What Killed the Mammoth

What led to the late Pleistocene extinction of North American Megafauna? The old theory was hunting by the newly arrived human population. But now...

clipped from www.sciencefriday.com One team of scientists thinks it knows what killed the woolly mammoth and other ice-age creatures. In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they say they have evidence that a comet or other low-density space object exploded in the upper atmosphere of the Earth about 13,000 years ago, possibly leading to the extinction of mammoths and the decline of Stone Age people. We'll talk about their findings. Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection. Listen: more audio options streaming: RM WM download: mp3 NPR audio help podcast (what's this?) Tools: Print Share Mail Del.icio.us Digg Newsvine Google Netscape Windows Live Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati

Winning the Cancer War

clipped from www.sciencefriday.com In this segment, Ira talks with cancer researcher Robert Weinberg about what he calls the last frontier of cancer research. Weinberg has been instrumental in studies of oncogenes, genes that can spark the rapid cell multiplication associated with cancerous tumors. Now, in two studies published over the past month, Weinberg and colleagues present clues as to how tumors spread through the body. They found that microRNAs, small molecules that typically disrupt protein production by binding to the messenger RNAs that transmit DNA instructions for proteins, can cause tumors to metastasize. Could the research help curb the spread of cancer within people? We'll talk about the research. Listen: more audio options streaming: RM download: mp3 NPR audio help podcast (what's this?) Tools: Print Share Mail Del.icio.us Digg Newsvine Google Netscape Windows Live Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati

Biotech: Printing Living Cells

clipped from www.sciencefriday.com In this segment, we'll look at new research into using inkjet technology to build artificial tissues. Writing in the journal Science, Paul Calvert describes efforts to convert the common home office technology of inkjet printing to manipulate living cells. Using printing technology is of interest to biomaterials researchers because it is a precise, simple, rapid and clean process that avoids contamination. Researchers have successfully printed bacteria, yeast and animal cells. What will it take to move from those studies to more complex tissue? Is it realistic to imagine 'printing' living tissue? Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection. Listen: more audio options streaming: RM WM download: mp3 NPR audio help podcast (what's this?) Tools: Print Share Mail Del.icio.us Digg Newsvine Google Netscape Windows Live Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati

"God has something to say to you!"

clipped from scienceblogs.com God has something to say to you!

Health: Reduce High-glycaemic food intake

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk A diet rich in potatoes, white bread and white rice may be contributing to a "silent epidemic" of a dangerous liver condition. "High-glycaemic" foods - rapidly digested by the body - could be causing "fatty liver", increasing the risk of serious illness. The study, carried out at Boston Children's Hospital, looked at the effect of diets with precisely the same calorific content, but very different ingredients when measured using the glycaemic index (GI). After six months on the diet, the mice weighed the same, but those on the high GI diet had twice the normal amount of fat in their bodies, blood and livers. The researchers say that because the processed carbohydrates are absorbed so quickly, they trigger the release of more of the chemical insulin, which tells the body to lay down more fat.

NASA: Near Earth Object Program

clipped from neo.jpl.nasa.gov The following table lists potential future Earth impact events that the JPL Sentry System has detected based on currently available observations. Click on the object designation to go to a page with full details on that object. Recently Observed Objects (within past 60 days) Object Designation Year Range Potential Impacts Impact Prob. (cum.) Vinfinity (km/s) H (mag) Est. Diam. (km) Palermo Scale (cum.) Palermo Scale (max.) Torino Scale (max.) 2007 RU9 2013-2071 16 4.4e-06 16.18 20.8  0.234 -2.57 -3.00 0 2007 RY19 2014-2092 752 1.7e-05 9.76 21.9  0.142 -3.03 -3.87 0 2007 RX19 2021-2107 53 5.4e-08 21.30 18.7  0.622 -3.81 -4.54 0 2007 RA20 2016-2107 64 4.6e-08 13.22 19.9  0.362 -4.60 -5.15 0 2007 RT9 2028-2107 33 7.9e-08 9.61 19.9  0.357 -4.61 -5.20 0 2007 RV9 2011-2107 8 7.8e-09 15.22 19.9  0.358 -5.23 -5.56 0

Greenspan: Clinton Good, Bush Bad

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Alan Greenspan, who served as Federal Reserve chairman for 18 years and was the leading Republican economist for the past three decades, levels unusually harsh criticism at President Bush and the Republican Party in his new book, arguing that Bush abandoned the central conservative principle of fiscal restraint. While condemning Democrats, too, for rampant federal spending, he offers Bill Clinton an exemption. The former president emerges as the political hero of "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," Greenspan's 531-page memoir, which is being published Monday. Greenspan, who had an eight-year alliance with Clinton and Democratic Treasury secretaries in the 1990s, praises Clinton's mind and his tough anti-deficit policies, calling the former president's 1993 economic plan "an act of political courage."

NYC: Scooters a congestion solution?

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Scooter riders say the small but sometimes noisy vehicles are the best answer to a dreary subway commute or, even better, to the traffic congestion that chokes New York streets. "But it's fun, I'm outside, it's great and quicker than being stuck in a traffic jam." "Think of the money I'm saving by riding this - to fill it up costs $5 and it lasts for a month." He adds: "We asked a company to do a study for us to find out what would happen if we replaced 20% of the cars in Manhattan with scooters. "We found that every single driver in Manhattan would save 100 hours a year that are currently lost in traffic - that's huge."

China: Environmental Cost of Rapid Growth

Grim.

Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, the Ministry of Health says. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.

Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution

clipped from www.nytimes.com Choking on Growth clipped from www.nytimes.com

Drop Foreseen in Median Price of U.S. Homes

clipped from www.nytimes.com The median price of American homes is expected to fall this year for the first time since federal housing agencies began keeping statistics in 1950.

Getting Shrill?

Clinton? Obama? Edwards?

Nope, Newt Gingrich

clipped from talkingpointsmemo.com "We're about to enter the seventh year of this phony war...and we're losing." "How can we tolerate systems more likely to send young Americans to prison than college?" "Republicans have this maniacally dumb idea of Red versus Blue. They say, Detroit is a blue place, so we're not going to go there." "We have to have a national energy strategy, which basically says to the Saudis, 'We're not going to rely on you.'" "Republican political doctrine has been a failure," "Look at New Orleans. How can you say that was a success? Look at Baghdad... I don't think you can look around and say that was a great success."

Failed Bridges & Failed Presidents

What link is there between the two bridges in the pictures above? The one on the top is the bridge that crosses the Mississippi in Minneapolis that suddenly collapsed, the other is a bridge that crosses the Tigris in Baghdad. What is the link you ask? Failure of leadership is the link.

Our government is going heavily into debt yet that debt isn't even being spent on "capital", on the infrastructure needed to maintain and build the future economy, it is being wasted on a war. A war that was predicted to turn out the way it did but a prediction that leadership ignored in their planning because they didn't like it. While we are distracted, losing our young and creative and our treasury to a pointless war of choice, others gather their strength (1,2,3).

The enemies of America have placed a mole in our midst. This mole's actions have lead what was the world's only superpower to the edge of failure. May George W. Bush go down in infamy. He is not pro-American in any sense.


Technorati Tags: bush, politics, china, iraq, war

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Raw Material

Ah the raw material. The blank page. I can create a universe here! One where I get to be king (if I were so ego inclined that is.) But what is wrong with the ego? One issue with the ego-centric world is the approach to nature and the environment. With ego-centrism one builds an internal me versus the world structure of thinking. From that structure follows an “us versus nature” battle.

Still writing. Still finishing. I must finish finishing. But I feel very close to the end. And i am jazzed.