03.30.11
Toxic frogs
Treadmill Tests for Poison Frogs Show Toxic Species Are More Physically FitScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2011) — The most toxic, brightly colored members of the poison frog family may also be the best athletes, says a new study.
Amazon and drought
Satellites Detect Extensive Drought Impact on Amazon ForestsScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2011) — A new NASA-funded study has revealed widespread reductions in the greenness of the forests in the vast Amazon basin in South America caused by the record-breaking drought of 2010.
Intolerance “R” Us
Intolerance “R” Us
Enemy Creep
By KAREN GREENBERG
http://www.counterpunch.org/greenberg03302011.html
Just in case you thought that “political correctness” had been thoroughly discredited in the culture wars of the 1990s, it’s back — and this time it’s being treated as a stalking horse for terrorism and getting pummeled all over again.
You only had to listen to the recent hearings convened by New York Republican Congressman Peter King on radicalization and the Muslim religion to know that, if the ascending right in Washington (and elsewhere) has its way, the age of tolerance in America is over. In the name of putting political correctness in its grave, a surprisingly sizeable contingent of politicians, judges, and other influential figures are now calling for transforming draconian behavior — that once would have made Americans blanche — into the order of the day.
Blaming Political Correctness for Terrorism
King’s hearings underscored the urgency with which a growing cast of influential characters seeks to open yet wider the door to the sort of anti-democratic (and anti-constitutional) actions that have been woven into counterterrorism policy since September 11, 2001. As chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, King made it his job to acknowledge the obstacle that — as he might put it — excessive tolerance for minorities, foreigners, or other religions and cultures can pose. “To back down [from these hearings],” he insisted when criticized, “would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the main responsibility of this committee — to protect America from a terrorist attack.”
Not worth the risk
US PIRG: Nuclear Power: Not Worth the Risk
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/03/29-1
Rich get richer
Dean Baker: The Rich Get Richer While Nurses, Teachers, and Firefighters Get Trounced
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/29-4
Walmart ‘sexism’ case
Walmart ‘Sexism’ Case Before US Supreme Court
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/29-3
Peak water?
Billion-Plus People to Lack Water in 2050: Study
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/29-2
Manslaughter charges?
BP Execs May Face Manslaughter Charges
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/29-0
Cost of Libyan mission
Pentagon: Cost of Libya Mission at $550 Million
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/29-4
GE tax furor
GE ‘Zero’ US Tax Furor Reignites Calls for Reform
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/29-6
Ohio and Wisconsin
Ohio Moves Towward Wisconsin-Style limits on Worker RIghts
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/29-8
Race lost to save reactor?
Japan May Have Lost Race to Save Nuclear Reactor
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/29-7
Worse than Chernobyl
RG mail
When the Fukushima Meltdown Hits Groundwater
by Dr Tom Burnett
Hawaii News (March 27 2011)
Fukushima is going to dwarf Chenobyl {1}. The Japanese government has had
a Level Seven nuclear disaster going for almost a week but won’t admit it.
http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/03/when-the-fukushima-meltdown-hits-groundwater/
To Fukushima With Love!
RG mail
http://www.countercurrents.org/sagar300311.htm
Countercurrents.org 30 March, 2011
To Fukushima With Love!
By Satya Sagar
Here is an idea, which not too far into the future will rank as perhaps the
finest to emerge in the entire 21 st Century. And not just because this is
going to be the shortest Century the human species ever enjoyed on this
planet, thanks to Fukushima .
The idea is to send all the supporters of nuclear power from around the
globe to the stricken Japanese nuclear complex to help plug the great leak
from the sputtering reactors there?
03.29.11
Renewable Petroleum
Researchers Close in on Technology for Making Renewable PetroleumScienceDaily (Mar. 23, 2011) — University of Minnesota researchers are a key step closer to making renewable petroleum fuels using bacteria, sunlight and carbon dioxide.
Philosophy and physicists
A good comment on the question of philosophy with physicists
rachelrachel
98.110.3.99 2011/03/28 at 1:21 am
Alan Watts said something to the effect that anybody who claims not to believe in philosophy is some sort of a philosopher, just not a very good one.Dr. Dawkins thinks that philosophers need to be scientifically literate. Apparently he doesn’t think that scientists ought to be philosophically literate.
Alan Watts said something to the effect that anybody who claims not to believe in philosophy is some sort of a philosopher, just not a very good one.
Dr. Dawkins thinks that philosophers need to be scientifically literate. Apparently he doesn’t think that scientists ought to be philosophically literate.
1
Comment from Dov Henis
Dov Henis
109.186.70.82 2011/03/27 at 10:29 am
Rethink Evolution/Natural Selection
“understanding the genetic mechanisms that drive evolution”???
What Drives What???
Apply Critical Thinking For Solving THE RIGHT USA SCIENCE PROBLEM
AAAS Through History’s Lens
Imprinting Diversity?
Enough Is Enough!
It Is Not “Genomic Imprinting Affects Diversity”
It Is “Culture/Diversity Imprints Genetics”.
Part I
====== Read the rest of this entry »
The hint in world history
Climbing Mt. Improbable: The Eonic Effect
There is nothing complicated about the question of evolution once you see an example, which requires the correct amount of detailed data. World history can give us a hint.
We have been so conditioned by Darwinism that we accept an implausible set of absurdities as ‘evolution’. But real evolution has to follow a better brand of common sense. Problem is, that deep time is simply a blur out of focus, and we never see evolution at close hand, as it happens, so to speak. We see the facts proving evolution as a fait accompli, but not its dynamic.
Evolution, ethics, and Darwinism’s sick joke
The current controversy over kin selection is overdue: it was always another one of those ‘smart’ stupid bits that fed the mystique of Darwinism. It is hard to pass judgment on the mechanics. In general if you breed a group of people for crime based on a population selected from a prison population (or any other), the result would show a genetic componet. In reverse gear, the genetics of group/kin selection is something I can’t reject out of hand. But the point is that this can’t be the real evolution of ethics, which requires showing what human moral behavior is (description, a very very hard task, never accomplished, but indicated by figures such as Kant in his ‘common ordinary morality’), and how it evolved, after evolution involved a conscious agent with a latent power of will. Darwinism is so far from achieving this as to be a sick joke.
Info:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/bertrand-russell-and-expert-opinion/
http://history-and-evolution.com/whee4th/chap2_1_2.htm:Evolution
And Ethics
Not Only the Fittest Survive
Evolution: Not Only the Fittest SurviveScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2011) — Darwin’s notion that only the fittest survive has been called into question by new research published in the journal Nature. A collaboration between the Universities of Exeter and Bath in the UK, with a group from San Diego State University in the US, challenges our current understanding of evolution by showing that biodiversity may evolve where previously thought impossible.
Human virus and gorillas
Human Virus Linked to Deaths of Endangered Mountain Gorillas; Finding Confirms That Serious Diseases Can Pass to Gorillas from People
ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2011) — For the first time, a virus that causes respiratory disease in humans has been linked to the deaths of wild mountain gorillas, reports a team of researchers in the United States and Africa.
No Two of Us Are Alike
No Two of Us Are Alike – Even Identical Twins: Pinpointing Genetic Determinants of Schizophrenia
ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2011) — Just like snowflakes, no two people are alike, even if they’re identical twins according to new genetic research from The University of Western Ontario. Molecular geneticist Shiva Singh has been working with psychiatrist Dr. Richard O’Reilly to determine the genetic sequencing of schizophrenia using identical or monozygotic twins.
Death of Iron Age Man
Scientists Trace Violent Death of Iron Age ManScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2011) — An Iron Age man whose skull and brain was unearthed during excavations at the University of York was the victim of a gruesome ritual killing, according to new research.
Fossil shows soft body parts
Remarkable Fossil Sea Creature — 525 Million Years Old — Shows Soft Parts of Body Including Tentacles
ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2011) — Researchers from China, Leicester and Oxford have discovered a remarkable fossil which sheds new light on an important group of primitive sea creatures.
‘We Are Looting the Past and Future to Feed the Present’
Billion-Plus People to Lack Water in 2
Published on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 by Agence France Presse
Billion-Plus People to Lack Water in 2050: Study
by Shaun Tandon
More than one billion urban residents will face serious water shortages by 2050 as climate change worsens effects of urbanization, with Indian cities among the worst hit, a study said Monday.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/29-2
Secrets of the Tribe
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/secrets-of-the-tribe/
As someone with a more than a passing interest in the Napoleon Chagnon/Yanomami controversy, I found the HBO documentary “Secrets of the Tribe” totally riveting. For those who are not familiar with the ideological warfare that followed in the trail of Patrick Tierney’s “Darkness in El Dorado”, the film is a terrific introduction. It interviews all the major figures in the debate, as well as the Yanomami people who encountered them for better or—mostly—for worse.
Booknotes: Why Marx was Right
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300169430
In this combative, controversial book, Terry Eagleton takes issue with the prejudice that Marxism is dead and done with. Taking ten of the most common objections to Marxism—that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on—he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx’s own thought these assumptions are. In a world in which capitalism has been shaken to its roots by some major crises, Why Marx Was Right is as urgent and timely as it is brave and candid. Written with Eagleton’s familiar wit, humor, and clarity, it will attract an audience far beyond the confines of academia.
Terry Eagleton is currently Bailrigg Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster, England, and Professor of Cultural Theory at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He lives in Dublin.
Commentary:
http://bensonian.org/2011/03/29/no-matter-your-opinion-on-marx-youre-wrong/
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