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Thursday February 09, 2012
In Defense of Paper Books
Andre Vltch
Counterpunch
Do not trust them when they repeatedly tell you that the era of paper books is ending, that they would soon become as obsolete as vinyl records or coal-fired train engines.
Books, printed on paper and sold in bookstores, have been our best friends for many centuries.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:06 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Thursday February 09, 2012
Is BitTorrent Done? Major Torrent Sites Consider Shutting Down
Ernesto
TorrentFreak
News of raids, arrests, seizures, extraditions and jail time in the file-sharing world hasn’t gone unnoticed by the operators of major BitTorrent sites.
Yesterday, the owners of BTjunkie decided to close their site because the stress became too much, and there are others who consider doing the same. While there are still plenty site owners who are determined to continue, doubt and uncertainty are more present than ever before.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:03 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Thursday February 09, 2012
Black Bloc: The Cancer in Occupy
Chris Hedges
Truthdig
The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement.
The presence of Black Bloc anarchists—so named because they dress in black, obscure their faces, move as a unified mass, seek physical confrontations with police and destroy property—is a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Total Incarceration
Tzvetan Todorov
Adbusters
In American prisons scattered across the various countries of the world, but outside the United States, prisoners are regularly raped, hung from hooks, subjected to waterboarding, burned, attached to electrodes, deprived of food, water or medicine, attacked by dogs, or beaten until their bones are broken.
When on American military bases or on American territory, they are subjected to sensory deprivation or other systematic mistreatment of the senses.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
First evidence that shipping noise stresses whales
Michael Marshall
New Scientist
Even whales find noisy neighbours stressful – and they show it in their faeces.
The oceans have become much noisier over the last century because of shipping.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
'Thought-controlled' weapons could become a reality in the near future, says scientist
Rob Waugh
Daily Mail
Weapons operated by thought control and helmets that stimulate soldier's brains for more accuracy could become a reality in the not-too-distant future, according to a leading scientist.
Professor Flower, a biochemist at the William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary, University of London chaired a Royal Society working group looking at the potential military impact of recent scientific advances in neuroscience.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Move over cybercrims, DDoS now protesters' weapon of choice
John Leyden
THe Register
Attackers swap rifles for machine guns with laser sights
Ideological hacktivism has replaced cybercrime as the main motivatation behind DDoS attacks, according to a study by Arbor Networks.
Up until last year, DDoS attacks were typically financially driven – either for reasons of competition or outright extortion – but the activities of Anonymous and related groups have changed that.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
EarthScope: A Seismic Shift in Data Gathering
Ben Preston
Miller-McCune
Two hundred years after the New Madrid quake rocked the U.S., Earthscope, a traveling scan of what lies underneath North America, reveals more about earthquakes and volcanoes.
On Feb. 7, 1812, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake pummeled the Mississippi River town of New Madrid.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Anger Boils Over as Ranks of Jobless Youth Swell
Kanya D'Almeida and Mathilde Bagneres
Inter Press Service
When images of North London's gutted and burning buildings, broken shop windows and refuse-lined streets appeared on TV screens and front-page headlines during the four-day Tottenham riots last August, many dismissed the damage as the work of "hoodlums" and "delinquents".
What most media failed to mention – and continues to ignore – is that riots such as those that wracked England from Aug. 6-10 sprang largely from a deeper problem: a global youth unemployment epidemic that has left millions of young people jobless, excluded and increasingly frustrated.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
The job-shifters: people who reinvent themselves mid-career
Laurent Belsie
Christian Science Monitor
How many professionals are creating second careers in an unforgiving economy? Meet six who did it successfully.
Ryan Blair had never read a book in his life. But there he was in juvenile detention – in solitary confinement because he'd been fighting – with little to do. There was no furniture, only a bed and a Bible.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Leaked memo shows Europe at odds over data retention
Jennifer Baker
IDG News Service
Privacy advocates and lawyers challenge controversial law
Digital rights groups in Europe have called for a ban on blanket data retention after a leaked internal memo from the European Commission admitted that there are significant problems with the current EU Data Retention Directive.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Artistic dissidence goes viral in Russia
Al-Jazeera
Anti-Putin activists find creative ways to speak out ahead of elections.
As Russia’s March 4 presidential election approaches, a combination of growing opposition against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, claims of election fraud, and limited press freedom has spurred artistic dissidence in the streets and online.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Anniversaries From "Unhistory"
Noam Chomsky
Truthout
George Orwell coined the useful term “unperson” for creatures denied personhood because they don’t abide by state doctrine.
We may add the term “unhistory” to refer to the fate of unpersons, expunged from history on similar grounds.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Iran threatens to hit any country used to attack its soil
Parisa Hafezi
Reuters
Iran will target any country used as a launchpad for attacks against its soil, the deputy Revolutionary Guards commander said, expanding Tehran's range of threats in an increasingly volatile stand-off with world powers over its nuclear ambitions.
Last week, Iran's supreme clerical leader threatened reprisals for the West's new ban on Iranian oil exports and the U.S. defense secretary was quoted as saying Israel was likely to bomb Iran within months to stop it assembling nuclear weapons.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Let the country, not the City, drive the UK economy
Colin Tudge
The Guardian
In one Oxfordshire village, an idea is gathering traction: that it's time for a new agricultural revolution
Oxford city council has decided that we need more houses and jobs – not least in my own village of Wolvercote, to the north-west of the city. Under the coalition's neighbourhood development order (part of the localism bill) we, the yokels, the ordinary Joes, have some say in what should be done.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Science behind the big freeze: is climate change bringing the Arctic to Europe?
Steve Connor
Independent
A loss of sea ice could be a cause of the bitter winds that have swept across the UK in the past week, weather experts say
The bitterly cold weather sweeping Britain and the rest of Europe has been linked by scientists with the ice-free seas of the Arctic, where global warming is exerting its greatest influence.
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Thursday February 09, 2012
Why Small-Town America Is Drowning in Drugs
Jeff Deeney
The Fix
America's heartland has been battered by a tidal wave of crystal meth and prescription pills. Nick Reding, the best-selling author of Methland, explains why.
In his best-selling—and uncannily prophetic—2009 book, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town, author Nick Reding compared crystal meth to a “sociocultural cancer.”
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Occupy vs. Monsanto: Activists, Farmers Fight the Corporation They Fear Will Take Over All America's Crops
Anna Lekas Miller
AlterNet
Occupy comes out to support a lawsuit that hopes to turn the tables on corporate farming behemoth Monsanto.
Monsanto, if you will, is the 1 percent of Big Agriculture--the scourge of small farmers everywhere. But now those farmers are fighting back, backed by activists from Occupy Wall Street.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Robocop Comes To Camden With Shouting Cameras
Big Brother Watch
Do you live in a restricted area? Probably not. Then again, that’s what we imagine residents of this Camden estate thought.
Big Smoke has exposed how Camden Council’s latest local authority to join the shouting camera craze, following in the footsteps of Shepway District Council. Its ‘shouting lamppost‘ uses the same technology as deployed by Camden.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
British student designs bamboo smartphone
Sophie Curtis
Techworld
The bamboo-encased Android handset will be available later this year
A student from Middlesex University has designed a smartphone made from bamboo, which he plans to release in the UK and Europe later this year.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Think-tank claims Britain's railways are 'worst in Europe league'
Alan Jones
Independent
Britain's railways are at the bottom of the league for fares, efficiency and comfort compared with other European countries, according to a union-commissioned study today.
The report by think-tank Just Economics said UK rail services were less affordable, less comfortable, slower, more inefficient and more expensive than in other European countries.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Scientists weave battery into clothing
Caleb Cox
The Register
Uses jumper leads?
Scientists charged into the fashion industry this week, unveiling a flexible battery that can be woven into fabric and used to boost the juice of everyday gadgets.
The lithium-ion cells were produced by a group of boffins from the Polytechnic School of Montreal.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Spaghetti western reveals differences between human and monkey brains
Mo Costandi
The Guardian
A 'neurocinematic' comparison provides clues about evolution of the human brain
Monkeys are closely related to us and their brains have long served as an indispensable model for understanding how our own brain works. But we're separated from each other by millions of years of evolution, so there are some major differences between their brains and ours.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
When I learned to scrape by
Tiffany Brubeck
Salon
Hungry, jobless and pinching pennies to print resumes, I started to lose hope of ever finding a job
Three dollars in the gas tank, 49-cent burrito, a paper cup of water from the bathroom sink; I sit on the curb, eating my breakfast and listening to Javier sing.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Meat trade emissions equal to half of all Britain's cars
Roger Dobson
Independent
Meat and cheese top the list of foodstuffs that have a negative impact on the environment, according to research
If everyone in the UK went vegetarian or vegan it would have the same environmental benefit as talking half of all cars off the road, according to new research.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Chinese Fascism's Global Consequences
Roland Farris
Truthout
I wake up this morning to the sun slicing warm, golden slits through the barred windows of my little apartment in Dali Old Town, one of southern China's most beautiful and relaxing cities.
It isn't the ample sunshine that wakes me up, however, it's the rousing military band music that wafts in from across several courtyards and makes its way into our otherwise quiet corner of existence.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You
Paul Tassi
Forbes Magazine
Now that the SOPA and PIPA fights have died down, and Hollywood prepares their next salvo against internet freedom with ACTA and PCIP, it’s worth pausing to consider how the war on piracy could actually be won.
It can’t, is the short answer, and one these companies do not want to hear as they put their fingers in their ears and start yelling.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 07:29 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Tuesday February 07, 2012
Surface of Mars an Unlikely Place for Life After 600-Million-Year Drought, Say Scientists
ScienceDaily
Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet's surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analysing individual particles of Martian soil.
Dr Tom Pike, from Imperial College London, will discuss the team's analysis at a European Space Agency (ESA) meeting on 7 February 2012.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Anonymous says it will leak giant cache of Iraq war e-mails
Elizabeth Flock
The Washington Post
Anonymous has struck — and struck again.
Early Friday, the FBI said that hackers from the well-known collective had intercepted and released a confidential conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
U.S. drones targeting rescuers and mourners
Glenn Greenwald
Salon
On December 30 of last year, ABC News reported on a 16-year-old Pakistani boy, Tariq Khan, who was killed with his 12-year-old cousin when a car in which he was riding was hit with a missile fired by a U.S. drone.
As I noted at the time, the report contained this extraordinary passage buried in the middle:
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Facebook on collision course with new EU privacy laws
Jason Walsh
Christian Science Monitor
Proposed EU laws on Internet privacy will target a critical money-maker for Internet companies such as Facebook: their wealth of personal data on users.
With its initial public offering this week, Facebook is roaring ahead. However, new European Union privacy regulations are taking aim at Internet companies' ability to profit through control of personal information – the key to their tremendous online advertising profits.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Nobel peace prize jury under investigation
Karl Ritter
Associated Press
Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize's original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday.
The investigation comes after persistent complaints by a Norwegian peace researcher that the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Piltdown Man: British archaeology's greatest hoax
Robin McKie
The Observer
When the find was revealed to be a 'cheap fraud', several eminent men – including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – were put in the frame. Now scientists aim to put an end to the mystery once and for all
In a few weeks, a group of British researchers will enter the labyrinthine store of London's Natural History Museum and remove several dark-coloured pieces of primate skull and jawbone from a small metal cabinet.
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
Muslim sales manager arrested as terrorist for call to ‘blow away’ the competition
Agence France-Presse
A Muslim businessman in Canada became a terror suspect for telling his sales staff in a text message to “blow away” the competition at a New York City trade show, a religious association said Friday.
Moroccan-born Saad Allami, who works as a telecommunications company sales manager, was arrested three days after he sent the message in January 2011 and detained while police searched his home, said the Muslim Council of Montreal.
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Monday February 06, 2012
Busted By The FBI: The Life Of An Elite Teen BitTorrent Uploader
enigmax
TorrentFreak
Releasers and torrent racers are the select few counted on by millions to bring the latest movies, music and video games to the wider Internet in record time.
One such person, a 15-year-old school kid, eventually gained access to elite piracy sites and went on to become the top uploader on one of the world’s most famous BitTorrent trackers. But how did the buzz of the elite compare to being hunted down by a Patriot Act-empowered FBI?
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Monday February 06, 2012
iPads, iPhones, iPocrisy
Scott Nova
Counterpunch
The New York Times’ revealing series on why Apple produces most of its iPhones and iPads in China beautifully illustrates one of the defining dynamics of contemporary capitalism: abusive labor conditions in the overseas factories of US corporations are not, contrary to industry rhetoric, a problem to be solved; they are a highly prized driver of profitability.
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Monday February 06, 2012
On Facebook, It Feels Better to Receive Than to Give
Mike Isaac
Wired
The traditional media landscape is one based on passivity. We lean back into our cushy sofas to watch TV, we half-listen to the radio while staring at tail lights in traffic.
We consume because we’re constantly being fed content from a handful of content producers. And we are satisfied with our continuous consumption.
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Monday February 06, 2012
German gov't endorses Chrome as most secure browser
Gregg Keizer
Computerworld
Federal security agency touts sandbox, silent update as features that keep citizens safer online
Germany's cyber security agency today recommended that Windows 7 users run Google's Chrome browser, citing the application's sandbox and auto-update features.
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Monday February 06, 2012
Mysteries of Killer Whales Uncovered in the Antarctic
fen montaigne
e360
Two of the world’s leading experts on the world’s top marine predator are now in Antarctica, tagging and photographing a creature whose remarkably cooperative hunting behavior and transmission of knowledge across generations may be rivaled only by humans.
On the afternoon of January 10, at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, whale researchers Robert L. Pitman and John W. Durban stood on the bridge of a cruise ship, peering through binoculars for signs of killer whales.
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Monday February 06, 2012
Proxy War in Syria Threatens Catastrophe for the Middle East
Shamus Cooke
Veracity Voice
In an effort to undermine Iran by overthrowing its strategic ally, Syria, western nations are using their Middle East client states to conduct a multi-pronged attack against Syria through the media, the Arab League, the United Nations and now through military proxy forces.
This fact is widely recognized by many mainstream western media sources.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:25 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Monday February 06, 2012
83 year-old woman got 3D printed mandible
WWW.3Ders.org
The University of Hasselt (Belgium) announced today that Belgian and Dutch scientists have successfully replacing a lower jaw with a 3D printed model for a 83 year-old woman.
According to the researchers, It is the first custom-made implant in the world to replace an entire lower jaw.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Monday February 06, 2012
Hackers hit Greek ministry over austerity, anti-piracy deal
Agence France-Presse
The Raw Story
Online hackers group Anonymous on Friday attacked the Greek justice ministry website in criticism of the country’s tough fiscal reforms and its decision to join a controversial anti-piracy deal.
“You have introduced a new dictatorship upon your people’s shoulders and allowed the bankers and the monarchs of the EU to enslave them both economically and politically,” the group said in a statement posted on the ministry’s site.
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Monday February 06, 2012
Big News on Bank Transfers
Brooke Jarvis
Yes Magazine
The Occupy effect? In the last 3 months, Americans switched banks at three times the normal rate.
Two summers ago, at the U.S. Social Forum, I attended a panel discussion about ways to expand the use of credit unions as alternatives to the “too big to fail” banks whose risky investments had helped tank the economy.
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Monday February 06, 2012
Apple gets kicked in the teeth by German patent lawsuit decisions
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
ZDNet
I like Apple products. God knows I own and use enough of them. But, I hate their out-sourcing business practices and their world-wide anti-Android lawsuits.
So, when I learned this morning that Motorola Mobility had won a permanent injunction against Apple’s iCloud service in Germany because of a patent violation and Motorola had followed that up with another patent victory, which has forced Apple to take all its older phones, 3G and 4 and all iPads off its German online store (German language link), I was pleased.
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Monday February 06, 2012
What happens when an uncontacted tribe meets 'civilisation'?
Nina Lakhani
Independent
Margarita Mbywangy's tribe was nearly wiped out when the modern world came calling. Now she has come to Europe to talk about their stolen land and struggle for survival.
Margarita Mbywangy has spent her life fighting for the right to exist. At the age of five, she was kidnapped and sold into domestic slavery, removed from her family and the hunter-gather way of life that her Ache tribe had practiced in eastern Paraguay for millennia.
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Monday February 06, 2012
According To The FBI, Internet Privacy Is Now Considered To Be Suspicious Activity
American Dream
When you use the Internet in a public place, do you prefer to have as much privacy as possible? Well, that makes you a potential terrorist.
According to the FBI, Internet privacy is now considered to be suspicious activity.
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Sunday February 05, 2012
Why minimalist living can be bad for your health
Hannah Booth
The Guardian
A new novel warns against surgically minimalist decor, says Hannah Booth. Do you have obsessive cleaning and de-cluttering tendencies, or do you prefer a lived-in home?
If you've ever felt a twinge of discomfort when entering a surgically clean and tidy house – a home whose owner swoops in with coasters, monitors crumbs and smiles stiffly at spillages – then you'll sympathise with the hero of this new novel.
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Sunday February 05, 2012
New Ice IX banking Trojan enables fraudsters to hijack phone calls
Lucian Constantin
Techworld
Trusteer discovered Ice IX configurations that extract telephone account numbers from victims
New variants of the Ice IX online banking Trojan program are tricking victims into exposing their telephone account numbers so that fraudsters can divert post-transaction verification phone calls made by banks to phone numbers under their control, researchers from security vendor Trusteer warned.
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Sunday February 05, 2012
Protein: The lay of the lamb
Twilight Greenaway
Grist
When it comes to carbon emissions, lamb is said to be the worst possible thing to eat. It’s the tall, scary skyscraper in the carbon emissions bar graph (see below), and for good reason.
They’re small, gassy animals that spend most of their lives on pasture. Wait, what’s that last part?
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 12:06 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Sunday February 05, 2012
Once a Food Chain, Now a Corporate Supply Chain
Kanya D'Almeida
Inter Press Service
While Indian retailers are losing sleep over the possible entrance of multinationals like Walmart into the dense South Asian consumer market, very little thought has been given to the Indian small farmer, who stands to lose even more at the hands of the world's biggest commercial food retailer.
The commercial food market topped seven trillion dollars at the end of 2009, overtaking even the mammoth energy sector, according to a new reportby the ETC prepared ahead of the June 2012Rio+20 conference on sustainable development.
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Sunday February 05, 2012
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Lisa Zyga
PhysOrg.com
Engineers have built the first carbon nanotube (CNT) transistor with a channel length below 10 nm, a size that is considered a requirement for computing technology in the next decade.
Not only can the tiny transistor sufficiently control current, it does so significantly better than predicted by theory. It even outperforms the best competing silicon transistors at this scale, demonstrating a superior current density at a very low operating voltage.
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Sunday February 05, 2012
Parking sensors to take pain out of finding a space
Duncan Graham-Rowe
New Scientist
It's a problem familiar to most of us: you circle for ages waiting to find a parking space and just when you've spotted one, someone else darts in first.
Now a "parking patch" could change that by bringing together wireless sensors and mobile apps to steer drivers towards those elusive vacant spots, while also allowing traffic wardens to home in on parking offenders.
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Sunday February 05, 2012
The 6 Most Surprising Things From Facebook’s IPO Filing
Mike Isaac
Wired
After years of waiting for a peek behind Facebook’s financial curtain, the company finally filed its prospectus for an initial public offering on Wednesday, seeking $5 billion in funding.
It’s on track to become one of the largest IPOs in tech company history.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Sunday February 05, 2012
Should we let children run wild?
Sophie Radice
Independent
When Sophie Radice found a small boy wandering alone and barefoot, she swiftly returned him home. But the surprising reaction of his parents caused her to question her own attitudes to children and safety
A few years ago I found a small, cold, barefoot child on Hampstead Heath early on a Sunday morning.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Sunday February 05, 2012
Why a Likely Natural Event Could Cause Nuclear Reactors to Melt Down and Our Grid to Crash
Matthew Stein
AlterNet
Unless we take significant protective measures, this apocalyptic scenario is actually possible.
There are nearly 450 nuclear reactors in the world, with hundreds more either under construction or in the planning stages. There are 104 of these reactors in the USA and 195 in Europe. Imagine the havoc it would wreak on our civilization and the planet's ecosystems if we were to suddenly experience not just one or two nuclear meltdowns, but many more of them.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Saturday February 04, 2012
Can bells and whistles save the book?
laura Miller
Salon
Enhanced e-books bring images, animation, soundtracks and games to the reading experience -- but don't add much
Almost two years after the launch of the iPad, Apple distributed a free copy of a new iBook, “The Yellow Submarine,” based on the 1968 animated movie by the Beatles.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Trojan gang targets BT, Talk Talk and Sky customers
John E Dunn
Techworld
Thieves target phone service logins to fool verification checks
Criminals using a dangerous variant of the Zeus bank Trojan have started hacking BT, Talk Talk and Sky phone accounts as a way of redirecting phone calls from bank fraud services away from victims.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:37 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Saturday February 04, 2012
Is Anonymous our future?
Nathan Schneider
Waging Nonviolence
The enigmatic Internet-driven collective Anonymous, thank goodness, has an anthropologist in its midst. For a few years now, Gabriella Coleman has been arduously participant-observing in IRC chat rooms, watching Anonymous turn from a prankster moniker to a herd of vigilantes for global justice.
In an extraordinary new essay at Triple Canopy, “Our Weirdness Is Free,” she summarizes what Anonymous is all about this way:
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Saturday February 04, 2012
China Looks Both Ways on Iranian Oil
Antoaneta Becker
Inter Press Service
China’s response to calls from the West to join an oil embargo penalising Iran for its nuclear programme so far has been to choose the middle course typical of its non-interfering foreign policy of the last 30 years – denouncing sanctions on one hand yet working to protect its national interests on many fronts.
But the decision by India, another major buyer of Iran’s oil, to continue importing from Tehran despite the Western sanctions, will shine uncomfortable light on the powerful nationalist sentiments among the Chinese public and the internal debate raging in China about the future course of its foreign policy.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:28 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Saturday February 04, 2012
Australia -- land of the koala, kangaroo... and elephant
Physorg
Elephants and maybe rhinoceroses could be introduced to Australia to chomp on an invasive African grass that also causes wildfires, according to an idea reported in a scientific journal on Wednesday.
"A major source of fuel for wildfires in the monsoon tropics is gamba grass, a giant African grass that has invaded north Australia's savannas," said David Bowman, a professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:25 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Saturday February 04, 2012
Amazing Cathedral Made From 55,000 LEDs Rises at Belgium’s Festival of Lights
Timon Singh
Inhabitat
Talk about seeing the light!
Made up of over 55,000 colored LED lights, the Luminarie Cagna is a massive cathedral that will be on display at the second annual Festival of Lights in Ghent, Belgium.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
New generation of nuclear reactors could consume radioactive waste as fuel
Duncan Clark
The Guardian
The new 'fast' plants could provide enough low-carbon electricity to power the UK for more than 500 years
A generation of "fast" nuclear reactors could consume Britain's radioactive waste stockpile as fuel, providing enough low-carbon electricity to power the country for more than 500 years, according to figures confirmed by the chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc).
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Austerity Does Not Grow the Economy
Dean Baker
Counterpunch
The Federal Reserve Board issued new projections for the economy last week, and they are not pretty. It projects the unemployment rate will still be 8.2 percent at the end of this year, 7.4 percent at the end of 2013, and 6.7 percent at the end of 2014.
To put this in context, the unemployment rate peaked at 7.6 percent in the 1990-91 recession and never got above 6.3 percent in the 2001 recession.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Why Chinese workers are getting kidnapped abroad
Peter Ford
Christian Science Monitor
Kidnapped Chinese workers were freed today in Egypt, but as more Chinese workers become easy targets abroad, citizens back home are calling for action.
More than 50 Chinese workers were seized in two separate incidents in Sudan and Egypt in the past four days, forcing the Chinese government to consider the human cost of its drive for greater global presence and influence.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Scorpion Armor Inspires Sand-Resistant Surfaces
Sophie Bushwick
Scientific American
Textured surfaces based on the patterns found on scorpion exoskeletons could help equipment avoid erosion damage. Sophie Bushwick reports
It’s tough to be a machine in the desert: particles of dirt and sand work their way into moving parts, where they abrade turbines, motors, pipes and other equipment.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Poll: 62 percent of Californians want marijuana regulated like wine
Andrew Jones
The Raw Story
A majority of Californians believe that marijuana should be regulated like wine, according to a recent statewide poll sponsored by legalization advocates.
Sixty-two percent of residents in the Golden State support the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine Act of 2012, a ballot initiative that will be voted on in November.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Women Eye Dance Moves to Find Thrill Seekers
Tom Jacobs
Miller-McCune
How to spot thrill-seeking men on the dance floor, “sweet” personalities in public, and bidding fever on eBay.
It turns out the information women seek isn’t in a man’s kiss — it’s in his dance moves.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
The Assange Case Means That We Are All Suspects Now
John Pilger
Truthout
This week's Supreme Court hearing in the Julian Assange case has profound meaning for the preservation of basic freedoms in Western democracies.
This is Assange's final appeal against his extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual misconduct that were originally dismissed by the chief prosecutor in Stockholm and constitute no crime in Britain.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Should Sugar be Treated Like Stoli?
Jason Gotlieb
The Fix
University of California researchers call for sugar to be regulated and taxed in a similar way to alcohol and tobacco.
An editorial published by a group of researchers claims that sugar is as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco and should be regulated in a similar way.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Dismal Science at the Wall Street Journal
Peter Frumhoff
Union Of Concerned Scientist
The Wall Street Journal recently published an opinion piece from 16 scientists urging candidates for public office to ignore the looming threat of climate change.
While it’s entirely appropriate for scientists, like all citizens, to voice their personal opinions on public policy, the op-ed repeated a number of deeply misleading claims about climate science.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Japan's population to fall by third in 50 years
David McNeill
Independent
Unprecedented threat to economy, healthcare and culture as numbers plummet by 41 million
Japan's government yesterday released stark new evidence that the nation is on the brink of a demographic crisis, forecasting that its population will shrink by 30 per cent in the next half-century, while soaring life expectancy will further burden the state.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
Carder Forced Gang Members to Have Sex to Weed Out Undercover Feds
Kim Zetter
Wired
The mastermind of a carding gang in Georgia devised a novel way for weeding out undercover Feds from his operation — he forced members to have group sex, according to a local police detective who helped bust the ring.
Vikas Yadav, an Indian national who was deported in 2010, recruited other carders and mules through sadomasochism web sites, forcing would-be accomplices to have group sex with other men and women while Yadav videotaped them, according to the Athens Banner-Herald.
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Saturday February 04, 2012
How the Stimulus Revived the Electric Car
Michael Grabell
ProPublica
A common criticism of President Obama's $800 billion stimulus package has been that it failed to produce anything – that while the New Deal built bridges and dams, all the stimulus did was fill some potholes and create temporary jobs.
Don't tell that to Annette Herrera.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Can a spider web hold clues for better buildings? Science takes a step.
Pete Spotts
Christian Science Monitor
A research team has discovered how spider silk responds to stress. The results of the spider web study appear in the Thursday issue of the journal Nature.
For years, engineers and materials scientists have marveled at the strength that spider silk displays – topping that of steel. And they've marveled at the design and hardiness of spider webs.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Smart Meters Will Not Be Compulsory Says Minister
Big Brother Watch
“We believe people will benefit from having smart meters. But we will not make them obligatory.”
Charles Hendry, energy minister.
The news today that smart meters will not be compulsory is an extremely positive step, but the issue is far from resolved.
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Friday February 03, 2012
The net closes on cyber-snoopers
Ian Burrell
Independent
From Facebook to Google, websites are tracking your every move to deliver 'personalised advertising'. But now regulators have hit back. Ian Burrell reports
When new rules governing the way companies collect and use data about our movements online come into force, a little "i" symbol will appear on screen to reveal adverts generated by "cookies".
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Friday February 03, 2012
Political Therapy
Adbusters
The art of mass disassociation.
What if society can no longer resist the destructive effects of unbounded capitalism? What if society can no longer resist the devastating power of financial accumulation?
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Friday February 03, 2012
Numerology Doesn’t Know the Score
Peter M. Nardi
Miller-McCune
Various ways of assigning numbers to events, people, and actions is an ancient parlor game, but let’s not take it beyond that.
We entered the new year with all sorts of expectations and excitement, but I’m sure none compared to the chills from realizing 2012 will see the last major numerical date event — using the Gregorian calendar — for almost another century: December 12, 2012 — better represented as 12/12/12.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Monsanto’s new seeds could be a tech dead end
Tom Laskawy
Grist
When I wrote recently about the next generation of genetically engineered seeds, I was in truth referring to the next next generation.
The fact is that the next actual generation of seeds is already out of the lab and poised for approval by the USDA.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Lions
Al Jazeera
In a crowded Nigerian slaughterhouse blood, fire and smoke are normal working conditions.
In today's technological age is heavy manual labour disappearing or is it just becoming invisible?
Physical work was once celebrated with hymns of praise. But today workers must be content in the knowledge that their hard work is better than no work at all.
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Friday February 03, 2012
How many have died after police restraint? MP calls for inquiry
Angus Stickler
Bureau Of Investigative Journalism
The number of people who have died after being forcibly restrained in police custody is higher than official figures suggest, an investigation by the Bureau can reveal.
The investigation has identified a number of cases not included in the official tally of 16 ‘restraint-related’ deaths in the decade to 2009 – including a landmark case that changed the way that officers carry out arrests.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Facebook IPO: Could it backfire if users revolt?
Gloria Goodale
Christian Science Monitor
The Facebook IPO will make some people very rich, but social-media experts suggest that it could force Facebook to put profits over user experience – and that could cause problems.
Most people know that Facebook’s initial public offering (IPO) will make 20-something founder Mark Zuckerberg even richer than he already is – estimates top some $20 billion.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Time in Space May Alter Astronauts’ Genes
Dave Mosher
Wired
Spending long periods at low gravity may alter genes, suggests a new experiment involving a magnet-powered trick used on Earth to simulate weightlessness in space.
Subjected to magnetic levitation that generated an effect similar to microgravity experienced by astronauts orbiting Earth, fruit flies experienced changes in crucial genes.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Wheat will age prematurely in a warmer world
Debora MacKenzie
New SCientist
It could be much more difficult than we thought to feed everyone in a warmer world. Satellite images of northern India have revealed that extreme temperatures are cutting wheat yields.
What's more, models used to predict the effects of global warming on food supply may have underestimated the problem by a third.
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Friday February 03, 2012
DARPA: EYE-ENHANCING VIRTUAL REALITY CONTACT LENSES
MaxWild
KipNews
Currently being developed by DARPA researchers at Washington-based Innovega iOptiks are contact lenses that enhance normal vision by allowing a wearer to view virtual and augmented reality images without the need for bulky apparatus.
Instead of oversized virtual reality helmets, digital images are projected onto tiny full-color displays that are very near the eye.
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Friday February 03, 2012
New York City could open up 1,200 acres of rooftops for farming
Sarah Laskow
Grist
Given how valuable space is in New York City, the city’s rooftops are strangely empty.
But a proposal from the city’s planning department could change that by making 1,200 acres of commercial rooftops available for urban farmers to open greenhouses across the city.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Tinnitus: When the music stops
John Walsh
Independent
A rare condition left critic Nick Coleman unable to hear the music he adored. Here, he explains how he learned to listen again
In the summer of 2007 the music stopped for Nick Coleman. For 30-odd years he had steeped himself in music – singing in a choir, playing trombone, soaking up medieval and modern-classical influences from his father, drenching himself in 1960s rock'n'roll and 1970s "prog rock" – until it became his greatest love and his career.
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Friday February 03, 2012
NASA: Solar system may have alien origin
Iain Thomson
The Register
The case of the missing oxygen
The latest data from NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) probe has found a curious disparity in the distribution of some of the key elements of our solar system, notably why there is so much oxygen in it.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Pirate Bay Verdict SignalsThreat Of Huge New Anti-Piracy Campaign
enigmax
TorrentFreak
Yesterday's Supreme Court rejection against The Pirate Bay signals the start of a new campaign targeting 150 file-sharing sites, say anti-piracy figures.
A lawyer for the Hollywood movie studios says she expects Swedish sites and those providing them with infrastructure will stop their activities today. Antipiratbyran say they will take legal action against those that don’t.
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Friday February 03, 2012
Apple faces possible boycott over Foxconn investigation
Sophie Curtis
Techworld
Consumers are being urged to boycott the iPhone and iPad over poor working conditions at Chinese factories
Several high-profile media outlets are calling for a boycott of Apple products, amid new reports of mistreatment of workers at the company’s manufacturing chain in China.
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Friday February 03, 2012
The Overjustification Effect
David McRaney
You Are Not So Smart
The Misconception: There is nothing better in the world than getting paid to do what you love.
The Truth: Getting paid for doing what you already enjoy will sometimes cause your love for the task to wane because you attribute your motivation as coming from the reward, not your internal feelings.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
The Scary Danger of Meat (Even For Those Who Don't Eat It)
Martha Rosenberg
AlterNet
The government has rolled over once again for Big Meat and we may be in more danger from antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
So far, 2012 is bringing bad news for people who don't want "free antibiotics" in their food.
Antibiotics are routinely given to livestock on factory farms to make them gain weight with less feed and keep them from getting sick in confinement conditions.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
'I'm going to destroy America and dig up Marilyn Monroe': British pair arrested in U.S. on terror charges over Twitter jokes
Richard Hartley-Parkinson
Daily Mail
Two British tourists were barred from entering America after joking on Twitter that they were going to 'destroy America' and 'dig up Marilyn Monroe'.
Leigh Van Bryan, 26, was handcuffed and kept under armed guard in a cell with Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Google, Microsoft and Facebook battle phishing with new specification
John E Dunn
Techworld
Internet giants out to banish bogus email
Major Internet companies including Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have announced a new specification to streamline the way email providers work out whether messages are part of phishing attacks using spoofed domain addresses.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Phase-change materials can fix machine memory crunch
Duncan Graham-Rowe
New Scientist
We walk about with thousands of songs, photos and videos in our pockets, but we won't be able to keep cramming more and more onto our memory cards forever.
While last week's news that a single bit of digital information has been stored on just 12 atoms was remarkable, at some point we are going to reach a limit.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Rebel hero who has 'betrayed' the last of Aceh's orang-utans
Kathy Marks
Independent
Governor has dismayed supporters by allowing the destruction of a Sumatran forest where the apes live
When the former rebel leader Irwandi Yusuf became governor of Indonesia's Aceh province, he proclaimed a "green vision" for the war-torn region.
Aceh's lush forests – still relatively pristine despite decades of civil conflict – would not be sacrificed for short-term profit, he promised.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Julian Assange's extradition battle enters final round
Esther Addley
The Guardian
WikiLeaks founder to face seven supreme court judges in appeal against extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations
He has been described as everything from Messianic visionary to terrorist, courageous battler for government accountability to sexual abuser. So why not chatshow host?
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
The World’s First Computer Password? It Was Useless Too
Robert McMillan
Wired
If you’re like most people, you’re annoyed by passwords.
You’ve got dozens to remember — some of them tortuously complex — and on any given day, as you read e-mails, send tweets, and order groceries online, you’re bound to forget one, or at least mistype it.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
WordPress Plugin Unblocks Censored Sites, Including The Pirate Bay
Ernesto
Torrent Frak
A new WordPress plugin makes it dead easy to uncensor blocked websites. In just a few clicks people can setup their own proxy site with the popular blogging software.
An essential tool for people whose speech is restricted by oppressive regimes, and handy for downloaders in The Netherlands, Italy, Finland and other countries where ISPs are blocking The Pirate Bay.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Doing Afghan Drugs
Brian Cloughley
Counterpunch
Drug addicts are pathetic but sometimes happy people.
They are pitiable in their hopeless enslavement to something that dominates and will probably kill them, but seem content in a warped sort of way because they can be taken out of their bleak and dismal lives into who knows what warm and cozy cocoons of whirligig private ecstasy by use of narcotics that will ravage their minds and bodies.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 05:18 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Wednesday February 01, 2012
How to cook with liquid nitrogen
Andrew Lowry
Wired.co.uk
The tool du jour of the more exhibitionist chefs, liquid nitrogen is good for more than school science demos.
But you don't need a lab to use it at home. Craig McDonnell, head chef at Yorkshire's Gray Ox Inn, explains how.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Boffins make graphene micro-distillery
Brid-Aine Parnell
The Register
Wonder stuff cooked up super-strength vodka
Graphene-creating boffins have discovered a new purpose for the wonder material - a teeny-tiny distillery.
A team led by one of the Nobel prize-winning scientists who first made the world's thinnest and strongest material have now found out that graphene can stop air and other gases, but it lets water right through.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
GMC moves to stop gagging clauses in NHS
Emma Slater
Bureau Of Investigative Journalism
The General Medical Council is to write to all UK doctors instructing them not to sign ‘gagging’ clauses, which would prevent them from raising concerns about poor practice and patient safety in their workplace.
New GMC guidance, which will come into force in March, aims to provide a more open culture, where medical professionals feel that they can air their concerns.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Banks Weren’t Meant to Be Like This
Michael Hudson
Counterpunch
In medieval times, wealthy bankers lent to kings and princes as their major customers.
But now it is the banks that are needy, relying on governments for funding – capped by the post-2008 bailouts to save them from going bankrupt from their bad private-sector loans and gambles.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Oklahoma makes bold move to not eat human fetuses
Jess Zimmerman
Grist
Apparently the new hotness among Republicans is legislating against things that don’t exist.
First Congress voted to knock down imaginary farm dust regulations, and now the Oklahoma Legislature has introduced a bill that would outlaw food “which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.”
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Immigration: Global Economy Has Forced Migration
David Bacon
The Americas Program
Before the cold war, the defense of the rights of immigrants in the U.S., especially those from Mexico, Central America and Asia was mounted mostly by immigrant working class communities, and the alliances they built with the left wing of the U.S. labor movement.
At the time when the left came under attack and was partly destroyed in the cold war, immigrant rights leaders were also targeted for deportation.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
NATO and CIA Covertly Arming Syrian Rebels in Order to Weaken Iran
Daan de Wit
DeepJournal
The current news coverage concerning Iran is depicting a series of incidents, but when placed in the context of the events of the past few years - as I have done in my book The Next War - The attack on Iran - A preview as well as in this DeepJournal series - it is clear that all the pieces are being put into place for a war against Iran.
It is a long-term project demanding many years worth of preparation, and the ultimate goal is getting closer all the time.
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
Active duty cop: ‘The war on drugs is a war on people’
Stephen C. Webster
The Raw Story
Speaking to Raw Story recently, an active duty police officer who asked not to be named threw down the gauntlet over the part of his job he hates most: the drug war.
“I did not get in law enforcement to destroy a person’s future because that person had marijuana or a pill in their pocket,” the officer explained. “Why would you want to destroy that person’s future and cause them great harm because of that? It’s not worth it.”
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Wednesday February 01, 2012
What Does Twitter’s Country-by-Country Takedown System Mean for Freedom of Expression?
Electronic Frontier Foundations
Yesterday, Twitter announced in a blog post that it was launching a system that would allow the company to take down content on a country-by-country basis, as opposed to taking it down across the Twitter system.
The Internet immediately exploded with allegations of censorship, conspiracy theories about Twitter’s Saudi investors and automated content filtering, and calls for a January 28 protest.
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Posted in: by bubblejam at 04:50 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Wednesday February 01, 2012
Bailed-out RBS spends millions on Washington lobbyists
Rajeev Syal and Solomon Hughes
The Guardian
Bailed-out bank has spent over £2.5m of British taxpayers' money to influence politicians reforming US financial law
The Royal Bank of Scotland has spent more than $4m (£2.5m) of British taxpayers' money on lobbyists in Washington since it was bailed out by the government, documents disclose.
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