mostly attempting to
grapple with the concept of time. They are philosophers as much as
cosmologists, unsatisfied with the Big Bang, unimpressed with string
theory and unconvinced of the multiverse. Julian Barbour, British
physicist, author, and major proponent of the idea of timeless physics,
is one of those rebels--so thoroughly a rebel that he has spurned the
world of academics.PopSci 2012-09-18 13:30:00
Julian Barbour's solution to the problem of time in physics and cosmology is as simply stated as it is radical: there is no such thing as time. "If you try to get your hands on time, it's always slipping through your fingers," says Barbour. "People are sure time is there, but they can't get hold of it. My feeling is that they can't get hold of it because it isn't there at all." Barbour speaks with a disarming English charm that belies an iron resolve and confidence in his science. His extreme perspective comes from years of looking into the heart of both classical and quantum physics. Isaac Newton thought of time as a river flowing at the same rate everywhere. Einstein changed this picture by unifying space and time into a single 4-D entity. But even Einstein failed to challenge the concept of time as a measure of change. In Barbour's view, the question must be turned on its head. It is change that provides the illusion of time. Channeling the ghost of Parmenides, Barbour sees each individual moment as a whole, complete and existing in its own right. He calls these moments "Nows." |
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Tia Ghose
LIveScience 2012-09-18 11:17:00
The eyes may be windows into the soul, but following their movement also could allow doctors to make quick, accurate diagnoses for disorders like autism, schizophrenia, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, various research projects suggest. Eye tracking, which records where subjects focus when watching visual displays, could diagnose brain disorders more accurately than subjective questionnaires or medical examinations do, researchers say. Exams are expensive and time-consuming, and subjective tests have been known to wrongly identify healthy people or misdiagnose disorders. To make sense of all that people see, the brain filters huge amounts of visual information, fills in gaps and focuses on certain objects. That complex task uses many mental circuits, so differences in what people choose to look at ― differences so subtle that only a computer can spot them ― could provide unprecedented insight into common neurological problems. "Eye tracking is a great way to assess somebody's spontaneous attention and preference. That's really fundamental to who you are as a person," said Karen Pierce, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego, Autism School of Excellence. And because eye tracking requires only a camera, a laptop and a brief test, the technology could be easier to use than traditional diagnostic tools, Pierce said. |
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Peggy Binette
PhysOrg 2012-09-18 12:07:00
Did a massive comet explode over Canada 12,900 years ago, wiping out both beast and man in North America and propelling the earth back into an ice age? That's a question that has been hotly debated by scientists since 2007, with the University of South Carolina's Topper archaeological site right in the middle of the comet impact controversy. However, a new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides further evidence that it may not be such a far-fetched notion. Albert Goodyear, an archaeologist in USC's College of Arts and Sciences, is a co-author on the study that upholds a 2007 PNAS study by Richard Firestone, a staff scientist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Firestone found concentrations of spherules (micro-sized balls) of metals and nano-sized diamonds in a layer of sediment dating 12,900 years ago at 10 of 12 archaeological sites that his team examined. The mix of particles is thought to be the result of an extraterrestrial object, such as a comet or meteorite, exploding in the earth's atmosphere. Among the sites examined was USC's Topper, one of the most pristine U.S. sites for research on Clovis, one of the earliest ancient peoples. "This independent study is yet another example of how the Topper site with its various interdisciplinary studies has connected ancient human archaeology with significant studies of the Pleistocene," said Goodyear, who began excavating Clovis artifacts in 1984 at the Topper site in Allendale, S.C. "It's both exciting and gratifying." | |
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Jason Mick
DailyTech 2012-09-17 22:57:00
Transparent thin film memory could soon be here Zinc tin oxide (ZTO) has one big advantage over traditional thin-film semiconductor materials like gallium- or indium-containing compounds -- it's cheap. ZTO, unlike the other thin-film candidates is based on elements that are plentiful in the Earth's crust. Plus it happens to be transparent, an added bonus when inspecting thin-film applications. Previous work had already shown ZTO to make relatively good thin-film transistors -- now new research shows it's also a capable candidate for the memristor, a promising new circuit element. Memristors are a new circuit element long theorized, but only recently implemented by Hewlett Packard Comp.'s (HPQ) research wing, HP Labs. Since that breakthrough things have proceeded rapidly, with licensed devices expected to launch as traditional SSD replacements as early as next year. Memristor RRAM (resistive random access memory) differs from NAND (not-and gate) memory in that it stores values as a resistance value, rather than a charge. Hence it saves power and offers some performance advantages. |
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Fox News
2012-09-17 04:55:00
A spacecraft orbiting Mars has detected carbon dioxide snow falling on the Red Planet, making Mars the only body in the solar system known to host this weird weather phenomenon. The snow on Mars fell from clouds around the planet's south pole during the Martian winter spanning 2006 and 2007, with scientists discovering it only after sifting through observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The Martian south pole hosts a frozen carbon dioxide - or "dry ice" - cap year-round, and the new discovery may help explain how it formed and persists, researchers said. "These are the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds," lead author Paul Hayne, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. "We firmly establish the clouds are composed of carbon dioxide - flakes of Martian air - and they are thick enough to result in snowfall accumulation at the surface." |
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| Earth Changes |
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Radhica Sookraj
Gusty winds tore off the roof of the University of Trinidad and Tobago's
south campus on Sunday destroying more than $12 million worth of
equipment and displacing more than 1,500 students.Guardian 2012-09-18 16:33:00
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Sydney Morning Herlad
2012-09-18 16:23:00
A severe thunderstorm warning has been issued for a large swathe of NSW, with heavy falls of hail and rain and damaging winds predicted. Heavy hail falls were hitting Sydney's west this afternoon. The Bureau of Meteorology warned the storms were likely to bring large hailstones and heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding and damaging winds in the warning area into late today. |
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Denis Scott Chabrol
Demerara Waves 2012-09-18 16:15:00
A less than half-hour freak storm in Linden has left millions of dollars in damage and several persons homeless in its wake. The roofs of seven houses in Amelia's Ward, Linden were Monday afternoon blown off during a freak storm. No one was injured. Region 10 Chairman, Sharma Solomon said telephone and electricity services were not disrupted but the there was "significant damage" to the houses. |
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Tapang Ivo Tanku
CNN 2012-09-17 16:01:00
Flooding in Cameroon's Far North Region has killed nearly 30 people and affected more than 26,000 others, officials said Monday. More than 4,000 people in the Logone and Shari division were displaced, and more than 22,000 people in the region of Maga, Mayo-Danay division, also have been affected. Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary described the flooding as "a calamity," and he called for urgent action to save lives, livestock and property. Dana FM, a local radio station, said the death toll will grow as bodies are collected and identified. For the past few weeks, there has been no sign of the flood easing. |
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Trust.org
2012-09-18 15:56:00
Flash flooding has triggered landslides in northern India leaving 33 dead and 35 missing, reports children's charity Plan International. Heavy monsoon rains swamped Uttarakhand state, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Dozens of homes were flattened across eight villages in the early hours of the morning, killing villagers in their sleep. "Houses were buried in the debris of mud and rocks and many lives of both people and livestock were lost as a consequence," says Plan's emergency response manager in India Murali Kunduru. |
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Miguel Llanos
NBC News 2012-09-18 15:51:00
Tornado watches were issued for much of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, part of a storm front that brought high winds and heavy rain. Power outages were reported in the Washington, D.C., area and air travel was disrupted across the region. Major cities within the tornado watches include New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The watches also cover parts of Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. Wind gusts up to 70 mph are possible in those areas, the National Weather Service said in issuing the watches, some of which run through 11 p.m. ET. |
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US Geological Survey
2012-09-18 12:35:00
Event Time 2012-09-18 01:44:47 UTC 2012-09-17 17:44:47 UTC-08:00 at epicenter 2012-09-17 18:44:47 UTC-07:00 system time Nearby Cities 55km (34mi) SSW of Larsen Bay, Alaska 525km (326mi) SSW of Anchorage, Alaska 561km (349mi) SSW of Knik-Fairview, Alaska 934km (580mi) SSW of Fairbanks, Alaska 1174km (729mi) WSW of Whitehorse, Canada |
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Anthony Watts
My interview with PBS Newshour, now online, posted on September 17, 2012 by Anthony Watts.WattsUpWithThat.com 2012-09-18 10:27:00 Here's the story/transcript from Spencer Michels, along with video that follows. I have not seen the piece that will be airing nationally yet, and I don't know how much of me they use, but this just appeared on the PBS website. One note: when they talk about "heat sync" they really meant to say heat sink. - Anthony Conversation with global warming skeptic Anthony Watts:
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The Extinction Protocol
2012-09-18 10:42:00
Volcanic activity on Spain's El Hierro Island has resumed far below the Earth's surface in a similar manner to last July, albeit slightly stronger, the director of the National Geographic Institute, or IGN, in the Canary Islands, Maria Jose Blanco, told Efe on Sunday. Blanco said that a peak of seismic activity is under way, a continuation of the volcanic process - a shifting of magma many kilometers (miles) underground - that began in July 2011 which, although the main activity ended at the time with an undersea eruption, that did not mean that the overall activity had come to a definitive conclusion. The IGN official said that at present it is not expected that the seismic movements that have been registered - which have occurred at depths of some 20 kilometers (about 12.5 miles) - exceed 3.2 on the Richter scale, a fairly low level. Blanco could not specify how long this new round of activity would last, although she did say that seismic peaks like the current one would, in all likelihood, continue to occur. Therefore, she said, the IGN is studying the idea of convening the scientific committee of the Civil Protection Plan for Volcanic Risk in the Canaries after this reactivation in the depths of the El Hierro volcano, where over the past three days more than 330 minor seismic movements have been registered. |
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The Extinction Protocol
2012-09-18 10:36:00
Two of Indonesia's most active volcanoes erupted on Saturday, prompting the government to issue warnings to populations living near the affected mountains. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said on Sunday that new eruption started at Lokon in North Sulawesi and Gamalama at Ternate in North Maluku. Lokon generated a 1,500-meter high ash plume and violent strombolian (low-level) activity with some lava flow, while Gamalama produced a shower of ashes that covered the nearby city. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for BNPB, said on Sunday that Lokon, located in North Sulawesi's Tomohon area, erupted at 7 p.m. on Saturday. The explosion from the eruption shattered windows of the command post built to monitor the activities of the volcano, he said. The agency, Sutopo said, had issued warnings to local administrations to prepare precautionary measures, and called on people to remain alert. "The residents don't have to be evacuated but they must not do any activities within the range of five kilometers from the volcano," Sutopo said. He said that the BNPB had asked the Tomohon administration to raise the awareness of residents. |
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Deccan Herald
2012-09-18 09:42:00
Even as massive protests have stalled the commissioning of the Kudankulam nuclear plant, activists have now raised concerns over the safety of another nuclear site in Tamil Nadu. The activists claim that there is documentary evidence that the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) in Kalpakkam near Chennai sits near an undersea volcano. They have demanded a thorough investigation of the hazard potential of the volcano by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). In a book first published in Tamil in March and recently translated to English under the title Kalpakkam Nuclear Reactors and Submarine Volcano, V. Pughazhendi and R. Ramesh of the Peoples Movement for Nuclear Radiation Safety have amassed documentary evidence showing that a submarine volcano is located 156 km southeast of Chennai and 100 km east of Pondicherry that could pose a risk to the nuclear plant in Kalpakkam. Besides the two power plants in Kalpakkam, there are also a fast breeder test reactor, and a fuel reprocessing facility. There will also soon be a 500-MW prototype fast breeder."Volcanic eruptions and submarine landslides have the potential to produce truly awesome tsunami waves," say the authors, who point out that the site of the fast breeder reactor, then under construction, was flooded when a tsunami struck the coast in 2004. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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No new articles. |
| Health & Wellness |
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Jim Sliwa
Contrary to previous findings, new research finds no link between
chronic fatigue syndrome and the viruses XMRV (xenotropic murine
leukemia virus-related virus) and pMLV (polytropic murine leukemia
virus). A study to be published on September 18 in mBio®, the
online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology,
reveals that research that reported patients with chronic fatigue
syndrome carried these two viruses was wrong and that there is still no
evidence for an infectious cause behind chronic fatigue syndrome.American Society for Microbiology 2012-09-18 17:22:00 "The bottom line is we found no evidence of infection with XMRV and pMLV. These results refute any correlation between these agents and disease," says Ian Lipkin of Columbia University, a co-author on the study. Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), is a disabling condition in which sufferers experience persistent and unexplained fatigue as well as any of a host of associated problems, including muscle weakness, pain, impaired memory, and disordered sleep. Medical treatment for CFS/ME costs as much as $7 billion every year in the U.S. alone. The possible causes of CFS/ME have been argued and researched for years with no success. Results from separate studies in 2009 and 2010 that reported finding retroviruses in the blood of patients with CFS/ME created a sensation among patients and the medical community and offered hope that a tractable cause for this disease had finally been found. Since then, other investigators have been unable to replicate the results of those studies, casting doubt on the idea that these viruses, XMRV and pMLV, could be behind CFS/ME. |
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Anna Barry-Jester and Sasha Chavkin
The Center for Public Integrity 2012-09-17 14:00:00
Sandamalgama, Sri Lanka - In this tiny Sri Lankan village, rice farmer Wimal Rajaratna sits cross-legged on a wooden bed, peering out toward lush palm trees that surround his home. Listless and weak, the 46-year old father of two anxiously awaits word on whether his body can accept a kidney donation that offers his only chance of survival. In Uddanam, India, a reed-thin farmer named Laxmi Narayna prepares for the grueling two-day journey he takes twice every week. For most of his 46 years, his job involved shimmying up palm trees to harvest coconuts at the top. He now spends most of his time negotiating the more than 100-mile bus trips he takes to receive the dialysis treatments that keep him alive. Ten thousand miles away, in the Nicaraguan community of La Isla, Maudiel Martinez dreads returning to the rolling sugarcane fields where he spent most of his teenage years at work with a machete. Blood tests by the sugar company that employed him found that his kidneys were seriously damaged - and exertion beneath the tropical sun could tip the 20-year-old's health into a lethal spiral. In three countries on opposite ends of the world, these men face the same deadly mystery: their kidneys are failing, and no one knows why. A mysterious form of chronic kidney disease - CKD - is afflicting thousands of people in rural, agricultural communities in Sri Lanka, India and Central America. The struggle to identify its causes is baffling researchers across multiple continents and posing a lethal puzzle worthy of Sherlock Holmes. The three epidemics have crucial threads in common. The victims are relatively young and mostly farm workers, and few suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure, the usual risk factors for renal disease. They experience a rare form of kidney damage, known as tubulo-interstitial disease, consistent with severe dehydration and toxic poisoning. |
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Tom Philpott
Mother Jones 2012-09-13 13:12:00
Egged on by massive food-industry marketing budgets, Americans eat a lot of sugary foods. We know the habit is quite probably wrecking our bodies, triggering high rates of overweight and diabetes. Is it also wrecking our brains? That's the disturbing conclusion emerging in a body of research linking Alzheimer's disease to insulin resistance - which is in turn linked to excess sweetener consumption. A blockbuster story in the Sept. 3 issue of the UK magazine The New Scientist teases out the connections. |
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Lisa Garber
Activist Post 2012-09-17 12:51:00
It's a wonder people spend billions of dollars on woefully ineffective and even harmful pharmaceuticals when our own spice racks contain so much natural healing power. And now, many recent studies back the millennia-old claims that spices have powerful healing properties. Here are 5 organic spices possessing amazing healing properties to bolster your well-being and protect you from illness and disease. |
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Sayer Ji
Greenmedinfo.com 2012-09-18 08:06:00
Research published in the journal Pediatrics indicates that some dental composites -- long promoted as overall safer than mercury-based amalgams -- are having a significant negative impact on the psychosocial functioning of children. In fact, bisphenol-A based dental restorations were found to be worse than mercury-based amalgams when it came to learning impairment and behavioral issues. [i] The study used data from The New England Children's Amalgam Trial, which, surprisingly, found that children randomized to amalgam restorations had better psychosocial outcomes than those assigned to bisphenol-A based epoxy resin composites (bisGMA) for tooth restorations. The new analysis aimed to "examine whether greater exposure to dental composites is associated with psychosocial problems in children." The results of the study, which looked at a group of 534 children, 6 to 10 years old, were as follows: |
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Mike Adams
Natural News 2012-09-13 17:50:00
Presentation of Jack Heinemann
Genetically engineered wheat contains an enzyme suppressor that, when consumed by humans, could cause permanent liver failure (and death). That's the warning issued today by molecular biologist Jack Heinemann of the University of Canterbury in Australia. Heinemann has published an eye-opening report that details this warning and calls for rigorous scientific testing on animals before this crop is ever consumed by humans. The enzyme suppressor in the wheat, he says, might also attack a human enzyme that produces glycogen. Consumers who eat genetically modified wheat would end up contaminating their bodies with this enzyme-destroying wheat, causing their own livers to be unable to produce glycogen, a hormone molecule that helps the body regulate blood sugar metabolism. This, in turn, would lead to liver failure. "What we found is that the molecules created in this wheat, intended to silence wheat genes, can match human genes, and through ingestion, these molecules can enter human beings and potentially silence our genes," said Heinemann in a press conference on the threat of GM wheat. | |
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Comment: Eating wheat will destroy your health and
mental well being regardless of Genetic Modification or not, read the
following articles for more information:
The Dark Side of Wheat - New Perspectives on Celiac Disease and Wheat Intolerance Opening Pandora's Bread Box: The Critical Role of Wheat Lectin in Human Disease Take a Look at the Damage Wheat Bread Can Cause You Interview with 'Wheat Belly' Author Dr. William Davis Can You Stomach Wheat? How Giving up Grain May Better Your Health Effects of wheat on humans' mental well being: Can Wheat Drive More Than Your Digestive System Crazy? Wheat Addiction Explained Wheat is an Opiate Doctor Says Whole Wheat Packs on Belly Fat - And Has a Lot in Common with Opiate Drugs |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Makini Brice
Medical Daily 2012-09-18 14:57:00
It's a pretty common trope in sitcoms: man thinks something, man meets woman, man is unable to continue thinking. But, like all good comedy, the cliché has its roots in human nature. It, in fact, has roots in science as well. Researchers found that, for men, even the thought of interacting with a woman was enough to cause cognitive impairment. In 2009, a study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that, after interacting with an attractive woman for a short period of time, heterosexual men's cognitive ability declined. More recently, a team of Dutch researchers attempted to see if they could take that correlation one step further. They conducted two experiments using male and female college students. Both tests started with the Stroop test. The test shows participants the name of a color, like "orange." The color is written in a different color, like blue. Participants need to quickly identify the color in which the word is written, rather than what the word is. The test is pretty difficult because participants naturally read the word, confusing their brains. |
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| High Strangeness |
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No new articles. |
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
| No new articles. |
