12.30.09
Genomic catalog
Scientists Start a Genomic Catalog of Earth’s Abundant Microbes, Carl Zimmer
DNA and nationality
Can DNA Tests Reveal Nationality?
Scientists say no, but U.K. pilot program gathers data anyway
Darwinism vs health care
Health care reform an ethical imperative
Ultimately, the health care debate boils down to a question of ethics. Should we take care of our citizens and ensure that we all have the same opportunity to a high quality of life by offering access to affordable health care? Or, should we adopt the “survival of the fittest” approach emerging from a capitalist society that seems to promote social Darwinism, even if it means some people will die because they cannot afford the goods and services that are necessary to live a healthy life?
Science hemmed in
Letters: Science is hemmed in by its own prejudgments
The problem with Steven Newton’s article concerning science being under attack is that it is not science itself that is under attack, but the presuppositions with which many scientists interpret their observations (“Science denial is on the rise,” Thursday).
Much of the establishment in science disallows any kind of dissent or other views to be aired because the scientists are hemmed in by a philosophical and ideological viewpoint that doesn’t allow for any scientific evidence that doesn’t conform to their preconceived ideas.
Human and Chimp Brain Function
Transcription Factors Guide Differences in Human and Chimp Brain Function
ScienceDaily (Dec. 30, 2009) — Humans share at least 97 percent of their genes with chimpanzees, but, as a new study of transcription factors makes clear, what you have in your genome may be less important than how you use it.
Evolution and novelty
Evolution Experiments With Flowers
ScienceDaily (Dec. 30, 2009) — Evolution uses every chance it gets to try something new.
Brain scans and anxiety
Brain Scans Show Distinctive Patterns in People With Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Evolution and molars
First Molars Provide Insight Into Evolution of Great Apes, Humans
ScienceDaily (Dec. 29, 2009) — The timing of molar emergence and its relation to growth and reproduction in apes is being reported by two scientists at Arizona State University’s Institute of Human Origins
Climate and Capitalism/12/09
CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM
An online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change,
and the ecosocialist alternative.
December 30, 2009
Read the rest of this entry »
Hispanics and autism
gnxp
Hispanic kids are less likely than their non-Hispanic white counterparts to be diagnosed with autism, and socioeconomic factors don’t seem to explain the difference, according to a new study in Texas schoolchildren
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091229/hl_nm/us_autism_hispanics
Fear makes us superhuman
gnxp
Can an extreme response to fear give us strength we would not have under normal circumstances?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=extreme-fear-superhuman
Viking babies
gnxp
Denmark is at the front of the trend for fertility tourism
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8298465.stm
The Limits of Our Politics
RG mail
http://www.zmag.org/blog/view/4112
By Mumia Abu-Jamal at Dec 28, 2009
As millions come to grips with the claimed agreements emerging from the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, it’s impossible to resist the suspicion that politics can provide no solution to the serious environmental and ecological problems facing the earth.
Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA?
Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA?
Truman wrote that he was “disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment” to keep the President promptly and fully informed and had become “an operational and at times policy-making arm of the government.”
The Truman Papers
Documents in the Truman Library show that nine days after Kennedy was assassinated, Truman sketched out in handwritten notes what he wanted to say in the op-ed. He noted, among other things, that the CIA had worked as he intended only “when I had control.”
In Truman’s view, misuse of the CIA began in February 1953, when his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, named Allen Dulles CIA Director. Dulles’ forte was overthrowing governments (in current parlance, “regime change”), and he was quite good at it. With coups in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954) under his belt, Dulles was riding high in the late Fifties and moved Cuba to the top of his to-do list.
Accustomed to the carte blanche given him by Eisenhower, Dulles was offended when young President Kennedy came on the scene and had the temerity to ask questions about the Bay of Pigs adventure, which had been set in motion under Eisenhower. When Kennedy made it clear he would NOT approve the use of U.S. combat forces, Dulles reacted with disdain and set out to mousetrap the new President.
Solar Could Generate 15% of Power by 2020
Solar Could Generate 15% of Power by 2020, If US Ends Fossil Fuel Subsidies
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/29-9
Dangerous Place To Be a Union Member
RG mail
Guatemala: A Dangerous Place To Be a Union Member
by Lupita Aguila
Labor Notes
| Tue, 12/29/2009 – 2:15pm
The Guatemalan labor movement is facing a sharp upsurge in assassinations and violence against trade unionists. Six unionists were murdered in 2009, believably for their union activities.
http://labornotes.org/blogs/2009/12/guatemala-dangerous-place-be-union-member
Bertrand Russell on YouTube
Bertrand Russell on God (1959)
Bertrand Russell – AtheistMediaBlog YouTube
from darwkins site
Anthropology and religion
Pain or Prayer: Anthropologist Studies Religions
by Kate Douglas – abc News
from dawkins site
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/anthropologist-religions-based-strict-teachings-rituals-cults/story?id=9420403
High mutation rates
High mutation rates don’t necessarily spell rapid evolution
High rates of mutation can enable rapid evolution, but new research shows there’s a limit.
By John Timmer |
Dickens vs. Darwin
Dickens vs. Darwin
A Question of Worldview
By Chuck Colson|
Two of the most famous books in the Western canon turned 150 years old in 2009-On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
Unbelievable things
The Science Of Unbelievable Things
By KC Cole
For all the talk about science and belief, I often feel one critical perspective is missing — one that distorts much of the discourse about science in the public eye: What does it mean to say that something is “unbelievable”? Or must be taken “on faith”?
It’s complicated. I, for one, do not “believe” (not really) that there are people on the other side of the Earth for whom my “up” is their “down” and vice versa. I may know the Earth is a sphere, but at some level I don’t believe it — any more than I believe that my 800-thousand pound 747 is really going to lift off the runway and FLY! Come on! (It does help to know that a modest-sized cloud can weigh about as much).
Do I believe I evolved from a whole line of bizarro ancestors, many still around, many long extinct, the most ancient single-celled organisms? Not really. It IS unbelievable — in that, the Intelligent Design argument is correct. For me, at least, watching a flower grow from a seed is always a bit unbelievable, as is watching a baby come into the world — or a puppy for that matter — or contemplating the first flickerings of light from a newborn star.
Evolutionists not very good mathematicians
Intelligent Design more rational to many gifted scholars
December 29, 2009
One problem with evolutionists is they are not very good mathematicians. More on that later. Dr. Stephen Meyer, a Christian, who earned his Ph.D. from Oxford University, notes the importance of “generating a list of possible hypotheses” and then “progressively eliminating potential but inadequate explanations.” In his book, “Signature in the Cell,” Meyer notes “the inability of genetic algorithms, ribozyme engineering, and prebiotic simulations to generate information without intelligence.” Since the possibility of undirected materialistic causes producing life in its profusion is virtually nil, and since “conscious, rational intelligent agency … now stands as the only cause known to be capable of generating large amounts of specified information starting from a not living state,” Intelligent Design is by far the most plausible explanation.
Attention
Seeing Without Looking: Brain Structure Crucial for Moving the Mind’s Spotlight
ScienceDaily (Dec. 29, 2009) — Like a spotlight that illuminates an otherwise dark scene, attention brings to mind specific details of our environment while shutting others out.
Antifreeze molecule
Scientists Isolate New Antifreeze Molecule in Alaska Beetle
ScienceDaily (Dec. 29, 2009) — Scientists have identified a novel antifreeze molecule in a freeze-tolerant Alaska beetle able to survive temperatures below minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Locusts Use Vision to Climb
Ladder-Walking Locusts Use Vision to Climb, Show Big Brains Aren’t Always Best
ScienceDaily (Dec. 28, 2009) — Scientists have shown for the first time that insects, like mammals, use vision rather than touch to find footholds.
Tibetan Glaciers Are Retreating
Tibetan Glaciers Are Retreating
At An Alarming Rate
By James Hansen
20 December, 2009
Giss.nasa.gov
Glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau, sometimes called Earth’s “third pole”, hold the largest ice mass outside the polar regions. These glaciers act as a water storage tower for South and East Asia, releasing melt water in warm months to the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra and other river systems, providing fresh water to more than a billion people. In the dry season glacial melt provides half or more of the water in many rivers.
Agribusiness and climate change
Published on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 by The Capital Times (Madison, Wisc.)
Corporate Agribusiness Helps Scuttle Climate Justice
by John E. Peck
As the old saying goes, with crisis comes opportunity, and that certainly was the mentality of the corporate lobbyists that descended in droves on the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. In fact, the largest nongovernmental organization there was the International Emissions Trading Association, a front group representing 170 companies and hosting 66 events. Sadly, many government officials and even some nonprofit groups have fallen for this sleight of hand, mistaking an old-style protection racket for newfound corporate responsibility.
Iranian Nuke Forgeries
CIA Determines Documents Were Fabricated
The Iranian Nuke Forgeries
By GARETH PORTER
U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a “neutron initiator” for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official.
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »