01.28.10
Color of Dinosaur Feathers
Color of Dinosaur Feathers Identified
ScienceDaily (Jan. 28, 2010) — The colour of some feathers on dinosaurs and early birds has been identified for the first time, reports a paper recently published in Nature.
Rising heat in climate debate
A Journalist Reflects on the
Rising Heat in Climate Debate
Although he writes one of the most popular blogs on the environment, Dot Earth author Andrew Revkin recognizes both the drawbacks and potential of the Web for exploring complex issues. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Revkin explains why the rhetoric surrounding climate change has gotten so hot
Zinn video tribute
Published on Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Democracy Now!
Howard Zinn (1922–2010): A Tribute to the Legendary Historian with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein and Anthony Arnove
End of growth?
Published on Thursday, January 28, 2010 by BBC News
Economic Growth ‘Cannot Continue’
Continuing global economic growth “is not possible” if nations are to tackle climate change, a report by an environmental think-tank has warned.
Plan of Death
RG mail
http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad01272010.html
January 27, 2010
The U.S. Stretches Out Its Hands … With Deadly Conditions
Plan of Death in Haiti
By VIJAY PRASHAD
Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,
Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind
Powers that will work for thee: air, earth,
and skies;
There’s not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.
– William Wordsworth,
“To Toussaint Louverture”, 1803.
HAITI is in agony. The largest earthquake in two centuries, measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, shook its capital city, Port-au-Prince, and took with it at least a hundred thousand lives. The devastation is complete. Infrastructure, preciously built, is ruined; bodies remain below debris; starvation and frustration among the survivors rise to the surface. The weak government of Rene Preval does its best to deliver the basics in a situation where it was unable to act even before the quake.
Peak fat
RG mail
A graph published by the New York Times on January 14 shows that the
number of obese people in the USA has stopped growing. Peak fat?
by Ugo Bardi
The Oil Drum: Europe (January 22 2010)
The New York Times has recently reported that the number of obese people
in the United States seems to have reached a plateau {1}. A real peaking
of a tendency that has been going on for decades and that has made the US
the “obese nation” in the world. “Peak fat”, we could say.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6132#more
Wanted: Tony Blair for war crimes
RG mail
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/25/bounty-blair-war-criminal-chilcot
The Guardian
25 January 2010
Wanted: Tony Blair for war crimes. Arrest him and claim your reward
Chilcot and the courts won’t do it, so it is up to us to show that we won’t
let an illegal act of mass murder go unpunished*
George Monbiot
Growing Home
Growing Home: Stories From the Green Collar Economy
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/01/27-1
Sorry state of the union
RG mail
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_sorry_state_of_the_union_20100126/
Truthdig January 26, 2010
*The Sorry State of the Union*
*There is no indication from the carefully orchestrated leaks of his
State of the Union speech that Obama is truly set to reverse course.
Rhetoric about the “fat cat” bankers aside, his policies represent more of
the same.*
By Robert Scheer
US Feeds One Quarter of its Grain to Cars …
… while Hunger is on the Rise
earthpolicy.org (January 21 2010)
Note: As this article reports, the US now feeds more than a quarter
of its total grain crop to its automobiles. That’s enough to feed
330 million people for one year at average world consumption
levels. This is important since the US supplies about half of all
the world’s grain exports {1}. And its particularly important to
Japan, because we import more than seventy percent of the grain we
consume {2}, which is not surprising for a nation that has more
than ten million golfers but only 300,000 farmers. Moreover, world
grain production is not keeping up with demand for food {3} causing
prices to triple over the past three years {4}. When grain becomes
even more scarce, will the US choose to feed us or its own
automobiles? Will we Japanese citizens and our government wake up
before we starve to death. — Bill Totten
http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/press_room/C68/2010_datarelease6
Climate change and harsh winter
RG mail
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/28/AR2010012800041.html
Harsh winter a sign of disruptive climate change, report says
By Juliet Eilperin and David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 28, 2010; A10
This winter’s extreme weather — with heavy snowfall in some places and unusually low temperatures — is in fact a sign of how climate change disrupts long-standing patterns, according to a new report by the National Wildlife Federation.
The kidnapping of Haiti
RG mail
http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/02/haiti-pilger-obama-venezuela
John Pilger
Published 28 January 2010
With US troops in control of their country, the outlook for the people of Haiti is bleak
01.27.10
More on Debunking 9/11 Debunking
Comment on Debunking 9/11 Debunking
James said,
January 27, 2010 at 1:04 pm ·
I usually engage in a knee-jerk dismissal of any and all conspiracy theories, but, after taking up your recommendation and reading the relevant books and information on the Internet, I have to admit to being truly shocked. I’m not convinced of Griffin’s theory of an inside job, but I’m now convinced that the official story is bogus:http://www.infowars.com/osama-bin-laden-responsible-for-the-911-attacks-where-is-the-evidence/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15601
More on ‘Tolerating Mutations’ and ‘evolvability’
Comment on Tolerating Mutations
Dov Henis said,
January 27, 2010 at 3:27 am ·
Confusion, Confusion, Confusion
Organism’s Adaptation And MutationA. From “How Organisms Can Tolerate Mutations, Yet Adapt to Environmental Change”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100120131203.htm
- “…a longstanding conundrum: How can organisms be robust against the effects of mutations yet simultaneously adaptable when the environment changes?”
- “New research suggests that an optimal level of robustness maintains the phenotype in one environment but also allows adaptation to environmental change.”
- “mutational robustness can either impede or facilitate adaptation depending on the population size, the mutation rate and a measure of the reproductive capabilities of a variety of genotypes, called the fitness landscape. The results provide a quantitative understanding of the relationship between robustness and evolvability, clarify a significant ambiguity in evolutionary theory and should help illuminate outstanding problems in molecular and experimental evolution, evolutionary development and protein engineering.
B. “quantitative understanding of the relationship between robustness and evolvability”
Robustness is robustness, and evolvability is evolvability. The twain seldom meet.
Evolvability is the capability-capacity of the organism’s genome to respond to feedback from the organism’s culture that a novel genetic modification will augment its energy constraint. Will increase its temporal survival. This is what evolution is about. The evolution of life and the evolution of ALL other types and sizes of cosmic mass formats.
Robustness has to do with the capablity to perform without failure under a wide range of conditions. Occasionally there are accidents and a failure occurs, and the resulting state of the organism serves as a new ACCIDENTAL base for evolution. This IS NOT the natural process of evolution. This is an accident.
C. To uravel the comprehension of evolution, to discern the relationship between robustness and evolvability
Look at
“Cosmic Evolution Simplified”http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427
Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
Ancient wisdom
Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World
Wade Davis – The Long Now Foundation
Link
from dawkins site
Echolocation in bats and whales
Echolocation in bats and whales based on same changes to same gene
by Ed Yong – Not Exactly Rocket Science
from dawkins site
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2010/01/echolocation_in_bats_and_whales_based_on_same_changes_to_sam.php?utm_source=nytwidget
Recognizing A-life?
Life, but not as we know it
If aliens do exist in the Goldilocks zones of outer space, I’m not convinced we’ll recognise them
ALIENS will look and talk like humans
Life out there will be nearly as we know it
alice.hutton@cambridge-news.co.uk
ALIENS will look and talk like humans, a leading Cambridge scientist has claimed.
Professor Simon Conway Morris, an evolutionary paleobiologist in the Department of Earth Sciences, made the statement at a conference at the Royal Society in London yesterday (Tuesday, 26 January) where some of the finest minds in science competed to answer the question: are we alone?
The professor’s theory is based around Darwinism, which suggests that life on every planet will be shaped by the same evolutionary rules.
However, we needn’t worry, as we will definitely recognise them.
Booknotes: Sewell book
A Mathematician Looks at Darwin’s Theory and Discovers It Doesn’t Add Up
SEATTLE – “Darwin’s attempt to explain the origins of all the magnificent species in the living world in terms of the struggle for survival is easily the dumbest idea ever taken seriously by science,” writes Dr. Granville Sewell in his new book In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design published by Discovery Institute Press.
Hobbit’s brain
Is the Hobbit’s Brain Unfeasibly Small?
ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2010) — Homo floresiensis, a pygmy-sized small-brained hominin popularly known as ‘the Hobbit’ was discovered five years ago, but controversy continues over whether the small brain is actually due to a pathological condition
Fast photons
Single Photons Observed at Seemingly Faster-Than-Light Speeds
ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2010) — Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland at College Park, can speed up photons (particles of light) to seemingly faster-than-light speeds through a stack of materials by adding a single, strategically placed layer.
Grounding ancient birds
Dinosaur Extinction Grounded Ancient Birds, New Research Finds
ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2010) — An abundance of food and lack of predators following the extinction of dinosaurs saw previously flighted birds fatten up and become flightless
Attention span in a fly
How to Measure Attention Span of a Fly: Implications for ADHD, Autism in Humans
Dangers of doing nothing
Published on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 by Union of Concerned Scientists
Scientists Warn Doing Nothing Will Likely Lock in Worst Consequences of Climate Change
UCS Says Cap on Global Warming Emissions Essential
The Curse on Haiti
mxmail
http://www.theroot.com/views/curse-haiti
The Curse on Haiti
By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Posted: January 25, 2010 at 10:39 AM
It wasn’t the devil that hurt Haiti; it was Thomas Jefferson.
Direct-to-consumer genotyping
gnxp
Advocates say direct-to-consumer genotyping can guide people toward appropriate preventive medical care, help them choose medications and motivate them to make lifestyle changes. But others criticize the companies for overselling their supposed insights
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/25/AR2010012503038.html
Ambidextrous
gnxp
Children who write with both hands are more likely to struggle in school and have hyperactivity disorder symptoms, research suggests
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8478287.stm
Fast-spreading parasite
gnxp
Fast-spreading parasite species force sex changes on their victims, induce virgin births, and turn animals into “gross monsters”—among other horrors
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100126-sex-puppeteers-wasps-parasites-virgin-birth-sex-changes/
Willpower and cortex
gnxp
The reason for a lack of willpower may be that you’re working your prefrontal cortex too hard. If you give it too many jobs to do, it gets tired, calls it a day and gives into temptation
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122781981
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