FBI Says Activists Who Investigate Factory Farms Can Be Prosecuted as Terrorists
December 21st, 2011Via: Green Is The New Red:
The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has kept files on activists who expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms and recommended prosecuting them as terrorists, according to a new document uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act.
14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout [???]
December 21st, 2011Update: Editor at Scientific American Claims This Research Is Flawed
—End Update—
Via: Press Release / International Journal of Health Services:
An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.The IJHS article will be published Tuesday and will be available online as of 11 a.m. EST at http://www.radiation.org .
Research Credit: roaches
Russian Space Agency Bans Employees from Traveling Abroad
December 21st, 2011The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
—William Faulkner
Coming up next: Consequences for the families of those who leave anyway.
Via: AFP:
They may be working to reach the final frontier, but employees of Russian space agency Roscosmos face going no further than Russia for their holidays.
Roscosmos’ new chief Vladimir Popovkin has imposed a formal ban on managers and staff employed by its rocket-making subsidiaries taking holidays abroad, the Izvestia daily said, quoting an internal directive.
The Soviet-style edict applies to workers who are judged to have knowledge of particularly important or secret information connected to Russia’s rocket industry.
It applies not only to subsidiaries of Roscosmos but also companies with which it has concluded contracts for work deemed to be of a sensitive nature, Izvestia said.
The only exception, it said, is if an employee can prove that they are in need of medical treatment abroad that is unavailable in Russia.
“This is an official document and it is part of other official rules about questions of ensuring security,” the head of public relations at Roscosmos Alexei Kuznetsov told the newspaper.
…
Their foreign travel passports will be kept by their company and only given out after a number of bureaucratic formalities are fulfilled.
University Prepares to Publish Details of How it Created Flu That Could Kill Millions
December 20th, 2011Is this laying the groundwork for the release of the real one that .mil has probably had sitting around for years???
Flashback: U.S. Researchers Trying to Create Pandemic Avian Flu.
Via: Independent:
A deadly strain of bird flu with the potential to infect and kill millions of people has been created in a laboratory by European scientists – who now want to publish full details of how they did it.
The discovery has prompted fears within the US Government that the knowledge will fall into the hands of terrorists wanting to use it as a bio-weapon of mass destruction.
Some scientists are questioning whether the research should ever have been undertaken in a university laboratory, instead of at a military facility.
The US Government is now taking advice on whether the information is too dangerous to be published.
To see the graphic: The last outbreak – A deadly virus even before the latest twist
“The fear is that if you create something this deadly and it goes into a global pandemic, the mortality and cost to the world could be massive,” a senior scientific adviser to the US Government told The Independent, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The worst-case scenario here is worse than anything you can imagine.”
For the first time the researchers have been able to mutate the H5N1 strain of avian influenza so that it can be transmitted easily through the air in coughs and sneezes. Until now, it was thought that H5N1 bird flu could only be transmitted between humans via very close physical contact.
Dutch scientists carried out the controversial research to discover how easy it was to genetically mutate H5N1 into a highly infectious “airborne” strain of human flu. They believe that the knowledge gained will be vital for the development of new vaccines and drugs.
But critics say the scientists have endangered the world by creating a highly dangerous form of flu which could escape from the laboratory – as well as opening a Pandora’s box for fanatical terrorists wishing to make a bio-weapon.
Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy — Martin Lindstrom
December 20th, 2011This looks like a good one. (As I link to it using my Amazon affiliate code. *chuckle*)
Via: Amazon:
From the bestselling author of Buyology comes a shocking insider’s look at how today’s global giants conspire to obscure the truth and manipulate our minds, all in service of persuading us to buy.
Iran Hijacked U.S. Drone by Exploiting Long Known Vulnerability, According to Iranian Engineer
December 20th, 2011Via: Christian Science Monitor:
In an exclusive interview, an engineer working to unlock the secrets of the captured RQ-170 Sentinel says they exploited a known vulnerability and tricked the US drone into landing in Iran.
Iran guided the CIA’s “lost” stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone’s systems inside Iran.
Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.
Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone’s GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.
Gigapixel Photography of Crowds
December 20th, 2011If you thought the one of Obombya’s inauguration was impressive/terrifying, try zooming in on this one.
Via: gigapixel.com:
The Vancouver Canucks Fan Zone along Georgia St. for Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final was captured at 5:46 pm on June 15, 2011. It is made up of 216 photos (12 across by 18 down) stitched together, taken over a 15-minute span, and is not supposed to represent a single moment in time. The final hi-res file is 69,394 X 30,420 pixels or 2,110 megapixels. Special thanks to Bonita Howard and CBC Real Estate.
Related: Coming Soon: Retroactive Surveillance on Anyone
Research Credit: GH
Nano-Scale Anti Counterfeiting Technique for Looks Like Electronic Display; Will Be Used on Cash and Pharmaceuticals
December 20th, 2011Via: FastCompany:
Imagine a bill covered with microscopic holes that make it glow slightly in the light. It’s tech borrowed from a butterfly, and it may soon be foiling counterfeiters around the world.
If all goes as planned, the world’s supply of cash will soon be secured with a nano-scale optical defense that is as secure as it is visually impressive. Using arrays of holes no bigger than a virus, scientists at Toronto-based Nanotech Security have created an atoms-thick display that can be read by humans or machines and that shines with the brightness of a typical LED despite using nothing but reflected light.
The technology was inspired by the Blue Morpho butterfly, whose brilliant blue coloration comes not from pigment but the way that tiny holes in its scales reflect light. But the tech, called Nano-Optic Technology for Enhanced Security (NOtES), is different from the Morpho butterfly’s wings, and pretty much all other bio-inspired reflective optical technologies, in that it is both extraordinarily thin and functions even in dim light.
Research Credit: anchoviesmegma
Thousands of Rare Documents Burned in Egypt Clash
December 20th, 2011Via: AP:
Volunteers in white lab coats, surgical gloves and masks stood on the back of a pickup truck Monday along the banks of the Nile River in Cairo, rummaging through stacks of rare 200-year-old manuscripts that were little more than charcoal debris.
The volunteers, ranging from academic experts to appalled citizens, have spent the past two days trying to salvage what’s left of some 192,000 books, journals and writings, casualties of Egypt’s latest bout of violence.
Institute d’Egypte, a research center set up by Napoleon Bonaparte during France’s invasion in the late 18th century, caught fire during clashes between protesters and Egypt’s military over the weekend. It was home to a treasure trove of writings, most notably the handwritten 24-volume Description de l’Egypte, which began during the 1798-1801 French occupation.
The compilation, which includes 20 years of observations by more than 150 French scholars and scientists, was one of the most comprehensive descriptions of Egypt’s monuments, its ancient civilization and contemporary life at the time.
The Description of Egypt is likely burned beyond repair. Its home, the two-story historic institute near Tahrir Square, is now in danger of collapsing after the roof caved in.
“The burning of such a rich building means a large part of Egyptian history has ended,” the director of the institute, Mohammed al-Sharbouni, told state television over the weekend. The building was managed by a local non-governmental organization.
Al-Sharbouni said most of the contents were destroyed in the fire that raged for more than 12 hours on Saturday. Firefighters flooded the building with water, adding to the damage.
During the clashes a day earlier, parts of the parliament and a transportation authority office caught fire, but those blazes were put out quickly.
Many Foods Made with High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contain Mercury
December 20th, 2011Lots of people are submitting this two year old story.
