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Japan Scientists Develop Fearless Mice - 0 views

news.wired.com/...JAPAN_FEARLESS_MOUSE
shared by sirgabrial on 17 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Japan Scientists Develop Fearless Mice
  • Japanese scientists say they've used genetic engineering to create mice that show no fear of felines, a development that may shed new light on mammal behavior and the nature of fear itself.
  • Scientists at Tokyo University say they were able to successfully switch off a mouse's instinct to cower at the smell or presence of cats - showing that fear is genetically hardwired and not learned through experience, as commonly believed.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • "Mice are naturally terrified of cats, and usually panic or flee at the smell of one. But mice with certain nasal cells removed through genetic engineering didn't display any fear," said research team leader Ko Kobayakawa.
  • In his experiment, the genetically altered mice approached cats, even snuggled up to them and played with them.
  • help researchers shed further light on how the brain processes information about the outside world.
  • how to control it.
  • "If we follow the pathway of related signals in the brain, I think we could discover what kind of networks in the brain are important for controlling fear."
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Romney: There should be no religious test for presidency - USATODAY.com - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...2007-12-06-romney-speech_N.htm
shared by sirgabrial on 17 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Romney: There should be no religious test for presidency
    • sirgabrial
      sirgabrial on 17 Dec 07
       
      -is he doing this cause people generally have a negative view of mormonism? you preach religious tolerence for your self.
  • Republican Mitt Romney's much-anticipated speech Thursday on the role of faith in the USA echoed the message made by another Massachusetts politician seeking the White House nearly 50 years ago: Religious tolerance, not church membership, is what should matter to voters.
  • Romney also defended his Mormon faith, which some Christians view as heretical.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • The former Massachusetts governor vowed to serve "no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest"
  • "I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind," Romney said. "My church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. … These are not bases for criticism, but rather a test of our tolerance."
  • In Iowa, which holds the opening presidential contest on Jan. 3, religious conservatives make up about 40% of the GOP electorate.
  • Thursday's speech by Romney recalled John F. Kennedy's 1960 address to Baptist ministers in Houston that confronted concerns about his Roman Catholic faith.
  • Critics "would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion … or disavow one or another of its precepts," Romney said
  • "I believe in my Mormon faith, and I endeavor to live by it."
  • The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found in an August poll that one in four people would be less likely to vote for a Mormon presidential candidate.
    • sirgabrial
      sirgabrial on 17 Dec 07
       
      -does religion play a role in who you would vote for?
  • Romney said faith by itself should not be the reason to elect or reject someone for public office.
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A High Price for Healthy Food - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog - 0 views

well.blogs.nytimes.com/...a-high-price-for-healthy-food
shared by sirgabrial on 17 Dec 07 - Cached
  • A High Price for Healthy Food
  • Healthy eating really does cost more.
  • University of Washington researchers
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • compared the prices of 370 foods sold at supermarkets in the Seattle area.
  • Calorie for calorie, junk foods not only cost less than fruits and vegetables, but junk food prices also are less likely to rise as a result of inflation.
  • The findings, reported in the current issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, may help explain why the highest rates of obesity are seen among people in lower-income groups.
  • Although fruits and vegetables are rich in nutrients, they also contain relatively few calories.
  • Foods with high energy density, meaning they pack the most calories per gram, included candy, pastries, baked goods and snacks.
  • Energy-dense munchies cost on average $1.76 per 1,000 calories, compared with $18.16 per 1,000 calories for low-energy but nutritious foods.
  • low-calorie foods were more likely to increase in price, surging 19.5 percent over the two-year study period.
  • High-calorie foods remained a relative bargain, dropping in price by 1.8 percent.
  • a 2,000-calorie diet would cost just $3.52 a day if it consisted of junk food, compared with $36.32 a day for a diet of low-energy dense foods.
  • The average American spends about $7 a day on food, although low-income people spend about $4
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Banning samurai swords | Oddly Enough | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSN1319327520071214 stupid
shared by sirgabrial on 17 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Banning samurai swords
  • The government said Wednesday it would ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons had been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks.
  • The Home Office said the swords would be added to the Offensive Weapons Order from April next year, meaning they could not be imported, sold or hired.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • However collectors of genuine Japanese swords and those used by martial arts enthusiasts would be exempt from the ban.
  • "In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons,"
  • Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said.
  • "We recognize it is the cheap, easily available samurai swords which are being used in crime and not the genuine more expensive samurai swords which are of interest to collectors and martial arts enthusiasts."
19More

Taking Marriage Private - New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...26coontz.html
shared by sirgabrial on 03 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Taking Marriage Private
  • WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry?
  • For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.
  • In 1215, the church decreed that a “licit” marriage must take place in church.
  • But people who married illictly had the same rights and obligations as a couple married in church: their children were legitimate; the wife had the same inheritance rights; the couple was subject to the same prohibitions against divorce.
  • Not until the 16th century did European states begin to require that marriages be performed under legal auspices. In part, this was an attempt to prevent unions between young adults whose parents opposed their match.
  • until the mid-19th century, state supreme courts routinely ruled that public cohabitation was sufficient evidence of a valid marriage.
  • the United States began to nullify common-law marriages and exert more control over who was allowed to marry.
  • By the 1920s, 38 states prohibited whites from marrying blacks, “mulattos,” Japanese, Chinese, Indians, “Mongolians,” “Malays” or Filipinos.
  • Twelve states would not issue a marriage license if one partner was a drunk, an addict or a “mental defect.” Eighteen states set barriers to remarriage after divorce.
  • governments began relying on marriage licenses for a new purpose: as a way of distributing resources to dependents.
  • The Social Security Act provided survivors’ benefits with proof of marriage.
  • health insurance
  • Courts and hospitals
  • granting couples the privilege
  • Half of all Americans aged 25 to 29 are unmarried, and many of them already have incurred obligations as partners, parents or both.
  • 40 percent of America’s children are born to unmarried parents.
  • A woman married to a man for just nine months gets Social Security survivor’s benefits when he dies. But a woman living for 19 years with a man to whom she isn’t married is left without government support, even if her presence helped him hold down a full-time job and pay Social Security taxes.
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Cuba Embargo Reasons to End - Portfolio.com - 0 views

www.portfolio.com/...Cuba-Embargo-Reasons-to-End
shared by sirgabrial on 03 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Dump the Cuban Embargo
  • We trade with the tyrants of Beijing and Damascus, so why not Havana?
  • in 2006, when the bearded one became ill and transferred power to Raúl, nothing happened, despite expectations that Communism would fall without Fidel's charisma.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • They have seen a rise in literacy and health-care standards
  • The American embargo of Cuba is one of those things that most of the political elite in Washington privately acknowledge as a failure.
  • We'll talk about easing the embargo if the regime agrees to dismantle itself.
  • Under current law—the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which strengthened the embargo—the next American president is actually forbidden from ending the embargo until Fidel and Raúl are out of power.
  • initiated in 1960 as Fidel Castro's regime began confiscating U.S. assets. During the past 47 years, the embargo has evolved into a slew of restrictions on travel and trade (see slideshow), all designed to bring down Castro.
  • it is hindering opportunities for American industries from travel to banking to agriculture, which is why there's no shortage of U.S. business groups lobbying to ease it.
  • While we grouse, the world sells. Italian telecoms, French hotels, and Korean automakers are more than happy to trade with an island 90 miles off our shores. Of course, Cuba is not a huge market: The island is the size of Pennsylvania, but its population is only 11 million and its G.D.P. a mere $46 billion.
  • By comparison, Vietnam, the last Communist country with which we ended a dubious embargo, is 85 million strong, with a G.D.P. of $262 billion.
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7 foods you may think are healthy, but aren't - Chew On This- msnbc.com - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/22027686
shared by sirgabrial on 03 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Are you going to eat that?
  • 7 foods you may think are healthy, but aren't
  • GRANOLA BARS
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Many granola bars are dipped in sugary syrups or loaded with chocolate chips, highly processed or artificial ingredients and aren’t much better than high-calorie candy bars.
  • TEA DRINKS
  • Many bottled varieties contain little brewed tea, but plenty of added sugars — enough to rival soda.
  • A recent Consumer Reports review found that all bottled tea beverages had fewer antioxidants than brewed teas.
  • PRETZELS
  • Pretzels are mostly nutritionally empty.
  • One serving provides nearly a quarter of the sodium a person needs each day.
  • MUFFINS
  • Years ago, one muffin was 150 to 170 calories, 5 grams of fat and about the size of a racquetball. Today, a muffin averages 500 calories, 20-plus grams of fat, and are closer to the size of a small planet.
  • RICE CAKES
  • You won’t find much on the nutrition facts label beyond calories and sodium. Even those that boast whole grains typically remove the germ, one of the more nutritious parts of a whole grain kernel.
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7 foods you may think are healthy, but aren't - Chew On This- msnbc.com - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/...2
shared by sirgabrial on 03 Dec 07 - Cached
  • FRUIT-FLAVORED SNACKS (gummies)
  • The first ingredient listed is a fruit, but it’s often a concentrate made from boiled-down juices fairly rich in sugar and lacking the phytonutrients and vitamins found in whole fruits.
  • Added sugars overwhelm any of the fruit benefits.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • FROZEN YOGURTS
  • Some contain live, active cultures, others do not. Unless labeled fat-free, many frozen yogurts contain nearly the same amount of fat as a reduced-fat ice cream, as well as the same number of calories.
14More

Nanosolar's Breakthrough - Solar Now Cheaper than Coal » Celsias - 0 views

www.celsias.com/...gy-solar-now-cheaper-than-coal
shared by sirgabrial on 26 Nov 07 - Cached
  • reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt.
  • solar power cheaper than burning coal.
  • Although the underlying technology has been around for years, Nanosolar has created the actual technology to manufacture and mass produce the solar sheets.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • The Nanosolar plant in San Jose, once in full production in 2008, will be capable of producing 430 megawatts per year.
  • more than the combined total of every other solar manufacturer in the U.S.
  • Nanosolar, Inc. prides themselves on being the “Third Wave”
  • The “First Wave” began over three decades ago with the introduction of silicon wafer based solar cells.
  • This technology bore high material and production costs with poor capital efficiency.
  • The “Second Wave” came about a decade ago with the first “thin-film” solar cells.
  • This established that a cell 100 times thinner than the solar wafers can work just as well. >
  • This established that a cell 100 times thinner than the solar wafers can work just as well.
  • the cells semiconductor was deposited using slow and expensive high-vacuum based processes.
  • the thin films were deposited directly on glass as a substrate
  • metal foil substrate
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Creator of hurricane intensity scale dies at 90 | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSN2332373420071123
shared by sirgabrial on 26 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Creator of hurricane intensity scale dies at 90
  • Herbert Saffir, co-creator of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, has died in Miami. He was 90 years old and a structural engineer by profession.
  • died of a heart attack on Wednesday night at South Miami Hospital.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Their system for rating the destructive potential of hurricanes on the basis of wind speeds and storm surge moved into common usage in the mid-1970s.
  • Category 1 storms being the weakest and Category 5 storms the most dangerous.
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Pirate Bay faces Prince pressure, private investigators in foreign cars - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...stigators-in-foreign-cars.html
shared by sirgabrial on 26 Nov 07 - Cached
  • In addition to facing the wrath of content owners around the world, The Pirate Bay's administrators have recently been facing a much more local threat: camera-toting investigators following them around in cars marked with Danish plates.
  • He has declared himself out to "reclaim the Internet," and The Pirate Bay is at the top of his list (fan sites appear to be on the list as well).
  • Peter Sunde, a Pirate bay admin, tells Ars that the Purple One's legal team has already started leaning on some advertisers to drop support for the site. "We're not even worried, since the Internet is too big for morally upset people to get it their way," Sunde said in an e-mail. "I'm just sad that Prince—whose music I really like—can't understand that he's the new Metallica versus Napster. And we all know who lost that..."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • investigators following Pirate Bay members around in cars with Danish plates.
  • Sunde says that the investigators are taking pictures from inside the car "with a flash, so I'm not sure how smart they are." He notes that something similar happened last year before a police raid on Pirate Bay servers.
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Santa Claus banned from Ho Ho Ho | NEWS.com.au - 0 views

www.news.com.au/...0,23599,22738300-2,00.html
shared by sirgabrial on 20 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Santa Claus banned from Ho Ho Ho
  • SANTAS working in shopping centres across Australia have been banned from bellowing "ho ho ho" because it might frighten children.
  • Westaff national operations manager Glen Jansz said the company's Santas had been urged to tone down their use of the "ho, ho, ho" phrase.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • "The reason behind that is we find that in some cases the little kids can get a little bit scared of the deep 'ho, ho, hos' and we ask them to be mindful of keeping their voices to a lower level," he said.
  • instructed to replace the traditional Christmas greeting with "ha, ha, ha".
  • "We were told to say 'ha ha ha Merry Christmas'," he said.
  • "Let's just concentrate on the kids having a good time."
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Pasta theology: Scholars mull Spaghetti Monster - USATODAY.com - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...7-11-16-spaghettimonster_N.htm
shared by sirgabrial on 20 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Pasta theology: Scholars mull Spaghetti Monster
  • When some of the world's leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They'll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion.
  • Flying Spaghetti Monster
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • American Academy of Religion's annual meeting
  • first emerged in 2005, during the debate in Kansas over whether intelligent design should be taught in public school sciences classes.
  • Supporters of intelligent design hold that the order and complexity of the universe is so great that science alone cannot explain it. The concept's critics see it as faith masquerading as science.
  • Oregon State physics graduate named Bobby Henderson
  • sending a letter to the Kansas School Board
  • every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage."
  • There's no more scientific basis for intelligent design than there is for the idea an omniscient creature made of pasta created the universe.
  • If intelligent design supporters could demand equal time in a science class, why not anyone else?
  • members dress up as pirates
  • The title: "Evolutionary Controversy and a Side of Pasta: The Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Subversive Function of Religious Parody."
  • is an anti-religion like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism actually a religion?
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Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...main.jhtml
shared by sirgabrial on 20 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything
  • An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists.
  • Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • does not require highly complex mathematics.
  • not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts.
  • may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles
  • Large Hadron Collider atom smasher
  • Einstein also began his great adventure in theoretical physics while outside the mainstream scientific establishment, working as a patent officer
  • "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything"
  • completed his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1999 at the University of California, San Diego.
  • old Standard Model, which weaves together three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force; the strong force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; and the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.
  • Lisi's model also takes account of gravity
  • string theory, one that proposes particles are made up of minute strings, which is highly complex and elegant but has lacked predictions by which to do experiments to see if it works.
  • called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings
  • he could find a way to place the various elementary particles and forces on E8's 248 points.
  • So far, all the interactions predicted by the complex geometrical relationships inside E8 match with observations in the real world.
    • sirgabrial
      sirgabrial on 20 Nov 07
       
      -ill add a link for the article as always and also a link to his actual paper.
  • Lisi is now calculating the masses that the 20 new particles should have, in the hope that they may be spotted when the Large Hadron Collider starts up.
12More

Politics | AT&T gave feds access to all Web, phone traffic, ex-tech says | Seattle Time... - 0 views

seattletimes.nwsource.com/...2004001159_spying08.html
shared by sirgabrial on 12 Nov 07 - Cached
  • AT&T gave feds access to all Web, phone traffic, ex-tech says
  • he stumbled upon documents that, he said, show the agency gained access to massive amounts of e-mail, Web search and other Internet records of more than a dozen global and regional telecom providers.
  • AT&T allowed the agency to hook into its network and, according to Klein, many of the other telecom companies probably knew nothing about it.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • grant legal immunity to telecommunications firms that helped the government in its warrantless anti-terrorism efforts.
  • retired
  • carried no security clearance
  • documents in his possession were not classified
  • without obtaining a court order.
  • government's depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists
  • usage patterns and for content.
  • "AT&T is fully committed to protecting our customers' privacy. We do not comment on matters of national security,"
  • The diagram showed splitters glass prisms that split signals from each network into two identical copies
14More

Swiss Study Finds Marijuana Use Alone May Benefit Some Teens, U.S. Doctor Disagrees - H... - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...0,2933,308258,00.html
shared by sirgabrial on 12 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Swiss Study Finds Marijuana Use Alone May Benefit Some Teens, U.S. Doctor Disagrees
  • Teens that use cannabis may function better than teen tobacco-users, and appear to be more socially driven and have fewer psychosocial problems than those who do not use either substance, according to a Swiss survey.
  • Researchers at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland surveyed 5,263 students, including 455 who smoke marijuana only, 1,703 who smoke marijuana and tobacco and 3,105 who smoked neither one.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • found that marijuana-only smokers had better relationships with friends, better grades and were more likely to play sports than teens who smoked tobacco and those who abstained from both substances.
  • teenagers’ brains are still developing at this time.
  • age of 21.
  • More likely to be male
  • Play sports
  • Live with both parents
  • Have good grades
  • Cannabis-only smokers were also less likely to have been drunk in the past 30 days
  • before the age of 15
  • less likely to use marijuana more than once or twice in the past 30 days.
  • cultural reason for this happening
10More

Nanotechnology storage breakthrough proclaimed - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...e-breakthrough-proclaimed.html
shared by sirgabrial on 12 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Nanotechnology storage breakthrough proclaimed
  • Arizona State University's Center for Applied Nanoionics (CANi) has announced a major breakthrough in the creation of nanotechnology-based memory
  • increased memory performance, battery capacity, and reduced power draw, and would serve as a suitable basis for practically all digital storage needs.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • wall beyond which it will be impossible to increase Integrated Circuit (IC) density due to high heat and power dissipation.
  • trap groups of electrons in specific areas of a semiconductor.
  • Flash RAM
  • actually moving the ions themselves.
  • to dope silicon with copper in order to create what Kozicki refers to as a "nanoscale switch."
  • difficult materials
  • difference between what the ASU researchers claimed
4More

Spider bite no excuse for rape, court says - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/...australia_spider_dc
shared by barnaby on 11 Nov 07 - Cached
  • An Australian man who kidnapped and raped a woman blamed his actions on a spider
  • pleaded guilty to the kidnap and rape
  • viral illness which led to his actions.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • no medical evidence to suggest a spider bite could be responsible for anger and hatred
18More

Income-Inequality Gap Widens - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB119215822413557069.html
shared by barnaby on 11 Nov 07 - Cached
  • richest Americans' share of national income has hit a postwar record
  • 19% in 2004
  • wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • previous high of 20.8% set in 2000
  • down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000
  • bottom 50% earned 12.8%
  • technological change that favors those with more skills
  • globalization and advances in communications that enlarge the rewards available to "superstar" performers
  • Bush said, "First of all, our society has had income inequality for a long time. Secondly, skills gaps yield income gaps. And what needs to be done about the inequality of income is to make sure people have got good education, starting with young kids. That's why No Child Left Behind is such an important component of making sure that America is competitive in the 21st century."
  • 30-year trend of increasing inequality
  • twice as many such Wall Street professionals in the top 0.5%
  • highest-earning hedge-fund manager earned double in 2005 what the top earner made in 2003,
  • 25 hedge-fund managers earned more in 2004 than the chief executives of all the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, combined
  • profits per equity partner at the top 100 law firms doubling between 1994 and 2004
  • median tax filer's income
  • many Americans think the economy is in or near a recession
  • top 1% grew 3%, to $364,657
  • fell 2% between 2000 and 2005 when adjusted for inflation, to $30,881
8More

Exceptions prove rule of tropical importance in biodiversity - 0 views

physorg.com/news113669647.html
shared by barnaby on 11 Nov 07 - Cached
  • highlight the importance of the tropics in maintaining the entire planet's biodiversity.
  • a problem nagging at all research
  • So many variables correlate with latitude" - temperature, environmental stability and many other features of the ocean
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • 4,600 species of bivalves that occurred in more than 200 locations worldwide.
  • known in every latitud
  • Anomalodesmata and dubbed the Anomalos
  • dipped in the tropics.
  • Anomalo diversity peaked in the mid-latitudes of both hemispheres
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