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Medical plants 'face extinction'
(BBC News, January 19, 2008)
Hundreds of medicinal plants are at risk of extinction, threatening the discovery of future cures for disease, according to experts. . . . Over 50% of prescription drugs are derived from chemicals first identified in plants. . . . But the Botanic Gardens Conservation International said many were at risk from over-collection and deforestation. . . . Researchers warned the cures for things such as cancer and HIV may become "extinct before they are ever found". . . . They identified 400 plants that were at risk of extinction. . . . These included yew trees, the bark of which forms the basis for one of the world's most widely used cancer drugs, paclitaxel. . . . Hoodia, which originally comes from Namibia and is attracting interest from drug firms looking into developing weight loss drugs, is on the verge of extinction, the report said. . . . And half of the world's species of magnolias are also under threat. . . . The plant contains the chemical honokiol, which has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat cancers and slow down the onset of heart disease. . . . The report also said autumn crocus, which is a natural treatment for gout and has been linked to helping fight leukaemia, is at risk of over-harvest as it is popular with the horticultural trade because of its stunning petals. . . . But the report said as well as future breakthroughs being put at risk, the situation was likely to have a consequence in the developing world. . . . It said five billion people still rely on traditional plant-based medicine as their primary form of health care. . . . Report author Belinda Hawkins said: "The loss of the world's medicinal plants may not always be at the forefront of the public consciousness. . . . "However, it is not an overstatement to say that if the precipitous decline of these species is not halted, it could destabilise the future of global healthcare."

posted by Lorenzo 11:01 AM

 

Human evolution is 'speeding up'
(Anna-Marie Lever, BBC News, 11 December 2007)
Humans have moved into the evolutionary fast lane and are becoming increasing different, a genetic study suggests. . . . In the past 5,000 years, genetic change has occurred at a rate roughly 100 times higher than any other period, say scientists in the US. . . . This is in contrast with the widely-held belief that recent human evolution has halted. . . . "The dogma has been these [differences] are cultural fluctuations, but almost any temperament trait you look at is under strong genetic influences. . . . "Genes are evolving fast in Europe, Asia and Africa, but almost all of these are unique to their continent of origin," he added. "We are getting less alike, not merging into a single, mixed humanity." . . . This is happening, he said, because "there has not been much flow" between different regions since modern humans left Africa to colonise the rest of the world. And there is no evidence that it is slowing down, he added. . . . "The technology can't detect anything beyond about 2,000 years ago, but we see no sign of [human evolution] slowing down. So I would suspect it is continuing," he told BBC News. . . . "Five thousand years is such a small sliver of time," said co-author Professor John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "It's 100 or 200 generations ago. That's how long since some of these genes originated, and today they are [in] 30% or 40% of people because they've had such an advantage." . . . The researchers propose that there are two factors causing human evolution to speed up. . . . "One of them is there are a lot more people - the more people you have the more opportunities there are for an advantageous mutation to show up," said Professor Harpending. . . . A large population has more genetic variation and allows for more positive selection than a small one. . . . "The second is environmental change - our diets have changed, we are in radically new environments," he added. "With a large population size comes lots of new diseases." . . . At the moment we are in an evolutionary interval. We are in between two storms. One storm has more or less blown itself out, the storm of farming. . . . "The question is whether we are going to stay in the calms or whether another great storm will start. And if there is one, I would say it is most certainly to do with epidemic disease."

posted by Lorenzo 9:07 AM

 

List of Genetically Modified Foods on your grocery shelf

True Food Now! has an interesting list of many common foods that you see on the store shelves every day that have been genetically modified. [Click link above for complete listing] For example, under the chocolate category:

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED INGREDIENTS [IN]

Cadbury (Cadbury/Hershey's) Mounds Almond Joy York Peppermint Patty Dairy Milk Roast Almond Fruit & Nut

Hershey's Kit-Kat Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Mr. Goodbar Special Dark Milk Chocolate Kisses Symphony

Kraft (Kraft/Phillip Morris) Toblerone (all varieties)

Mars M&M
(all varieties) Snickers Three Musketeers Milky Way Twix

Nestle Crunch Milk Chocolate Chunky Butterfinger 100 Grand

Drink Mixes and Dessert Toppings

Carnation (Nestle) Hot Cocoa Mixes: Rich Chocolate Double Chocolate Milk Chocolate Marshmallow Madness Mini Marshmallow No Sugar

Hershey's Chocolate Syrup Special Dark Chocolate Syrup Strawberry Syrup

Nestle Nesquik Strawberry Nesquik

Swiss Miss (ConAgra) Hot Cocoa Mixes: Chocolate Sensation Milk Chocolate Marshmallow Lovers Marshmallow Lovers Fat Free No Sugar Added

posted by Lorenzo 2:51 PM

 

Michael Moore Busts Wolf Blitzer
In case YouTube drops the video I've linked to below, I'm following it with a transcript from this interesting exchange between Moore and Blitzer.



TRANSCRIPT OF THE ABOVE INTERVIEW:

BLITZER: Michael Moore is joining us now live from Detroit. Michael, thanks very much for coming in. You want to respond to anything ...

MOORE: First of all, Wolf, yeah, well -- yeah, I'd like about 10 minutes to respond to what was said.

BLITZER: Give us a couple of headlines, what you'd like to say.

MOORE: I don't talk in sound bites. So -- that report was so biased. I can't imagine what pharmaceutical company ad's coming up right after our break here.

But why don't you tell the truth to the American people? I mean, I wish that CNN and the other mainstream media would just for once tell the truth about what's going on in this country, whether it's with healthcare -- I don't care what it is. I mean, you guys have such a poor track record.

And for me to come on here and have to listen to that kind of crap. I mean, seriously, I haven't been on your show now for three years. The last time I was on, you ran a similar piece about "Fahrenheit 9/11" saying this can't be true what he's saying about the war, how it's going to be a quagmire, the weapons of mass destruction.

You know, and -- why don't you start off actually with my first appearance back here on your show in three years and maybe apologize to me for saying that three years ago, because it turned out everything I said in "Fahrenheit" was true. Everything has come to happen.

Everything I said. I mean, I was -- I took you in that film to Walter Reed Hospital and it took three years before you or any of the rest of the mainstream media would go to Walter Reed Hospital and see what was happening to our troops. So for me to have to sit here and listen again to more crap about socialized medicine or how the Canadians have it worse than us and all this, all the statistics show that we have far worse healthcare than these other industrialized countries.

We're the only ones that don't have it free and universal. And, you know, there's a -- there's a -- you said that Germany was the only one that was better than us in terms of wait times. The Commonwealth Fund last year showed of the top six countries, we were second to last, next to Canada. It showed that Britain, for instance, 71 percent of the British public, when they call to see a doctor, get to see the doctor that day or the next day. It's 69 percent in Germany. It's 66% in Australia. And you're the ones who are fudging the facts. You fudged the facts to the American people now for I don't know how long about this issue, about the war.

And I'm just curious when are you going to just stand there and apologize to the American people for not bringing the truth to them that isn't sponsored by some major corporation? I mean, I'll sit here for as long as it takes, if you can do that for me.

BLITZER: Just in fairness, we had a lot of commercials for "Sicko" that we've been running on CNN as well. So we have commercials. This is a business, obviously. But let's talk a little bit about ...

MOORE: You have a nightly medical report. You have something called "The Daily Dose." I watch CNN. You have it every day. "The Daily Dose" sponsored by -- fill in the blank. And you are funded by these people day in and day out. Don't even compare that to my movie being out for a couple of weeks and a couple of rinky-dink ads for 15 seconds. Come on. Come on, Wolf!

BLITZER: No, no -- I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Sanjay Gupta's record, but I would stack up his record on medical issues with virtually anyone in the business.

MOORE: All right. So when I -- when I now put on my Web site, as I will do tonight, how his facts were wrong about the $7,000 that we spend, it's actually -- I've read one report now, it's even more than $7,000 that we spend per person each year in this country. I'm going to put the real facts up there on my Web site so people can see what he said was wrong.

BLITZER: Well, if we get that confirmed, obviously, we'll correct the record. Sanjay - but I'm just saying ... MOORE: Oh, you will? You'll be getting it.

BLITZER: Sanjay Gupta is not only a doctor and neurosurgeon, but he's also an excellent, excellent journalist. Look, I saw the film, and it's a powerful, powerful ...

MOORE: I saw Dr. Sanjay Gupta over there embedded with the troops at the beginning of the war. He and the others of you in the mainstream media refused to ask our leaders the hard questions and demand the honest answers. And that's why we're in this war -- we're in the fifth year of this war because you and CNN, Dr. Gupta, you didn't do your jobs back then and now here we are in this mess.

What if you'd actually done the job on that? That's why anybody who hears anything he anything of what you say now about universal healthcare should question what you're saying, what you're putting out there. You didn't do the job for us with the war. You're not doing it with this issue. And I just -- I just wonder when the American people are going to turn off their TV sets and quit listening to this stuff.

BLITZER: Sanjay Gupta did an excellent job covering that war. He was with the Navy's medical doctors and he went in and risked his life and actually performed neurosurgery on the scene.

MOORE: You have the questions. Why are we here? That's the question. Why are we here in this war? Where's the weapons of mass destruction? Why didn't you -- why did it take you so long, Wolf, to finally take on Vice President Cheney? It took you to 2007 before you made the man mad at you.

BLITZER: Those are fair questions.

MOORE: Four years!

BLITZER: Let's talk a little ...

MOORE: Where were you?

BLITZER: Let's talk about "Sicko." That's the film that you're here to talk about.

MOORE: Yeah, let's forget that. Yeah, OK.

BLITZER: There's plenty to talk about the war. There's plenty to talk about with "Sicko."

MOORE: I just haven't seen you in three years, so I was wondering how you felt for three years of not seeing me after you trashed "Fahrenheit" and said that I was wrong about, oh, yeah, this war was -- come on, I'm just waiting for an apology.

BLITZER: Michael, we've invited you on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, you've declined our invitations the past three years but there are plenty of times we asked you to come on the show and plenty of times you've declined.

MOORE: Really? And you wanted to apologize? Why did you want to talk to me?

BLITZER: No, we wanted to interview you. That's what we do on television. Let's ...

MOORE: You don't have to apologize to me. Maybe just apologize to the American people and the families of the troops for not doing your job four years ago. We wouldn't be in this war. If you had done your job. Come on. Just admit it. Just apologize to the American people.

BLITZER: Which of the presidential candidates who are out there right now do you think would do the best job fixing the nation's healthcare system?

MOORE: Well, the Democrats have to be asked some very specific questions. Too many of them are saying, well, they're for health care for all people. Very few of them are being as specific as Mr. Kucinich is in saying, well, I support the Conyers bill in Congress HR-676. That's what we need to hear.

And I would like to hear what these other Democratic candidates are going to say and do in specifics in removing the private insurance companies from the equation. We shouldn't have profit involved when we talk about taking care of people's health.

BLITZER: Is there a candidate, though, you think -- is Dennis Kucinich your candidate? Who do you think -- I know in the film you go after Hillary Clinton. And you're very, very bipartisan in your criticism in the film, Democrats and Republicans.

MOORE: Yeah. When you say I go after, let's be clear. I actually think she did a very brave thing to try and address this issue 14 years ago. And they stopped her cold. They went after her with the same kind of, you know, trash pieces I just had to watch. And so that stopped her. And now we've had to suffer through 14 more years of having no universal healthcare in this country. Our own government admits that because the 47 million who aren't insured, we now have about 18,000 people a year that die in this country simply because they don't have health insurance. That's six 9/11's every single year.

If you times that by 14 since Mrs. Clinton was unceremoniously removed from the agenda here, she hasn't been able to talk about this. She hasn't really put forth her specific plan. I'm hoping that the people have gone to my movie, the people that are concerned about this issue, will write to Mrs. Clinton and say, please, universal healthcare that's free for everyone who lives in this country. It will cost us less than what we're spending now ling the pockets of these private health insurance companies, of these pharmaceutical companies. So there's still some chance to have an effect on people like her.

And of course, there's one candidate who isn't even in the race yet. I don't know if he will be. But he was right about the war before it began, unlike CNN -- did I mention that?

BLITZER: You did.

MOORE: And -- and he's right about global warming and he's right on this issue, too.

BLITZER: Al Gore. The Democrats, by and large, most of them support some major health reform, including universal healthcare, which is what you support. I want you to listen to what Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front-runner said at the Republican debate that I hosted up in Manchester, New Hampshire. Listen to this.

MOORE: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Free market principles are the only things that reduce cost and improve quality. Socialized medicine will ruin medicine in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. What do you say to Mayor Giuliani?

MOORE: So he's saying that he hates Medicare?

BLITZER: He's saying socialized medicine will ruin medicine in the United States.

MOORE: That's what we have. Ask a doctor if they'd rather have a Medicare patient or somebody who has got a lousy HMO, because they know at least Medicare -- the government will pay them, send them a check and not have to fight an hour on the phone just to get a $15 office visit paid for.

I mean, seriously, we have one of the largest socialized medicine systems in this country. It's called Medicare and Medicaid. And while it's underfunded and too much of the control of it has been handed over to private companies, we've already proven we can do things like that, and Social Security and other things very well. So I hope that he wasn't attacking help for senior citizens, because that's what it sounded like to me.

BLITZER: I've got a whole bunch of questions. Unfortunately, we're out of time. But if you stick around ...

MOORE: We're out of time! I'll see you in three years.

BLITZER: No, no, stick around. We'll tape some more. We'll run it tomorrow. We want to make sure you get your chance to ...

MOORE: Oh, no, see, that's the deal, Wolf. There's no taping with me. As you know, it's rare that they put me on live. And to your credit, thank you for doing that. You can see why. They generally don't like to have me on live because, you know, a lot of that would have been cut out.

BLITZER: Well, no ...

MOORE: Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.

BLITZER: We're not going to cut a second of it out if you want to tape something.

MOORE: Run it unedited?

BLITZER: Run it unedited.

MOORE: And people can ...

BLITZER: And people going to your Web site, it's a free country, they can find out the truth, about what it is.

MOORE: The facts about Sanjay Gupta, they can find out about his facts, right? We can find that out, right? BLITZER: Absolutely. Michael Moore.

MOORE: OK.

BLITZER: Thanks very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

posted by Lorenzo 5:21 PM

 

Expedite the Move Towards a Solar-Electric Economy via Tesla Motors

Elon Musk is an Internet / rocket-launch / electric-car / solar-power entrepreneur. Musk has a grand plan. It all starts with a sports car.

Musk was born and grew up in South Africa. In 1995, Musk went onto a graduate program in energy physics at Stanford. He dropped out to start Zip2, which was acquired by AltaVista for US$307 million in cash and US$34 million in stock options. In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and email payments company. In 2001, X.com changed its legal name to PayPal. In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock. Before its sale, Musk, the company's largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal's shares.

In June 2002, Musk founded his third company, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), of which he is currently the CEO and CTO. SpaceX develops and manufactures space launch vehicles, with an emphasis on low cost and high reliability. The company's first two launch vehicles are the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets.

In addition to his business activities in entrepreneurial space, Musk is the principal owner and Chairman of the Board of Tesla Motors, a high performance electric-car company that aspires to build cost effective vehicles for the mass market. He is also the primary investor and Chairman of the Board of SolarCity, a photovoltaics products and services startup company. The underlying motivation for funding both companies is to help combat global warming.

Musk's fortune is estimated at US$328 million. Musk is Chairman of the Musk Foundation, which focuses its philanthropic efforts on science education, pediatric health, and clean energy. According to an interview on the PBS television pilot for Wired Science (aired January 3, 2007), Musk's electric car project, named the Tesla after the Serb-American inventor of alternating current, will make its commercial debut sometime in 2007. Musk claims that a more suitable entry point for a new technology such as electric vehicles is in the "high performance, low volume" market sector. To that end, he claims the Tesla both boasts faster acceleration than almost any new Porsche or Ferrari on the market (the exception being the Ferrari Enzo), while operating at twice the efficiency of the Toyota Prius. While the first two-door roadster model is expected to retail for $89,000 US, Musk claims the second model will be a sedan, priced under $60,000, followed by a third design priced around $30,000.

In 2001, Musk had plans for a "Mars Oasis" project, which would land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars, containing food crops growing on Martian regolith. He put this project on hold when he discovered that launch costs would dwarf the mission development and construction costs for the project, and decided to work on lowering launch costs by founding SpaceX. His long term goal is that SpaceX helps humanity become a true spacefaring civilization. Musk is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, a Director of the Planetary Society and a Trustee of The X-Prize Foundation.

The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan by Elon Musk
The initial product of Tesla Motors is a high-performance electric sports car called the Tesla Roadster. However, some readers may not be aware of the fact that our long term plan is to build a wide range of models, including affordably priced family cars. This is because the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution.

Critical to making that happen is an electric car without compromises, which is why the Tesla Roadster is designed to beat a gasoline sports car like a Porsche or Ferrari in a head to head showdown. Then, over and above that fact, it has twice the energy efficiency of a Prius. Even so, some may question whether this actually does any good for the world. Are we really in need of another high performance sports car? Will it actually make a difference to global carbon emissions?

Well, the answers are no and not much. However, that misses the point, unless you understand the secret master plan alluded to above. Almost any new technology initially has high unit cost before it can be optimized and this is no less true for electric cars. The strategy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the market, where customers are prepared to pay a premium, and then drive down market as fast as possible to higher unit volume and lower prices with each successive model.

Without giving away too much, I can say that the second model will be a sporty four door family car at roughly half the $89k price point of the Tesla Roadster and the third model will be even more affordable. In keeping with a fast growing technology company, all free cash flow is plowed back into R&D to drive down the costs and bring the follow on products to market as fast as possible. When someone buys the Tesla Roadster sports car, they are actually helping pay for development of the low cost family car.

Be sure to read the rest of this Tesla Motors post here to learn how Elon Musk addresses the two important arguments against electric vehicles — battery disposal and power plant emissions.

posted by Hal 7:24 PM

 

Species under threat: Honey, who shrunk the bee population?
(01 March 2007, The Independent)
Across America, millions of honey bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die, leaving beekeepers facing ruin and US agriculture under threat. And to date, no one knows why. It has echoes of a murder mystery in polite society. There could hardly be a more sedate and unruffled world than beekeeping, but the beekeepers of the United States have suddenly encountered affliction, calamity and death on a massive scale. And they have not got a clue why it is happening. Across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, honey bee colonies have started to die off, abruptly and decisively. Millions of bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die (they cannot survive as a colony without the queen, who is always left behind). Some beekeepers, especially those with big portable apiaries, or bee farms, which are used for large-scale pollination of fruit and vegetable crops, are facing commercial ruin - and there is a growing threat that America's agriculture may be struck a mortal blow by the loss of the pollinators. Yet scientists investigating the problem have no idea what is causing it.

posted by A Curmudgeon 9:58 AM

 

Neanderthals' may have survived longer than previously thought
(BBC NEWS, 13 September 2006)
A study in Nature magazine suggests the species may have lived in Gorham's Cave on Gibraltar up to 24,000 years ago. . . . The Neanderthal people were believed to have died out about 35,000 years ago, at a time when modern humans were advancing across the continent. . . . The new evidence suggests they held on in Europe's deep south long after the arrival of Homo sapiens. . . . The research team believes the Gibraltar Neanderthals may even have been the very last of their kind. . . . Though once thought to have been our ancestors, the Neanderthals are now considered an evolutionary dead end. . . . They appear in the fossil record around 230,000 years ago and, at their peak, these squat, physically powerful hunters dominated a wide range, spanning Britain and Iberia in the west to Israel in the south and Uzbekistan in the east. . . . Our own species, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa, and displaced the Neanderthals after entering Europe about 40,000 years ago. . . . But evidence for a presence 24,000 years ago is limited, so the researchers can only say with confidence that Neanderthals were in the cave until 28,000 years ago. . . . Even so, this date makes the cave the youngest Neanderthal occupation site known anywhere. . . . Scientists believe it was a favoured spot where hunting groups sought refuge from cold weather during the last Ice Age. . . . Professor Stringer thinks the site provides an important insight into the reasons for Neanderthal extinction. . . . "For years, many of us have tended to look for one single reason why Neanderthals died out - that we interbred with them, or out-competed them, or killed them off. The Gibraltar evidence fits into a picture that has been emerging in recent years of quite a complex event," he explained. . . . "The idea of modern humans coming in and Neanderthals dying out simply didn't happen." . . . The Neanderthals survived in local pockets during previous Ice Ages, bouncing back when conditions improved. But the last one appears to have been characterised by several rapid and severe changes in climate which hit a peak 30,000 years ago. . . . These were probably more dramatic in more northerly parts of Europe, where they may have upset the balance between Neanderthals and modern humans, allowing moderns to gain the upper hand. . . . Gibraltar's climate was sheltered from many of these changes, but it did eventually deteriorate. Recent deep-sea core data show that temperatures dropped sharply around 24,000 years ago. This could have created drought-like conditions in the area which may also have reduced the number of prey the Neanderthals could catch. . . . "If you've got a shrinking Neanderthal population on the edge, it might just be enough to tip them over the edge," Professor Finlayson told BBC News. . . . Details of the work will be presented here at the Calpe conference, which runs from 14-17 September in Gibraltar.

posted by Lorenzo 2:29 PM

 

Agent Orange 'caused gene damage'
(BBC News, 28 July 2006)
New Zealand troops who served in the Vietnam War suffered significant genetic damage from exposure to Agent Orange, a study suggests. . . . The chemical was used by the US military in Vietnam in the 1960s. . . . It has been blamed for a variety of medical conditions suffered by soldiers and up to four million Vietnamese. . . . The US military sprayed some 80m litres of Agent Orange on North and South Vietnam. . . . The aim was to destroy jungle foliage in order to find communist fighters more easily. . . . Agent Orange contained highly toxic dioxins which have since been blamed for causing cancers and other illnesses. . . . They have also been blamed for birth defects suffered by the children and even grandchildren of Vietnam veterans and Vietnamese civilians. . . . A team from New Zealand's Massey University has now shown that the group of 24 Vietnam veterans it tested suffered significant genetic damage, compared with a similar sized group of soldiers who did not serve in Vietnam, our correspondent says.

posted by Lorenzo 6:37 PM

 

Bees and flowers decline in step
(BBC News, 21 July 2006)
Diversity in bees and wild flowers is declining together, at least in Britain and the Netherlands, research shows. . . . climate change and modern industrial farming are possible factors in the linked decline. . . . There is a chance, they say, that the decline in pollinating bees could have detrimental effects on food production. . . . The researchers also looked at hoverflies, and found a mixed picture, with diversity remaining roughly constant in Britain but appearing to increase marginally in the Netherlands. . . . Hoverflies do pollinate plants, but are less choosy than many bee species, and do not depend so directly on nectar to feed their young. . . . Overall, plants which pollinate via wind or water appear to be spreading, while those which rely on insects decline. . . . the root causes of the decline are clear, Dr Biesmeijer argues. . . . "The ultimate drivers are changes in our landscapes; intensive agriculture, extensive use of pesticides, drainage, nitrogen deposition. . . . While such changes may have significant impacts nationally, the team points out that the environments of Britain and the Netherlands, with their high population densities and long histories of agriculture, contain two of the least "natural" landscapes on Earth.

posted by Lorenzo 8:45 AM

 

Hackers stepping up attacks on Pentagon
(Siobhan Gorman, Baltimore Sun, July 2, 2006)
The number of reported attempts to penetrate Pentagon computer networks rose sharply in the past decade, from fewer than 800 in 1996 to more than 160,000 last year - thousands of them successful. At the same time, the nation's ability to safeguard sensitive data in those and other government computer systems is becoming obsolete as efforts to make improvements have faltered and stalled. . . . Launched in 1999, the program was to have been completed last year, but it fell behind in part because of differences between the NSA and the Pentagon. The NSA is trying to revamp the program, although the deadline has slid to 2012, with the most substantive security improvements planned for 2018. . . . An internal NSA report in April 2005 described the problem as "critical," noting that 30 percent of the agency's security equipment does not provide "adequate" protection; another 46 percent is approaching that status. . . . Pentagon computers, in particular, are under constant attack. Recently, Chinese hackers were able to penetrate and steal data from a classified computer system serving the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to two sources familiar with the incident. . . . "Numerous states, terrorist and hackers groups, criminal syndicates, and individuals continue to pose a threat to our computer systems," Maj. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, warned Congress this year. "Over the last few years, hackers have exploited thousands of [Department of Defense] systems." . . . In addition to the NSA's aging security technology, some of the tools required for encrypting data lack security protections and are vulnerable, so an infiltrator could uncover and possibly replicate the tools to access government data, according to the NSA's December 2005 planning document. . . . "The threat is much larger than we ever thought it was," said David Szady, a former top counterintelligence official at the FBI and the CIA. The Chinese "have been able to develop their military and their systems on the backbone of United States technology." . . . Meanwhile, given the pace of technology, every year that the project slips, it becomes less relevant, said a former government official familiar with the project. . . . "You're going to introduce something that is completely obsolete," he said.

posted by Lorenzo 10:36 AM

 

Lab tuned to gravity's 'ripples'
(BBC News, 26 June 2006)
One of the great scientific experiments of our age is now fully underway. . . . A German/UK team has put the giant GEO 600 gravitational wave detector in a continuous observational mode. . . . The Hanover lab is trying to detect the ripples created in the fabric of space-time that sweep out from merging black holes or exploding stars. . . . Success would confirm fundamental physical theories and open a new window on the Universe, enabling scientists to probe the moment of creation itself. . . . GEO 600 is working alongside a US project known as Ligo (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory). It may also be joined in the hunt by an Italian lab within a year. . . . A confirmed detection would require the super-sensitive equipment at more than one of these widely spaced facilities to record an event simultaneously. . . . "The first step towards gravitational wave astronomy has been taken."

posted by Lorenzo 8:25 AM

 

'Thirst For Knowledge' May Be Opium Craving
(ScienceDaily, June 20, 2006)
Neuroscientists have proposed a simple explanation for the pleasure of grasping a new concept: The brain is getting its fix. . . . The "click" of comprehension triggers a biochemical cascade that rewards the brain with a shot of natural opium-like substances, said Irving Biederman of the University of Southern California. He presents his theory in an invited article in the latest issue of American Scientist. . . . "While you're trying to understand a difficult theorem, it's not fun," said Biederman, professor of neuroscience in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. . . . "But once you get it, you just feel fabulous." . . . The brain's craving for a fix motivates humans to maximize the rate at which they absorb knowledge, he said. . . . "I think we're exquisitely tuned to this as if we're junkies, second by second."

[Click the link above for a detailed description of this hypothesis.]

posted by Lorenzo 9:24 AM

 

Web inventor warns of 'dark' Net
(BBC News, 23 May 2006)
The web should remain neutral and resist attempts to fragment it into different services, web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said. . . . Recent attempts in the US to try to charge for different levels of online access web were not "part of the internet model," he said in Edinburgh. . . . He warned that if the US decided to go ahead with a two-tier internet, the network would enter "a dark period". . . . "What's very important from my point of view is that there is one web," he said. . . . "Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks very boring." . . . The first steps towards this were taken last week when members of the US House of Representatives introduced a net neutrality bill. . . . But telecoms companies in the US do not agree. They would like to implement a two-tier system, where data from companies or institutions that can pay are given priority over those that cannot. . . . This has particularly become an issue with the transmission of TV shows over the internet, with some broadband providers wanting to charge content providers to carry the data. . . . The internet community believes this threatens the open model of the internet as broadband providers will become gatekeepers to the web's content. . . . Providers that can pay will be able to get a commercial advantage over those that cannot. . . . There is a fear that institutions like universities and charities would also suffer. . . . Sir Tim said this was "not the internet model". The "right" model, as exists at the moment, was that any content provider could pay for a connection to the internet and could then put any content on to the web with no discrimination. . . . "You get this tremendous serendipity where I can search the internet and come across a site that I did not set out to look for," he said. . . . A two-tier system would mean that people would only have full access to those portions of the internet that they paid for and that some companies would be given priority over others.

posted by Lorenzo 2:46 PM

 

Deep ocean trawl finds new forms of life
(BBC NEWS, 4 May 2006)
A three-week voyage of discovery in the Atlantic has returned with tiny animals which appear new to science. . . . They include waif-like plankton with delicate translucent bodies related to jellyfish, hundreds of microscopic shrimps, and several kinds of fish. . . . The voyage is part of the ongoing Census of Marine Life (CoML) which aims to map ocean life throughout the world. . . . Plankton form the base of many marine food chains, and some populations are being disrupted by climatic change. . . . "The deep ocean below 1,000m (3,300ft) is rarely sampled," observed Peter Wiebe, from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, lead scientist on the recent voyage. . . . "It's very difficult; you need many thousands of metres of cable," he told the BBC News website. "We were able to sample at 1,000m intervals down to 5,000m (16,500 ft)." . . . housands of specimens were captured during the cruise, of which 500 have been catalogued. . . . They include shrimp-like copepods and ostracods, swimming worms, and tiny jellyfish - some of the gooiest and most fragile animals in the sea. . . . Most are adjusted to living in the cool deep, where temperatures hover around one or two Celsius. . . . Several more voyages are planned in the next two years specifically to examine zooplankton, and scientists involved in CoMZ are also finding places on other cruises in relevant areas. . . . By the time CoML ends in 2010, it hopes to have found and studied every zooplankton species in the ocean.

posted by Lorenzo 4:49 AM

 

10th Planet Appears Barely Larger Than Pluto
(Kenneth Chang, New York Times, April 11, 2006)
The 10th planet turns out to be barely larger than Pluto, a new photograph by the Hubble Space Telescope shows. . . . The object — still officially unnamed but currently tagged with the designation 2003 UB313 and nicknamed Xena — covered an area only 1.5 pixels across in the digital image taken by Hubble, but that was enough to extract the diameter: 1,490 miles, give or take 60 miles. Pluto has a diameter of 1,422 miles. . . . While small, 2003 UB313 is surprisingly bright, reflecting 86 percent of the light that hits it. . . . "It's just crazy," said Michael E. Brown, a professor of planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology who discovered 2003 UB313 in January 2005 and who also led the analysis of the Hubble image. "We were shocked how bright it was." . . . Pluto, already considered bright, reflects 60 percent of its incoming light. . . . A previous estimate by researchers at the University of Bonn had put the diameter at 1,900 miles. But that calculation, based on measurements taken from the ground, had a greater uncertainty of 250 miles. . . . Astronomers have not decided whether to officially call 2003 UB313 a planet or demote Pluto. In recent years, many astronomers have said Pluto should just regarded as a member of the Kuiper Belt, a ring of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. . . . Given that 2003 UB313 is almost a twin of Pluto, at least in terms of size, the ultimate fate of terminology for the two distant objects could well be the same.

posted by Lorenzo 4:18 AM

 

Drug firms 'inventing diseases'
(BBC NEWS, April 11, 2006)
Pharmaceutical firms are inventing diseases to sell more drugs, researchers have warned. . . . Disease-mongering promotes non-existent diseases and exaggerates mild problems to boost profits, the Public Library of Science Medicine reported. . . . Researchers at Newcastle University in Australia said firms were putting healthy people at risk by medicalising conditions such as menopause. . . . Report authors David Henry and Ray Moynihan criticised attempts to convince the public in the US that 43% of women live with sexual dysfunction. . . . They also said that risk factors like high cholesterol and osteoporosis were being presented as diseases - and rare conditions such as restless leg condition and mild problems of irritable bowel syndrome were exaggerated. . . . The report said: "Disease-mongering is the selling of sickness that widens the boundaries of illness and grows the markets for those who sell and deliver treatments. . . . "It is exemplified mostly explicitly by many pharmaceutical industry-funded disease awareness campaigns - more often designed to sell drugs than to illuminate or to inform or educate about the prevention of illness or the maintenance of health." . . . The researchers called on doctors, patients and support groups to be aware of the marketing tactics of the pharmaceutical industry and for more research into the way in which conditions are presented. . . . They added: "The motives of health professionals and health advocacy groups may well be the welfare of patients, rather than any direct self-interested financial benefit, but we believe that too often marketers are able to crudely manipulate those motivations. . . . "Disentangling the different motivations of the different actors in disease-mongering will be a key step towards a better understanding of this phenomenon."

posted by Lorenzo 12:10 PM

 

Bush Administration Approves Pesticide Testing on Orphans & Mentally Handicapped Children
[NOTE: This is a follow-up to an earlier story, Bush's Fascist Government Using Poor Children in Toxic Chemical Tests, which caused the Bush regime to modify its plans to only test toxins on orphans and mentally challenged children.]

(Organic Consumers Association, November 16, 2005)
Public comments are now being accepted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its newly proposed federal regulation regarding the testing of chemicals and pesticides on human subjects. On August 2, 2005, Congress had mandated the EPA create a rule that permanently bans chemical testing on pregnant women and children. But the EPA's newly proposed rule, misleadingly titled "Protections for Subjects in Human Research," puts industry profits ahead of children's welfare. The rule allows for government and industry scientists to treat children as human guinea pigs in chemical experiments in the following situations:

1. Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns may be tested on. With permission from the institution or guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals for the sake of research.

2. Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused.

3. Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable.

[COMMENT by Lorenzo: If this isn't un-American activity I don't know what is. It appears that the Bush family Nazi sympathies remain in place. See also George W. Bush, The Neocons, & The Nazis: Ties That Bind.]

posted by Lorenzo 1:07 PM

 

Rumsfeld To Profit from Bird Flu Hoax
(Dr. Mercola, mercola.com)
Finally, the pieces of the puzzle start to add up. Not long ago, President Bush sought to instill panic in this country by telling us a minimum of 200,000 people will die from the avian flu pandemic, but it could be as bad as 2 million deaths in this country alone. . . . This hoax is then used to justify the immediate purchase of 80 million doses of Tamiflu, a worthless drug that in no way shape or form treats the avian flu, but only decreases the amount of days one is sick and can actually contribute to the virus having more lethal mutations. . . . So the U.S. placed an order for 20 million doses of this worthless drug at a price of $100 per dose. That comes to a staggering $2 billion. . . . We are being told that Roche manufactures Tamiflu and, in a recent New York Times article, they were battling whether or not they would allow generic drug companies to help increase their production. . . . But if you dig further you will find that a drug was actually developed by a company called Gilead that 10 years ago gave Roche the exclusive rights to market and sell Tamiflu. . . . Ahh, The Plot Thickens . . . If you read the link below from Gilead, you'll discover Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was made the chairman of Gilead in 1997. . . . Since Rumsfeld holds major portions of stock in Gilead, he will handsomely profit from the scare tactics of the government that is being used to justify the purchase of $2 billion of Tamiflu. . . . Finally Medical Journal Admits the Truth . . . This week's British Medical Journal has an editorial on the bird flu in which they state the following: "The lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this AH5N1 avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic" . . . While they do go on to say the virus could mutate with the influenza A virus and has the potential to acquire the means for rapid human to human transmission, it does NOT have this ability now. All the preparation and fear being created in the media is about a theoretical speculation. . . . Now, I am still not opposed to being prepared for this potential bird flu pandemic. It is POSSIBLE it might materialize. But if it did there is no way that the flu vaccine or Tamiflu will mitigate its damage. No way.

posted by Lorenzo 6:41 PM

 

Meditation Improves Brain Development Study Shows
(LiveScience Staff, 11 November 2005)
Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent, scientists have known. But a new study shows key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the practice. . . . Brain imaging of regular working folks who meditate regularly revealed increased thickness in cortical regions related to sensory, auditory and visual perception, as well as internal perception -- the automatic monitoring of heart rate or breathing, for example. . . . The study also indicates that regular meditation may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex. . . . "What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's gray matter," said study team member Jeremy Gray, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale. "The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk." . . . The research was led by Sara Lazar, assistant in psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital. It is detailed in the November issue of the journal NeuroReport. . . . The study involved a small number of people, just 20. All had extensive training in Buddhist Insight meditation. But the researchers say the results are significant. . . . Most of the brain regions identified to be changed through meditation were found in the right hemisphere, which is essential for sustaining attention. And attention is the focus of the meditation. . . . Other forms of yoga and meditation likely have a similar impact on brain structure, the researchers speculate, but each tradition probably has a slightly different pattern of cortical thickening based on the specific mental exercises involved.

posted by Lorenzo 12:07 PM

 

Evolution suffers setback in Kansas, citizens vote to devolve
(BBC NEWS, 09 November 2005)
Public schools in the US state of Kansas are to be given new science standards that cast doubt on evolution. . . . Proponents of the change argue they are trying to expose students to legitimate scientific questions about evolution. . . . The Kansas decision came as voters in Pennsylvania replaced all eight school board members who approved a similar policy in some of the state's schools. . . . Since October 2004, schools in Dover, Pennsylvania, have been obliged to read out a prepared statement on intelligent design in biology classes. . . . Teachers have been ordered to tell pupils that Darwin's theory of evolution is unproven, and that the universe is so complex that it may have been created by a higher power. . . . Tuesday's vote in Kansas was the third time in six years that the Kansas board has rewritten standards with evolution as the central issue. . . . The new standards include several specific challenges, including statements that there is a lack of evidence or natural explanation for the genetic code, and charges that fossil records are inconsistent with evolutionary theory. . . . It also states that says certain evolutionary explanations "are not based on direct observations . . . and often reflect . . . inferences from indirect or circumstantial evidence". . . . Decisions about what is taught in Kansas classrooms will remain with 300 local school boards, but the new standards will be used to develop student tests measuring how well schools teach science. . . . Educators fear pressure will increase in some communities to teach less about evolution or more about creationism or intelligent design. . . . [COMMENT by Lorenzo: What national employer will want to hire people who went to school in Kansas? The Fascist Christians are determined to keep people as ignorant as possible in order to keep them captive in their cults.]

posted by Lorenzo 9:07 AM