47, an environmental scientist, Italian-American, married, 2 sons, originally a Catholic from Philly, now a Taoist ecophilosopher in the South due to job transfer. Enjoy jazz, hockey, good food and hikes in the woods.
Here’s a heapin’ helpin’ to prime the pump, since I wasn’t able to post much yesterday:
If the story yesterday about black holes “dripping” in unseen dimensions was not enough to make your head explode, try this: Light so fast it actually goes backwards. In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed, but now researchers have gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light. To see why this doesn’t violate the theory of relativity, go to the link. Again, I can’t explain it in a couple of sentences (I’m not sure I could with a whole page of text, LOL).
Another Bushista lie bites the dust in the light of real-world data: A New England Journal of Medicine report says the claim that “frivolous” medical malpractice lawsuits–those lacking evidence of substandard care, treatment-related injury, or both–enrich plaintiffs’ attorneys and drive up health care costs is not backed up by the data. A new study by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital challenges the view that frivolous litigation is rampant and expensive. Although nearly one third of claims lacked clear-cut evidence of medical error, most of these suits did not receive compensation. In fact, the number of meritorious claims that did not get paid was actually larger than the group of meritless claims that were paid. [Full disclosure: Mrs. K.P.’s family had one of those “meritorious claims that did not get paid” involving the cancer death of her father and a Clay County, MO “jury of her peers”. But don’t get me started. Grrrrrrr!]
Researchers from the Floral Genome Project at Penn State University, with an international team of collaborators, have proposed an answer to Charles Darwin’s “abominable mystery:” the inexplicably rapid evolution of flowering plants immediately after their first appearance some 140 million years ago. It was caused by an ancient whole-genome duplication mutation that preceded the appearance of the ancestral flowering plant. While the vast majority of duplicate genes quickly accumulate mutations and are deleted from the genome, a few mutations will be selected for evolutionarily advantageous function. Rather than gradually collecting genetic novelty by single-gene duplications, simultaneously having a full genome’s worth of raw material to elaborate new genetic function drives sudden evolution. Such bursts have previously been demonstrated to have more recently occurred for specific types of plants, including the grasses, and the eudicots (a group that includes beans, tomatoes, sunflowers, roses, and apples). Such events in the genetic past for soy, potato, tobacco, and maize were thought to be strictly due to human specific breeding, but now are seen as able to occur naturally as well.
And while we’re talking evolution… It don’t mean a thing if you don’t bring her bling Despite research efforts to find modern factors that would explain the different life expectancies of men and women, the gap is actually ancient and universal, according to University of Michigan researchers. Across a range of vertebrate species, from peacocks to humans and chimps, males compete aggressively for female attention, and that costs them something, both in terms of life-shortening behaviors and a physiology skewed to support the competition, at the expense of things like immune function.
By sifting through ships’ logs recorded by Captain Cook and other mariners dating back to 1590, researchers have greatly extended the period over which the behavior of the magnetic field can be studied. The data show that the current decline in Earth’s magnetism was virtually negligible before 1860, but has accelerated since then. Until now, scientists had only been able to trace the magnetic field’s behavior back to 1837, when Carl Friedrich Gauss invented the first device for measuring the field directly. The Earth’s magnetic field’s strength is now declining at a rate that suggests it could virtually disappear in about 2000 years. Researchers have speculated that this ongoing change may be the prelude to a magnetic reversal, during which the north and south magnetic pole swap places. But the weakening trend could also be explained by a growing magnetic anomaly in the southern Atlantic Ocean, and may not be the sign of a large scale polarity reversal, research suggests. If the field does flip 2000 years from now, the Northern Lights will be visible all over the planet during the transition, and solar radiation at ground level will be much more intense, with no field to deflect it. There is no need to worry, though, as our ancestors have lived through quite a few of these transitions already.
Cool space photo: The folks over at Astronomy Picture of the Day have come through again, with a shot of the ring nebula in Lyra (a shell of gas from a dying star), as seen through the hazy tail of one of the fragments of the passing crumbling comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (Lots of additional details, including observing maps, at second link).
At least 45 people were feared dead in a sea battle between the Sri Lankan navy and Tamil Tiger rebels yesterday. Within hours, the Sri Lankan air force attacked positions close to the Tiger capital in Kilinochchi. The violence comes amid fears that Sri Lanka is sliding back towards civil war.
Fifteen Sri Lankan sailors were reported missing after Tamil Tiger boats attacked a naval convoy off the northern coast and sank a patrol boat, according to the navy, which said it had sunk five Tiger vessels with 30 rebels on board.
The European monitoring mission in Sri Lanka described the violence as a “gross violation” of the 2002 ceasefire. “This is very serious,” the head of the mission, Helen Olafsdottir, said. “It is getting worse.”
I wonder if this is the result of so many large corporations owning publishing houses and stressing big profits which causes publishers to spend big advances on potential blockbusters and reduce the dollars for midlist authors.
Readers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean made bestsellers last year of “The Da Vinci Code” and the latest Harry Potter adventure, but British publishers for only the second time in 20 years churned out more new book choices than their American counterparts.
U.S. output dropped for the first time since 1999 while the number of British titles surged 28 percent, according to new data from research firm Bowker.
Britain, with one-fifth the population of the United States, has long been the world’s largest publisher of new books per capita in any language, but a steep decline in U.S. publication of general adult fiction and children’s books helped boost the UK’s total volume to the top English-language spot.
Controversy simmered in Poulsbo, Washington, a US town founded by Norwegian immigrants in the late 1800s, after this year’s Miss Viking turned out to be untraditional.
Jasmine Campbell, 17, won the honor on the strength of a combination of talent and a successful audition, but her blend of African and Latin American blood caused some temperatures to rise.
The pageant organizers decided to go public after receiving a series of offensive, racist e-mails in reaction to Campbell’s appointment, including sentiments like ‘How dare you put an African American in there?’. The incident attracted attention after it was publicized by the Seattle Times.
Campbell, who is adopted and grew up with a Swedish-Norwegian mother, has top grades, sings in a choir and choreographs dance for her church. She wowed the jury with her audition performance on lutefisk, which included this joke, delivered in a well-rehearsed Norwegian accent:
“What do you do if you have rats in your house? You throw lutefisk under your porch. In a couple of weeks, you’ll be rid of the rats, but you’ll have 10 to 12 Norwegians living under your house.”
Nice article in the current Sports Illustrated on Hines Ward of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who recently made a trip to Korea with his mother; Ward’s mother is Korean, his father is African-American. The article highlights the problems of growing up biracial; it’s tough here in America, but even worse in Korea, where racial purity is valued…
So, you want you very own Special Republican Edition Apple iPod? Here’s how:
Create Your Party: First – set up your May 22 GOP House Party today.* When you create your party, you’ll also be able to set up your MyGOP site with grassroots goals tied to the party – whether it’s grassroots fundraising for a Republican victory in November, recruiting volunteers, or registering new voters.
Fundraise for MyGOP: As a special thank you, the hosts of the five MyGOP house parties that raise the most money for the Republican Party through MyGOP from 10 or more friends will receive a Special Republican Edition iPod (video-capable).
There really is no step three: The top five money-raising MyGOP house parties receive Special Republican Edition iPods.
* A GOP House Party is a grassroots tool that brings together people who support the President and the Republican ticket.
An Elgin pastor for two months regularly spanked a 13-year-old girl with a wooden stick to punish her for claiming she had been sexually abused by a relative, police said Thursday, a day after arresting the clergyman on a charge of battery.
The Rev. Daryl P. Bujak allegedly spanked the girl during weekly counseling sessions at his First Missionary Baptist Church last year because he thought she was lying about being abused.
The girl’s parents first took her to the 30-year-old Bujak in March 2005 because they doubted her claims she had been molested by a family member, Elgin Police Lt. Michael Turner said. The girl, who was clothed during the spankings, suffered bruises and welts on her legs and buttocks, Turner said.
Charges of predatory criminal sexual assault were filed this week in McHenry County against Matthew Resh, 33, a relative of the girl.
Bujak, who surrendered late Wednesday to police and was released after posting $500 cash bail, couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday on the battery charge.
BushCo’s™ militarization of Intelligence Gathering and the systematic destruction of the CIA…
In Goss, Bush found the perfect hatchet man to take vengeance on a despised agency. Now Goss is gone, scandal looms — and the CIA is ruined.
The CIA is no longer what it used to be.
The moment that the destruction of the Central Intelligence Agency began can be pinpointed to a time, a place and even a memo. On Aug. 6, 2001, CIA director George Tenet presented to President Bush his presidential daily briefing, a startling document titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” Bush did nothing, asked for no further briefings on the issue, and returned to cutting brush at his Crawford, Texas, compound.
In Bush’s denial of responsibility after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the search for scapegoats inevitably focused on the lapse in intelligence and therefore on the CIA, though it was the FBI whose egregious incompetence permitted the plotters to escape apprehension. Bush’s intent to invade Iraq set up the battle royal that followed.
.
.
.
No president has ever before ruined an agency at the heart of national security out of pique and vengeance. The manipulation of intelligence by political leadership demands ever tightened control. But political purges provide only temporary relief from the widening crisis of policy failure.
Somewhat related,Thinkprogress is reporting the NSA whistleblower Tice will have more shocking revelations next week when he testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Said that what has been disclosed to date is only tip of iceberg. ‘Tice will tell Congress that former NSA head Gen. Michael Hayden, Bush’s nominee to be the next CIA director, oversaw more illegal activity that has yet to be disclosed.’ Go read
ILADO, Nigeria (AP) May 12 — Gasoline gushing from a ruptured pipeline exploded Friday as villagers scavenged for fuel, setting off an inferno that killed up to 200 and left charred bodies scattered around the site in this oil-rich country of mostly poor people.
Grim-faced rescue workers swung corpses into a mass grave as dozens of other scorched bodies awaited collection. It appeared some victims tried to flee the unfolding disaster only to be overtaken by flames spreading across the fuel slick.
The stark outlines of white skeletons lay against a beach charred black by fire. Other bodies floated alongside dozens of plastic jerrycans in the nearby waters of the coastal mangrove swamp. The jerrycans, which had contained pilfered gas, were twisted by the heat of the explosion.
More than 1,000 people in Nigeria, Africa’s oil giant, have died in recent years when fuel they were pilfering from pipelines caught fire and officials said it would likely happen again.
Here’s a heapin’ helpin’ to prime the pump, since I wasn’t able to post much yesterday:
If the story yesterday about black holes “dripping” in unseen dimensions was not enough to make your head explode, try this: Light so fast it actually goes backwards. In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed, but now researchers have gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light. To see why this doesn’t violate the theory of relativity, go to the link. Again, I can’t explain it in a couple of sentences (I’m not sure I could with a whole page of text, LOL).
Another Bushista lie bites the dust in the light of real-world data: A New England Journal of Medicine report says the claim that “frivolous” medical malpractice lawsuits–those lacking evidence of substandard care, treatment-related injury, or both–enrich plaintiffs’ attorneys and drive up health care costs is not backed up by the data. A new study by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital challenges the view that frivolous litigation is rampant and expensive. Although nearly one third of claims lacked clear-cut evidence of medical error, most of these suits did not receive compensation. In fact, the number of meritorious claims that did not get paid was actually larger than the group of meritless claims that were paid. [Full disclosure: Mrs. K.P.’s family had one of those “meritorious claims that did not get paid” involving the cancer death of her father and a Clay County, MO “jury of her peers”. But don’t get me started. Grrrrrrr!]
Ah, humans – we’ve progressed so far over the millennia, yes? No: New research shows that pre-historic horses in Alaska may have been hunted into extinction by man, rather than by climate change as previously thought.
Researchers from the Floral Genome Project at Penn State University, with an international team of collaborators, have proposed an answer to Charles Darwin’s “abominable mystery:” the inexplicably rapid evolution of flowering plants immediately after their first appearance some 140 million years ago. It was caused by an ancient whole-genome duplication mutation that preceded the appearance of the ancestral flowering plant. While the vast majority of duplicate genes quickly accumulate mutations and are deleted from the genome, a few mutations will be selected for evolutionarily advantageous function. Rather than gradually collecting genetic novelty by single-gene duplications, simultaneously having a full genome’s worth of raw material to elaborate new genetic function drives sudden evolution. Such bursts have previously been demonstrated to have more recently occurred for specific types of plants, including the grasses, and the eudicots (a group that includes beans, tomatoes, sunflowers, roses, and apples). Such events in the genetic past for soy, potato, tobacco, and maize were thought to be strictly due to human specific breeding, but now are seen as able to occur naturally as well.
And while we’re talking evolution… It don’t mean a thing if you don’t bring her bling Despite research efforts to find modern factors that would explain the different life expectancies of men and women, the gap is actually ancient and universal, according to University of Michigan researchers. Across a range of vertebrate species, from peacocks to humans and chimps, males compete aggressively for female attention, and that costs them something, both in terms of life-shortening behaviors and a physiology skewed to support the competition, at the expense of things like immune function.
By sifting through ships’ logs recorded by Captain Cook and other mariners dating back to 1590, researchers have greatly extended the period over which the behavior of the magnetic field can be studied. The data show that the current decline in Earth’s magnetism was virtually negligible before 1860, but has accelerated since then. Until now, scientists had only been able to trace the magnetic field’s behavior back to 1837, when Carl Friedrich Gauss invented the first device for measuring the field directly. The Earth’s magnetic field’s strength is now declining at a rate that suggests it could virtually disappear in about 2000 years. Researchers have speculated that this ongoing change may be the prelude to a magnetic reversal, during which the north and south magnetic pole swap places. But the weakening trend could also be explained by a growing magnetic anomaly in the southern Atlantic Ocean, and may not be the sign of a large scale polarity reversal, research suggests. If the field does flip 2000 years from now, the Northern Lights will be visible all over the planet during the transition, and solar radiation at ground level will be much more intense, with no field to deflect it. There is no need to worry, though, as our ancestors have lived through quite a few of these transitions already.
Grisly figures from the first systematic survey of early Neolithic British skulls reveal that life then was no rural idyll. If you are worried about being attacked or killed by a violent criminal, just be glad you are not living in Neolithic Britain. From 4000 to 3200 BC, Britons had a 1 in 14 chance of being bashed on the head, and a 1 in 50 chance of dying from their injuries. …And this long before soccer hooliganism…
The World Bank’s private sector arm is being deluged with funding requests for ethanol projects around the globe as crude oil prices trade near record highs, an International Finance Corp. official said Thursday. Meanwhile, General Motors plans to stay in the hybrid vehicle business for the favorable image it projects, Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said in an interview this week, adding automakers should focus more on ethanol as an alternative fuel and that GM is focused on increasing the distribution system for fueling vehicles with E85 — a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. [Earth to Wagoner: How about a hybrid that burns E85 for some real planet-saving independence from foreign oil?]
For decades, hearing experts thought that the cochlea’s spiral shape was simply an efficient packing job and its shape had no effect on how this critical hearing organ functions. But a recent study using a new mathematical model indicates that the cochlea’s spiral shape enhances detection of low frequencies
Cool space photo: The folks over at Astronomy Picture of the Day have come through again, with a shot of the ring nebula in Lyra (a shell of gas from a dying star), as seen through the hazy tail of one of the fragments of the passing crumbling comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (Lots of additional details, including observing maps, at second link).
A proposal to build the biggest offshore wind farm in the nation won approval yesterday from Texas state officials, the latest development in the fast-growing segment of the alternative-energy industry.
An infestation of zebra mussels in a Virginia quarry has been eradicated, marking what biologists and environmental experts believe is the first successful extermination of the notoriously invasive species in open waters. The quarry was treated with thousands of gallons of potassium chloride solution over a three-week period beginning in late January. The eradication process [previously described in Science Headlines by your faithful scribe] cost about $365,000. The solution, while toxic to zebra mussels, did not pose a threat to the environment or humans, and water quality at the quarry and in nearby landowners’ wells will be monitored for the next two years.
Sri Lankan sea battle leaves 45 dead
Sad set-back for the peace process.
Full Article
I wonder if this is the result of so many large corporations owning publishing houses and stressing big profits which causes publishers to spend big advances on potential blockbusters and reduce the dollars for midlist authors.
Racist trouble for Miss Viking
Garrison Kellior may be looking for her to write material for Prairie Home companion pretty soon…
Nice article in the current Sports Illustrated on Hines Ward of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who recently made a trip to Korea with his mother; Ward’s mother is Korean, his father is African-American. The article highlights the problems of growing up biracial; it’s tough here in America, but even worse in Korea, where racial purity is valued…
From MacNewsDaily:
GOP offers Special Republican Edition Apple iPod
So, you want you very own Special Republican Edition Apple iPod? Here’s how:
* A GOP House Party is a grassroots tool that brings together people who support the President and the Republican ticket.
More info: http://www.gop.com/party/
But make sure to check out the comments section…there are some classics there (and an indication where most Apple users’ politics stand)…
I’ll assume that they are red in color, and not white.
Someday they’ll be right up there with swastika swizzle sticks as collectors’ items on eBay, LOL.
Link
BushCo’s™ militarization of Intelligence Gathering and the systematic destruction of the CIA…
Complete Der Spiegel Online article HERE
Recommended reading.
Welcome to Marville.
Peace
Somewhat related,Thinkprogress is reporting the NSA whistleblower Tice will have more shocking revelations next week when he testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Said that what has been disclosed to date is only tip of iceberg. ‘Tice will tell Congress that former NSA head Gen. Michael Hayden, Bush’s nominee to be the next CIA director, oversaw more illegal activity that has yet to be disclosed.’ Go read
“NSA Whistleblower To Expose More Unlawful Activity: `People…Are Going To Be Shocked'”
Here’s what’s Breaking:
New WSJ/Harris poll has Bush at 29%
CIA/FBI raids ex- CIA No 3, Dusty Foggo’s home and office.
and as that “Wilkes-Cunnigham scandal widens Laura Rozen points out a new investigation opens to include Jerry Lewis R-CA, Chairman of House Appropriations Committee
Getting so it’s easier to list those GOPs not under indictment, suspicion or investigation. We’re running out ‘ ‘-gates
Wow, 29%…what’s the lowest any president has ever hit?
Lowest I could find was
Truman @ 23% in 1941;
Nixon @ 29% in 1973, just prior to resigning;
GHWB @ 29% in 93, 4 mos before losing to Clinton
I think GW has the potential to set a new record.
can you imagine what a Rove indict will do to that number?
When in free fall?
.
ILADO, Nigeria (AP) May 12 — Gasoline gushing from a ruptured pipeline exploded Friday as villagers scavenged for fuel, setting off an inferno that killed up to 200 and left charred bodies scattered around the site in this oil-rich country of mostly poor people.
Grim-faced rescue workers swung corpses into a mass grave as dozens of other scorched bodies awaited collection. It appeared some victims tried to flee the unfolding disaster only to be overtaken by flames spreading across the fuel slick.
The stark outlines of white skeletons lay against a beach charred black by fire. Other bodies floated alongside dozens of plastic jerrycans in the nearby waters of the coastal mangrove swamp. The jerrycans, which had contained pilfered gas, were twisted by the heat of the explosion.
More than 1,000 people in Nigeria, Africa’s oil giant, have died in recent years when fuel they were pilfering from pipelines caught fire and officials said it would likely happen again.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Late afternoon: AP reporting
On those NSA Phone records, Verizon has been sued for $5 billion.
You a betting person?.