06.27.10
Biotech salmon
gnxp
The first engineered animal for people to eat, salmon that grow faster than normal, may be approved by the F.D.A.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/business/26salmon.html
Courage and the brain
gnxp
A characteristic pattern of brain activity occurs when people show courage in the face of fear
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19092-fear-must-be-conquered-not-banished.html
Out of line
gnxp
An insubordinate general. A soccer mutiny. Why hierarchy matters, even in an egalitarian world
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/06/27/out_of_line/
Petroleum Age
Published on Sunday, June 27, 2010 by the Brattleboro Reformer (Vermont)
Living in the Petroleum Age
Brattleboro Reformer Editorial
The images have been horrifying and depressing.
Crude oil spewing like smoke from a broken pipe nearly a mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Sea animals and birds coated in oil. Tar balls washing up on what were once pristine beaches. Marshes that are slowly being suffocated by the black viscous liquid. Satellite images of a stain on the Gulf almost too big to comprehend.
All of us want to know who is at fault for the continuing environmental disaster known as the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Is it BP itself? Halliburton? The Minerals Management Service? Transocean? President Barack Obama? Former Vice President Dick Cheney?
But while we are all busy pointing fingers, let’s not forget that old adage — when you point a finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at you.
May Toronto’s G20 Be the Last
Published on Sunday, June 27, 2010 by The Guardian/UK
by John Hilary
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/27-1
To a foreigner, the Canadian police are a confusing bunch. With Toronto locked down for the G20 summit, several of them have been cycling around the deserted streets on mountain bikes presenting what we would see as the very picture of community policing. Yet side by side with this benign image is an intimidating, militarised presence that many Canadians feel has been deliberately cultivated in order to undermine their right to protest against the G20 and its damaging impacts.
G20 protests
Published on Sunday, June 27, 2010 by The Raw Story
Report: Toronto Police Rough up Journalists, Arrest Peaceful Protesters at G20
by Daniel Tencer
Reporters covering the G20 summit in Toronto say they were the target of police violence overnight, as riots blamed on anarchist groups left four police cars burning in the financial district and resulted in the arrests of some 150 people.
“A newspaper photographer was shot with a plastic bullet in the backside, while another had an officer point a gun in his face despite identifying himself as a member of the media,” reported the Canadian Press news agency. The agency did not say if it was its own reporters who were targeted.
Previously: Toronto gets ‘secret’ arrest powers ahead of G20 protests
When did we elect bankers?
RG mail
When did we elect the bankers to supreme power?
Will those who sign the cheques continue to write our laws? There is at
last popular resistance to currency speculation, and it is forcing
governments to distance themselves from the financial industry. Although
hardly far enough.
by Serge Halimi
Le Monde diplomatique, English edition (June 2010)
http://mondediplo.com/2010/06/08banks
06.26.10
The issue of magic
http://darwiniana.com/2010/06/24/the-failure-of-magic-as-a-tool-to-promote-skepticism/comment-page-1/#comment-351918: Comment on ‘the failure of magic as a tool to promote skepticism
I am surprised at the naivete of skeptics, that they would not research the issue of magic and simply assume that stage magic (fake magic) was illustrative of anything.
Even amateur Buddhists doing meditation often rediscover the operation of the unconscious will and its effects.
Comment on Johnjoe McFadden
Comment on Junk religion/science from Ruse
Anirudh K. Satsangi said,
June 26, 2010 at 3:42 am · .
Johnjoe McFadden has given a Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness/Mind. We all know that Physics describes four fundamental forces in the universe. They are Gravitational Force, Electromagnetic Force, Weak Nuclear Force and Strong Nuclear Force. They are responsible for the creation of particles, subatomic structures, atomic structures, molecules,elements etc. For natural things (life etc.)to be created, natural forces (God Forces) act in natural ways. When man operates and manipulates these forces and creates some new things or old one it is said ‘artificial’. For me everything is natural. Since man is the part of nature so everything created by him, in-vivo or in-vitro, using Forces of Nature is also natural and not artificial.I have given a theory of consciousness and mind as below:
“Gravitation Force is the Ultimate Creator”, I presented this paper at the 1st Int. Conf. on Revival of Traditional Yoga, held at The Lonavla Yoga Institute (India), Lonavla, Pune in 2006. The Abstract of this paper is given below:
“The Universe includes everything that exists. In the Universe there are billions and billions of stars. These stars are distributed in the space in huge clusters. They are held together by gravitation and are known as galaxies. Sun is also a star. Various members of the solar system are bound to it by gravitation force. Gravitation force is the ultimate cause of birth and death of galaxy, star and planets etc. Gravitation can be considered as the cause of various forms of animate and inanimate existence. Human form is superior to all other forms. Withdrawal of gravitational wave from some plane of action is called the death of that form. It can be assumed that gravitation force is ultimate creator. Source of it is ‘God’. Gravitational Field is the supreme soul (consciousness) and its innumerable points of action may be called as individual soul (consciousness). It acts through body and mind. Body is physical entity. Mind can be defined as the function of autonomic nervous system. Electromagnetic waves are its agents through which it works. This can be realized through the practice of meditation and yoga under qualified meditation instruction. This can remove misunderstanding between science and religion and amongst various religions. This is the gist of all religious teachings – past, present and future.”
I have also written one more paper on In Scientific Terminology, Source of Gravitational Waves is GOD and presented it at the 2nd World Vedic Science Congress in Banaras Hindu University in 2007.
Hume and miracles
http://www.biologos.org/blog/miracles-and-science-part-1/
Biblical accounts of miracles are infantile, but the issue of ‘miracles’ won’t go away just because reductionists don’t like them.
Acts of will, mesdames and messieurs…
Hype over developmental biology
Scott F. Gilbert, Developmental Biology, and Michael Behe
No doubt Behe, and the ID group, have confused the issue here, but the fact remains that these experts are confusing us. The emergence of developmental mechanisms cannot be explained by Darwinism, and the debate over the eye and hox genes, as if this were a defense of Darwinism, is outrageous.
Wherefore Islamic rage?
The Terrifying Brilliance of Islam
By CITIZEN WARRIOR – CITIZEN WARRIOR
Updated: Friday, 25 June 2010 at 07:48 PM
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/483599-the-terrifying-brilliance-of-islamHAVE YOU EVER WONDERED why millions of Muslim men are dedicated to killing Americans? Or why so many are willing to blow themselves up to kill Israelis? Or why they are so committed to blowing up random people in Bali, London, Madrid, etc.?
Islamic supremacists are doing this all over the world, attacking Westerners and their own fellow Muslims alike. Why?
Mormons
How Mormons will conquer the worldBy PZ MYERS – PHARYNGULA
Updated: Saturday, 26 June 2010 at 11:21 AM
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/483771-how-mormons-will-conquer-the-world
There’s a documentary coming out about how the Mormons influenced California’s Proposition 8, and Salon has an interview with the director, Reed Cowan. He makes the point that it wasn’t just that they raised buckets of money, but that they had willing volunteers.
Ronin
Ronin recruits protein ‘allies’ to sustain embryonic stem cell growth
HOUSTON — (June 25, 2010) – Ronin, crucial to the self-renewal of embryonic stem cells, and a co-regulator called Hcf-1, binds to a small strand of DNA called a hyperconserved enhancer element to control a gene “program” that stimulates growth of the stem cells and may even play a role in cancer, said a group of researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine in a current report in the journal Genes and Development.
Gilbert vs Behe
Scott F. Gilbert, Developmental Biology, and Michael Behe
Scott F. Gilbert’s “Developmental Biology” (eighth edition) provides a stunning overview of the elegant biochemical mechanisms controlling the development of organismal form during ontogeny. The final section of the book, chapter 23 (“Developmental Mechanisms Of Evolutionary Change”) is devoted to a discussion of the new evolutionary synthesis, encompassing the new science of ‘evo devo’ (short hand for ‘evolutionary developmental biology’). The book even contains a short rebuttal directed at proponents of intelligent design and, in particular, Michael Behe.
Organ models
Scientists Create 3-D Models of Whole Mouse Organs
ScienceDaily (June 26, 2010) — Yale University engineers have for the first time created 3D models of whole intact mouse organs, a feat they accomplished using fluorescence microscopy. The team reports its findings in the May/June issue of the Journal of Biomedical Optics.
High variation in human genome
More Variation in Human Genome Than Expected: Surprisingly Common Transposons or ‘Jumping Genes’ Are Known to Cause Disease
ScienceDaily (June 25, 2010) — Scientists are finding more variation in the human genome than they had previously expected, now that new technologies are allowing researchers a closer look at the genomes of many individuals, according to a new study from University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers.
Ripples in space-time
New ‘Fix’ for Cosmic Clocks Could Help Uncover Ripples in Space-Time
ScienceDaily (June 25, 2010) — An international team of scientists have developed a promising new technique which could turn pulsars — superb natural cosmic clocks — into even more accurate time-keepers.
South of the border
Published on Saturday, June 26, 2010 by GRITtv
Video: Oliver Stone and Tariq Ali: South of the Border
Vietistan
Published on Saturday, June 26, 2010 by Foreign Policy in Focus
Remember Vietistan?
by Saul Landau
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/26-0
The McChrystal debacle dramatizes how military thinking dominates U.S. policy — look at how much of the budget the Pentagon commands — as well as the utter hopelessness of achieving anything but draining defeat from the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. This lesson should have been learned after Vietnam. As Yogi Berra said, it’s “déjà vu all over again.”
Oliver Stone
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=128084538&m=128084525
Petrolholics Anonymous
Wallace J. Nichols, Sarah Kornfeld and Andy Myers: Petrolholics Anonymous
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1200?akid=89.96588.nz_bxx&t=38
BP and its corporate charter
Russell Mokhiber: Green Change Wants Delaware to Revoke BP’s Corporate Charter
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1195?akid=89.96588.nz_bxx&t=28
Fortress Toronto
‘Fortress Toronto’ Set for G20
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1191?akid=89.96588.nz_bxx&t=20
Youth on green frontlines
Youth on Frontlines of Green Justice Struggles
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1188?akid=89.96588.nz_bxx&t=14
Michael Hastings
Rolling Stone’s Michael Hastings: I’m a Journalist, “Not a Stenographer”
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1185?akid=89.96588.nz_bxx&t=8
BP and sea turtles
BP Accused of Killing Endangered Sea Turtles in Cleanup Operation
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1184?akid=89.96588.nz_bxx&t=6
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