Archive for September, 2012
France: Monsanto’s GMO Corn Causes Cancer, Organ Damage in Rats
September 20th, 2012Update: Study Linking GM Maize to Rat Tumors Retracted, Author Unrepentant Via: Nature: Bowing to scientists’ near-universal scorn, the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology today fulfilled its threat to retract a controversial paper that claimed that a genetically modified (GM) maize causes serious disease in rats after the authors refused to withdraw it. The paper, […]
DARPA’s Mentats: EEG Data Used for Threat Detection
September 20th, 2012During a recent email conversation about a related technology with a friend of mine, who, shall we say, knows more than a little about this subject, he wrote something that you might find interesting: Interesting approach. It sounds like they’ve given up on computers processing images and instead they’re trying to create a mentat. Maybe […]
Holder Cleared in Justice Gunwalking Probe
September 20th, 2012Mmm hmm. Via: CBS: The Justice Department’s inspector general cleared Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday of knowing about the gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious that allowed thousands of weapons to cross into Mexico. But Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that there were “serious failures” at both the Justice Department and its Bureau of […]
BPA: It’s Not That Bad, It’s Worse
September 20th, 2012Via: Smithsonian Magazine: Now comes another piece of data on a potential risk from BPA but in an area of health in which it has largely been overlooked: obesity. A study by researchers from New York University, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at a sample of nearly 3,000 children […]
Nanostructured Thermoelectric Material Breaks Record for Turning Heat Into Electricity
September 20th, 2012Definitely don’t hold your breath while you wait for this one to power your flux capacitor, but it’s interesting anyway. Via: Nature: A scrambled-up material has broken the record for converting heat into electricity. Findings published today in Nature suggest that disorder may be the key to creating a new generation of energy-harvesting technologies. … […]
Man Pays for Cross-Country Trip Using Only Bacon as Currency
September 20th, 2012The story below is a corporate stunt, but I enjoy bartering work for food. You may remember how some people paid me for some computer work with heifer. I just did another computer job (maybe 30 minutes) and was given enough seafood delicacies to feed six adults and two children with some left over. Via: […]
iTravel: Apple’s Secret Plan to Join iPhones with Airport Security
September 20th, 2012If you have been waiting for a good one for the top of your Not-The-Onion pile, this is it. Via: CNN: Apple is releasing a mobile wallet app called Passbook which could lead to some of the ideas suggested in these iTravel patent schematics, which were submitted in 2008. The patent was granted last July. […]
European Union Bans Full Body Airport Scanners Over Safety Concerns, Why Are They Still Allowed in the U.S.?
September 20th, 2012Because they go great with the GMO corn based diet? Via: Daily Mail: Controversial airport ‘strip-search’ full body scanners are to be scrapped after they failed to get approval from European bosses. Experts feared the ‘naked’ body scanners, which use X-ray technology to show up hidden explosives or weapons, could emit harmful levels of cancer-causing […]
Ghost Warehouse Stocks Haunt China’s Steel Sector
September 20th, 2012This one about the steel will seem very familiar to anyone who has looked into various “gold” ETF and storage schemes offered by large banks around the world. Via: Reuters: Chinese banks and companies looking to seize steel pledged as collateral by firms that have defaulted on loans are making an uncomfortable discovery: the metal […]
Harvard Losing Out to South Dakota in Graduate Pay
September 19th, 2012Via: Bloomberg: Harvard University’s graduates are earning less than those from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology after a decade-long commodity bull market created shortages of workers as well as minerals. Those leaving the college of 2,300 students this year got paid a median salary of $56,700, according to PayScale Inc., which tracks […]
