Fake Fingers to Fool the Boss at Brazil Hospital
March 13th, 2013Via: AFP:
Five doctors at a Brazilian hospital have been suspended after they were accused of covering for absentee colleagues by using fake silicone fingers with their prints to fool biometric machines.
Globo television showed footage of a doctor touching her finger to the device, then using two fake digits to do the same for colleagues, and taking delivery of slips of paper indicating they had in fact clocked in to work.
That way it looked like there were doctors on duty when there was just one.
Doubts About Johns Hopkins Research Have Gone Unanswered
March 13th, 2013This one would make a great addition to your Bullshit-As-Science and Academic Grant Swindling file folders.
In this situation with Nature and Johns Hopkins, note what happened to the guy who tried to expose it.
Via: Washington Post:
The numbers didn’t add up.
Over and over, Daniel Yuan, a medical doctor and statistician, couldn’t understand the results coming out of the lab, a prestigious facility at Johns Hopkins Medical School funded by millions from the National Institutes of Health.
He raised questions with the lab’s director. He reran the calculations on his own. He looked askance at the articles arising from the research, which were published in distinguished journals. He told his colleagues: This doesn’t make sense.
“At first, it was like, ‘Okay — but I don’t really see it,’?” Yuan recalled. “Then it started to smell bad.”
His suspicions arose as reports of scientific misconduct have become more frequent and critics have questioned the willingness of universities, academic journals and the federal government, which pays for much of the work, to confront the problem.
Eventually, the Hopkins research, which focused on detecting interactions between genes, would win wide acclaim and, in a coup for the researchers, space in the pages of Nature, arguably the field’s most prestigious journal. The medical school even issued a news release when the article appeared last year: “Studies Linked To Better Understanding of Cancer Drugs.”
What very few readers of the Nature paper could know, however, was that behind the scenes, Yuan’s doubts seemed to be having profound effects.
In August, Yu-yi Lin, the lead author of the paper, was found dead in his new lab in Taiwan, a puncture mark in his left arm and empty vials of sedatives and muscle relaxants around him, according to local news accounts — an apparent suicide.
And within hours of this discovery, a note was sent from Lin’s e-mail account to Yuan. The e-mail, which Yuan saved, essentially blamed him for driving Lin to suicide. Yuan had written to Nature’s editors, saying that the paper’s results were overstated and that he found no evidence that the analyses described had actually been conducted. On the day of his death, Lin, 38, the father of three young daughters, was supposed to have finished writing a response to Yuan’s criticisms.
…
The university had already fired Yuan in December 2011, after 10 years at the lab. He had been raising questions about the research for years. He was escorted from his desk by two security guards.
More recently, a few weeks after a Washington Post reporter began asking questions, a university spokeswoman said that a correction had been submitted to Nature and that it was under review.
“Your questions will be addressed with that publication,” a spokeswoman for the Hopkins medical school, Kim Hoppe, wrote in an e-mail.
Neither the journal nor the university would disclose the nature of the correction.
Hoppe declined an opportunity to have university personnel sit for interviews.
In the meantime, the paper has been cited 11 times by other published papers building on the findings.
Robobees
March 13th, 2013Via: Harvard:
Overview of the Micro Air Vehicles Project
INSPIRED by the biology of a bee and the insect’s hive behavior …
we aim to push advances in miniature robotics and the design of compact high-energy power sources; spur innovations in ultra-low-power computing and electronic “smart” sensors; and refine coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines.
Practical Applications
Coordinated agile robotic insects can be used for a variety of purposes including:
autonomously pollinating a field of crops;
search and rescue (e.g., in the aftermath of a natural disaster);
hazardous environment exploration;
military surveillance;
high resolution weather and climate mapping; and
traffic monitoring.
These are the ubiquitous applications typically invoked in the development of autonomous robots. However, in mimicking the physical and behavioral robustness of insect groups by coordinating large numbers of small, agile robots, we will be able to accomplish such tasks faster, more reliably, and more efficiently.
Pentagon Creating Teams to Launch Cyberattacks
March 13th, 2013Via: Washington Post:
The Pentagon’s Cyber Command will create 40 offensive cyber-teams by the fall of 2015 to help defend the nation against major computer attacks and assist combat commands as they plan offensive capabilities, Gen. Keith Alexander testified to Congress on Tuesday.
The new teams are part of a broader government effort to shield the nation from destructive attacks over the Internet that could harm Wall Street or knock out electric power, for instance.
Some teams are already in place, he said, to focus on “the most serious threats,” which he did not identify.
Over 20 Tons of Heroin Seized in Afghanistan
March 12th, 2013Is this Karzai’s way of negotiating better terms?
Via: RIA Novosti:
Almost 21 tons of heroin have been seized in an operation in eastern Afghanistan , the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) said on Tuesday.
“An operation was carried out yesterday in the province of Nangarhar, during which several drug production labs were destroyed and almost 21 tons of heroin seized,” FSKN head Viktor Ivanov said.
He said FSKN officers had taken part in the “unique operation.”
“Twenty-one tons is, in essence, the annual volume of drugs brought into Russia,” Ivanov said.
Related: Karzai Says Taliban ‘In Service to America’
Vatican Department Shares Rome Palazzo with Gay Sauna
March 12th, 2013Via: BBC:
A historic palazzo in Rome that houses a key Vatican department is also the home of a well-known gay sauna.
The Holy See paid 20m euros (£17.5m) in 2008 for around 20 apartments in the building for the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.
Its Prefect Emeritus, Cardinal Ivan Dias, is one of the priestly residents.
The proximity to Europa Multiclub, billed as Italy’s top gay sauna, has drawn comment due to the Vatican’s strict stance on gay partnerships.
The facility boasts a Turkish bath, Finnish sauna, whirlpools and massages.
Also on offer are “bear parties”, which are advertised on its website with a video of a man stripping down before donning clerical attire.
…
The Vatican has declined to comment on the proximity of the sauna to the headquarters of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples – which is responsible for missionary activities – but Cardinal Dias has previously said that gays and lesbians can be cured of their “unnatural tendencies” through the “sacrament of penance”.
Japan Extracts Gas from Methane Hydrate
March 12th, 2013Via: BBC:
Japan says it has successfully extracted natural gas from frozen methane hydrate off its central coast, in a world first.
Methane hydrates, or clathrates, are a type of frozen “cage” of molecules of methane and water.
The gas field is about 50km away from Japan’s main island, in the Nankai Trough.
Researchers say it could provide an alternative energy source for Japan which imports all its energy needs.
…
A Japanese study estimated that at least 1.1tn cubic metres of methane hydrate exist in offshore deposits.
This is the equivalent of more than a decade of Japan’s gas consumption.
Is HSBC Really ‘Too Big to Jail’?
March 12th, 2013Via: Yahoo Finance / The Exchange:
In December, HSBC (HBC) admitted to money laundering violations covering $200 trillion worth of transactions involving Mexican and Columbian drug cartels, groups allegedly aligned with terrorist organizations, sanctioned nations and others. The Department of Justice (DoJ) explained it could not exact a penalty greater than one month’s profits because doing so would cause systemic repercussions to the financial system. In shorthand, HSBC was “too big to jail.”
On March 6, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder affirmed the “too big to jail” policy:
“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.”
Private Prisons: The More Americans They Put Behind Bars The More Money They Make
March 12th, 2013Via: InvestmentWatchBlog:
How would you describe an industry that wants to put more Americans in prison and keep them there longer so that it can make more money? In America today, approximately 130,000 people are locked up in private prisons that are being run by for-profit companies, and that number is growing very rapidly. Overall, the U.S. has approximately 25 percent of the entire global prison population even though it only has 5 percent of the total global population. The United States has the highest incarceration rate on the entire globe by far, and no nation in the history of the world has ever locked up more of its own citizens than we have. Are we really such a cesspool of filth and decay that we need to lock up so many of our own people? Or are there some other factors at work? Could part of the problem be that we have allowed companies to lock up men and women in cages for profit? The two largest private prison companies combined to bring in close to $3,000,000,000 in revenue in 2010, and the largest private prison companies have spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions over the past decade. Putting Americans behind bars has become very big business, and those companies have been given a perverse incentive to push for even more Americans to be locked up. It is a system that is absolutely teeming with corruption, and it is going to get a lot worse unless someone does something about it.
Homeless Houston Veteran Ticketed for Dumpster Diving for Food
March 12th, 2013This guy must not have gotten the memo. After serving the Empire, WalMart is hiring.
Via: News92FM:
A homeless Navy veteran faces up to a $500 fine for dumpster diving in downtown Houston. Veteran James Kelly was cited for “disturbing the contents of a garbage can” on Thursday morning of last week in front of the Hobby Center.
