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Corey Schink
Sott.net 2012-10-25 06:21:00
I recently had a rather interesting conversation with one of those people who, in a way that's hard to come by in America these days, can look you in the eye and treat you like a human being. How rare, I thought. I was impressed by how simple, how nice, this man was. Before I realised it, we'd spent nearly an hour talking while the sun set and the dull darkness fell on our dull American street, a street made momentarily more habitable by the genuine kindness of a stranger. And then, the inevitable occurred. The dreaded question: "So, who are you going to vote for?" I looked away for a moment. "You do vote, don't you?" he pressed. Being respectful toward a person who had just offered me the simple pleasure of conversation, I gave as real an answer as I thought was suitable. "Nope. I'm pretty burnt out by the whole thing." And surprisingly, he actually acknowledged my answer before, well, you know, 'the lecture'. |
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No new articles. |
| Puppet Masters |
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RT
2012-10-25 17:25:00
A handful of international election monitors have touched down in the US to swing by polling places next month when voters cast ballots for the president, but officials in the state of Texas have issued them a warning: you're not welcome. State Attorney General Greg Abbott has sent a scathing letter to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, threatening to arrest any of the election auditors that have been dispatched to America to ensure that voters won't be disenfranchised, discriminated against or intimidated when they take to the polls on November 6. |
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RT
2012-10-25 17:21:00
Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks is releasing over 100 classified documents detailing US Department of Defense procedures for running Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca and other infamous prisons where terror suspects are detained. The directives and manuals, which for more than a decade directed the US military's policy for treatment of its detainees, will be released chronologically over the next month, WikiLeaks said in a statement. The first batch of the documents released is the 2002 Camp Delta - Guantanamo Bay prison - Standing Operating Procedure manuals. "This document is of significant historical importance. Guantanamo Bay has become the symbol for systematized human rights abuse in the West with good reason," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said. Several of the documents slated for publishing "can only be described as 'policies of unaccountability,'" WikiLeaks said in its press release. |
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Greg Miller
Over the past few years, the Obama administration has institutionalized
the use of armed drones and developed a counterterrorism infrastructure
capable of sustaining a seemingly permanent war.The Washington Post 2012-10-24 16:54:00
Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the "disposition matrix." The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the "disposition" of suspects beyond the reach of American drones. |
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Glen Greenwald
The Guardian 2012-10-24 16:18:00
Complete with a newly coined, creepy Orwellian euphemism - 'disposition matrix' - the administration institutionalizes the most extremist powers a government can claim A primary reason for opposing the acquisition of abusive powers and civil liberties erosions is that they virtually always become permanent, vested not only in current leaders one may love and trust but also future officials who seem more menacing and less benign. The Washington Post has a crucial and disturbing story this morning by Greg Miller about the concerted efforts by the Obama administration to fully institutionalize - to make officially permanent - the most extremist powers it has exercised in the name of the war on terror. Based on interviews with "current and former officials from the White House and the Pentagon, as well as intelligence and counterterrorism agencies", Miller reports that as "the United States' conventional wars are winding down", the Obama administration "expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years" (the "capture" part of that list is little more than symbolic, as the US focus is overwhelmingly on the "kill" part). Specifically, "among senior Obama administration officials, there is broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade." As Miller puts it: "That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism." |
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The Guardian
2012-10-25 12:42:00
Met police commander says inquiry will be 'watershed' moment in investigation of child abuse Police investigating the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal are dealing with around 300 alleged victims, Scotland Yard has revealed. Commander Peter Spindler said officers were following more than 400 lines of inquiry linked to the victims, of whom all except two were women. He said investigators had so far spoken to 130 people who had come forward, and 114 allegations of crime had emerged. Officers were using a "triage" approach, first making contact with victims by phone to get initial details of their allegations. He told reporters that most of the allegations were linked to Savile, but some involved others who might have acted with him. | |
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Comment: Watch these to see what will probably happen next:
Dutroux Cover-up Protected Pedophile Networks Belgium's X Files: Dutroux Affair Uncovered Pedophile Networks The police investigation will be derailed, the BBC investigation of itself will clear its own name and the pedophiles in power will continue to enjoy the state's protection. |
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Fars News Agency
2012-10-25 06:22:00
Iran on Thursday condemned Israel's air strike on Sudanese capital city, Khartoum, and called it a clear violation of international laws. Aggressive action of the Zionist regime warplanes in bombing the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Wednesday is a clear violation of international rules and regulations as well as the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said. Such an unjustifiable move by the Zionist regime is originated from its brutal nature, he said warning that it would escalate tensions in the region. He reiterated that the Islamic Republic of Iran, while reminding regional organizations and the bodies supervising the maintenance of international peace and security of their responsibility in this regard, calls on them to adopt an appropriate stand in order to fulfill their great responsibility against the blatant aggression and prevent its repetition in the future. The spokesman further called on the regional countries to remain vigilant and take firm stands against the Zionist regime's aggression against the Muslim country and a member of the Arab League. Sudanese Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman blamed Israel for arms factory fire after four military planes attacked it. "Four military planes attacked the Yarmouk plant," he told reporters in Khartoum, adding the planes appeared to approach the site from the East. |
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Jonathan Cook
Information Clearing House 2012-10-24 21:11:00
How 400 trucks to feed Gaza became just 67 Six and a half years go, shortly after Hamas won the Palestinian national elections and took charge of Gaza, a senior Israeli official described Israel's planned response. "The idea," he said, "is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger." Although Dov Weisglass was adviser to Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of the day, few observers treated his comment as more than hyperbole, a supposedly droll characterisation of the blockade Israel was about to impose on the tiny enclave. Last week, however, the evidence finally emerged to prove that this did indeed become Israeli policy. After a three-year legal battle by an Israeli human rights group, Israel was forced to disclose its so-called "Red Lines" document. Drafted in early 2008, as the blockade was tightened still further, the defence ministry paper set forth proposals on how to treat Hamas-ruled Gaza. Health officials provided calculations of the minimum number of calories needed by Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants to avoid malnutrition. Those figures were then translated into truckloads of food Israel was supposed to allow in each day. The Israeli media have tried to present these chilling discussions, held in secret, in the best light possible. Even the liberal Haaretz newspaper euphemistically described this extreme form of calorie-counting as designed to "make sure Gaza didn't starve". But a rather different picture emerges as one reads the small print. While the health ministry determined that Gazans needed daily an average of 2,279 calories each to avoid malnutrition - requiring 170 trucks a day - military officials then found a host of pretexts to whittle down the trucks to a fraction of the original figure. |
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Paul Craig Roberts
Information Clearing House 2012-10-24 20:10:00
God help them if Obama and Romney ever had to participate in a real debate about a real issue at the Oxford Union. They would be massacred. The "debates" revealed that not only the candidates but also the entire country is completely tuned out to every real problem and dangerous development. For example, you would never know that US citizens can now be imprisoned and executed without due process. All that is required to terminate the liberty and life of an American citizen by his own government is an unaccountable decision somewhere in the executive branch. No doubt that Americans, if they think of this at all, believe that it will only happen to terrorists who deserve it. But as no evidence or due process is required, how would we know that it only happens to terrorists? Can we really trust a government that has started wars in 7 countries on the basis of falsehoods? If the US government will lie about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in order to invade a country, why won't it lie about who is a terrorist? America needs a debate about how we can be made more safe by removing the Constitutional protection of due process. If the power of government is not limited by the Constitution, are we ruled by Caesar? The Founding Fathers did not think we could trust a caesar with our safety. What has changed that we can now trust a caesar? If we are under such a terrorist threat that the Constitution has to be suspended or replaced by unaccountable executive action, how come all the alleged terrorist cases are sting operations organized by the FBI? In eleven years there has not been a single case in which the "terrorist" had the initiative! |
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| Society's Child |
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BBC News
2012-10-25 17:12:00
A national coffee chain has pulled out of a Devon town that prides itself on having independent shops. South Hams District Council had approved plans by Costa Coffee to open in Fore Street, Totnes. But in a letter, Chris Rogers, managing director of Costa, said the company had "recognised the strength of feeling" against national brands in the town. The move, detailed in a letter to "the people of Totnes", has been welcomed by campaign group No to Costa. |
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Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story 2012-10-24 16:28:00
A bill that landed on Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett's (R) desk this week would give companies that hire more than 250 new workers a gobsmacking tax incentive: 95 percent of those workers' state income taxes would be paid to the employer, and not the state. It's a bizarre strategy meant to attract companies from other states, specifically designed to lure California-based software maker Oracle into Pennsylvania. It's also, as Philadelphia City Paper put it, "lavish corporate welfare" writ large across state government. The bill, HB 2626, passed on October 17 with bipartisan support. Just 80 members of Pennsylvania's House of Representatives, most of the Democrats, voted in opposition. |
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The Independent
2012-10-25 16:18:00
A US Army soldier serving in Afghanistan who allegedly watched his wife have sex with a 15-year-old girl over Skype, has been charged with child sex abuse. Shawn Raymo, 22, and his wife Jessica Raymo, 21, who both live on the Fort Drum army base in Upstate New York, were arrested on Tuesday on charges of endangering a child's welfare, and of using a child in a sexual performance. The alleged crime took place while Shawn Raymo was deployed in Afghanistan in July 2011. Mrs Raymo is alleged to have had oral sex with the teenage girl while her husband watched via a webcam. Mr Raymo, who returned from deployment in last Autumn, was arraigned in court and held in jail on $5,000 bail along with his wife - after the charges recently came to light. A spokesman for Fort Drum told the New York Daily News this was the first time he had heard of sex crimes happening involving soldiers at the US Army post before. 'We are constantly trying to brief our soldiers on things that they should not be doing,' Lt Col David Konop said. |
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Adam Gabbatt
The Guardian 2012-10-25 15:20:00
A New York City police officer was charged Thursday with plotting to kidnap, rape, torture and kill women, and then cook and eat their body parts. Gilberto Valle was taken into custody by the FBI on Wednesday and suspended from the New York police department. He was expected to appear in federal court in Manhattan later Thursday. In a criminal complaint, investigators cited numerous emails and other internet communications that portray a ghoulish scheme of torture and cannibalism. They allege Valle met one potential victim over lunch, but there was no information that any women were harmed. "The allegations in the complaint really need no description from us," said Mary E Galligan, acting head of the FBI's New York office. "They speak for themselves. It would be an understatement merely to say Valle's own words and actions were shocking." |
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Andrea Boyle Tippett
University of Delaware 2012-10-24 11:43:00
The fourth installment of the Paranormal Activity films topped the box office last week. Television channel SyFy's hit show Ghost Hunters scares up big ratings, and has spawned copycat series on networks ranging from Biography to Animal Planet. The omnipresence of paranormal entertainment piqued the interest of Paul Brewer, professor of communication at the University of Delaware, who wondered what makes viewers believe -- or disbelieve -- what they see on the screen. His resulting study, recently published in the journal Science Communication, examines the influence of media messages about paranormal investigators on how people perceive the investigators' credibility. Brewer conducted an experiment asking participants to read one of four versions of a newspaper article. After reading the selected article participants filled out a questionnaire. "It wasn't just any story about paranormal investigators that made people believe in ghosts and haunted houses," Brewer said, "it was a story about how they were scientific." |
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The Inquisitr
2012-10-25 14:12:00
A New York City police officer has been arrested on charges that he planned to kidnap 100 women, cook them, and presumably eat them. Gilberto Valle III, the "Cannibal Cop," and a co-conspirator collaborated on a bizarre plan to kidnap Valle's girlfriend and other women in order to cook and eat them, reports ABC News. The FBI's criminal complaint against the 28-year-old "Cannibal Cop" will be unsealed later today. Valle, assigned to the 26th Precinct in Harlem, was originally found out by FBI agents and NYPD internal affairs investigators. He was arrested after online conversations with his co-conspirator detailed a plan to kidnap and cook women, including Valle's own girlfriend. The online conversations are said to include statements such as: Officials detail a number of these bizarre conversations, but note that the "Cannibal Cop" never actually went through with these sinister plans, reports MSN. "The allegations in the complaint really need no description from us," said FBI Acting Assistant Director Mary E. Galligan. "They speak for themselves. It would be an understatement merely to say Valle's own words and actions were shocking.""[My oven] is big enough to fit one of these girls if I folded their legs&The abduction will have to be flawless&I know all of them&[Victim 1], I can just show up at her home unannounced, it will not alert her, and I can knock her out, wait until dark and kidnap her right out of her home. The "Cannibal Cop" has been suspended without pay for his Hannibal Lecter-esque plot. |
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Lisa O'Carroll, Mark Sweney and John Plunkett
The Guardian 2012-10-25 12:37:00
The BBC Trust chairman has defended George Entwistle's performance before parliament, saying he was unfortunate to be engulfed by a "tsunami of filth" - his description of the Jimmy Savile scandal - less than two weeks into his new role. In a Radio 4 interview, Lord Patten also admitted that the Savile sex abuse scandal had done "terrible damage" to the corporation's reputation. Patten's defence of the beleaguered BBC director general on Thursday came as Entwistle asked Radio 5 Live controller Adrian Van Klaveren to lead the corporation's editorial coverage of the Savile child abuse scandal, taking over responsibility from BBC News director Helen Boaden and her deputy, Steve Mitchell. |
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Edward Krudy
Reuters 2012-10-25 09:50:00
Consumers will have to dig deeper into their pockets next year to pay for costlier healthcare, more expensive grocery bills and higher taxes, an extra drag on the country's already slow-moving economy. The additional outlays look set to test the resilience of consumers, whose spending accounts for around two-thirds of the U.S. economy. "We think it's going to be a difficult six to nine months," said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics for Moody's Analytics. "If anything, conditions are likely to get worse, particularly at the start of the year." The strength of consumer spending has surprised some economists, given unemployment near 8 percent and anemic wage growth. Consumer spending has cushioned the blow to the United States from slower foreign demand for its goods. U.S. households have shed about $880 billion in debt since the peak in the first quarter of 2008, according to Federal Reserve data. That has put many consumers on a path back to financial health. | |
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Comment: 25 Horrifying Statistics About the U.S. Economy That Obama Does Not Want You To Know
America's Third World Economy US: Slow-moving economy runs into brick wall The illusion of |
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P. Solomon Banda
Associated Press 2012-10-24 19:57:00
Westminster - A teenager who lived just a mile from a 10-year-old Colorado girl who was abducted and killed earlier this month has been arrested in her death, along with a May attack on a runner, authorities said Wednesday. Police in the Denver suburb of Westminster said they took 17-year-old Austin Reed Sigg into custody on Tuesday night after receiving a phone call, apparently from his mother, that led them to Sigg. He was formally arrested Wednesday. Reached by phone, Sigg's mother told The Associated Press he turned himself in. "I made the phone call, and he turned himself in. That's all I have to say," said Mindy Sigg, before she broke down in tears and hung up. Police announced the arrest as agents searched the home of Sigg, an Arapahoe Community College student described by former classmates as a smart "goth kid" who was interested in mortuary science. |
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Joe Macenka
Richmond Times-Dispatch 2012-10-24 19:08:00
Dominion Virginia Power is investigating what caused one of the two nuclear reactors at its North Anna power station to automatically shut down today. The shutdown came less than a week after the unit had been restarted following repairs. A preliminary report filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Unit 2 at North Anna, in Louisa County some 45 miles northwest of Richmond, tripped automatically at 1:47 a.m. today. "The unit is in a normal post-trip electrical configuration. All systems functioned as required," the NRC report said. The commission's report, filed one hour after the event, said Richmond-based Dominion was focusing on turbine intercept valves or reheat valves that malfunctioned "for reasons unknown at this time." North Anna's Unit 1 was unaffected by the automatic Unit 2 shutdown and continues to operate at full power, the NRC said. Dominion spokesman Richard Zuercher said the utility had been able to trace the shutdown of Unit 2 _ which is more than three decades old _ to four valves that govern the flow of steam in the turbine system for spinning the unit's generator. |
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| Secret History |
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Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News 2012-10-25 14:31:00
The giant stone statues in Polynesia's Easter Island may have just been "walked" out of quarry, according to a controversial new theory on how the monolithic human figures were transported to every corner of the island. In a piece of experimental archaeology, a team of local and U.S. researchers showed that the massive statues, known as moai, can be moved from side to side by a small number of people, just as one might move a fridge. "We constructed a precise three-dimensional 4.35 metric ton replica of an actual statue and demonstrated how positioning the center of mass allowed it to fall forward and rock from side to side causing it to 'walk,'" Carl Lipo, an archaeologist at California State University, Long Beach, and colleagues wrote in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Nearly 1,000 huge statues stand on the remote Rapa Nui, the indigenous name of Easter Island. With sizes ranging from about 6 to 33 feet in height, the rock effiges feature human-like figures ending at the top of the thighs with large heads, long ears and pursed lips. Scholars have long debated how the multi-ton statues were moved from the quarry in Rano Raraku, an extinct volcano where they were carved, throughout the island's rugged terrain. Claims ranged from extra-terrestrial intervention to molding in situ. However, most archaeologists agree that the colossal stone statues were moved by rolling them on logs. In doing so, the statue-obsessed Rapa Nui people would have depleted the island of its forests. But according to Lipo's team, new evidence challenges the "longstanding notions of 'ecocide' and population collapse before European contact." |
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| Science & Technology |
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Nicole Giese Rura
Whitehead Institute 2012-10-25 14:42:00
Cambridge, Mass. - Whitehead Institute researchers report that common assumptions employed in the generation and interpretation of data from global gene expression analyses can lead to seriously flawed conclusions about gene activity and cell behavior in a wide range of current biological research. "Expression analysis is one of the most commonly used methods in modern biology," says Whitehead Member Richard Young. "So we are concerned that flawed assumptions may affect the interpretation of many biological studies." Much of today's interpretation of gene expression data relies on the assumption that all cells being analyzed have similar total amounts of messenger RNA (mRNA), the roughly 10% of a cell's RNA that acts as a blueprint for protein synthesis. However, some cells, including aggressive cancer cells, produce several times more mRNA than other cells. Traditional global gene expression analyses have typically ignored such differences. "We've highlighted this common assumption in gene expression analysis that potentially affects many researchers," says Tony Lee, a scientist in Young's lab and a corresponding author of the article published in this week's issue of Cell. "We provided a concrete example of the problem and a solution that can be implemented by investigators." |
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Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News 2012-10-25 12:20:00
Our closest known relative 3.3 million years ago was a half-human, half-ape species that could both walk on the ground and swing through the trees, suggests a new study. The research, published in the journal Science, sheds light on Australopithecus afarensis, the species of the well-known "Lucy" skeleton. In this case, remains of a three-year-old A. afarensis girl, named "Selam," were the focus of study. Selam represents the most complete skeleton of her kind to date. She and other members of her species were "very human-like from the waist down -- the hip bone, the knee and the foot -- but looked ape-like above the waist -- the torso, long arms, gorilla-like scapula, jutting snout, small brain and a skull with no forehead," co-author Zeresenay Alemseged told Discovery News. "A sketchy depiction of it would be an upright walking ape." Alemseged, curator of anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences, and David Green, an assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy at Midwestern University, made the determinations after thoroughly examining the well-preserved skeleton of Selam. In 2000, Alemseged unearthed her remains while excavating a site in Dikika, Ethiopia. The researchers paid attention to Selam's two complete shoulder blades. These tend to be paper-thin, rarely fossilizing, so finding both "completely intact and attached to a skeleton of a known and pivotal species was like hitting the jackpot," Alemseged said. |
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Malcolm Ritter
Associated Press 2012-10-24 13:43:00
New York - Scientists in Oregon have created embryos with genes from one man and two women, using a provocative technique that could someday be used to prevent babies from inheriting certain rare incurable diseases. The researchers at Oregon Health & Sciences University said they are not using the embryos to produce children, and it is not clear when or even if this technique will be put to use. But it has already stirred a debate over its risks and ethics in Britain, where scientists did similar work a few years ago. The British experiments, reported in 2008, led to headlines about the possibility someday of babies with three parents. But that's an overstatement. The DNA from the second woman amounts to less than 1 percent of the embryo's genes, and it isn't the sort that makes a child look like Mom or Dad. The procedure is simply a way of replacing some defective genes that sabotage the normal workings of cells. The British government is asking for public comment on the technology before it decides whether to allow its use in the future. One concern it cites is whether such DNA alteration could be an early step down a slippery slope toward "designer babies" - ordering up, say, a petite, blue-eyed girl or tall, dark-haired boy. |
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Emily Carlson
National Institutes of Health 2012-10-24 19:58:00
This Research in Action article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Apoptosis, sometimes called "cellular suicide," is a normal, programmed process of cellular self-destruction. It helps shape our physical features and organs before birth, and it rids our bodies of unneeded or potentially harmful cells, including cancerous ones. But apoptosis also can kill too many cells after a heart attack or stroke, causing tissues to die. For these reasons, scientists want to better understand the process. Cells come equipped with the instructions and instruments necessary for apoptosis. They keep these tools - proteins that are called proteases - carefully tucked away until a signal inside or outside the cell triggers the apoptosis. What does apoptosis look like? First, the cell shrinks and pulls away from its neighbors. Then the surface of the cell can bulge, with fragments breaking away. The DNA in the cell's nucleus condenses until the nucleus itself disintegrates, followed by the entire cell. Do cells ever defy their fate? Yes, according to new research that shows many cell types on the brink of self-destruction can bounce back after their apoptotic trigger is removed. |
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Joseph Blumberg
The Who asked "who are you?" but Dartmouth neurobiologist Jeffrey Taube
asks "where are you?" and "where are you going?" Taube is not asking
philosophical or theological questions. Rather, he is investigating
nerve cells in the brain that function in establishing one's location
and direction.Dartmouth Now 2012-10-19 18:48:00 Taube, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, is using microelectrodes to record the activity of cells in a rat's brain that make possible spatial navigation - how the rat gets from one place to another - from "here" to "there." But before embarking to go "there," you must first define "here." Survival Value "Knowing what direction you are facing, where you are, and how to navigate are really fundamental to your survival," says Taube. "For any animal that is preyed upon, you'd better know where your hole in the ground is and how you are going to get there quickly. And you also need to know direction and location to find food resources, water resources, and the like." Not only is this information fundamental to your survival, but knowing your spatial orientation at a given moment is important in other ways, as well. Taube points out that it is a sense or skill that you tend to take for granted, which you subconsciously keep track of. "It only comes to your attention when something goes wrong, like when you look for your car at the end of the day and you can't find it in the parking lot," says Taube. |
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| Earth Changes |
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Harry J Enten
The Guardian 2012-10-25 15:29:00
2011 meteorological autumn was unusual in that both a hurricane and an October snowstorm hit the north-east. They occurred two months apart, and the idea that either one would happen again in the near-term was not something high up on the probability scale. But if there is one thing more unpredictable than politics, it's the weather. Government forecasters are warning that the US east coast is likely to be battered next week, not by a winter storm or a hurricane, but by an unusual combination of steady gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and possibly snow. It has already been dubbed the "snor'eastercane". Hurricane Sandy is currently approaching the Bahamas. With 105mph winds and a central low pressure of 964 millibars, Sandy seems likely at this point to hit the east coast of the United States. Where and how Sandy will make her mark is still very much up in the up air. Here's what we know for sure: the National Hurricane Center's latest track has Sandy staying well off the coast for the next 72 hours. Pretty much all weather models agree on this track. Most often that a storm such as Sandy would go out to sea at this point - following the warm waters of the Gulf stream.
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Douglas Main
OurAmazingPlanet 2012-10-25 14:06:00
Before the beginning of this hurricane season, back in May, forecasters thought this year would be an average one. Come August, when the season typically peaks, forecasters notched up their outlook, saying the season would in fact be busier than average. Now it's October and it's been one of the busiest seasons on record, with 19 named storms so far this year, 10 of which became hurricanes, including Hurricane Sandy, which has the potential to strike the East Coast. That puts the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season in rarified company. Only seven seasons since 1851 (as far back as hurricane records reach) have seen 19 or more named storms. Three of these have been within the last decade: the 2010 and 2011 seasons had 19 storms each and the 2005 season had a whopping 28 storms, the most on record, including Hurricane Katrina. Originally the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted there would be nine to 15 named storms this year. Then, in August, it upped its prediction to 12 to 17 named storms, with five to eight of those becoming hurricanes. (Storms are named once they attain tropical storm status - defined as a rotating, organized storm with maximum sustained winds of at least 39 mph (63 kph). A tropical storm becomes a hurricane once its top winds hit at least 74 mph (119 kph). It's relatively unusual to have more storms than forecast, said Gerry Bell, the lead hurricane season forecaster at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. So why has this hurricane season been busier than expected? The underestimate can be blamed on El Niño, Bell told OurAmazingPlanet. Or rather, the lack of El Niño. Forecasters predicted that this climate pattern, characterized by warm surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, would have developed by now and stymied hurricane formation by its influence on the atmosphere. But it hasn't. |
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Emily Sohn
Discovery News 2012-10-25 13:00:00
More than a year and a half after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan, many fish in the area contain levels of radioactive cesium that are just as high as they were soon after the disaster. The finding suggests that the region's coastal-dwelling fish are still being exposed to new sources of cesium, possibly from the seafloor or from contaminated groundwater that's flowing into the ocean. And even though most fish sampled in the new study had levels of cesium below safe limits for consumption, some fish contained surprisingly large amounts. Japan has already closed fisheries near Fukushima to reduce human exposure. The new results suggest that it may be a long time before levels of radiation in the ocean decline after nuclear disasters like the Fukushima meltdown. "If (the cesium) is in the seafloor, it could be many years or even decades for that to go away," said Ken Buesseler, an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Mass. "That implies we're going to have an issue in coastal fisheries for a long time to come in Japan. We certainly can't say we're out of the woods yet." "Just because you haven't read about it in the news" lately, he added, "doesn't mean it has gone away." Because the Japanese rank among the most voracious consumers of seafood in the world, the country's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has been closely monitoring radiation levels in coastal fish since the Fukushima disaster in March of 2011. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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No new articles. |
| Health & Wellness |
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Lisa Garber
Natural Society 2012-10-25 12:23:00
Experts say that the GM wheat currently in development by an Australian governmental research agency could, if ingested, shut down certain genes, leading to premature death or risk thereof to multiple generations. The GM wheat developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) using public funds is engineered to turn off genes permanently. The organization's intent to turn off wheat genes, however, could affect human and animal genes. "Through ingestion, these molecules can enter human beings and potentially silence our genes," says Professor Jack Heinemann of the University of Canterbury's Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety. His report was published in Digital Journal. DNA Matches in GM Wheat and Humans The wheat genes intended to be silenced are known as SEI, the sequence of which are classified by CSIRO. What experts know about SEI is that parts of it match the human GBE gene sequence. GBE dictates glycogen storage, without which the liver scars and causes death in children. Adults with malfunctioning GBE genes can experience cognitive impairment, pyramidal quadriplegia, peripheral neuropathy, and neurogenic bladder.
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Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post 2012-10-23 20:24:00
The mainstream media is invoking déjà vu with their latest laughable attempt to frame yet another study that actually highlighted the benefits of organic into a hysterical anti-organic news frenzy. This time, however, some publications are actually publishing the truth on the matter. Why? Because last time that the mainstream media conglomerate decided to smear the last organic foods study's findings and proclaim how great pesticides and GMOs are for you and your family, it ended in a major apology by the New York Times. And it was this piece, a response to the uproar from the public following the alternative news media's response to the mainstream media spin (including my piece first released on the night of the study with a video breakdown), that signified the final nail in the coffin for the mainstream media's previous assault on organic foods. In the apology piece, New York Times columnist Mark Bittman states: |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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Jedidiah Becker
RedOrbit 2012-10-25 12:11:00
There are few more fascinating and mind-bending frontiers in fields of neuroscience and psychology than the study of how the brain perceives time. While symphonies, stock markets and our daily schedules are conveniently constructed around the well-defined, predictable progression of what might be called 'objective time', our brains take a much more flexible approach to dealing with passing events, stretching, condensing and generally distorting our perception of time in response to a variety of external and internal factors. In fact, brain time - or our mind's perception of time - is an inherently subjective phenomenon. And it is perhaps never more subjective than when we are confronted with events that bring about a strong emotional response. Numerous studies in recent decades have repeatedly highlighted the fact that both our spatial perception and time perception can be measurably affected by negative or positive emotional experiences. For instance, study subjects who are shown images that the brain associates with intensely positive experiences - like, say, erotic scenes - will consistently report that these images flit by more quickly than intensely negative pictures such as a grisly murder scene, even when both images are displayed for the exact same length of time. "We imagine that we're perfect at judging time, but we're not," says Simona Buetti, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "If you see a disgusting image, like a photo of a mutilated body, you will perceive this image lasting longer than if you see a picture of people on a roller coaster, or an erotic image." Buetti and her colleague Alejandro Lleras recently set out to see if they could offset the brain's tendency to distort time in emotionally intense situations. The results of their study, published in the online journal Frontiers in Psychology, demonstrate that this stretching and shortening of perceived time can be corrected simply by making a person feel that they are in control of the situation. |
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Source
2012-10-24 18:54:00
When do we first learn to express empathy? That's a question psychologists have been probing for some time by, among other things, examining when we learn to imitate yawns. Dogs, too, have been found in some studies to yawn when their owners yawn, but does it mean they're feeling empathy for the ones who care for them? Scientists first came to the conclusion that "yawn contagion" -- as they call it -- was related to human empathy when they found that toddlers didn't have it. Research suggests kids learn to yawn in response to others beginning at age four; that's also when a number of cognitive abilities, such as reading emotional cues from facial expressions, begin to manifest themselves. Is it possible that puppies also have to learn that yawns are contagious? A new study published in the journal Animal Cognition suggests yes. Swedish researchers selected 35 ordinary house dogs of various breeds between 4 and 14 months of age and sat them in front of their owners to see whether they would respond to fake yawns -- a gaping mouth with no sounds such as inhaling and exhaling of air -- and to realistic yawns that seemed convincing. |
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Debbie Jacobson
American Academy of Pediatrics 2012-10-20 18:38:00
Cyberbullying - the use of the Internet, phones or other technologies to repeatedly harass or mistreat peers - is often linked with teen suicide in media reports. However, new research presented on Saturday, Oct. 20, at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, shows that the reality is more complex. Most teen suicide victims are bullied both online and in school, and many suicide victims also suffer from depression. For the abstract, "Cyberbullying and Suicide: A Retrospective Analysis of 41 Cases," researchers searched the Internet for reports of youth suicides where cyberbullying was a reported factor. Information about demographics and the event itself were then collected through searches of online news media and social networks. Finally, descriptive statistics were used to assess the rate of pre-existing mental illness, the co-occurrence of other forms of bullying, and the characteristics of the electronic media associated with each suicide case. The study identified 41 suicide cases (24 female, 17 male, ages 13 to 18) from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. In the study, 24 percent of teens were the victims of homophobic bullying, including the 12 percent of teens identified as homosexual and another 12 percent of teens who were identified as heterosexual or of unknown sexual preference. |
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| High Strangeness |
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The Daily Mail
It wasn't raining cats and dogs at a California golf course on Monday - it was raining sharks.2012-10-24 19:19:00 A live leopard shark was discovered thrashing about on the grass at around 4pm at the San Juan Hills golf club in San Juan Capistrano, which is four miles from the coast. The sea creature was spotted by a startled golf club marshall near the 12th tee box, where a group of golfers had just been playing.
'Shark falling from the sky, kind of odd,' said Melissa McCormack, director of club operations at San Juan Hills. Ms McCormack believes the two-foot-long shark may have been scooped out of the ocean by a predatory bird and dropped onto the golf course. The creature had two puncture wounds near its dorsal fin and was covered in blood when it was found. |
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| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Ben James
The Argus, UK 2012-10-24 13:49:00
The hunt is on for a 'thief' who stole a handbag from a woman. The suspect is described as 1.25 ft high, with pointed ears, hairy and red. Jeremy Clark, 38, told The Argus how he was at home in Maple Drive, Burgess Hill, when he spotted a fox making off with his wife's handbag - then return it to her. He was preparing to go to hospital with his wife, Anna, 35, when the cunning carnivore made his move. He added: "We were in the [estate's] car park and he looked at me for a few seconds before letting out this feeble yelp. "Next thing I knew he had my wife's handbag in his mouth and was running towards the bushes." Jeremy screamed at the fox to drop the bag but he scuttled off out of sight. He added: "Anna had everything in there: her phone, money, purse, keys and letters. I couldn't believe the fox had just taken it - it was mad. I thought that was it."handbag But a few minutes later the guilty looking fox crept back into the car park with his bushy tail between his legs. In his mouth was Anna's bag which he dropped at her feet before running off. Jeremy added: "I have no idea why, we couldn't believe it. We see the fox around quite a bit. I think people feed it." |
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