Killer Algae: Key Player In Mass Extinctions

Today, just about anywhere there is water, there can be

toxic algae.
The microscopic plants usually exist in small concentra-
tions, but a sudden warming in the water or an injection
of dust or sediment
from land can trigger a bloom that kills thousands of fish,
poisons
shellfish, or even humans.

James Castle and John Rodgers of Clemson University think
the same thing happened during the five largest mass
extinctions in Earth's history. Each time a large die off
occurred, they found a spike in the number of fossil algae
mats called stromatolites strewn around the
planet. Castle will be presenting the research on October
19 at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of
America in Portland,Oregon.

"Algae growth is favored by warmer temperatures," Castle
said. "You get accelerated metabolism and reproduction of
effect appears to be enhancedfor species of toxin-
producing cyanobacteria."
He added that toxic algae in the United States appear to be
migrating slowly northward through the country's ponds
and lakes, and along the coast as temperatures creep
upward. Their expanding range portends a host of
problems for fish and wildlife, but also for humans, as algae
increasingly invade reservoirs and other sources of
drinking water.
New Report Details Historic Mass Extinction

Of Amphibians; Humans Worsen Spread Of

Deadly Emerging Infectious Disease

Aug 12,2008

Amphibians,reigning survivers of past mass extinctions,
are sending a clear , unequivocal signal that something is

wrong, as their extinction rates rise to unprecedented
levels, according to a paper published by the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Humans are
exacerbating two key natural threats – climate change
and a deadly disease that is jumping from one species
to another.

Amphibians are among the oldest organisms on Earth, having survived the last four mass extinctions. The current extinction rate of amphibians is cause for alarm, according to biologists.
"An ancient organism,which has survived past extinctions, is telling us something is wrong right now" Vredenberg said. " We--humans-- may be doing fine right now,but they are doing poorly, The question is, really, whether we'll listen before it's too late."

Diverting Sediment-rich Water Below New Orleans Could Lead To Extensive New Land

The land would equal almost half the acreage otherwise
expected to disappear during that period, a

new study shows.For decades, sea-level rise, land subsidence, and a decrease in river sediment have caused vast swaths of the Mississippi Delta to vanish into the sea.
The anticipated build-up of new land in a portion of

the delta, as simulated by a computer model, could
compensate for a large fraction of the expected
future loss, protect upriver areas from storm surges,
and create fresh-water habitat.
Tanker collision spills 18,000 gallons of oil off

Texas

PR Executive James Hoggan on “Climate Cover-Up:

The Crusade to Deny Global Warming”

In August, the American Petroleum Institute—the oil
industry’s top lobbying group—was found to have
asked member oil companies to help recruit
employees, retirees and contractors for anti-climate
bill rallies around the country.

Canadian National Railway orders 70

new high-horsepower locomotives

CN said the new locomotives are 15 to 20 per cent
more fuel efficient than the ones they replace, and
comply with regulations for lower exhaust
emissions.
The new locomotives will be equippedwith distributed power
capability,which improves the efficiency of the trains
through smoother starts and improved braking.

Deserted shopping mall bleak symbol of Fed bailout

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oct. 21, 2009 (Reuters) — A $29 billion trail

from the Federal Reserve's bailout of Wall Street investment

bank Bear Stearns ends in a partially deserted shopping center

on a bleak spot on the south side of Oklahoma City.

Another Lesson Not Learned From the

Financial Crisis: Business People in Charge of

Compliance

On Sunday, McClatchy posted a very thought-

provoking analysis of the actions of Moody’s

Investors Service that contributed to the financial

crisis last year. Inherent conflict of interest, where

it is the issuers of debt who are paying for the

analysis of its risk,rather than the purchasers paying

for the analysis then played out to its obvious

conclusion.

Pelosi to Include Medicare+5 Public

Option in House Bill

Daily Health Care News – 10/21/09

( I only see political stories )
Making Millions Promoting Drugs With Little Oversight

Clay Shirky points us to a column from a few
months back by Marcia Angell, which explains why
clinical research on drugs isn't even remotely
trustworthy, as it all-too-often seems to involve
doctors who have serious conflicts.As the relation-
ship between doctors and pharma has gotten deeper
and deeper, it means that the results of those all
important "clinical trials" -- which the pharma sup-
porters always insist are so important -- are highly
suspect.

Because drug companies insist as a condition of
providing funding that they be intimately involved
in all aspects of the research they sponsor,they can
easily introduce bias in order to make their drugs
look better and safer than they are. Before the
1980s, they generally gave faculty investigators
total responsibility for the conduct of the work, but
now company employees or their agents often
design the studies, perform the analysis, write the
papers, and decide whether and in what form to
publish the results. Sometimes the medical faculty
who serve as investigators are little more than hired
hands, supplying patients and collecting data
according to instructions from the company.

Exclusive: U.S. Spies Buy Stake in
Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets
America’s spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep

track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book
reviews on Amazon.

In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelli-
gence community, is putting cash intoVisible Technologies,
a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media.
It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get
better at using ”open source intelligence” — information
that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV
shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and
radio reports generated every day.

Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day,
scraping more than a million posts and conversations
taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter
and Amazon.
Light switch could boost network speeds

A new breed of optical switch could vastly increase internet data speeds.
The high-speed backbone of the internet is based on networks of glass optical fibres. But this is too fragile and expensive to install in the small distances between local exchanges and the home – the so-called last mile, where connections running over copper wires persist.A cheaper alternative is to use plastic optical fibre (POF),but this has been unable to transmit data with the kind of speeds that would make it worth replacing copper.
That may soon change. In recent years, POF with a bandwidth of 1 gigabit per second over 100 metres has been demonstrated. Now Polycom, a European Union-funded collaboration between researchers across Europe, has shown how to squeeze more data into a POF,bringing it a step closer to the market.
Attack shuts all Pakistan schools
Pak Taliban Spooked by Drones, Insider Account Shows
“The drones killed many senior commanders and hindered their operations. Yet the Taliban were able to garner recruits in their aftermath by exaggerating the number of civilian casualties,” he writes. “The strikes also created a paranoia among the Taliban. They believed that a network of local informants guided the missiles. Innocent civilians were rounded up, accused of working as American spies and then executed.”

Spiraling Flight Of Maple Tree Seeds Inspires New Aerial Surveillance Technology

Clark School students studied maple seeds and developed a new
design incorporating the natural flight of the tiny flyers. The insight
gleaned from this study enabled the creation of the world's smallest
controllable single-winged rotorcraft. The maple seed-inspired design is
valuable because when dropped, unpowered, from a plane and then
controlled remotely, it can perform surveillance maneuvers for defense,
fire monitoring and search-and-rescue purposes.

The Clark School researchers made use of research and testing tech-
niques developed at the school's Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center to
develop the maple seed-inspired device.The aerodynamic and geometric
properties of natural samara were studied in detail. The insight gleaned
from this study enabled the creation of the world's smallest controllable
single-winged rotorcraft.

The vehicle has been demonstrated at University of Maryland events, the
American Helicopter Society Annual Forum,the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy
Air and Space Museum, and at the 100th anniversary of the College Park
airport.

Oath Keepers Say They’re on Patrol in Iraq

In July, the SPLC also presented Congress with
growing evidence that extremists are infiltrating the
U.S. military and urged Congress and the military to
take steps to ensure that the armed forces are not
inadvertently training future domestic terrorists.

Gates pushes Japan on U.S. troop shift plan

Japan is host to about 47,000 U.S. military personnel
as part of the decades-old security alliance. Analysts
say the troops' forward deployment is critical to the
American military presence in the region.

The troop realignment pact is meant to reduce the
U.S. military "footprint" on Okinawa while improv-
ing the ability of the two forces to cooperate.

Central to the deal is a plan to shift a U.S. Marine
air base on Okinawa to a less crowded part of the
island.

Poland ready to take part in Obama missile

defense

Russia has welcomed his decision to shelve the
Bush missile shield plan, which Moscow had regard-
ed as a direct threat to its own security.
It is awaiting more details on the new missile
defense plans but says they are less worrisome.

( I would love a Russian citation on that. It's
radically different than past reports on the
Bush plan. )

New Media and the Challenge
of UN Reporting
January 30, 2008. The South African Ambassador to the UN
at that time, was Dumisani Kumalo. Kumalo told the Security
Council, "My delegation believes that silence on the situation
in the Middle East is more dangerous than even meetings
where there might be a raising of temperatures or heat."

He was responding to a comment by the British Ambassador
Sir John Sawers, who proposed that perhaps it was better not
to have debates in the Security Council on the Middle East
since these issues brought up expressions of strong differences
among the delegates.
.....
Some member nations of the UN claimed the closure of
the
border crossings into Gaza was an action contrary to
the obligations of Israel as an occupying power in the Gaza
Strip. Another member of the Security Council, notably the US,
said that the issue was that Israel was under siege* and it was
not appropriate for the Security Council to condemn Israel's
actions. Instead the US wanted a statement to condemn the
rocket attacks being fired into Israel as coming from "terrorists".
( * Common claim. Nuclear armed Israel is therefore
threatened by caged prisoners deprived of water and blockad-
ed from receiving aid supplies...in their own country. It's
notable that the U.S. is so conspicuous a promoter of
international lawlessness. That's what indefinite imprisonment,
torture, theft and murder are, after all. I guess after so many
invasions and air assaults a country becomes blasé. )

REPORT ; Death Penalty Enormously Expensive , No Clear Benfits

Study Shows How Substance In Grapes May Squeeze Out Diabetes

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2009) —A naturally produced
molecule called resveratrol, found in the skin of red
grapes, has been shown to lower insulin levels in
mice when injected directly into the brain, even
when the animals ate a high-fat diet.