Living Under Drones
September 26th, 2012Via: Guardian:
The CIA’s programme of “targeted” drone killings in Pakistan’s tribal heartlands is politically counterproductive, kills large numbers of civilians and undermines respect for international law, according to a report by US academics.
More: Living Under Drones
Australia: Attorney General Wants ISPs to Retain Two Years of Data
September 26th, 2012Via: The Age:
AUSTRALIA’S security and law enforcement agencies are world leaders in telecommunications interception and data access and like most successful industries, they want more. Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon is canvassing a further expansion of surveillance powers, most controversially a requirement that telecommunications and internet service providers retain at least two years of data for access by government agencies.
Fast-Food Logos ‘Imprinted’ in Children’s Brains
September 26th, 2012Via: Medical Daily:
Childhood obesity is a growing health concern in the public sphere, but for many of us, it also hits close to home. But while public health campaigns have singled in on parents providing children with unhealthy nutrition options and with poor examples of healthy eating, new research indicates that some of the problem may lie with fast food companies and their overly effective marketing campaigns. A study has found that fast-food logos are branded into the minds of children from an early age.
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The brain’s reaction may not seem like a big deal. After all, when someone mentions food, a common bodily response is to feel hungry. But researchers also found that children were more likely to choose the food branded with the logo with which they were familiar. When asked to taste a hamburger from a box with no label, and a hamburger from a box labeled McDonald’s, the children overwhelmingly preferred the McDonald’s burger.
Researchers’ concern is that marketers for these companies are tapping into the reward portions of the brain long before children develop self-control. In addition, most of the foods marketed to children are high in caloric content, sugars, fat and sodium.
“The brains of children are ‘imprinted’ with food logos,” said Dr. Amanda Bruce, who led the study. “Without the necessary inhibitory processes to aid in decision-making, youth are particularly susceptible to making poor choices about what to eat.”
Hitachi Developing Quartz Based Permanent Storage Syetem for Digital Information
September 26th, 2012Via: AFP:
As Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones prove, good music lasts a long time; now Japanese hi-tech giant Hitachi says it can last even longer — a few hundred million years at least.
The company on Monday unveiled a method of storing digital information on slivers of quartz glass that can endure extreme temperatures and hostile conditions without degrading, almost forever.
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Hitachi’s new technology stores data in binary form by creating dots inside a thin sheet of quartz glass, which can be read with an ordinary optical microscope.
Provided a computer with the know-how to understand that binary is available — simple enough to programme, no matter how advanced computers become — the data will always be readable, Torii said.
The prototype storage device is two centimetres (0.8 inches) square and just two millimetres (0.08 inches) thick and made from quartz glass, a highly stable and resilient material, used to make beakers and other instruments for laboratory use.
The chip, which is resistant to many chemicals and unaffected by radio waves, can be exposed directly to high temperature flames and heated to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 Fahrenheit) for at least two hours without being damaged.
It is also waterproof, meaning it could survive natural calamities, such as fires and tsunami.
Autonomous Vehicles Coming to Callfornia
September 26th, 2012Via: Google:
California Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. is visiting Google Headquarters today to sign SB1298, a bill that creates a legal framework and operational safety standards for the testing and operation of autonomous vehicles on state roads and highways.
Israel Lobbyist Suggests False Flag Operation to Get U.S. Into War with Iran
September 26th, 2012Via: The Passionate Attachment:
Last Friday, during question time at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy policy forum luncheon on “How to Build US-Israeli Coordination on Preventing an Iranian Nuclear Breakout,” the director of research at the pro-Israel think tank hinted that a Pearl Harbor-type attack might be necessary to get the United States to go to war against the Islamic Republic.
“I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough,” said Patrick Clawson, who also heads the Washington Institute’s Iran Security Initiative, in response to a question about what would happen if negotiations with Tehran fail. “And it’s very hard for me to see how the United States … uh … President can get us to war with Iran.”
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“So, if in fact the Iranians aren’t going to compromise,” the Israel lobbyist concluded with a smirk on his face, “it would be best if somebody else started the war.”
Research Credit: HPLovecraft666
Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients
September 24th, 2012Via: Guardian:
Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques that are flawed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits of treatments. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer. When trials throw up results that companies don’t like, they are perfectly entitled to hide them from doctors and patients, so we only ever see a distorted picture of any drug’s true effects. Regulators see most of the trial data, but only from early on in a drug’s life, and even then they don’t give this data to doctors or patients, or even to other parts of government. This distorted evidence is then communicated and applied in a distorted fashion.
In their 40 years of practice after leaving medical school, doctors hear about what works ad hoc, from sales reps, colleagues and journals. But those colleagues can be in the pay of drug companies – often undisclosed – and the journals are, too. And so are the patient groups. And finally, academic papers, which everyone thinks of as objective, are often covertly planned and written by people who work directly for the companies, without disclosure. Sometimes whole academic journals are owned outright by one drug company. Aside from all this, for several of the most important and enduring problems in medicine, we have no idea what the best treatment is, because it’s not in anyone’s financial interest to conduct any trials at all.
Research Credit: cr
German Neuroscientist: Computer Use by Very Young Children Causes Brain Development Deficits That Are Irreversible
September 24th, 2012Via: WorldCrunch:
Dr. Manfred Spitzer knows that people find his arguments provocative. In his first book, he warned parents of the very real dangers of letting their children spend too much time in front of the TV. Now, in a second book called Digitale Demenz [Digital Dementia], he’s telling them that teaching young kids finger-counting games is much better for them than letting them explore on a laptop.
Spitzer, 54, may be a member of the slide-rule generation that learned multiplication tables by heart, but his work as a neuropsychiatrist has shown him that when young children spend too much time using a computer, their brain development suffers and that the deficits are irreversible and cannot be made up for later in life.
South Korean doctors were the first to describe this phenomenon, and dubbed it digital dementia – whence the title of Spitzer’s book. Simplistically, the message can be summed up this way: the Internet makes you dumb. And it is of course a message that outrages all those who feel utterly comfortable in the digital world. In the aftermath of the publication of Spitzer’s book, they have lost no time venting their wrath across Germany.
New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau Illegally Targeted Kim Dotcom, Bram van der Kolk and Their Families
September 24th, 2012—
Via: New Zealand Herald:
An inquiry into unlawful bugging by the Government’s foreign intelligence arm relates to intercepted communications by Kim Dotcom himself and his co-accused Bram van der Kolk, as well as their families.
The Prime Minister today announced that he had asked the Inspector General for an inquiry into unlawful interception of communications in the Dotcom case by the Government Communications Security Bureau.
The Government Communications Security Bureau is explicitly prohibited by law from intercepting the communications of any New Zealand citizen or permanent resident – it can only intercept communications of foreign organisations or people.
Dotcom’s lawyer Greg Towers confirmed the interceptions in question related to Mr Dotcom, Mr Bram van der Kolk and their families, all of whom were New Zealand residents.
“At the end of the day, until we get the outcome of the inquiry we really don’t know to what extent there has been illegality. We know it’s been illegal because they’ve admitted it.”
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Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the actions of the GCSB should be concerning to all New Zealanders.
“A number of New Zealand agencies, including the police, have bent over backwards to assist the United States in prosecuting Mr Dotcom,” said Dr Norman.
“Government agencies should not, however, break New Zealand’s laws to assist another country.
“The Kim Dotcom case doesn’t appear to constitute a threat to New Zealand’s national security, so it is hard to understand why the GCSB considered it should be involved at all.”
Related: Secret Power, New Zealand’s Role in the International Spy Network, by Nicky Hager
Not The Onion: NYPD Urges iPhone 5 Owners to Register Device, Deploys Officers to Stores
September 24th, 2012Oh sure.
Via: Reuters:
In response to a sharp spike in iPhone thefts from unwitting consumers this year, the New York City Police Department will station officers at Apple Inc. sales locations throughout the city for Friday’s release of the new iPhone 5.
The officers will help customers register iPhone serial numbers, or engrave them with unique identification numbers prefaced with the letters “NYC.”
Research Credit: almaverdad2
