Blizzard Shuts Down Much of U.S. Northeast
January 27th, 2015Via: Reuters:
A life-threatening blizzard barreled into the U.S. Northeast, affecting up to 20 percent of Americans as it kept workers and students housebound, halted thousands of flights and prompted New York to ban cars from roads and shut down subway trains.
With memories still fresh of Sandy, a superstorm that ravaged the East Coast in 2012, the governors of six East Coast states declared emergencies. The storm could affect up to 60 million people in nearly a dozen states.
The National Weather Service warned of a “life-threatening blizzard” that could dump as much as 30 inches (76 cm) of snow on parts of the region at rates up to four inches an hour. Winds might gust up to 55 mph (80 kph) around New York City.
DEA Runs Massive Surveillance Operation to Record Movement of Americans with License Plate Readers
January 27th, 2015Via: ACLU:
The Drug Enforcement Administration has initiated a massive national license plate reader program with major civil liberties concerns but disclosed very few details, according to new DEA documents obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act.
The DEA is currently operating a National License Plate Recognition initiative that connects DEA license plate readers with those of other law enforcement agencies around the country. A Washington Post headline proclaimed in February 2014 that the Department of Homeland Security had cancelled its “national license-plate tracking plan,” but all that was ended was one Immigrations and Customs Enforcement solicitation for proposals. In fact, a government-run national license plate tracking program already exists, housed within the DEA. (That’s in addition to the corporate license plate tracking database run by Vigilant Solutions, holding billions of records about our movements.) Since its inception in 2008, the DEA has provided limited information to the public on the program’s goals, capabilities and policies. Information has trickled out over the years, in testimony here or there. But far too little is still known about this program.
Rooftop Solar Now Cheaper Than the Grid in 42 of the 50 Biggest U.S. Cities
January 27th, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
Via: Utility Drive:
New numbers show solar-generated electricity is ready for head-on competition with utility-delivered electricity.
Nearly 21 million single-family homeowners in 42 of the 50 biggest U.S. cities can now expect to pay less for electricity from solar than for electricity they buy from their utility. In fact, the numbers show money spent on a residential solar system earns a better return than investing in Standard and Poor’s 500 index fund.
Chris van Eeghen, ABN Amro Corporate Finance Executive, Dies
January 26th, 2015Via: Bloomberg:
Chris van Eeghen, head of syndicate and corporate finance markets at ABN Amro Group NV, has died.
His death was confirmed in an e-mailed statement from the state-owned Amsterdam-based bank. The statement, which described his death as “totally unexpected,” didn’t provide his age or the date and cause of death.
Van Eeghen joined ABN Amro in 2006, according to a profile on the LinkedIn Corp. website. He was involved in deals such as Wereldhave NV’s planned 220 million-euro ($255 million) convertible-bond offering to refinance debt in 2013. The Schiphol, Netherlands-based investor in shopping centers decided to abandon the transaction in November of that year, according to a news release, which listed Van Eeghen as the lead contact on the deal at ABN Amro.
Snowden: iPhone Includes Surveillance App
January 24th, 2015Shocker.
Via: Sputnik News:
Former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden never uses an iPhone as this device has software able to collect personal information regarding its owner, the whistleblower’s lawyer said Monday.
“Edward never uses an IPhone, he’s got a simple phone… The iPhone has special software that can activate itself without the owner, having to press a button and gather information about him, that’s why on security grounds he refused to have this phone,” Anatoly Kucherena told RIA Novosti.
Related: Apple Took Half of U.S. Phone Activations in Q4 2014 as Demand Stays Strong
Recovery: More Homeless Camps Are Appearing Beyond Downtown L.A.’s Skid Row
January 24th, 2015Via: Los Angeles Times:
Over the last two years, street encampments have jumped their historic boundaries in downtown Los Angeles, lining freeways and filling underpasses from Echo Park to South Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county agency, received 767 calls about street encampments in 2014, up 60% from the 479 in 2013.
Some residents believe the city is exporting its downtown homeless problem to their neighborhoods. But social service agencies and volunteers say it isn’t that simple. They say that although downtown development and skid row cleanups are squeezing out some homeless people, many camps are filled with locals.
Soaring rents, closed shelters and funding cutbacks are pushing residents from neighborhoods such as Highland Park and Boyle Heights into the streets, where they cling to familiar turf.
Scientists Attempt to Create Kill Switch for Genetically Modified Bacteria
January 24th, 2015Pay close attention to the use of unlikely and undetectably small escape rate in the piece below.
Wow.
Of all the places to encounter weaseleze…
I think seeing it in the one about the GMO kill switch has to take the cake.
Via: Discovery:
As genetically-modified microbes take on ever more tasks – from creating new pharmaceuticals to turning out clean fuel sources – researchers have searched for a way to biologically isolate them from their wild counterparts, so that if they were ever accidentally released, they wouldn’t be able to survive.
Now, scientists releasing two separate papers in the journal Nature think they have a solution. They unveiled two different approaches to modifying a strain of E. coli to make it dependent on artificial nutrients. In a controlled environment, such as a research lab or factory, scientists would provide that sustenance. But if the bacteria break free, they wouldn’t be able to make the compounds themselves, and would die.
No Escape
Scientists have previously used similar approaches, making GMO bacteria reliant on synthetic nutrients. But in the past, the GMO bacteria have evolved the ability to live without the synthetic nutrients. Bacteria have ejected the part of their DNA that made them reliant on the nutrients, or they figured out how to cobble together an equivalent of those nutrients from the natural world.
In separate projects, teams led by Yale molecular biologist Farren Isaacs and Harvard molecular geneticist George Church have genetically modified E. coli so that it is totally dependent on synthetic amino acids. And in both cases that need is built in to multiple parts of the bacteria’s genome – 49 times in the Harvard study – so that the likelihood that the bacteria would evolve to overcome the restriction is unlikely. And both strains showed an undetectably small escape rate – the number of E. coli able to survive without being fed the synthetic amino acid.
Doomsday Clock: It Is Three Minutes to Midnight
January 23rd, 2015Via: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:
Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.” Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena, current efforts are entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth. Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads—thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. “The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty—ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization.”
More: Atomic Scientists Declare Humanity to Be Closest to Destruction Since 1984
Saudi King Abdullah Dies, New Ruler Is Salman
January 22nd, 2015Via: Reuters:
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah died early on Friday and his brother Salman became king, the royal court in the world’s top oil exporter and birthplace of Islam said in a statement carried by state television.
King Salman has named his half-brother Muqrin as his crown prince and heir.
Europe Announces €60 Billion Monthly Bond-Buying Plan
January 22nd, 2015Via: Yahoo:
Taking a page from the Ben Bernanke playbook, Mario Draghi and the European Central Bank announced a bond buying program this morning to the tune of €60 billion a month through September of 2016 for a total of about €1.2 trillion. The program is an attempt to turn around Europe’s lagging economy, boosting inflation that came in at 0.2% in December.
