IPods and MP3 players may be doing more damage to young ears than people realize.
A recent survey commissioned by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association finds that more than half of high school students polled have lost some hearing because of how they use the music players.
The survey found that high school students are more likely than adults to say they have experienced three of the four symptoms of hearing loss: turning up the volume on their TV or radio; saying “what” or “huh” during normal conversation and having tinnitus or ringing in the ears.
Do you think that’s why CBtE doesn’t hear me tell him to take out the trash?
I wonder what the numbers were in the past, though. Because I remember similar scare stories when I was a teenager and we were all supposedly ruining our hearing going to concerts and listening to our stereos too loud. And I think I recall Walkmans were going to make us all deaf too.
Strange behavior by insomniacs taking prescription drugs, ranging from binge eating to having sex while asleep, have raised safety questions about anti-insomnia medications like Sanofi-Aventis’ Ambien.
Researchers in Minnesota are studying cases where insomniacs taking Ambien got up in the middle of the night, binged uncontrollably, then remembered nothing of their actions. The researchers expect to publish data shortly.
The cookie crumbs and ice cream dishes in their beds didn’t give them a clue?
it really isn’t. My mother’s family has big problems with insomnia….I’m sure that didn’t help my Uncle either with what he was going through. When it hits we all usually take two Benedryl at night for awhile. My Aunt Shirley though has it bad and she has to take Ambien. When we have all been together for Holidays she has done the craziest shit and remembers none of it the next day. She insisted on sleeping on the couch once, and then got up in the middle of the night and being very nasty about it booted her sister out of a bed so she could have it. She woke up the next morning and discovered her sister suffering on the couch and at first thought that her sister had refused to allow her to be the one to suffer the couch. It was hilarious, but now I worry about her when she is at home alone. God, I hope she doesn’t ever do anything that would endanger her life. She even has conversation and stuff when she is “sleep walking” on Ambien and remembers none of it the next day.
. . . especially in light of Colin Powell’s offhand comment that everybody in the Bush Administration was taking it. (That was back when he was part of it.)
I get the idea that nobody has a clue what these drugs really do.
Also, ambien may not be your only choice. I have had good results with valerian–it’s a root often available in health food shops–though it does tend to give dreams. (A teaspoon steeped in a cup of water–yes, it tastes awful–works fine.) Of course none of these is a good idea for an extended period of time.
KABUL (Reuters) – Canadian forces on patrol in Afghanistan opened fire on a vehicle, apparently in the belief it was a suicide bomb attempt, killing a passenger, a Canadian forces spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
An investigation had been launched by an independent Canadian service into the shooting in Kandahar city in the Afghan south late on Tuesday, said the spokeswoman, Captain Julie Roberge.
“A man was shot yesterday while Canadian forces were doing a routine patrol …. he died this morning in hospital,” Roberge said.
“This is being investigated, we take it very seriously,” she said.
The man, identified as Nasrat Ghali and believed to be in his mid-40s, was driving a three-wheeled motorized taxi known locally as a rickshaw. Canadian troops fired warning shots at him after he drove through an Afghan police checkpoint, coming within less than one metre from the Canadian vehicle, said Lt.-Col. Derek Basinger.
“Our rules do not allow any Afghans to come within a certain distance,” said Basinger.
He was treated by the Canadians at the scene, but later died in hospital.
Sounds familiar, horribly familiar.
(PS. Thanks for getting the News Bucket up early CG.)
Chadian troops have foiled an attempt to oust President Idriss Deby, Chad’s communications minister has said.
Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said a plan to shoot down Mr Deby’s plane on his return from abroad had been discovered.
Several arrests have been made and the president returned home on Tuesday night after leaving a summit in Equatorial Guinea early, he confirmed.
The coup attempt has been blamed on the president’s twin nephews and a general who defected to rebels in the east.
A large group of army officers have deserted to join rebels of the United Front for Democratic Change (FUC), lead by Mahamat Nour from bases in Darfur on Sudan’s border with Chad.
Analyst Andrew Manley has told the BBC that in recent months President Deby has been looking increasingly vulnerable, faced with the growing rebellion in the east and a loss of support among neighbouring countries and traditional allies like France.
(snip)
A large group of army officers have deserted to join rebels of the United Front for Democratic Change (FUC), lead by Mahamat Nour from bases in Darfur on Sudan’s border with Chad.
(snip)
The capital is calmer than it was in December after Chad declared a state of war with Sudan following a deadly attack launched from Darfur by Chadian rebels, our reporter says.
Sudan repeatedly denied allegations made by Chad that it was backing the rebels and sending Arab militias in support.
In February, Chad and Sudan signed an accord to resolve their differences over fighting along the border. Mr Deby seized power in 1990 after launching a rebellion from bases in Darfur.
That’s what we need – more clarity on the Darfur-situation. </sn>
By Patrick Cockburn in Amman
Published: 15 March 2006
Iraq moved closer to sectarian civil war as police found the bodies of 87 men killed in Baghdad, many of them showing signs of torture. The dead appear to be Sunni Muslims killed in retaliation for the bombs that slaughtered 58 people and wounded 200 when they exploded in crowded markets in the strongly Shia area of Sadr City.
Some 29 dead men were found yesterday buried in a pit in a playing field. “Some children were playing soccer and they smelt something strong and the police were notified,” said a police spokesman. Members of a Shia militia dug in a pit to unearth the bodies. They found that the men had been gagged and bound and were in their underwear. Many of them had been tortured before being shot dead.
The Interior Ministry spokesman, Lt-Col Falah al-Mohammedawi, said that the men appeared to have been killed in Kamaliyah, a mostly Shia district in east Baghdad, about three days ago. Local residents offered sheets to cover the bodies as they were dragged from the earth.
A photographer for the Associated Press agency who took pictures of the grave was warned not to publish them. The location of the grave suggests that the dead men were Sunni.
(more)
i spent an hour this morning at salon looking at all the new pics of torture at abu ghraib.
i have a lot of mixed emotions
mainly im pissed at the arrest of prostitutes and the american military not only keeping them in that prison but exploiting them.
i have to say im not that upset at the treatment of the suspected rapists….many times i hear about some assholes molesting and raping kids and i dont think torture is too good for them….a trial beforehand would be good though.
i have a friend who showed me a cd her son made when he was in iraq….it was made like a music video….there was quite a lot of corpse abuse…..it was very disturbing….the american soldiers including her son were all very identifiable….i asked her if she realized if that cd got out people would be courtmarshalled….she said she understood that and thought she should destroy it…i have no idea if she did….i asked her son about it and he just shrugged and said i didnt understand how bad it was there…..i have this theory that people do these things to make something that is unbearable more bearable…..its why we find humor in horror…i know lots of women whose number one sexual fantasy is to be raped…..and i know a whole bunch of men and women who like to play that fantasy out….in a safe way of course…..but why? i think they are just trying to make something bearable somehow….to take its power away maybe….why did the abu ghraib military people not only do what they did, make fun of it all, and take pictures of it? are these people all monsters or are they just trying to make their situation bearable?
That is so sad, anna. I think of the goofy redheaded friend of my daughters who graduated from high school in June of 2003 and by November was in Iraq. What a sweet, silly boy he was. I wonder if I’ll recognize him when he finally comes home.
cd Anna. If you had any idea how much of that stuff is out there…..with all the new technology lots of people in the military collecting memorabilia and setting it to really catchy music. I brought up the corpse mutiliation that one soldier I know of admitted to his spouse on the phone doing, that was when I still posted on Kos though and some jackass that I’m still certain was a freeper basically called me a liar and it set me off on a tirade and I got slammed pretty hard for it. I guess it was just too much truth too soon. That fucking garbage is out there though and it isn’t just a bit of it….it is fucking bucket loads of it swapped among the troops who collect it right now. It’s fucking disgusting and someday I hope the whole thing fucking blows up in the military’s faces too! Once you throw the Geneva Convention out the fucking window and you place soldiers in life and death insane situations with no playbook to follow……the fun’s really gonna start then!
A form of the mysterious material known as dark matter could have helped to ignite the first stars in the universe. German and U.S. scientists said if dark matter is made of a strain of low-mass particles called sterile neutrinos that may have enabled the first stars to form as early as 20-million years after the Big Bang, as the decay of such neutrinos accelerates the formation of hydrogen fused in stars. The number of sterile neutrinos is not known, but if each one has mass of a few thousand electron volts, equivalent to about 1 millionth of the mass of a single hydrogen atom, they could account for dark matter – the missing mass that comprises about 20 percent of the universe. This new hypothesis could explain several astronomical mysteries. For example, calculations show that sterile neutrinos could have been produced in the Big Bang in sufficient amounts to account for the universe’s “missing” dark matter.
A Japanese-led research team Tuesday said it had made a seeing, hearing and smelling robot that can carry human beings and is aimed at helping care for the country’s growing number of elderly. Government-backed research institute Riken said the 158-centimeter (five-foot) RI-MAN humanoid can already carry a doll weighing 12 kilograms (26 pounds) and could be capable of bearing 70 kilograms within five years.
[Editorial comment – Just a thought regarding the above: Why not bring in young, healthy people from the third world, train them as nurses in exchange for a few years in geriatric practice, then allow them to take their skills home to help out in their own countries – or stay in Japan if the country needs young workers so badly? Not that I don’t think robots are cool; it just seems not the best solution to the problem…]
Scientists have found that ozone, a major form of global air pollution involved in summertime “smog,” has also played a significant role in warming the Arctic. In a global assessment of the impact of ozone pollution on climate warming, [recently ungagged] NASA scientists at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, evaluated how ozone in the lowest part of the atmosphere changed temperatures over the past 100 years.
More from NASA, unbound: Studies have shown that over the last 40 years, a warming climate has been accompanied by fewer rain- and snow-producing storms in mid-latitudes around the world, but the storms that are happening are a little stronger with more precipitation. A new NASA analysis of global satellite data suggests that these storm changes are affecting strongly the Earth’s water cycle and air temperatures and creating contrasting cooling and warming effects in the atmosphere. Fewer storms mean less cloud cover to reflect sunlight and that adds heat to the Earth. However, more intense storms tend to produce thicker clouds, which cool the atmosphere. Researchers looked at both of those factors, and calculated that the cooling effect is larger than the warming in all months except June, July and August, when the two effects cancel each other. [a bit of good news!] The effects of increasing storm intensity also surpass those of decreasing storm frequency in terms of precipitation. In the northern mid-latitudes, the stronger storms produce a 3-4% precipitation increase that comes in the form of more intense rain and snow events.
A huge pilot project to capture greenhouse gases and store them underground is being launched this week, aiming to slash Europe’s output of harmful CO2 by 10 percent, officials said Tuesday. The world’s biggest such project, inaugurated Wednesday at Esbjerg on Denmark’s western coast, will bid to capture 90 percent of carbon dioxide produced by fossil-fueled power stations like coal plants and sequester it underground. The EU hopes to become the world leader in this technology, and has an agreement with China to demonstrate the technology there.
As spring gardening approaches, concern has spread about the risk of the Formosan subterranean termite moving to other states in mulch produced from Katrina and Rita debris. Experts advise keeping mulch away from your property walls and spreading it thinly to minimize the risk. Infested railroad ties are another common route for the spread of termites.
The same component of jalapeño peppers that makes them burn the tongue also appears to kill prostate cancer cells. Prostate tumors in mice treated with the compound, called capsaicin, shrank to one-fifth the size of those in non-treated mice, a new study found, by triggering cellular “suicide.” The treatment likely would be used to prevent recurrences of the cancer after other treatments. The dosages are high: A 200-pound (90-kilogram) person would have to eat about 10 fresh habañera peppers – one of the hottest chillies around – per week to consume an amount of capsaicin equivalent to the levels received by the study’s mice. A habañera typically contains 300,000 Scoville units – a scale used to measure the hotness of chillis – making them positively scorching to the mouth in comparison with the more popular jalapeños, which contain roughly 2500 to 5000 Scoville units. For this reason, most people would take the treatment in pill form, researchers said.
8Of course, this doesn’t affect any of us here:* Viewing a person as dishonest or immoral can distort memory, a Cornell study suggests. So much so, that when we attempt to recall that person’s behavior, it seems to be worse than it really was. “In other words, our study shows that morally blaming a person can distort memory for the severity of his or her crime or misbehavior,” said David Pizarro, assistant professor of psychology at Cornell…
Land trusts that focus on biodiversity conservation should consider the impact of real estate market forces when acquiring land, according to a new study to be published in the March 13 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Without good data and an understanding of supply and demand, land trusts risk doing more harm than good for biodiversity in some cases, by encouraging development on sensitive parcels outside the reserve.
K.P.’s Hardass School of Economics says, “Go back and refigure the cost of the externalities”: A five-year study to find more environmentally friendly ways to treat hog waste in North Carolina, the nation’s second-largest swine producing state, turned up several options, but none that farmers appear ready to pay for. “The jury’s still out on how much these technologies will actually cost once they are on the farms,” said Dan Whittle, a senior attorney for the nonprofit Environmental Defense. “We know the alternatives are out there, but the costs appear out of reach.”
The growing body of research linking climate to the spread of human and animal infectious diseases includes some ominous predictions regarding newly-emergent diseases. A new examination of the issue can be found here.
Is there anyone with knowledge of Japanese culture who could comment on whether they think typical Japanese folks would rather trust granny to a robot or an immigrant nursing student? Would it be less “shameful” if a robot rather than a human helped you (as an elderly person) with a “Depends moment?”
How do Americans feel about this, for themselves and/or their loved ones?
My grandmother had Alzheimer’s, and when she went through that “aggressive phase” that such patients go through, she’s probably have thrown water on the robot to short-circuit it, or thrown it down a flight of steps! (She was one tough lady, LOL)
…In other words, not only am I not comfortable with the idea, I suspect she wouldn’t have been either. Especially if it’s a job people can do – save the robots for cleaning up Three Mile Island and the like… I also suspect the technology is nowhere near “ready for prime time,” as I don’t think my scenario is too far fetched (visiting bored grandson might also pour water on the robot for grins, dog might pee on it…)
ST. BERNARD PARISH, La. – Maj. Pete Tufaro scanned the fenced lot packed with hundreds of stark white trailers soon to be inhabited by Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Shaking his head, he predicted the cramped quarters would ignite fights, hide criminals and become an incubator for crime, posing another test for his cash-strapped sheriff’s department, which furloughed 206 of its 390 officers after the storm.
Tufaro thinks the parish has the solution: DynCorp International LLC, the Texas company that provided personal security to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and is one of the largest security contractors in Iraq. If the Federal Emergency Management Agency approves the sheriff’s department’s proposal, which would cost $70 million over three years, up to 100 DynCorp employees would be deputized to be make arrests, carry weapons, and dress in the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s Department khaki and black uniforms.
Here’s the real money part. Disgusting.Pay differences
But while the plan is for the DynCorp employees to eat and live with the other deputies in the same trailer camp, the hired guns would earn “significantly more” than the $18,000 annual salary of an entry-level deputy and the $30,000-a-year salary of a seasoned officer.[..]
Singer said the proposed contract with DynCorp raises a number of questions, including whether the DynCorp officers will be properly supervised, whether the pay difference will cause tension in the sheriff’s department and whether it suggests that even government jobs that assume a level of public service can be done by private corporations.[..]
The Homeland Security Department’s Inspector General said the company’s costs in its FEMA contract — it earns $950 a day for each employee — were “clearly very high,”
Privatize it. As with 9/11 there’s a 2nd excuse- “Katrina broke all the rules”
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has become the first co-sponsor to Sen. Russ Feingold’s (D-Wis.) controversial resolution to censure President Bush for authorizing an allegedly illegal domestic surveillance program, ROLL CALL reports.
…more
[But] Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is offering a rather specific warning about how to prepare for the disease. He urges Americans to buy extra cans of tuna and powdered milk and stash them under the bed to get ready.[..]
“Let me acknowledge that no one in the world is prepared for a pandemic,” Leavitt said this weekend at a conference in Wyoming. “When you go to the store and buy three cans of tuna fish, buy a fourth and put it under the bed. When you go to the store to buy some milk, pick up a box of powdered milk. Put it under the bed. When you do that for a period of four to six months, you are going to have a couple of weeks of food, and that’s what we’re talking about.”[..]
Leavitt, on a nationwide tour to raise awareness on the Avian flu, is raising some eyebrows.
Last time it was duct tape and plastic. Better go to it before inventories are depleted. But under your bed? What’s with that?
Go for it SN. Aren’t we allowed more than one account?
What’s surprising about this advice, shows this guy Leavitt, head of Health and Human Services is clearly out of his depths. Tuna and milk have allergens that most need to avoid.!!!
Tuna for sulfites, affecting asthmatics and there are those who are allergic to milk or are lactose intolerant.
WASHINGTON (March 15) – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she and former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor have been the targets of death threats from the “irrational fringe” of society, people apparently spurred by Republican criticism of the high court.[..]
Security concerns among judges have been growing.
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter joked earlier this year that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. Over the past few months O’Connor has complained that criticism, mainly by Republicans, has threatened judicial independence to deal with difficult issues like gay marriage.[..]
and teen hearing loss: CBS
Do you think that’s why CBtE doesn’t hear me tell him to take out the trash?
I wonder what the numbers were in the past, though. Because I remember similar scare stories when I was a teenager and we were all supposedly ruining our hearing going to concerts and listening to our stereos too loud. And I think I recall Walkmans were going to make us all deaf too.
this was all over when walkmen came out
You might be binging in your sleep: Reuters/MSNBC
The cookie crumbs and ice cream dishes in their beds didn’t give them a clue?
it really isn’t. My mother’s family has big problems with insomnia….I’m sure that didn’t help my Uncle either with what he was going through. When it hits we all usually take two Benedryl at night for awhile. My Aunt Shirley though has it bad and she has to take Ambien. When we have all been together for Holidays she has done the craziest shit and remembers none of it the next day. She insisted on sleeping on the couch once, and then got up in the middle of the night and being very nasty about it booted her sister out of a bed so she could have it. She woke up the next morning and discovered her sister suffering on the couch and at first thought that her sister had refused to allow her to be the one to suffer the couch. It was hilarious, but now I worry about her when she is at home alone. God, I hope she doesn’t ever do anything that would endanger her life. She even has conversation and stuff when she is “sleep walking” on Ambien and remembers none of it the next day.
Do you remember the problems with Halcion in the early 90s? People killing people and not knowing it? Scary stuff.
. . . especially in light of Colin Powell’s offhand comment that everybody in the Bush Administration was taking it. (That was back when he was part of it.)
I get the idea that nobody has a clue what these drugs really do.
Also, ambien may not be your only choice. I have had good results with valerian–it’s a root often available in health food shops–though it does tend to give dreams. (A teaspoon steeped in a cup of water–yes, it tastes awful–works fine.) Of course none of these is a good idea for an extended period of time.
Nothing deep. I think the picture says it all.
And so it goes … We are involved in this too.
Canadian troops fire on Afghan car, one killed
From the CBC, comes this title: Canadian soldiers fatally shoot taxi driver
Sounds familiar, horribly familiar.
(PS. Thanks for getting the News Bucket up early CG.)
So, now we’re corrupting the Canadians, too?
(BTW, you’re welcome!)
Chad’s troops ‘foil coup attempt’
That’s what we need – more clarity on the Darfur-situation. </sn>
Mass grave find fuels sectarian tension in Iraq
Remember how mass graves were something that only happened in Iraq under Saddam’s rule?
i spent an hour this morning at salon looking at all the new pics of torture at abu ghraib.
i have a lot of mixed emotions
mainly im pissed at the arrest of prostitutes and the american military not only keeping them in that prison but exploiting them.
i have to say im not that upset at the treatment of the suspected rapists….many times i hear about some assholes molesting and raping kids and i dont think torture is too good for them….a trial beforehand would be good though.
i have a friend who showed me a cd her son made when he was in iraq….it was made like a music video….there was quite a lot of corpse abuse…..it was very disturbing….the american soldiers including her son were all very identifiable….i asked her if she realized if that cd got out people would be courtmarshalled….she said she understood that and thought she should destroy it…i have no idea if she did….i asked her son about it and he just shrugged and said i didnt understand how bad it was there…..i have this theory that people do these things to make something that is unbearable more bearable…..its why we find humor in horror…i know lots of women whose number one sexual fantasy is to be raped…..and i know a whole bunch of men and women who like to play that fantasy out….in a safe way of course…..but why? i think they are just trying to make something bearable somehow….to take its power away maybe….why did the abu ghraib military people not only do what they did, make fun of it all, and take pictures of it? are these people all monsters or are they just trying to make their situation bearable?
That is so sad, anna. I think of the goofy redheaded friend of my daughters who graduated from high school in June of 2003 and by November was in Iraq. What a sweet, silly boy he was. I wonder if I’ll recognize him when he finally comes home.
cd Anna. If you had any idea how much of that stuff is out there…..with all the new technology lots of people in the military collecting memorabilia and setting it to really catchy music. I brought up the corpse mutiliation that one soldier I know of admitted to his spouse on the phone doing, that was when I still posted on Kos though and some jackass that I’m still certain was a freeper basically called me a liar and it set me off on a tirade and I got slammed pretty hard for it. I guess it was just too much truth too soon. That fucking garbage is out there though and it isn’t just a bit of it….it is fucking bucket loads of it swapped among the troops who collect it right now. It’s fucking disgusting and someday I hope the whole thing fucking blows up in the military’s faces too! Once you throw the Geneva Convention out the fucking window and you place soldiers in life and death insane situations with no playbook to follow……the fun’s really gonna start then!
trying to dial up Jesus too…….damn near impossible. Is the whole world attempting to see the new evidence? I can only hope
A form of the mysterious material known as dark matter could have helped to ignite the first stars in the universe. German and U.S. scientists said if dark matter is made of a strain of low-mass particles called sterile neutrinos that may have enabled the first stars to form as early as 20-million years after the Big Bang, as the decay of such neutrinos accelerates the formation of hydrogen fused in stars. The number of sterile neutrinos is not known, but if each one has mass of a few thousand electron volts, equivalent to about 1 millionth of the mass of a single hydrogen atom, they could account for dark matter – the missing mass that comprises about 20 percent of the universe. This new hypothesis could explain several astronomical mysteries. For example, calculations show that sterile neutrinos could have been produced in the Big Bang in sufficient amounts to account for the universe’s “missing” dark matter.
A Japanese-led research team Tuesday said it had made a seeing, hearing and smelling robot that can carry human beings and is aimed at helping care for the country’s growing number of elderly. Government-backed research institute Riken said the 158-centimeter (five-foot) RI-MAN humanoid can already carry a doll weighing 12 kilograms (26 pounds) and could be capable of bearing 70 kilograms within five years.
[Editorial comment – Just a thought regarding the above: Why not bring in young, healthy people from the third world, train them as nurses in exchange for a few years in geriatric practice, then allow them to take their skills home to help out in their own countries – or stay in Japan if the country needs young workers so badly? Not that I don’t think robots are cool; it just seems not the best solution to the problem…]
Scientists have found that ozone, a major form of global air pollution involved in summertime “smog,” has also played a significant role in warming the Arctic. In a global assessment of the impact of ozone pollution on climate warming, [recently ungagged] NASA scientists at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, evaluated how ozone in the lowest part of the atmosphere changed temperatures over the past 100 years.
More from NASA, unbound: Studies have shown that over the last 40 years, a warming climate has been accompanied by fewer rain- and snow-producing storms in mid-latitudes around the world, but the storms that are happening are a little stronger with more precipitation. A new NASA analysis of global satellite data suggests that these storm changes are affecting strongly the Earth’s water cycle and air temperatures and creating contrasting cooling and warming effects in the atmosphere. Fewer storms mean less cloud cover to reflect sunlight and that adds heat to the Earth. However, more intense storms tend to produce thicker clouds, which cool the atmosphere. Researchers looked at both of those factors, and calculated that the cooling effect is larger than the warming in all months except June, July and August, when the two effects cancel each other. [a bit of good news!] The effects of increasing storm intensity also surpass those of decreasing storm frequency in terms of precipitation. In the northern mid-latitudes, the stronger storms produce a 3-4% precipitation increase that comes in the form of more intense rain and snow events.
A huge pilot project to capture greenhouse gases and store them underground is being launched this week, aiming to slash Europe’s output of harmful CO2 by 10 percent, officials said Tuesday. The world’s biggest such project, inaugurated Wednesday at Esbjerg on Denmark’s western coast, will bid to capture 90 percent of carbon dioxide produced by fossil-fueled power stations like coal plants and sequester it underground. The EU hopes to become the world leader in this technology, and has an agreement with China to demonstrate the technology there.
As spring gardening approaches, concern has spread about the risk of the Formosan subterranean termite moving to other states in mulch produced from Katrina and Rita debris. Experts advise keeping mulch away from your property walls and spreading it thinly to minimize the risk. Infested railroad ties are another common route for the spread of termites.
The same component of jalapeño peppers that makes them burn the tongue also appears to kill prostate cancer cells. Prostate tumors in mice treated with the compound, called capsaicin, shrank to one-fifth the size of those in non-treated mice, a new study found, by triggering cellular “suicide.” The treatment likely would be used to prevent recurrences of the cancer after other treatments. The dosages are high: A 200-pound (90-kilogram) person would have to eat about 10 fresh habañera peppers – one of the hottest chillies around – per week to consume an amount of capsaicin equivalent to the levels received by the study’s mice. A habañera typically contains 300,000 Scoville units – a scale used to measure the hotness of chillis – making them positively scorching to the mouth in comparison with the more popular jalapeños, which contain roughly 2500 to 5000 Scoville units. For this reason, most people would take the treatment in pill form, researchers said.
8Of course, this doesn’t affect any of us here:* Viewing a person as dishonest or immoral can distort memory, a Cornell study suggests. So much so, that when we attempt to recall that person’s behavior, it seems to be worse than it really was. “In other words, our study shows that morally blaming a person can distort memory for the severity of his or her crime or misbehavior,” said David Pizarro, assistant professor of psychology at Cornell…
Land trusts that focus on biodiversity conservation should consider the impact of real estate market forces when acquiring land, according to a new study to be published in the March 13 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Without good data and an understanding of supply and demand, land trusts risk doing more harm than good for biodiversity in some cases, by encouraging development on sensitive parcels outside the reserve.
K.P.’s Hardass School of Economics says, “Go back and refigure the cost of the externalities”: A five-year study to find more environmentally friendly ways to treat hog waste in North Carolina, the nation’s second-largest swine producing state, turned up several options, but none that farmers appear ready to pay for. “The jury’s still out on how much these technologies will actually cost once they are on the farms,” said Dan Whittle, a senior attorney for the nonprofit Environmental Defense. “We know the alternatives are out there, but the costs appear out of reach.”
The growing body of research linking climate to the spread of human and animal infectious diseases includes some ominous predictions regarding newly-emergent diseases. A new examination of the issue can be found here.
It sounds so cruel and unkind, using a robot to take care of grandma…
Is there anyone with knowledge of Japanese culture who could comment on whether they think typical Japanese folks would rather trust granny to a robot or an immigrant nursing student? Would it be less “shameful” if a robot rather than a human helped you (as an elderly person) with a “Depends moment?”
How do Americans feel about this, for themselves and/or their loved ones?
My grandmother had Alzheimer’s, and when she went through that “aggressive phase” that such patients go through, she’s probably have thrown water on the robot to short-circuit it, or thrown it down a flight of steps! (She was one tough lady, LOL)
…In other words, not only am I not comfortable with the idea, I suspect she wouldn’t have been either. Especially if it’s a job people can do – save the robots for cleaning up Three Mile Island and the like… I also suspect the technology is nowhere near “ready for prime time,” as I don’t think my scenario is too far fetched (visiting bored grandson might also pour water on the robot for grins, dog might pee on it…)
For the FEMA WTF scrap book Katrina battered Louisana parish considers private hired guns. No money to rehire furlonged officers but plenty for this outfit
Privatize it. As with 9/11 there’s a 2nd excuse- “Katrina broke all the rules”
That is so disgusting. Our tax dollars at waste, I mean work, helping to kick people who are down already.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/15/14355/0177
they’ve attached it to the filibuster-proof budget bill. kerry & cantwell are proposing their amendment to remove anwr from the bill at 5 pm est.
so, give them a shout of support and tell your senators to vote for their amendment!
HEY!
Second senator sponsors censure resolution
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has become the first co-sponsor to Sen. Russ Feingold’s (D-Wis.) controversial resolution to censure President Bush for authorizing an allegedly illegal domestic surveillance program, ROLL CALL reports.
…more
This is just to rich. (via cbs5): US Govt Bird Flu Advice: Stockpile Tuna, Milk
Last time it was duct tape and plastic. Better go to it before inventories are depleted. But under your bed? What’s with that?
I think it was Cafferty or Dobbs that read letters commenting of that and they were prime. Peoples are wisening up.
Someone has to sign up with the screenname: Tunafish Fatwa.
Go for it SN. Aren’t we allowed more than one account?
What’s surprising about this advice, shows this guy Leavitt, head of Health and Human Services is clearly out of his depths. Tuna and milk have allergens that most need to avoid.!!!
Tuna for sulfites, affecting asthmatics and there are those who are allergic to milk or are lactose intolerant.
You can’t sustitute tuna for chicken with out breaking the only-once-a-week rule.
Huffpo provides this link to AP story. “
Supreme Court Justice Reveals Death Threats
Brown blouse Coulter.
What a jokester that Ann Coulter is. Where did they think this kind of hateful rhetoric was going to lead?