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Niall Bradley
Sott.net 2013-09-05 08:48:00
In the above snippet from a 2007 BBC Newsnight programme, we learn something that reveals the whole 'War on Terror' to be a complete sham and the destabilization of the Middle East by the U.S. and her allies to be intentional. In March 2003, the US launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. While Bush was prancing around the USS Lincoln in a codpiece declaring 'Mission Accomplished' in Iraq, something very interesting was taking place in the background. Realising that it was in its interest to prevent Iraq from being subjected to all-out civil war with the help of American occupation and death squads, the Iranian government sent a letter to the White House offering the following: In return, Iran requested the following: Then U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney turned down the offer and chastised the Swiss for even passing it along. It was all there; Iran was prepared to cooperate with the US in Iraq, cooperate with Israel and the US in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, and allow full transparency of its nuclear program... if only the US would help them dismantle the MEK. The US State Department wanted to pursue it, but the Neocons torpedoed the deal. |
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No new articles. |
| Puppet Masters |
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RIA Novosti
2013-09-05 17:04:00
Russia has strengthened its naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea for a possible evacuation of Russian nationals from Syria, the Kremlin chief of staff said Thursday. Asked why Russia is boosting its task force in the region, Sergei Ivanov said: "Above all, given the presence there of amphibious landing ships, they are intended for a possible evacuation of Russian citizens." Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said earlier on Thursday that the country's increased presence in the Mediterranean is "a legitimate, natural and predictable reaction to the situation developing" in the region. "Our actions are in strict compliance with international law and the UN Charter," he stressed, adding that the Mediterranean Sea is "quite close to Russia's borders." |
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RIA Novosti
2013-09-05 16:56:00
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the global economy had not yet returned to sustained and balanced growth, and that systemic risks for a recurrence of the crisis remained. Addressing the first working session of this year's G20 summit, he said that although the US economy was growing, it was not growing fast enough, and there were no guarantees that Japan's economic growth had become a stable trend. The situation in the euro zone is "disturbing, due to the ongoing recession," Putin said, adding that a 0.6 percent economic decline is expected this year. |
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MarkKarlin
truth-out.org 2013-09-05 16:04:00
In a rare moment of diplomatic candor, US Secretary of State John Kerry told a congressional hearing Wednesday that oil sheiks have offered to pay the United States to unseat Bashar al-Assad as Syrian strong man. The surprising admission came in response to congressional pressure on the administration to explain how yet another military operation would be paid for during a period of prolonged budgetary sequestration. Apparently trying to assuage concerns about billions and billions of taxpayer dollars financing a "punishment strike" that most legislators know in their guts is the opening salvo in another Libyan style war of degrading the Syrian military (while untold numbers of civilians are also killed in the process), Kerry, according to The Washington Post, revealed more than he probably meant to: The conundrum for Kerry is that you can't say "nobody's talking about it" when you've just said that an offer is on the table in case the Syrian conflict becomes a full-fledged Libyan style regime replacement operation. | |
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Comment: Qatar has already spent $3 billion on al-Qaeda-in-Syria. But let's not kid ourselves. Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are client regimes of the US. Without US military support, their decrepit leaders would have been swept away in the Arab Spring.
So the money that's going through those countries doesn't actually originate there: it originates with taxpayers in the US, UK and France, and through the proceeds of rackets run by organised crime (which is those countries' intelligence agencies + the Mossad). So, what do our American readers think of Kerry's proposition: the Saudis and Qataris will pay for it this dirty little war if you supply the cannon fodder. Fair deal? |
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Jon Swaine
Telegraph 2008-10-14 03:15:00
Nguyen Tien Tran said: "We never tortured McCain. On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded." Mr McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, who was a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war, regularly refers to his experiences after being captured when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967. He was taken to Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton", where he was kept for more than five years and subjected to such brutal beatings that he attempted suicide, he later recalled. Today he is unable to lift his arms above his head and, it recently emerged, finds activities requiring intensive use of his hands - such as typing - extremely painful. Comment: Apparently this doesn't hinder his ability to draft legislation that enslaves the American people, start new wars or play online poker. Yet in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Mr Nguyen insisted that conditions in the prison were "tough, though not inhuman". He said that Mr McCain had arrived with the worst injuries he had seen among downed pilots, and that it had been his job to keep the American alive. |
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Robert Greenwald
Brave New Films 2008-05-18 15:21:00
The lies continue to fly fast and furious. See for yourself the two (at least) faces of John McCain as he stumbles, bumbles and lies his way through press conferences and interviews. All in all, another typical day in U.S. politics. If this was from a spoof of the U.S. election it would be hilarious. Unfortunately, this is frighteningly real. This is the U.S. election. The "real" one, in a manner of speaking. However, the U.S. hasn't had a real election in some time. So in a way, this is a spoof of the U.S. election.
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Daily Mail (UK)
In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential
campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless
heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.2008-03-23 01:10:00
On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile. In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore. And when a furious mob at the water's edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, Mr On drove them back. |
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Ben Shapiro
breitbart.com 2013-09-04 14:18:00
On Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs over possible military action against Syria. As he testified, members of the antiwar group Code Pink held up their hands, which had been painted red to signify bloody hands. They also wore signs reading "US Out of Syria." Kerry's history as an antiwar protester during the Vietnam War propelled him to political office originally. After supposedly throwing away his war medals - an account he went back and forth regarding during his 2004 presidential run - and slandering American troops as war criminals in Vietnam during the infamous Winter Soldier hearings, Kerry has now become the hawkish proponent of military action against the Assad regime. |
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Aaron Blake
Washington Post 2013-09-04 14:14:00
Secretary of State John Kerry said at Wednesday's hearing that Arab counties have offered to pay for the entirety of unseating President Bashar al-Assad if the United States took the lead militarily. "With respect to Arab countries offering to bear costs and to assess, the answer is profoundly yes," Kerry said. "They have. That offer is on the table." |
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Stephen Dinan
Washington Times 2013-09-04 14:11:00
President Obama's liberal activist base is adamantly opposed to military strikes in Syria, according to a new survey the Progressive Change Campaign Committee released Wednesday. PCCC says more than 57,000 of its activists weighed in, and 73 percent of them opposed the U.S. taking action in Syria. Just 18 percent supported strikes, and just 14 percent said the U.S. should go ahead unilaterally if it can't find any allies. Indeed, a majority of the activists don't believe Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry are being honest when they lay out their justifications for taking military action. |
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Darya Korsunskaya
Reuters 2013-09-04 14:06:00
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday the U.S. Congress had no right to approve the use of force against Syria without a decision from the U.N. Security Council, and that doing so would be an "act of aggression". He said "anything that is outside the U.N. Security Council is aggression, except self-defense. Now what Congress and the U.S. Senate are doing in essence is legitimizing aggression. This is inadmissible in principle." In remarks that could raise tension further before he hosts President Barack Obama and other G20 leaders on Thursday, Putin also said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lied to Congress about the militant group al Qaeda's role in the Syrian conflict. |
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Jake Miller
CBS News 2013-09-04 13:59:00
President Obama took his case for intervention in Syria to the foreign stage on Wednesday, telling a Swedish audience - and a broader European community that has largely resisted American calls for support - that the "international community's credibility is on the line" as it decides how to respond to evidence that the Syrian government, under President Bashar al Assad, used chemical weapons to kill over 1,400 civilians. Where the use of such weapons is concerned, Mr. Obama said, "I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line." And the question the world faces, Mr. Obama said, is "Are we going to find a reason not to act? And if that's the case, I think the world community should admit it." The president repeatedly stressed that the American intelligence community has "high confidence" that the chemical weapons attack on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus was perpetrated by the regime, reiterating much of the evidence his administration has presented to Congress and the American people. As he has before domestic audiences, the president sought to demarcate the debate over Syrian engagement from the prior debate over the war in Iraq, which was attended by faulty claims of weapons of mass destruction. |
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Dan Roberts, Spencer Ackerman, Haroon Siddique, and Angelique Chrisafis
Guardian 2013-09-04 13:52:00
Russian president says it is too early to say what Russia will do but does not exclude supporting a UN resolution Vladimir Putin has warned the US against launching military action in Syria, stating that Russia has "plans" on how it would react if such a scenario unfolded. The Russian president's comments came as Barack Obama for the first time portrayed his plans for US military action as part of a broader strategy to topple Bashar al-Assad, as the White House's campaign to win over sceptics in Congress gained momentum. In an interview with Associated Press and Russia's state Channel 1 television, Putin said it was too early to talk about what Russia would do if the US attacked Syria but added: "We have our ideas about what we will do and how we will do it in case the situation develops toward the use of force or otherwise. We have our plans." At the same time he said Russia did not exclude supporting a UN resolution on punitive military strikes if it were proved that Damascus used poison gas on its own people. But he described the idea that Syrian government forces would use chemical weapons at a time when he said they were in the ascendancy and knowing the potential repercussions as absurd. Given his comments, and the fact that Russia has protected Syria from punitive action at the UN security council before, his suggestion that Russia might support a resolution on strikes is unlikely to be given much credence in the US. |
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CBS DC
2013-09-04 00:00:00
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto says reported surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency would constitute an illegal act. Pena Nieto demanded the United States investigate the allegations aired in a report Sunday night on Brazil's Globo TV. The report cites 2012 documents from NSA leaker Edward Snowden indicating the U.S. monitored Pena Nieto's communications before he was elected in July 2012. Pena Nieto spoke to reporters Monday at Canada's Gander International Airport in Newfoundland on a stopover during his trip to Russia for a G-20 summit. Pena Nieto said that "if proved ... it is an act outside the law." He said he may discuss the issue with President Barack Obama at the summit. |
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Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy 2013-09-03 00:00:00
Ahmad Nemah, a midlevel Syrian rebel commander, is certain there's sound military logic behind President Barack Obama's decision to delay U.S. missile strikes against the Syrian regime, but he's having a hard time persuading his subordinates. "I know that this is not a postponement but a strategic pause to . . . set up for a surprise attack," insisted Nemah, a former colonel in Syrian air force intelligence. "Of course, people are depressed, and I'm having trouble convincing everyone that there will be a strike." There's a good reason why Nemah is having difficulty selling his argument to his fighters of the Free Syrian Army, the loose tangle of disparate guerrilla bands nominally backed by the United States and its European and Arab allies. Obama's abrupt decision on Saturday to delay the strikes that seemed just hours away is being seen in the region as the latest confirmation of an incoherent U.S. approach of mixed messages and unfulfilled threats that have driven America's standing to a new low. "Washington doesn't understand the Middle East. His (Obama's) image here is of someone who is afraid of getting enmeshed in the machinations of the Middle East," said Maher Abu-Teyr, a political columnist with Ad-Dustour, a semi-official Jordanian daily newspaper. "There is no trust in Washington in the area because (people) think Obama is weak." He cited a "constant change in rhetoric and hesitation" by the United States since the brutal conflict erupted in Syria in mid-2011. Among other missteps, he said, was the U.S. reluctance to take action early in the conflict that might have bolstered moderate rebel factions before the rise of al Qaida-linked groups, which now dominate the opposition. "Obama should have moved in the first six months of the Syria crisis, not now," said Abu-Teyr. "Now, all of his choices are very difficult because he took all of this time." Obama has shifted several times since the August 2012 "red line" he first set against Syrian President Bashar Assad's use of chemical weapons. After cautioning Assad against even moving a "whole bunch of chemical weapons around," he didn't enforce the warning when the regime allegedly was detected in December mixing components for the nerve gas sarin, or when in March the United States followed Britain and France in accusing Assad of having used chemical weapons "on a small scale." |
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Daniel Halper
'But our long-term national security will be impacted in a profound way and our humanity's impacted in a profound way.'Weekly Standard 2013-09-04 00:00:00
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| Society's Child |
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Rick Montanez
KFSN 2013-09-05 14:37:00
Lemoore, California -- An everyday piece of fruit is being blamed for causing severe burns on five young girls in the South Valley. The burns cover much of their bodies. The five little girls were simply enjoying a summer day in the backyard pool when they decided to make a lime and lemonade stand, little did anyone know that the lime juice would be so dangerous. Reyghan, Candy, Bailey, Jewels and Jazmyn are all recovering now. But, the marks on their faces, hands and legs show just a glimpse into their painful experience following a fun day in the sun. "So you're thinking when they're like 'we need cups. Ok, here's cups for the lemonade and lime,' it's just so innocent, but yet so, you know... traumatizing to the kids at the same time," Stephanie Ellwanger said. |
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Colin Lecher
PopSci 2013-09-05 13:00:00
Supertall skyscrapers aren't necessarily built to fit as many people inside as possible--sometimes they're just aiming to be, well, really tall. Large portions of these buildings are designed to increase height, but remain unoccupied. Wasteful! The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a not-for-profit organization that tracks the world's skyscrapers, just released some data on that subject. Surprise! Some really tall buildings don't need to be so tall. |
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Michel (Mikado) Warschawski
AIC 2013-08-30 14:10:00
Syria is a tragedy: tens of thousands of innocent victims are murdered and a country that was the heart of Arab civilisation is being destroyed. Our heart is bleeding for the suffering of the Syrian people. Rage and sadness, however, should not be incompatible with a critical reading of the information we are fed with from the mainstream media. These media are accusing the regime of all the crimes committed during the last year, especially the alleged use of chemical weapons. Even before the UN inquiry commission landed in Damascus, it was seemingly acceptable to state that chemical weapons had been used, and that it was the Syrian army which used them against the Syrian people. A bloody or even crazy dictatorship against a liberation movement comprised of angels? Let's start with the so-call Syrian Liberation Army (SLA): it is not a united body - in fact, they are fighting each other - and though it originally contained true Syrian democrats, most of them have left the movement that is increasingly led by Muslim fundamentalists, criminal gangs and foreign agents. The international powers supporting the SLA may quickly regret their choice of partners, as happened with Al Qaida in Afghanistan... Then, the question of numbers. Hundreds or even thousands of victims, report the media. Who counted? Where? Killed by what weapons and by whom? And the chemical weapon: according to a recent report in the Washington Post, on at least one occasion, chemical weapons were used by rebel units, not by the regime. In fact, we don't know anything for certain at this time except that once again, we are the target of a major disinformation campaign. |
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RT
2013-09-05 03:05:00
A Florida man accused of killing two men and seriously injuring a third has invoked the state's controversial "stand your ground" law as well as the "Bush Doctrine," which provided legal justification for the war in Iraq, for his defense. William T. Woodward, 44, allegedly confronted his neighbors during a Labor Day picnic in Titusville, Florida. Police had responded to the neighborhood multiple times in the past, reportedly because of an ongoing feud between the two parties. Officials say they previously offered to mediate the dispute, but when officers arrived at the scene on Tuesday they found that Gary Lee Hembree, Roger Picior, and Bruce Timothy Blake had all been shot. Hembree and Picior were mortally wounded, but Blake survived despite being shot at least 11 times. Blake later told Wesh.com that he needed to call the police dozens of times on Woodward, who is a combat veteran. "I feel about as good as I can with 16 bullet holes in me," he said. "Who in the world think they are going to walk outside to smoke a cigarette and get shot 11 times from somebody a month earlier who was your friend." |
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RT
2013-09-03 14:13:00
The US government has no more credibility with the American people and the military that are "sick and tired" of war which has now lasted for 13 years, Gordon Duff, a marine veteran has told RT. As President Barack Obama is seeking support from Congress for military action in Syria, anti-war sentiment among the population is growing. Earlier last week, images emerged on social media purporting to show US servicemen speaking out against a looming strike against Damascus. People wearing military uniform are seen posing in front of cameras with posters saying they did not join-up to fight with Al-Qaeda in Syria. Those pictures cannot be verified but the Pentagon is reportedly already looking into the identities of those involved. |
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Casey Chan
LG, maker of fine displays and wonderful prankster of innocent people,
has cooked up another beautiful visual trick: installing LG 4K TVs as
fake window units and tricking people into believing a meteor has
crashed onto Earth. Because the screen is so clear!Gizmodo 2013-09-04 21:17:00 Supposedly, the people in the video are all innocent bystanders trying to apply for a job but hey, if the LG 4K TV is that clear (and it probably is), I'm pretty sure I'd fall for the same prank too. I've watched too many apocalyptic movies to not properly freak out.
Source: LG Chile |
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Meredith Somers
The Washington Times 2013-09-03 00:00:00
It wasn't flying for long and it's unclear what it was doing, but at least one witness spotted a drone hovering over a six-alarm fire at a warehouse in Alexandria, just miles from the Pentagon. Robert Rapanut of Alexandria said he was near the scene of the blaze that destroyed a warehouse in the 800 block of South Pickett Street when he saw an object rise. He took out a camera and photographed it. "I just saw some black thing go up" Mr. Rapanut said. "It was up maybe two or three minutes. It hovered over the roof of the Red Lobster" a few hundred feet east of the fire. Alexandria fire officials said the drone didn't belong to them. "It's not ours," said Robert Rodriguez, chief fire marshal and spokesman for the Alexandria fire department. "It was none of our departments'," he added, referring to the three other fire departments that provided assistance in putting out the blaze. A Fairfax fire department spokesman practically laughed when asked if the drone at the Monday blaze could have been theirs. A law passed this year in Virginia placed a temporary moratorium on the use of drones by government agencies, except for situations in which lives might be at risk. |
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Beatriz Valenzuela
Long Beach police have been accused of brutality after a YouTube video
shows an officer striking a prone man multiple of times with a baton.Press-Telegram 2013-09-04 03:29:00
Several officers are shown surrounding the man, who is lying on the ground, and then one of the officers strikes the man in the legs as the others shout orders. The video, which was posted to YouTube on Monday, also shows the man being Tased by the officers at least once Monday at Locust Avenue and South Street. "Police can only use force that is proportionate to the risk of injury or resistance," said Peter Bibring, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union. "And it's difficult to see how striking someone who's lying on the ground in a proportionate response." Family members identified the man who was struck by police as Porfirio Santos-Lopez, 46, of Long Beach. Santos-Lopez was taken into surgery late Tuesday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital for his injuries, his wife Lee Ann Hernandez said. Long Beach police are expected to comment on the incident later today. | |
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Comment: Becoming a Police Officer is the perfect job
for a psychopath. Once they get a badge, they can brutalize people with
complete impunity.
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| Secret History |
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HispanicallySpeakingNews
2013-09-04 19:09:00
The skeleton of a man who lived between the 13th and 14th centuries, and had an iron stake driven into his chest to prevent him from becoming a vampire was found in Bulgaria, archaeologists said. The finding was made at the ancient urban complex in Perperikon, located in southern Bulgaria, chief archaeologist Nikolay Ovcharov said. "The man who was buried was between 35 and 40 years old. Bronze coins we found between his teeth show the period he lived in. He had an iron stake driven into the left side of his torso, between the neck and the chest," Ovcharov told the Standart news agency. Vampire beliefs from pagan times were preserved by Orthodox Christians in the Balkans during the Middle Ages, when people thought that iron and wooden stakes could be driven into the heart of a dead person to prevent them from becoming vampires. Another "vampire" was found in June 2012 in Sozopol, a small city on the shores of the Black Sea. An iron stake had been driven into the heart of the man, who lived in the 8th or 9th centuries. The ritualistic driving of a stake into the heart may have been performed on people considered evil or who engaged in practices not understood by society, such as scientific or medical research, Bulgarian National History Museum director Bozhidar Dimitrov told Efe last year. People at the time believed that after dying "these persons turned into vampires and tortured and tormented the living, and they drank their blood in the night," Dimitrov, who discovered the remains, said. |
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| Science & Technology |
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Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Scientists investigate the functional diversity of proteins.2013-09-05 16:00:00 No two human beings are the same. Although we all possess the same genes, our genetic code varies in many places. And since genes provide the blueprint for all proteins, these variants usually result in numerous differences in protein function. But what impact does this diversity have? Bioinformatics researchers at Rutgers University and the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have investigated how protein function is affected by changes at the DNA level. Their findings bring new clarity to the wide range of variants, many of which disturb protein function but have no discernible health effect, and highlight especially the role of rare variants in differentiating individuals from their neighbors. The slightest changes in human DNA can result in an incorrect amino acid being incorporated into a protein. In some cases, all it takes is for a single base to be substituted in a person's DNA, a variant known as a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). "Many of these point mutations have no impact on human health. However, of the roughly 10,000 'missense' SNPs in the human genome - that is, SNPs affecting the protein sequence - at least a fifth can change the function of the protein," explains Prof. Yana Bromberg of the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at Rutgers University. "And in some cases, the affected protein is so important and the change so large that we have to wonder why the person with this mutation is still healthy." |
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Ron Cowen
ScienceNow 2013-09-05 14:15:00
As Earth and the other planets orbit the sun, the solar system itself travels through space. Its slow journey is taking it though a wispy expanse of gas called the Local Interstellar Cloud. Now, astronomers have discovered signs of potential turbulence in the cloud, indicated by a shift in direction of helium atoms that flow into the solar system. If the shift is real and continues for hundreds to thousands of years - a dicey extrapolation - it could be a harbinger of more dramatic changes in our solar system, notes study co-author David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The finding, which McComas, Priscilla Frisch of the University of Chicago, and their colleagues report in the 6 September issue of Science, could foreshadow a change in the heliosphere, the vast bubble that shields the solar system from harmful cosmic rays. The heliosphere consists of charged particles blown out by the sun in the so-called solar wind. The size and shape of the heliosphere depends on the balance between the outward push of the solar wind and the inward pressure from gas in the Local Interstellar Cloud - the interstellar wind. |
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Becky Oskin
LiveScience 2013-09-05 13:33:00
The world's largest volcano lurks beneath the Pacific Ocean, researchers announced today (Sept. 5) in the journal Nature Geoscience. Called the Tamu Massif, the enormous mound dwarfs the previous record holder, Hawaii's Mauna Loa, and is only 25 percent smaller than Olympus Mons on Mars, the biggest volcano in Earth's solar system, said William Sager, lead study author and a geologist at the University of Houston. "We think this is a class of volcano that hasn't been recognized before," Sager said. "The slopes are very shallow. If you were standing on this thing, you would have a difficult time telling which way was downhill." Tamu is 400 miles (650 kilometers) wide but only about 2.5 miles (4 km) tall. It erupted for a few million years during the early Cretaceous period, about 144 million years ago, and has been extinct since then, the researchers report. |
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Clean Technica
2013-09-05 12:10:00
It looks like more trouble is looming ahead for communities that host fracking operations. Two new studies have linked fracking-related operations to earthquakes in Texas and Ohio, and a recently settled lawsuit in Arkansas indicates that swarms of tiny earthquakes can damage surface structures. Add earthquakes to a list that already includes water contamination and air pollution risks, and it becomes clear that a more effective regulatory platform is needed to protect existing communities from the impacts of fracking. The Fracking Explosion Fracking is short for hydrofracturing, a drilling method that releases oil or gas from shale formations by pumping a chemical brine underground. Somewhat ironically, the method was originally developed by federal researchers to aid the geothermal industry. As an "unconventional" oil and gas drilling method, fracking was not in widespread use in the US until recent years, and regulatory agencies have been scrambling to play catchup as evidence of water and air impacts piles up. |
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Charles Q. Choi
Livescience.com 2013-09-05 12:00:00
Wastewater from the controversial practice of fracking appears to be linked to all the earthquakes in a town in Ohio that had no known past quakes, research now reveals. The practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves injecting water, sand and other materials under high pressures into a well to fracture rock. This opens up fissures that help oil and natural gas flow out more freely. This process generates wastewater that is often pumped underground as well, in order to get rid of it. A furious debate has erupted over the safety of the practice. Advocates claim fracking is a safe, economical source of clean energy, while critics argue that it can taint drinking water supplies, among other problems. |
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Astrobio Net
2013-09-04 18:17:00
Planet hunters keep finding distant worlds that bear a resemblance to Earth. Some of the thousands of exoplanet candidates discovered to date have similar sizes or temperatures. Others possess rocky surfaces and support atmospheres. But no world has yet provided an unambiguous sign of the characteristic that still sets our pale blue dot apart: the presence of life. That may be about to change, says exoplanet expert Sara Seager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Upcoming missions such as the Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey and the James Webb Space Telescope, both due to launch around 2018, should be able to find and characterize Earth-like planets orbiting small stars. Spotting signs of life on those planets will be possible because of progress in detecting not only planets, but their atmospheres as well. When a planet passes in front of its host star, atmospheric gases reveal their presence by absorbing some of the starlight. Oxygen, water vapor, or other gases that do not belong on dead worlds could very well provide the first evidence of life elsewhere. In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake developed an equation that summarizes the main factors to contemplate in the question of radio-communicative alien life. These factors include the number of stars in our galaxy that have planets, and the length of time advanced alien civilizations would be releasing radio signals into space. |
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| Earth Changes |
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The Post
2013-09-05 16:44:00
It's bad news for millions of flood-affected people in Bihar. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned of heavy rains and near cloud burst-like situation in the next few days that may create more devastation. Nearly six million people have been affected by floods in 20 districts of the state. At least 176 people have died in the floods so far and thousands have been left homeless. |
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Al Jazerra
2013-08-30 16:25:00
Officials say more than 30 people have died in floods that has left a trail of destruction behind. The death toll in floods which left thousands homeless in the Malian capital, Bamako, has risen to 34, officials said. More than 100 homes, mostly poorly constructed mud-brick buildings on drainage sites, were swept away as the river Niger burst its banks in torrential rain on Wednesday, bringing down bridges and submerging entire streets. |
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Richard Angwin
Al Jazeera 2013-09-05 16:20:00
An outbreak of exceptionally cold and snowy weather has hit parts of South America, resulting in at least a dozen deaths. The arrival of the snow on an Antarctic cold front last week was accompanied by extremely cold conditions, with temperatures as low as Minus 19C, which have persisted ever since. Even Chile's Atacama desert, one of the world's driest, did not escape, receiving its heaviest snowfall in 30 years. Peru seems to have been worst hit, with the heaviest snow in a decade resulting in the deaths of up to 30,000 farm animals, including llamas, alpacas, cattle and sheep. |
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James A. Foley
Nature World News 2013-09-04 16:14:00
Peru's Ubinas volcano has emerged from four years of dormancy, erupting five times over the last few days. The mountain erupted two times on Monday, again on Tuesday and then two more times Wednesday, according to the news website Peru This Week. Ubinas volcano is located in Peru's Moquenega region about 70 kilometers from the city of Arequipa. |
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Volcano Discovery
2013-09-04 16:04:00
A moderately large vulcanian explosion occurred this morning, producing significant fallout of lapilli and small bombs in several kilometers distance. Cars parked at the Arimura Lava observatory observation point to the south of the volcano were damages and windshields broken, at a distance of about 4 km. There are no reports of injuries to people. |
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US Geological Survey
2013-09-05 09:46:00
Event Time
Location10.586°N 86.106°W depth=18.0km (11.2mi)
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news.com.au
Hundreds of skiers are stuck on New Zealand's Mt Hutt after freak weather forced its closure. 2013-09-04 07:34:00
A combination of drifting snow and poor visibility has been blamed. While ski area management were aware of an approaching front and poor forecast, the situation deteriorated quickly, Mt Hutt ski area manager James McKenzie said. There are 316 people trapped on the mountain. "We made a decision to close the mountain at 11.30 this morning and a number of people made it safely down the road," he said. "However at midday a combination of new snow blowing around everywhere and wind gusts of up to 45km/h, especially around the Saddles, meant visibility along the upper section of the access road deteriorated to the extent we closed the road completely. "Guest safety is of paramount concern and we're continually assessing the conditions. We won't rush to get people down until visibility improves. He said the skiers were doing well. "We've got plenty of food, hot drinks and space up here in the base building, so if we do have to hunker down into the hours of darkness our guests will be warm, dry and well looked after." |
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Xinhua
2013-09-05 06:33:00
Floods and landslides in the past two days have killed at least eight people in northern Vietnam, according to the Central Committee for Flood and Storm Control of Vietnam on Thursday. Of the death toll, one person was in Ha Giang province, three in Lai Chau and four others in Lao Cai. In addition, some 14 people were injured and 10 others still missing, said the committee. Heavy rains in the region also caused severe damage to houses and crops, of which nearly 120 hectares of crops and aquacultures were affected. The committee warned that heavy rains may continue over the next few days in northern Vietnam and instructed relevant agencies to immediately handle the consequences to help local people stabilizing their life. |
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US Geological Survey
2013-09-04 23:48:00
Event Time 2013-09-05 04:01:35 UTC 2013-09-05 01:01:35 UTC-03:00 at epicenter Location 15.209°N 45.167°W depth=10.0km (6.2mi) Nearby Cities 1378km (856mi) NNE of Remire-Montjoly, French Guiana 1380km (857mi) NE of Cayenne, French Guiana 1380km (857mi) NE of Kourou, French Guiana 1388km (862mi) NNE of Matoury, French Guiana 1446km (899mi) NE of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, French Guiana Technical Details |
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Phil Pendleton
WKYT 2013-09-04 18:07:00
Campbellsville - Paul Harmon was cutting some limbs of a tree..with a chainsaw, when he suddenly felt himself falling. "The next thing I knew I was in the ground," said the Lebanon Rd. resident. The ground beneath him was gone, and he was instantly eye level with grass. "I was hanging. I wasn't on my feet, I was hanging like this, and I had recently seen stories in Florida about sinkholes and was thinking this is what is happening to me," he said. He didn't know how deep the hole was or how much further he could fall. | ||
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Neil Gough
The New York Times 2013-09-04 18:10:00
Hong Kong - Thousands of dead fish floating along a 19-mile stretch of a river in Hubei Province in central China were killed by pollutants emitted by a local chemical plant, provincial environmental officials said Wednesday. Environmental protection officials said tests on water taken from the Fu River upstream from the metropolis of Wuhan revealed that extremely high levels of ammonia in the water were caused by pollution from a plant owned by the Hubei Shuanghuan Science and Technology Company. The tests, conducted by environmental officials from Xiaogan City, revealed ammonia concentrations downstream from the plant as high as 196 milligrams per liter. The World Health Organization notes that naturally occurring ammonia appears in surface water at concentrations of about 12 milligrams per liter, while the similar figure for drinking water is around 0.02 milligrams per liter. |
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| Fire in the Sky |
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CBS DC
2013-09-05 16:59:00
What in the world was that? People tweeting about a green light "falling" from the sky Wednesday don't have the slightest clue. But according to Geoff Chester, of the U.S. Naval Observatory, the celestial display was a rock, "probably something about the size of a basketball," entering the Earth's atmosphere at a speed in excess of 40 miles per second. |
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| Health & Wellness |
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Amy Molnar
People who were deprived of one night's sleep purchased more calories
and grams of food in a mock supermarket on the following day in a new
study published in the journal Obesity, the official journal of
The Obesity Society. Sleep deprivation also led to increased blood
levels of ghrelin, a hormone that increases hunger, on the following
morning; however, there was no correlation between individual ghrelin
levels and food purchasing, suggesting that other mechanisms - such as
impulsive decision making - may be more responsible for increased
purchasing.Wiley 2013-09-05 16:49:00 Researchers in Sweden were curious as to whether sleep deprivation may impair or alter an individual's food purchasing choices based on its established tendency to impair higher-level thinking and to increase hunger. "We hypothesized that sleep deprivation's impact on hunger and decision making would make for the 'perfect storm' with regard to shopping and food purchasing - leaving individuals hungrier and less capable of employing self-control and higher-level decision-making processes to avoid making impulsive, calorie-driven purchases," said first author Colin Chapman, MSc, of Uppsala University. |
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Another damaging effect of cancer chemotherapy: Programmed cell death activates latent herpesviruses
Jim Sliwa
Researchers have found that apoptosis, a natural process of programmed
cell death, can reactivate latent herpesviruses in the dying cell. The
results of their research, which could have broad clinical significance
since many cancer chemotherapies cause apoptosis, was published ahead of
print in the Journal of Virology.American Society for Microbiology 2013-09-05 16:42:00 Human herpesviruses (HHV) are linked to a range of childhood and adult diseases, including chickenpox, mononucleosis, cold sores, and genital sores, and are of a particular concern for patients who are immunosuppressed due cancer or AIDS. Some HHV types are so common they are nearly universal in humans. A key feature of these viruses is their ability to remain latent for long periods of time, and then reactivate after the latent phase. Previously, reactivation was thought to be primarily due to waning immunity, immunosuppression, or exposure to certain inducing agents. This study began when principal investigator Steven Zeichner of Children's National Medical Center and George Washington University in Washington, DC, followed up earlier findings that high concentrations of the antibiotic doxycycline can induce apoptosis, and can also activate replication by the Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus (KSHV), and a study by his former mentor, Bernard Roizman of the University of Chicago, which showed that apoptosis also triggers replication of herpes simplex virus-1, which causes cold sores in the mouth. |
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Sayer Ji
Greenmedinfo.com 2013-09-04 14:51:00
Aluminum is considered by most health authorities perfectly acceptable to eat, wear as an antiperspirant, and inject into your body as a vaccine adjuvant, but new research indicates it has cancer-causing properties, even at levels 100,000 times lower than found in certain consumer products. A concerning new study published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry demonstrates clearly that exposure to aluminum can increase migratory and invasive properties of human breast cancer cells. This has extremely important implications, because mortality from breast cancer is caused by the spread of the tumor and not from the presence of the primary tumor in the breast itself. This profound difference, in fact, is why a groundbreaking new National Cancer Institute commissioned expert panel recently called for the complete reclassification of some types of non-progressive 'breast cancer' and 'prostate cancer' as essentially benign lesions - bittersweet news for the millions who were already misdiagnosed/overdiagnosed and mistreated/overtreated for 'cancer' over the past 30 years. Another recent relevant study, also published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, found increased levels of aluminum in noninvasively collected nipple aspirate fluids from 19 breast cancer patients compared with 16 healthy control subjects. The researchers commented on their findings: "In addition to emerging evidence, our results support the possible involvement of aluminium ions in oxidative and inflammatory status perturbations of breast cancer microenvironment, suggesting aluminium accumulation in breast microenvironment as a possible risk factor for oxidative/inflammatory phenotype of breast cells."[1] |
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Nancy B. Loughlin
news-press.com 2013-09-04 18:40:00
The skin is the body's largest organ. And it's ravenous. People are wearing patches that pump nicotine and birth control into their bodies. If the skin is an effective conduit for medicines, it's also wide open for toxins. What's unfortunate is that many toxins meeting your skin are applied by choice, particularly cosmetics. According to the Environmental Working Group, the average woman uses 12 "beauty" products per day, containing about 168 ingredients. Gloria Aparicio, a representative of NYR Organic Skin and Body Care, a natural cosmetics company, has a top five list of additives that some studies have found questionable: parabens, phthalates, BHT and BHA, petrolatum, any kind of synthetic fragrances, and DEA. Pause here to Google. |
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Rhonda Burns
Greenmedinfo.com 2013-09-04 18:25:00
Digestive Problems? Don't wait for science to sort it out, do your own test on the GMO effects on your health The debate rages on as to whether genetically modified foods are safe for human consumption. While sixty-one countries - including most of the European nations, Brazil, and even China - require labeling on GMO products, our own country has no such protection in place for its citizens. There are also a growing number of countries who are refusing our GMO tainted exports, as is the case with the long grain rice Japan refused as far back as 2006 after tests revealed the rice contained trace amounts of GMO that were not approved for human consumption. America's investor, Bill Gates, who purchased 500,000 shares of a biotech giant in 2010 says GMO crops are needed to fight worldwide starvation. Great Britain's Prince Charles has warned for years that companies developing those genetically modified crops risk creating the biggest environmental disaster of all time. Meanwhile, the 20-year unofficial experiment here in America on many unsuspecting consumers has not yielded a sizeable number of provable studies as to the definitive health impact caused by GMOs in our food supply. And make no mistake, they're in our food supply. Genetically modified organisms are in an estimated 80% of the processed foods in our grocery stores, and some say they're responsible for the growing number of people suffering from a wide variety of symptoms, particularly digestive issues. |
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| Science of the Spirit |
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No new articles. |
| High Strangeness |
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No new articles. |
| Don't Panic! Lighten Up! |
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Adam Sage
The Times 2013-09-05 02:09:00
President Hollande found himself at the centre of an embarassing debate yesterday after Agence France Presse (AFP), the French press agency, withdrew a photograph that left him looking like a village idiot. Critics accused the agency, which depends largely on the French state for its financial equilibrium, of self-censorship in an attempt to avoid ruffling Mr Hollande's feathers. But the row merely added to the publicity surrounding the picture, which went viral on French internet sites amid widespread hilarity. The photograph, taken when Mr Hollande visited a school in Denain, northern France, to mark the start of the new term on Tuesday, made him look like a clown with an expression of stupefaction in his eyes, according to Le Point, the news magazine. Rue 89, a news site, said he looked "simple-minded". The picture, taken by Denis Charlet, one of AFP's photographers, was made available to the media outlets which subscribe to the agency. |
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Jon David Kahn
Breitbart.com 2013-09-04 18:47:00
Tucumcari, New Mexico - Most Presidential libraries are constructed after the President completes his term. However, according to KOAT-ABC, a New Mexico man has determined the location for President Obama's library and has marked it with a sign that is sparking controversy in one small town. The sign rests on top of an outhouse. It reads: Obama's Presidential Library. Some in town view the sign as bad taste while others are supportive. One man told a local reporter that folks are treating it as a tourist destination and that it is frequently photographed. The man responsible for the sign would not reveal his name nor would he give any information as to his motivation but did say the following: "It's like watching TV. If you don't like what the hell you're watching, turn the channel. I'm not even certain he even deserves that level of respect, but that's my opinion." He added "...and fortunately, that's one thing they haven't taken away from us ... is our right to our opinion," |
