Posted: May 22, 2012
Big ideas are needed to protect the world's food resources, but that's unlikely as long as huge supermarket chains are in charge.
We are living through a delicious disaster. Never has
so much food been offered to us from so many parts of the world, and in
such elaborate combinations. The average supermarket carries over 45,000
different product lines, and yet the provenance of most of these
products are utterly opaque. The government has handed control of the
food chain over to the supermarkets - and with it, any meaningful sense
of the common good.
Take fish. There is a crisis in our oceans - according to the WWF as many as 90% of all large fish
have been fished out - yet there are no gaping holes on supermarket
shelves, or an absence of fish on our menus. Instead, you'd think
nothing was wrong. Likewise, our fruit and veg is often harvested by illegal immigrants living in hideous conditions,
but their stories are absent from the packaging. Instead, we have
pictures of prairies on chicken packets, despite the packaged chickens
having rarely, if ever, come in to contact with grass.
Read the whole story: http://m.guardian.co.uk
Posted: May 22, 2012
Weed killers, herbicides in techno-speak, must be toxic enough to
kill the weeds they target. Thus, toxicity concerns -- ranging from protecting the workers using the chemicals to groundwater contamination -- confront any user of herbicides.
Researchers at the Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany, may have an answer: weed-killing lasers.
Farming with Laser Death Rays
Sounds like a great idea? It is not so easy though. If the lasers used
have too little energy, weeds like it. Laser lights of the wrong
intensity make the unwanted plants grow like weeds, only more so. The
Leibniz team has worked to determine the optimum laser intensity to kill
the weeds rather than encourage growth.
The second major obstacle is recognizing which plants to target with
the laser death rays. The researchers have developed a system of cameras
that film the field, and software that measures the contures of every
plant. Algorithms have been developed for recognizing many different
types of weeds.
The system currently can treat about a square
meter of growth in a greenhouse, where the apparatus can be mounted on
rails for pin-point control. The scale-up for larger greenhouse
applications or orderly plantations where equipment can run on rails up
and down rows of vegetation can be easily conceived.
Read the whole story:
http://www.treehugger.com
Posted: May 22, 2012
Congress now speaks at almost a full grade level lower than it did
just seven years ago, with the most conservative members of Congress
speaking on average at the lowest grade level, according to a new
Sunlight Foundation analysis of the Congressional Record using Capitol Words.
Of course, what some might interpret as a dumbing down of Congress,
others will see as more effective communications. And lawmakers of both
parties still speak above the heads of the average American, who reads at between an 8th and 9th grade level.
Today's Congress speaks at about a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5
in 2005. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution is written at a 17.8 grade
level, the Federalist Papers at a 17.1 grade level, and the Declaration
of Independence at a 15.1 grade level. The Gettysburg Address comes in
at an 11.2 grade level and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech
is at a 9.4 grade level. Most major newspapers are written at between an
11th and 14th grade level. (You can find more comparisons here)
All these analyses use the Flesch-Kincaid test, which produces the
'reads at a n-th grade level' terminology that is likely familiar to
many readers. At its core, Flesch-Kincaid equates higher grade levels
with longer words and longer sentences. It is important to understand
the limitations of this metric: it tells us nothing about the clarity or
correctness of a passage of text. But although an admittedly crude
tool, Flesch-Kincaid can nonetheless provide insights into how different
legislators speak, and how Congressional speech has been changing.
Read the whole story: http://sunlightfoundation.com
Posted: May 22, 2012
So...it's a GOAL to quit poisoning babies?
The manufacturer of the nation's first organic baby formula today
announced its expanded purity initiative to minimize or eliminate
environmental contaminants known to be in the U.S. food supply, such as
arsenic and other heavy metals, pesticide residues and hidden chemicals
used in processing like hexane.
Nature's One encourages other formula and baby food manufacturers to
follow its lead utilizing the best science and technology to accomplish
this goal.
"Anymore, it is not enough to talk about what is added to a formula to
make it beneficial," said Nature's One CEO Jay Highman. "Instead, we
need to talk about what is not in the formula or baby's first foods.
Unfortunately, many of these chemicals go undetected because they are
not tested routinely, or are concealed under current labeling
regulations. The company's founding goal has always been to identify
and eliminate toxins that may negatively impact human development."
For example, according to a February 1, 2012 study, 15 infant formulas
sold in the U.S. contained arsenic(1). Researchers noted the type of
arsenic when identified was nearly 100% inorganic arsenic; considered by
the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Drug
Administration to be the most toxic form.
Read the rest of the story: http://www.marketwatch.com
Posted: May 22, 2012
The author of the expose on how people worldwide are being dispossessed
of their common ancestral lands will take your questions on Wednesday
between 1-2pm.
In his latest book, The Land Grabbers, Fred Pearce
investigates the "new colonialism", which, he says, is having more of an
impact on the lives of poor people than climate change. The book
conducts an expose of the murky deals made by oligarchs, sheikhs and
agribusiness corporations to empty commonly owned ancestral lands around
the world of the peasant farmers, herders or hunting tribes living on
them, with no regard for their historic or cultural rights.
The
veteran environmental writer has spent the past two years investigating
this global epidemic, travelling across the 10 countries where the most
egregious grabbing is taking place - the savannah of Brazil, the
forests of Indonesia, the inner Niger delta of Mali - collecting the
stories of people whose lives have been destroyed. The book follows the
trail from boardrooms and ministries to the extreme conservationists
buying up Patagonia, City speculators using money from our pension
funds, and Gulf oil sheikhdoms worried about food security.
Read the story: http://m.guardian.co.uk
Posted: May 22, 2012
The National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) today announced
the three winning high schools for the Sustainable
Energy Award, sponsored by Samsung:
Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, Erie, Pa.
Boston Latin School, Boston, Mass.
Secondary Academy for Success, Bothell, Wash.
Selected by a panel of judges following a nationwide search, the schools
demonstrated a school-wide effort to achieve energy savings through the
creative and innovative use of technology. Each school will receive
$10,000 to further their initiatives.
"The schools serve as examples for others in the nation seeking to
become more sustainable, while engaging students in learning about their
environment," said Diane Wood, President of NEEF. "We congratulate
everyone involved at the winning schools, including students, teachers,
staff, parents and other members of the school communities, for their
innovative approaches and solutions to energy-efficiency."
"These winning schools demonstrate the enthusiasm and creativity
students bring to sustainability," said David Steel, Executive Vice
President of Strategy of Samsung Electronics North America. "With 2012
marking ENERGY STAR's 20th anniversary, it's especially
fitting that we celebrate these schools that are not only helping build
student interest and aptitude in sustainability, but also building on
ENERGY STAR's important work in encouraging people to be energy
conscious."
Read the whole story: http://www.marketwatch.com
Posted: May 22, 2012
Perhaps you've noticed that the level of discourse on hormones and
how they drive what we're interested in... well, sucks. Women feel they
either need to martyr their way through the years from 35 to 50-plus, or
they consider taking hormones with tremendous fear and trepidation, as
if they might as well be mercury-laden tuna from a can lined in
bisphenol A.
Not true. There's another way.
Here are the hormonal "best in class." The following thought leaders
are my "genius bar." Vanguards of new paradigm medicine, they aim to
repair and prevent rather than to postpone the inevitable or mask
symptoms with the latest antidepressant.
Change agents, super smartypants, nutrition radicals, early adopters,
cultural creatives, bio hackers before there was such a term and -- oh
yes! -- the voice of reason (guess who!).
These are the folks I go to when I have a question, and my usual
suspects, such as Pubmed, come up dry. Wanted to share 'em with you.
I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
Read the full story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Posted: May 22, 2012
It is surprisingly common for surgical
residents to be fatigued, adding to concerns about how long hours and
nighttime shifts could contribute to serious medical mistakes, a new
study shows.
"This study is the first to quantify resident surgeon fatigue and its
predicted risk for error," said study co-author Dr. Frank McCormick, of
Harvard Combined Orthopedic Residency Program and Massachusetts General
Hospital. "Fatigue levels were higher than anticipated, especially on
the night float rotation."
The results, published in the Archives of Surgery
Monday, state that on average, surgical residents were functioning at
less than 80 percent of their full mental capacity nearly half of the
time they were awake.
Read the full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Posted: May 22, 2012
Meditation is simple and transformative, yet it is highly
misunderstood. Some people think it is about controlling our mind or
stopping our thinking, while others see it as both weird and wacky or
boring and meaningless.
Yet meditation really just means being totally present, totally aware
with whatever is happening. It is being with ourselves completely as we
are. If the mind is thinking, then we are aware of the thinking; if the
body is moving, then we are aware of the movement. Hence, we have
sitting meditation, sound meditation, walking meditation, even running
meditation. It is not purposefully doing anything other than just being
here and now.
And just this is transformative. It creates an inner spaciousness in
which we become aware of the endless "me-centered" dramas, of our mind
that is like a drunken monkey leaping from one scenario to another.
To see the 6 steps, read the rest of the article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Posted: May 22, 2012
New York's marijuana arrests, says a growing chorus of critics, are a
prime example of how the nation's drug laws disproportionately impact
black and Latino communities.
Every morning, several sheets of
paper are posted to the walls outside the arraignment rooms of New York
City's Borough Courts. They list the names of the accused scheduled to
appear before the judge and the legal codes of their offenses. On most
days and across the city's five boroughs, these lists include multiple
names next to the numbers 221.10. This is the legal code for the
misdemeanor charge of possessing small amounts of marijuana "open to
public view," meaning the public display or public smoking of pot. In
2010, more than 50,000 New Yorkers were arrested for violating 221.10.
The number represented 15 percent of all arrests made by the NYPD and allowed the city to keep its crown of Marijuana Arrest Capital of the World.Not
that there is a credible challenger for the dubious honor. The high
number of 221.10 arrests puts New York in a league of its own and has
become a lightning rod in the national debate over race and the war on
drugs. New York's marijuana arrests, says a growing chorus of critics,
are a prime example of how the nation's drug laws disproportionately
impact black and Latino communities.This is decreasingly a matter of accusation and anecdote. Hard data are
emerging that confirm what marijuana reform advocates and public
defenders have long maintained: That the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy in
high-crime neighborhoods - sold to the public as a way to find illegal
guns and reduce violent crime - has instead resulted in racially
uneven drug law enforcement practices that seem to violate the spirit
and the letter of New York law as well as the United States
Constitution.Read the whole story:http://www.alternet.org
Posted: May 22, 2012
Google appears to have morphed from a corporation that proclaims, "Don't
be evil" to one insisting that users "Join the Borg."
In 1999, Scott McNealy, the former
head of Sun MicroSystems, reportedly declared, "You have zero privacy
anyway....Get over it." He unintentionally let the proverbial cat out of
the bag of the digital age.In
2009, McNealy's assessment was confirmed by Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt.
In an interview with NBC's Mario Bartiromo, he proclaimed, "If you have
something that you don't want anyone to know maybe you shouldn't be
doing it in the first place." Schmidt's words have become Google's new
mantra. Welcome to 21st-century corporate morality.
Now, a decade-plus
later,McNealy'sprophetic words have take on a far more sinister
significance than he probably intended. They are increasingly becoming
the operating assumption of the digital corporate state. Whether going
online, using a PC, smartphone, tablet or digital TV, users can no
longer assume they have any privacy. In fact, users should assume they
have absolutely no privacy.McNealy's
and Schmidt's words both speak to a fundamental change in the
definition of privacy. Once upon a time not so long ago, a sealed letter
or a personal telephone conversation was considered private, protected
communications. Those days are over.
Read the rest of the story:
http://www.alternet.org
Posted: May 21, 2012
Police often misuse tasers -- with terrible results.
In 2004, Malaika Brooks, seven
months pregnant and accompanied by her 11-year-old son, was pulled over
by two Seattle cops for driving 32 mph in a 20 mph zone. She was willing
to accept a speeding ticket, but incorrectlythought signing it was an
admission of guilt. She refused.In
response, one of the officers held up his Taser and asked if she knew
what it was. She said she didn't, but added: "I have to go to the
bathroom... I am pregnant. I'm less than 60 days from having my baby."According to Adam Liptak, reporting for the New York Times,
this is what followed when a patrol supervisor joined the cops and
decided to place Brooks under arrest, all in front of her young son:The three men assessed the situation and conferred. "Well, don't do it in her stomach," one said. "Do it in her thigh."Officer
Ornelas twisted Ms. Brooks's arm behind her back. A colleague, Officer
Donald M. Jones, applied the Taser to Ms. Brooks's left thigh, causing
her to cry out and honk the car's horn. A half-minute later, Officer
Jones applied the Taser again, now to Ms. Brooks's left arm. He waited
six seconds before pressing it into her neck.
Read the whole story: http://www.alternet.org
Posted: May 21, 2012
When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in
the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water
be poisoned. Let the forests die.
When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in
the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water
be poisoned. Let the forests die. Let the seas be emptied of life. Let
one useless war after another be waged. Let the masses be thrust into
extreme poverty and left without jobs while the elites, drunk on
hedonism, accumulate vast fortunes through exploitation, speculation,
fraud and theft. Reality, at the end, gets unplugged.
Read the whole story: http://www.alternet.org
Posted: May 21, 2012
_640x358_310x220Knowing how our nervous systems work can help guide what we do - and don't do - when people burst into tears.
At the site of the 2010 Chilean mine disaster, the son of miner
Florencio Avalos burst into tears when his father was brought safely to
the surface. Later that month, Caylee Anthony's grandmother was shown
weeping over her granddaughter's death. How can two such totally
different events - one joyful, one tragic - both elicit tears?
This question puzzles many clinicians, including some who are considered
experts in the field of emotional expression. The problem is that few
of us have received explicit training in theories of emotion. Therefore,
our notions about tears and other forms of emotional release are still
partly based on "steam-kettle thinking" - the culturally pervasive but
biologically absurd notion that emotions are stored quantities of
energy, which, like steam, wreak havoc when bottled up too long or
released too abruptly. Our everyday language is rife with steam-kettle
metaphors. We talk about "blowing off steam," being "flooded with
emotion," "boiling over" with rage, and "feeling drained" after a good
cry. The Freudian theory of catharsis is basically a steam-kettle model,
and so are various expressive therapies, such as psychodrama, primal
scream, reevaluation counseling, and Gestalt therapy. Similarly,
remnants of steam-kettle theory can be found in current approaches
toward regulation, stress reduction, and anger management.
Read the whole story: http://www.alternet.org
Posted: May 18, 2012
Want to get an idea of how much radiation from Fukushima your area absorbed?
Find out your own area's fallout amount and types on this website:
http://epa.gov/radnet/index.html
Use the link to input your area and discover the various types and amounts of radiation you are dealing with.
Posted: May 18, 2012
Dieting in pregnancy is safe for women and does not carry risks for the baby, a review of research has suggested. The British Medical Journal analysis looked at the findings from 44 previous studies involving more than 7,000 women.
The London-based team said following a healthy diet - and not eating for two - prevents excess weight gain and cuts the risk of complications. But current guidelines do not advocate dieting or weight monitoring.
Half the UK population are either overweight or obese and the rates are rising. And in Europe and the US, between 20% and 40% of women gain more than the recommended weight during pregnancy. High weights are linked to complications such as pre-eclampsia, diabetes and high blood pressure as well as early delivery.
This review, funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), compared diet, exercise or a combination of the two.
Dietary advice was based on limiting calorie intake, having a balanced diet and eating foods such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables and pulses. The researchers then examined how much weight women gained during their pregnancies and if there were complications.
While each approach reduced a woman's weight gain, diet had the greatest effect with an average reduction of nearly 4kg (8.8lbs).
Dr Janine Stockdale, research fellow at the Royal College of Midwives, said: "We should be careful to note that the researchers are not advising women to lose weight during pregnancy; this is about managing excessive weight or weight gain."
Read the entire article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18101423
Posted: May 18, 2012
Biodiesel is old news: sunflower, rapeseed and soybean oils have all been pressed into service as sources of automobile fuel. But how about coffee-fueled cars? Zayed Al-Hamamre and colleagues at the University of Jordan think that spent coffee grounds - which typically contain about 10% oil - could be a novel source of biodiesel. They're working on the best way to extract and process the oils in spent coffee grounds, and their latest results were published in a recent issue of the journal Fuel.
Under optimal conditions, Al-Hamamre argues, we could get around 1,000 tonnes of biodiesel from coffee grounds each year - without using up more precious arable land.
Those coffee-powered cars might once day be constructed from Cannabis sativa, also known as hemp. James Meredith and his colleagues at Warwick University believe hemp fibre could replace carbon fibre in automobile bodywork.
Read the entire article here: http://www.rawstory.com
Posted: May 18, 2012
Man-made electromagnetic radiation (EMR) is the only hazard that reaches every square centimeter of Earth's surface at every moment, harming people, animals, insects and plant life. Electromagnetic pollution has been imposed upon us by military and industrial interests, with devastating health, environmental and social consequences. From microwave (MW) and radio-frequency (RF) radiation
to extremely low frequency (ELF) fields, sources include:
- so-called 'smart' utility grids, meters and appliances
- wireless internet (wi-fi), wi-max and their infrastructures
- mobile phones and their antenna infrastructure on masts, rooftops and in disguised structures
- cordless phones and their bases
- microwave oven leakage
- baby monitors and children's RF-related toys
- RF medical devices
- RFID-embedded chips in people, animals, consumer products, and identity and credit cards
- direct-energy and other EM weaponry
- TV, radio and satellite broadcasts
- radar and sonar
- the electrical power grid, appliances and broadband over power lines (BPL)
- fluorescent lights, including compact fluorescent lightbulbs
(CFLs)
While some man-made EMR sources are falsely marketed as 'green',they all independently produce adverse biological and health effects. The effects markedly worsen with prolonged exposure or when combined with additional EMR sources, chemical toxicants or metals. MW
radiation intensities in urban areas can be over a trillion times higher than natural background levels.
The science section on the website EMRActionDay.org provides scientific evidence of the ever-increasing harm from multiple source EMR.
To view hundreds of scientific studies on the harmful effects of EMR, visit this site:
http://www.emractionday.org/science
Posted: May 18, 2012
Dyspnea on exertion (DOE) is a major symptom of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and is difficult to control. This study was performed to determine whether acupuncture is superior to placebo needling in improving DOE in patients with COPD who are receiving standard medication.
After 12 weeks, the Borg scale score after the 6-minute walk test was significantly better in the real acupuncture group compared with the placebo acupuncture group (mean [SD] difference from baseline by analysis of covariance, -3.6 [1.9] vs 0.4 [1.2]; mean difference between groups by analysis of covariance, -3.58; 95% CI, -4.27 to -2.90). Patients with COPD who received real acupuncture also experienced improvement in the 6-minute walk distance during exercise, indicating better exercise tolerance and reduced DOE.
Conclusion:
This study clearly demonstrates that acupuncture is a useful adjunctive therapy in reducing DOE in patients with COPD.
Read the whole study here: http://archinte.jamanetwork.com
Posted: May 18, 2012
Young children are getting jabbed with vaccines so much, even doctors who are all for vaccines have started using a term called "vaccine fatigue."
(Excerpt): Guttmann put the failure to reach these children down to a couple of related factors "vaccine fatigue" among parents and concern on the part of doctors that flu vaccinations might be a shot too far for their young patients or their parents. "There's a pretty good body of evidence around vaccine fatigue in parents," said Guttmann, a pediatrician at the Hospital for Sick Children and a senior scientist at Toronto's Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.
Read the whole story here:
http://news.yahoo.com
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