Archive for August, 2010
Zombie Ants!
The zombies have come, but it’s not exactly the apocalypse. Carpenter ants being taken over by fungi sounds like the beginning of a Science-Fiction film, but this time it’s just Science. From Discovery Magazine:
A parasitic fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis that infects a plain old carpenter ant and takes over its brain, leading the ant to bite into the vein that runs down the center of a leaf on the underside. The ant dies shortly thereafter, but the fungus gains the nutrients it needs to grow this crazy stalk out of the ant’s body and release spores to create the next generation of ant-controlling fungi.
This cryptic cycle has been going on for at least 48 million years.
In a study forthcoming in Biology Letters, Harvard’s David Hughes argues that a fossilized leaf found in a fossil-rich part of Germany’s Rhine Rift Valley bears the scars of the ant’s trademark death bite. The ant…
Proposition 8 Invalidated, Same-Sex Marriage On Hold
“I know pronounce you man and man, wait, not now, maybe later.” What are you doing California? From the NY Times:
Eight days after ruling that Proposition 8 — a 2008 voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage — was unconstitutional, a federal judge on Thursday denied a motion to stay his decision, opening the door for untold numbers of gay and lesbian couples to wed in the nation’s most populous state. But the judge delayed the effective date of his order until Wednesday.
Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge of Federal District Court in San Francisco, issued a temporary stay last week when he invalidated Proposition 8, in order to allow arguments for and against same-sex ceremonies being performed while supporters of the ban appealed.
On Thursday, Judge Walker declined to extend that stay, but built in the delay to allow the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where the case…
102 Alternate Facebook Default Pictures
I’m a fan of this collection of 102 alternate default avatars for Facebook — just because you don’t want to display your photo to the world, doesn’t mean that you should have to be represented as their nondescript bland-o-man. These are about a thousand times better:
Inside Story: Delightful Deliveries
[disinformation ed.'s note: the contributor dug deep in the crates for this 2006 story]
Giving birth was an orgasmic experience for one woman, says Anastasia Stephens, writing in the Times:
For Katrina Caslake, 44, giving birth was not the terrifying, painful ordeal most women experience. Far from it. The midwife, from Wallington, South London, says she found it blissful, even orgasmic.
“I found giving birth very sensual,” says Caslake, who didn’t take painkillers for the birth of her two sons, Aaron, 18, and Tomas, 17. “All my erogenous zones were stimulated. And I had a definite climax. I was doing the most feminine thing a woman can do and it felt fantastic.”
It was her “pleasurable experience” that led her to train as a midwife. “I knew I wasn’t unique,” says Caslake, who helps to run Yours Maternally, an independent midwifery service. “By encouraging women to trust and relax in their bodies during birth, I…
Smile! Aerial Images Being Used To Enforce Laws
Google Earth aerial view of downtown Los Angeles.
Benign, or Big Brother? Report from AP/Yahoo News:
On New York’s Long Island, it’s used to prevent drownings. In Greece, it’s a tool to help solve a financial crisis. Municipalities update property assessment rolls and other government data with it. Some in law enforcement use it to supplement reconnaissance of crime suspects.
High-tech eyes in the sky — from satellite imagery to sophisticated aerial photography that maps entire communities — are being employed in creative new ways by government officials, a trend that civil libertarians and others fear are eroding privacy rights.
“As technology advances, we have to revisit questions about what is and what is not private information,” said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology.
Online services like Google and Bing give users very detailed images of practically any location on the planet. Though some images are months old,…
New York First Responders Slam Obama On 9/11 Health Bill
An Environmental Protection Agency employee checks one of the many air sampling locations set up around the site of the World Trade Center.
They’re right, aren’t they? From the Daily News:
Ailing 9/11 responders slammed President Obama on Tuesday for sounding off on the Ground Zero mosque while keeping silent on a $7.2 billion health care bill.
“Why have you failed us? We thought you would be our champion” in pushing the legislation, John Feal wrote to Obama.
One of the thousands who worked at The Pile after the World Trade Center attacks, Feal heads the Fealgood Foundation supporting the responders.
The plight of the Ground Zero heroes, still suffering and dying from illnesses brought on by the toxic cloud over the twin towers’ ruins, has taken a backseat to the political posturing over the mosque, Feal said.
The mosque’s location “is not an issue for us,” he told Obama.
“It is disturbing that you have the…
Climate Change Wars Heating Up In Court
In the southern hemisphere the dueling camps of climate change believers and non-believers are starting to take their grievances to court, as reported by news.com.au:
Scientists have hit back at climate change sceptics, with a paper affirming the case that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the main cause of warming.
The Australian Academy of Science yesterday went on the front foot to clear up confusion after challenges to warming theories.
It came as New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research faced a legal challenge by sceptics group Climate Science Coalition.
The coalition has launched high court action over the institute’s climate data.
Academy past president Kurt Lambeck said the scientific statement aimed to boost climate change understanding.
The role of CO2 in the atmosphere was well understood and unless greenhouse gas emissions were reduced, an upward trend in global temperatures would continue.
“The available evidence implies that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities…
Spike Lee on Gulf Coast Trauma: If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise (Video)
Keith Olbermann interviews filmmaker Spike Lee on his new documentary, If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise and the current state of Gulf Coast affairs:
The Daily Show on Obama’s “Wisdom” in the “Ground Zero Mosque” Media Circus
“Yes we can … but should we?” — Jon Stewart
Politics is often defined as the “art of the possible.” However it should also be defined as “you can’t please all the people all the time.” Especially the ones being idiots on the “ground zero mosque” media shitstorm.
Thankfully The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart (who recently George Lucas made a Stormtrooper) is on the money again about President Obama’s mixed public comments regarding this non-story.
I could not complete this post without mentioning the great Jon Oliver’s commentary:
“There is a difference, Jon, between what you can do and what you should do. You can build a Catholic Church next to a playground. Should you?”
Jupiter Swallowed A Super-Earth: It’s One BAMF
Everyone knows Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System, but new research suggests it was the baddest MF around, knocking off its competition before it could grow. David Shiga writes in New Scientist:
Jupiter might have secured its position as the solar system’s mightiest planet by killing an up-and-coming rival, new simulations suggest. The work could explain why the planet has a relatively small heart, and paints a grisly picture of the early solar system, where massive, rocky “super-Earths” were snuffed out before they could grow into gas giants.
Jupiter and Saturn are thought to have begun life as rocky worlds with the mass of at least a few Earths. Their gravity then pulled in gas from their birth nebula, giving them dense atmospheres.
In this picture, all gas giants should have cores of roughly the same size. Yet spacecraft-based gravity measurements suggest Jupiter’s core weighs just two to 10 Earth…
J. D. Salinger’s Toilet On eBay For $1 Million
Photo: Gregorydavid (CC)
For real, reported by New York Magazine:
A toilet from a New Hampshire home that J.D. Salinger lived in during the eighties is being auctioned on eBay for $1,000,000. Really. Really. The commode is a “simple, white Crane Oxford model” that has not been cleaned and does not come with a seat or lid. It does come with a letter of authenticity. The extremely classy dealer vending this porcelain throne is open to taking “reasonable” offers for the toilet, but he thinks it’s worth at least $100,000. After all, even though it was manufactured in October 1962, after most of his published work had appeared, “Salinger is believed to have left behind a substantial volume of unpublished writing, and … surely Salinger conceived some of it while sitting on” this very toilet…
[continues at New York Magazine]
Google CEO To Young People: You’ll Be Able to Get a New Identity When You Reach Adulthood
Check out Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s solution for privacy advocates in this Wall Street Journal article over the weekend. Suddenly that Google Chrome logo looks like an all-seeing eye to me instead of some futuristic Simon.
Is this a future service Google is considering offering (the opportunity to “reload” your identity)? Worth reading the whole article from Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in the WSJ:
Google takes a similarly generous view of its own motives on the politically vexed issue of privacy. Mr. Schmidt says regulation is unnecessary because Google faces such strong incentives to treat its users right, since they will walk away the minute Google does anything with their personal information they find “creepy.”
Really? Some might be skeptical that a user with, say, a thousand photos on Picasa would find it so easy to walk away. Or a guy with 10 years of emails on Gmail. Or a small business owner who has come to rely on Google Docs as an alternative to Microsoft Office. Isn’t stickiness — even slightly extortionate stickiness — what these Google services aim for?
Mr. Schmidt is surely right, though, that the questions go far beyond Google. “I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,” he says. He predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.
“I mean we really have to think about these things as a society,” he adds. “I’m not even talking about the really terrible stuff, terrorism and access to evil things,” he says.
Florida Baby Facebook Photo Sparks Controversy
Michael Phelps got caught through Facebook, why not a baby! They do say a picture is worth a thousand hits, um, words. CBS News reports:
Nineteen-year-old Rachel Stieringer turned herself in to Clay County Sheriff’s deputies and has been charged with possession of drug paraphernalia after she took a picture of her baby “smoking” out of a bong and posted it on Facebook.
Stieringer claimed that the photo was taken as a joke to show one of her friends; however, the supposed prank backfired big time when a Texas resident got wind of the photo and notified Florida’s abuse hot line.
The Florida Department of Children and Families launched an investigation into Stieringer’s parenting skills and announced Monday that although the bong appears to be smoke-filled the baby sustained no injuries in the taking of this photo, and his drug tests came back negative.
However, his chances of someday being appointed to the Supreme Court…
Richard Hoagland Reveals The Secret War In Space
Richard Hoagland tells interviewer Dr. Steven Greer about a secret war in space. I really don’t know what to make of his claims – any suggestions?
From WikiLeaks to Swedish Tabloid
Hacker, writer, Australian. Julian Assange certainly made a ruckus as the founder and chief of Wikileaks. Now he will be a columnist. Could this change to Aftonbladet be because Wikileaks is trying to get a lisence for journalistic protection and, while operating servers in Swedish, a column connection may just help? Daily Tech reports:
Embroiled in an international politics controversy and owner of one the internet’s most divisive properties, what’s a man to do? Well, if you’re Julian Assange, founder and chief of whistleblowing site Wikileaks, the answer is apparently “write for a tabloid”.
The Australian native who rose to infamy as a hacker in the late 1980s and early 1990s, announced in a Saturday interview [Swedish] with Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet that he would be joining the staff. A translation of the interview can be found here on Mathaba.
In the interview, when asked what is column will be about, Assange comments, “About press issues and about what’s happening…
Graham Hancock: Why Fiction, Why Now?
Graham Hancock writes on the Wordstock Festival blog, explaining why the reigning heavyweight champion of non-fiction on ancient mysteries has written a novel, Entangled:
Why Fiction, Why Now? Upon publishing my first novel, I thought it might be of interest to explore these questions.
I’ve been a nonfiction writer all my working life, starting out in journalism and working my way into books from there. My writing was always heavily facts-based, even if I was giving a different take on the facts from the mainstream. An example is my 1989 book Lords of Poverty: The Freewheeling Lifestyles, Power, Prestige and Corruption of the Multi-Billion Dollar Aid Business. It won an H.L. Menken Award honorable mention for an outstanding book of journalism. It was entirely fact-based, but it took the same facts the aid industry was using to blow its own trumpet and showed that there was a whole other story lying underneath them—a…
‘Call of Cthulhu’ Explained In Under 2 Minutes (Video)
The Nag writes on Neatorama:
Have you ever wondered what The Call of Cthulhu was all about but didn’t want to go to the bother of reading the H.P. Lovecraft story?
Wonder no more. This is a cute and concise summary that anyone can understand:
[Image at right: An interpretation of Cthulhu in the sunken city of R’lyeh. By Dominique Signoret via Wikimedia Commons.]
New Jersey Bans The Word ‘Retarded’
Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie. Photo: Walter Burns (CC)
One is tempted to say that this new law in New Jersey is, um, mentally challenged. Story from NJ.com:
Gov. Chris Christie today made it illegal for state laws or rules to identify anyone with a developmental or intellectual disability as “mentally retarded” by signing legislation sought by people who have felt belittled by the term.
Mental retardation was once a medical diagnostic term, but society turned it into something derogatory, said Tom Baffuto, executive director of the Arc of New Jersey. The nonprofit was founded as the Association for Retarded Citizens until people complained and it changed the name nearly 20 years ago.
Elizabeth Shea, the Arc’s assistant executive director, said the law’s passage is one step in the direction of ridding the hurtful terms from every day conversation.
“We’d like New Jersey to get to a place where you can’t use the ‘R’…
