binaryoppositionpublic's feed | Diigo Group

Court rules lesbians are not just from Lesbos | Oddly Enough | Reuters

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:32:56 -0000

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A Greek court has dismissed a request by residents of the Aegean island of Lesbos to ban the use of the word lesbian to describe gay women, according to a court ruling made public on Tuesday.

Tags: followup

Posted by: sirgabrial

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Collider halted until next year

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:32:55 -0000

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Collider halted until next year

The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva will be shut off until spring 2009 while engineers probe a magnet failure.

Tags: followup

Posted by: sirgabrial

Wal*Mart shutting down DRM server, nuking your music collection -- only people who pay for music risk losing it to DRM shenanigans - Boing Boing

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:32:24 -0000

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Wal*Mart shutting down DRM server

October 9

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | US to sell $6bn in arms to Taiwan

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:32:24 -0000

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US to sell $6bn in arms to Taiwan

The US government has notified Congress of plans to supply Taiwan with arms worth more than $6bn (£3.4bn).

The sales include advanced interceptor missiles, Apache helicopters and submarine-launched missiles.

Correspondents say the decision is likely to anger China, which regards Taiwan as its territory and opposes US military support of the island.

"help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance and economic progress in the region".

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

Aussie boy breaks into zoo, feeds animals to croc

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:32:23 -0000

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Aussie boy breaks into zoo, feeds animals to croc

A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular Outback zoo, fed a string of animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo's director said Friday.

caught on the zoo's security camera

30-minute rampage

The child then went on a killing spree, bashing three lizards to death with a rock, including the zoo's beloved, 20-year-old goanna, which he then fed to "Terry," an 11-foot, 440-pound saltwater crocodile

"It was like he was playing a game."

none were considered rare, some are difficult to replace

We're horrified

unable to press charges against

Children under age 10 can't be charged with criminal offenses in the Northern Territory

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

How High Fructose Corn Syrup Makes you Gain Weight

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:16:10 -0000

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How High Fructose Corn Syrup Makes you Gain Weight

New research from UT Southwestern Medical Center shows the amazing speed that our bodies make body fat from fructose. One of the reasons why low carb diets help you lose weight is that they reduce your intake of fructose.

called high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)

typically 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose.

preferred sweetener for many food manufacturers.

cheaper, sweeter and easier to blend into beverages than table sugar.

the liver took the molecules apart

carbohydrates came into the body as sugars,

put them back together to build fats

All this happened within four hours after the fructose drink. As a result, when the next meal was eaten, the lunch fat was more likely to be stored than burned.

Americans are eating too many calories for their activity level.

Main point of the study: Since its easy to store these types of sugars the body does that instead of burning them. posted by sirgabrial

After fructose consumption, the liver increased the storage of lunch fats that might have been used for other purposes.

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

DRM still sucks: Yahoo Music going dark, taking keys with it

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:16:10 -0000

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DRM still sucks: Yahoo Music going dark, taking keys with it

Yahoo e-mailed its Yahoo! Music Store customers yesterday, telling them it will be closing for good—and the company will take its DRM license key servers offline on September 30, 2008.

with MSN Music, although Microsoft has since relented and will keep the DRM authorization servers up and running through 2011.

Once the Yahoo store goes down and the key servers go offline, existing tracks cannot be authorized to play on new computers.

Yahoo recommends the old, lame, and lossy workaround of burning the files to CD, then reripping them onto the computer.

DRM makes things harder for legal users

it creates hassles that illegal users won't deal with

it (often) prevents cross-platform compatibility

1) to control piracy

all four major labels and most indies now sell DRM-free online.

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

Is Aging an Accident of Evolution? Stanford Scientists Say "Yes"

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:16:10 -0000

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"Everyone has assumed we age by rust. But how do you explain animals that don't age? Some tortoises lay eggs at the age of 100, there are whales that live to be 200 and clams that make it past 400 years."

aging is a buildup of tissue damage similar to rust.

specific genetic instructions drive the process

The Stanford findings suggest

science might one day find ways of switching the signals off and halting or even reversing aging.

inborn genetic programs make organisms grow old.

competing theory holds that aging is an inevitable consequence of accumulated wear and tear: toxins, free-radical molecules, DNA-damaging radiation, disease and stress ravage the body to the point it can’t rebound

“The take-home message is that aging can be slowed and managed by manipulating signaling circuits within cells,”

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

How "Gene Doping" Could Create Enhanced Olympians

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:16:09 -0000

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How "Gene Doping" Could Create Enhanced Olympians

lthough athletes at the Beijing Olympics have been subjected to some of the most aggressive testing ever for performance-enhancing drugs, no case of so-called gene doping has yet been detected.

But experts say Oympic athletes may soon be able to genetically enhance their muscles to be faster, stronger, and better able to recover after workouts—if they aren't already.

Injected into an athlete, a harmless virus could carry a performance-enhancing gene and splice it into a muscle cell, said Theodore Friedmann, a gene therapy researcher at the University of California, San Diego (quick genetics overview).

A synthetic virus called Repoxygen, for example, has been used this way in animal tests to insert a gene for erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone that tells the body to make more red blood cells, which carry oxygen to muscles.

Gene-doping may also work by modifying genes that are already in an athlete's cells but whose functioning he or she might want to control.

"Training and athletic workouts probably do their work at least partly by modifying the expression of genes," Friedmann said.

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

Op-Ed Contributor - Wine in a Box Protects the Environment and Saves You Money - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:15:30 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Drink Outside the Box

ITALY’S Agriculture Ministry announced this month that some wines that receive the government’s quality assurance label may now be sold in boxes.

Wine in a box makes sense environmentally and economically.

more than 30 years

Australians were among the first to popularize it

in America, by contrast, boxed wine has had trouble escaping a down-market image.

lighter packaging instead of heavier glass

it cool how somthing this simple, if adopted by everyone, can have a large impact. posted by sirgabrial

a large part of carbon-dioxide emissions associated with wine comes from simply trucking it from the vineyard to tables on the East Coast.

A standard wine bottle holds 750 milliliters of wine and generates about 5.2 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions when it travels from a vineyard in California to a store in New York.

400,000 cars

America will soon become the largest wine market in the world.

boxes are perfect for table wines that don’t need to age, which is to say, all but a relative handful of the top wines from around the world.

Once open, a box preserves wine for about four weeks compared with only a day or two for a bottle.

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

BBC NEWS | Technology | Is computer use changing children?

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:15:30 -0000

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Is computer use changing children?

As the age at which children start to get familiar with computers and the net gets ever lower, questions are starting to be asked about what that exposure is doing to our children's brains and their ability to concentrate.

Baroness Greenfield

The director of the Royal Institution says the "sensory-laden environment" of computers could result in people "staying in the world of the small child".

The last 10 years have seen a three-fold increase in the prescription of the drug Ritalin

Attention Deficit Disorder

This might, and I stress might, be something to do with the increased exposure of young children to unsupervised and lengthy hours in front of a screen."

if a small child is sitting in front of a screen pressing buttons and getting reactions quickly for many hours, they get used to and their brains get used to rapid responses

She contrasts the life of modern-day children with the generation which grew up without computers, who had to work to find answers by going to a library to look things up.

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

Potatoes May Hold Key To Alzheimer's Treatment

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:15:30 -0000

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A virus that commonly infects potatoes bears a striking resemblance to one of the key proteins implicated in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and researchers have used that to develop antibodies that may slow or prevent the onset of AD.

Studies in mice have demonstrated that vaccinations with the amyloid beta protein (believed to be a major AD contributor) to produce A antibodies can slow disease progression and improve cognitive function, possibly by promoting the destruction of amyloid plaques.

And although the levels were lower, mice also developed A antibodies if given injections of PVY-infected potato leaf as opposed to purified PVY.

Friedland and colleagues note that potato virus is a fairly common infection that poses no risk to humans (many people have probably eaten PVY infected potatoes). While tests of PVY antibodies will ultimately determine how useful they can be, they may be a promising lead to treating this debilitating disease.

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

8 Food Myths Busted! - Page 2 - MSN Health & Fitness - Nutrition

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:15:29 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Margarine is better than butter.

Butter contains saturated fat that

margarine—specifically stick margarine—is that it contains trans fats

Bananas are fattening.

Cravings are your body's way of telling you it needs something.

Cooking veggies destroys their vitamin content.

Do not overboil veggies!

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's To Use Human Milk - News Story - WPTZ Plattsburgh

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:15:29 -0000

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PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's To Use Human Milk

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.

"PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement says.

PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health.

"The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Everyone knows that 'the breast is best,' so Ben & Jerry's could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk."

"We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child," said a spokesperson for Ben and Jerry's.

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

8 Food Myths Busted! - Page 1 - MSN Health & Fitness - Nutrition

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:15:29 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Certain foods can burn fat.

According to the "negative calorie effect," the act of chewing and digesting certain foods burns up more calories than the food itself contains.

It's better to eat six mini meals than three squares.

As long as your food choices for the entire day are healthy and not too high in calories, either eating style can work.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are more nutritious than frozen ones.

You may actually get more nutrients from some frozen fruits and vegetables. The same holds true for some canned vegetables.

spend days being sorted, packaged, and then shipped,

Decaf coffee has no caffeine.

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | North Korea nuclear seals removed

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:15:28 -0000

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North Korea nuclear seals removed

The UN's atomic watchdog says it has removed seals and surveillance cameras from part of North Korea's main nuclear complex at Pyongyang's request.

The move comes amid a dispute over an international disarmament-for-aid deal.

IAEA inspectors will have no further access to the reprocessing plant

Pyongyang began dismantling the reactor, which can be used to make weapons-grade plutonium, last November.

the US said it would not remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism until procedures by which the North's disarmament would be verified were established.

Tags: binaryopposition

Posted by: sirgabrial

Chertoff: Aviation still vulnerable to terror - Security- msnbc.com

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:23:31 -0000

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The nation's top domestic security official says aviation still remains vulnerable to terrorist attack, seven years after 9/11.

Tags: no_tag

Posted by: barnaby

Woman who fled prison in '76 gets probation - Crime & courts- msnbc.com

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:23:31 -0000

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A California woman who escaped from a Michigan prison 32 years ago and lived on the lam as a suburban mother was sentenced to probation Wednesday

Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner said LeFevre had already served 14 months in prison on a drug conviction when she escaped.

"The court finds no reason to give you extra time," said Groner, who ordered two years of probation.

Tags: no_tag

Posted by: barnaby

The Anniston Star » Latest from AP

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:53:19 -0000

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Dog meat off the menu during Beijing Olympics

Canine cuisine is being sent to the doghouse during next month's Beijing Olympic Games.

Dog meat has been struck from the menus of officially designated Olympic restaurants, and Beijing tourism officials are telling other outlets to discourage consumers from ordering dishes made from dogs, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Waiters and waitresses should "patiently" suggest other options to diners who order dog, it said, quoting city tourism bureau Vice Director Xiong Yumei.

Dog, known in Chinese as "xiangrou," or "fragrant meat," is eaten by some Chinese for its purported health-giving qualities.

South Korea banned dog meat during the 1988 Seoul Olympics by invoking a law prohibiting the sale of "foods deemed unsightly." After the Olympics, the ban was not strictly enforced.

Dog meat is also eaten in some other Asian countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Laos.

Tags: no_tag

Posted by: sirgabrial

Seven, stupid, simple ways to be green and save green » Lyved

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:53:18 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Don’t turn your faucet on until you’re ready

we turn on the faucet before the brush or cup is under the water.

Take it easy when driving

Also if you’re driving downhill, let your vehicle coast and when you’re coming to a stop don’t slam on your brakes, slowly reduce your speed.

Have a dehumidifier? Use the water

water your flowers

Reuse trash bags

Attach funnels to your watering cans

when a rainstorm comes the funnels will catch the raindrops and fill the can.

Take the time to start tissue and paper towel rolls

Water plant roots, not leaves and flowers

water the base of the plant to reduce evaporation.

Tags: no_tag

Posted by: sirgabrial