Archive for the 'Economy' Category
‘Robots to Revolutionize Farming’
July 16th, 2013Via: AP / Time: On a windy morning in California’s Salinas Valley, a tractor pulled a wheeled, metal contraption over rows of budding iceberg lettuce plants. Engineers from Silicon Valley tinkered with the software on a laptop to ensure the machine was eliminating the right leafy buds. The engineers were testing the Lettuce Bot, a […]
In Iraq, the Bomb-Detecting Device That Didn’t Work, Except to Make Money
July 15th, 2013Step right up, step right up, step right up, Everyone’s a winner, bargains galore That’s right, you too can be the proud owner Of the quality goes in before the name goes on One-tenth of a dollar, one-tenth of a dollar, we got service after sales You need perfume? we got perfume, how ’bout an […]
The Shadowy Cartel of Doctors that Controls Medicare
July 14th, 2013Via: Washington Monthly: On the last week of April earlier this year, a small committee of doctors met quietly in a midsized ballroom at the Renaissance Hotel in Chicago. There was an anesthesiologist, an ophthalmologist, a radiologist, and so on—thirty-one in all, each representing their own medical specialty society, each a heavy hitter in his […]
Experimental Cancer Therapy from Immunocore
July 14th, 2013Rick Simpson Oil See what I did there? Via: Independent: Immunocore has found a way of designing small protein molecules, which it calls ImmTACs, that effectively act as double-ended glue. At one end they stick to cancer cells, strongly and very specifically, leaving healthy cells untouched. At the other end they stick to T-cells. The […]
Gangs Ruled Prison as For-Profit Model Put Blood on Floor
July 13th, 2013Via: Bloomberg: In the four privately run prisons holding Mississippi (BEESMS) inmates last year, the assault rate was three times higher on average than in state-run lockups. None was as violent as the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. The for-profit detention center, surrounded by razor wire and near the forests and farms of central Mississippi, […]
NSA Code Used in Google Phone to “Enhance Security” *wink*
July 12th, 2013Via: Democracy Now: The tech giant Google has confirmed the National Security Agency furnished some of the code installed in its new Android phone. The NSA says the code is intended to enhance security against hackers and marketers, but will not confirm whether it also aids the agency’s PRISM program monitoring the global Internet.
Australia: Telstra Has Been Storing Customer Data on Behalf of U.S. Government for Over a Decade
July 12th, 2013Via: Sydney Morning Herald: Telstra agreed more than a decade ago to store huge volumes of electronic communications it carried between Asia and America for potential surveillance by United States intelligence agencies. Under the previously secret agreement, the telco was required to route all communications involving a US point of contact through a secure storage […]
Encryption According to Microsoft: Cops and Spooks Can Access Your Data
July 12th, 2013Via: Guardian: Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users’ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company’s own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies […]
Scientists Create Artificial Human Chromosome
July 11th, 2013Via: Independent: Scientists have created genetically-engineered mice with artificial human chromosomes in every cell of their bodies, as part of a series of studies showing that it may be possible to treat genetic diseases with a radically new form of gene therapy. In one of the unpublished studies, researchers made a human artificial chromosome in […]
U.S. Navy Makes History by Landing Unmanned Drone on Aircraft Carrier
July 11th, 2013This is what passes for industrial policy in the U.S. Air transportation companies would like nothing more than to replace human pilots with machines. This X-47B effort is essentially public funding toward that goal. Anyway, someone should Photoshop out the meatsacks on the deck of the aircraft carrier and replace them with T-1000s. Via: Guardian: […]
