Silver kills viruses, superbugs, study shows
In a groundbreaking study, the Journal of Nanotechnology has published a study that found silver nanoparticles kills HIV-1 and is likely to kill virtually any other virus. The study, which was conducted by the University of Texas and Mexico University, is the first medical study to ever explore the benefits of silver nanoparticles, according to Physorg.
While further research is needed, researchers are optimistic that nanological silver may be the silver bullet to kill viruses. The researchers in the study said that they had already begin experiments using silver nanoparticles to kill what is known as the super bug (Methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus). Already used as a topical antibiotic in the medical industry, silver may now come under consideration as an alternative to drugs when it comes to fighting previously untreatable viruses such as the Tamiflu resistant avian flu.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
DOUBLE PLUS UNGOOD
Another soldier's blog shut down
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia
... it breaks my heart to say that this will be my last post on this blog. I wish I could just stop there, but I can not. The following also needs to be said:
For the record, I am officially a supporter of the administration and of her policies. I am a proponent for the war against terror and I believe in the mission in Iraq. I understand my role in that mission, and I accept it. I understand that I signed the contract which makes stop loss legal, and I retract any statements I made in the past that contradict this one.
Furthermore, I have the utmost confidence in the leadership of my chain of command, including (but not limited to) the president George Bush and the honorable secretary of defense Rumsfeld.
If I have ever written anything on this site or on others that lead the reader to believe otherwise, please consider this a full and complete retraction.
[On this day, may you not be napalmed by an invading Army. May you not be tortured for a parking violation. Today, may your hometown not be bombed. When you sit down to eat tonight, may armed men not barge into your house and search your wife’s underwear drawer. May you not be zip-tied, marched outside, beaten and shot in the face.]
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Quantum dot mixture takes LED lighting to a new level
Quantum dots -- crystals generally only a few nanometers big -- contain anywhere from 100 to 1000 electrons. They're easily excited bundles of energy, and the smaller they are, the more excited they get. Each dot in Bower's particular batch was exceptionally small, containing only 33 or 34 pairs of atoms.
When you shine a light on quantum dots or apply electricity to them, they react by producing their own light, normally a bright, vibrant color. But when Bowers shined a laser on his batch of dots, something unexpected happened.
"I was surprised when a white glow covered the table," Bowers said. "The quantum dots were supposed to emit blue light, but instead they were giving off a beautiful white glow."
[How about light-emitting paints or materials? Alleged alien abductees often describe rooms that are filled with light even though there is no discernible light source.]
Quantum dots -- crystals generally only a few nanometers big -- contain anywhere from 100 to 1000 electrons. They're easily excited bundles of energy, and the smaller they are, the more excited they get. Each dot in Bower's particular batch was exceptionally small, containing only 33 or 34 pairs of atoms.
When you shine a light on quantum dots or apply electricity to them, they react by producing their own light, normally a bright, vibrant color. But when Bowers shined a laser on his batch of dots, something unexpected happened.
"I was surprised when a white glow covered the table," Bowers said. "The quantum dots were supposed to emit blue light, but instead they were giving off a beautiful white glow."
[How about light-emitting paints or materials? Alleged alien abductees often describe rooms that are filled with light even though there is no discernible light source.]
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
BIG BROTHER
Close up of actual tracking dots, taken through a microscopeIs Your Printer Spying On You?
Imagine that every time you printed a document, it automatically included a secret code that could be used to identify the printer - and potentially, the person who used it. Sounds like something from an episode of "Alias," right?
Unfortunately, the scenario isn't fictional. In a purported effort to identify counterfeiters, the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information.
The FBI has amassed thousands of pages from non-violent groups including Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice.
In the current political climate, it's not hard to imagine the government using the ability to determine who may have printed what document for purposes other than identifying counterfeiters.
[There are no laws to prevent abuse of this feature.]
Monday, October 24, 2005
DOUBLE STANDARD
Psy-Ops agents at work - Taliban taunted over desecrated bodies
American soldiers in Afghanistan desecrated the bodies of Taliban fighters by burning them in violation of Islamic tradition and then taunted a nearby village about the act, an Australian television network has reported.
The SBS television network broadcast video footage on its respected Dateline current affairs program late Wednesday purportedly showing U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of two suspected Taliban fighters in the hills outside the southern village of Gonbaz, near the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
["Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be," said one message, read out by a soldier identified by SBS as Sgt. Jim Baker.]
American soldiers in Afghanistan desecrated the bodies of Taliban fighters by burning them in violation of Islamic tradition and then taunted a nearby village about the act, an Australian television network has reported.
The SBS television network broadcast video footage on its respected Dateline current affairs program late Wednesday purportedly showing U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of two suspected Taliban fighters in the hills outside the southern village of Gonbaz, near the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
["Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be," said one message, read out by a soldier identified by SBS as Sgt. Jim Baker.]
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
CLOAK AND DAGGER
Police, military may have one of 2002 Bali bombs
INDONESIAN police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid has said.
In an interview with SBS's Dateline program to be aired tonight, on the third anniversary of the bombing that killed 202 people, Mr Wahid says he has grave concerns about links between Indonesian authorities and terrorist groups.
While he believed terrorists were involved in planting one of the Kuta night club bombs, the second, which destroyed Bali's Sari Club, had been organised by authorities.
Asked who he thought planted the second bomb, Mr Wahid said: "Maybe the police ... or the armed forces."
Flashback Claims military involved in Jakarta blast
(ABC Radio Australia News :: (August 8, 2003)
An advisor to the Indonesian government claims the armed forces may have been involved in the recent car bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. A car bomb killed at least 10 people and injured scores more at the luxury hotel.
The advisor, Jawanda, has told our South East Asia correspondent Peter Lloyd that attempts to blame Muslim extremists for the suicide bombing may be premature.
INDONESIAN police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid has said.
In an interview with SBS's Dateline program to be aired tonight, on the third anniversary of the bombing that killed 202 people, Mr Wahid says he has grave concerns about links between Indonesian authorities and terrorist groups.
While he believed terrorists were involved in planting one of the Kuta night club bombs, the second, which destroyed Bali's Sari Club, had been organised by authorities.
Asked who he thought planted the second bomb, Mr Wahid said: "Maybe the police ... or the armed forces."
Flashback Claims military involved in Jakarta blast
(ABC Radio Australia News :: (August 8, 2003)
An advisor to the Indonesian government claims the armed forces may have been involved in the recent car bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. A car bomb killed at least 10 people and injured scores more at the luxury hotel.
The advisor, Jawanda, has told our South East Asia correspondent Peter Lloyd that attempts to blame Muslim extremists for the suicide bombing may be premature.
GRAVITY UNWELL
International Space Station orbit correction fails
An attempt by scientists to raise the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) by 10 kilometres failed on Wednesday, Russian space officials said.
A number of the engines of the Progress M-54 cargo ship, which was supposed to lift the ISS, shut down shortly after the start of the manoeuvre, an official at Russia's mission control centre was quoted by the RIA-Novosti news agency as saying.
"At roughly the 170th second of the operation, several engines shut down by themselves... the orbit correction was suspended and experts are now examining the reasons," the official said.
China's spacecraft orbit 'slips' (14 October 2005)
China's Shenzhou VI spacecraft is not orbiting exactly as planned and will have to be restored to its original trajectory, state-run media say.
The "orbit maintenance operation" would take place early on Friday morning, said official news agency Xinhua.
Shenzhou VI, has two astronauts on board, and is China's longest manned space flight.
Xinhua quoted experts as saying the procedure to fix the craft's orbit would be a "normal technical operation".
Nonetheless, the agency said, experts were urging all scientific and technological staff to be "cautious".
The craft had deviated from its planned trajectory because of resistance from the Earth's atmosphere.
The adjustment, which was carried out by firing the craft's thrusters, altered the spacecraft's altitude by 800m, the People's Daily said.
[Separately, an official with Russia's Roskosmos space agency said scientists had lost control of Russia's new earth-monitoring satellite, the Monitor-E, intended for research purposes including mapping and monitoring pollution.]
GOING TO POT
Good news for marijuana smokers
Yet a new study has found the opposite: that one of marijuana’s active ingredients actually helps produce new brain cells, while apparently reducing anxiety.
It’s part of a double whammy of good news for pot lovers, as another study has found that marijuana smoke is less carcinogenic than cigarette smoke.
None of this establishes that pot smoking is safe. Some past studies have found it produces notable memory impairments, although there is debate over how long these last.
Nonetheless, the new findings contain “good news for the medical marijuana movement,” chirped a press release from the Journal of Clinical Investigation, which is publishing the study on new brain cells.
[In the experiment new cells grew in the hippocampus, a brain area associated with emotional expression and some aspects of memory formation.]
Yet a new study has found the opposite: that one of marijuana’s active ingredients actually helps produce new brain cells, while apparently reducing anxiety.
It’s part of a double whammy of good news for pot lovers, as another study has found that marijuana smoke is less carcinogenic than cigarette smoke.
None of this establishes that pot smoking is safe. Some past studies have found it produces notable memory impairments, although there is debate over how long these last.
Nonetheless, the new findings contain “good news for the medical marijuana movement,” chirped a press release from the Journal of Clinical Investigation, which is publishing the study on new brain cells.
[In the experiment new cells grew in the hippocampus, a brain area associated with emotional expression and some aspects of memory formation.]
POLICE STATE
Wal-Mart Turns in Student’s Anti-Bush Photo,
Secret Service Investigates
Selina Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class “to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights,” she says. One student “had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head.
Then he made a thumb’s down sign with his own hand next to the President’s picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster.
An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called policewho turned the matter over to the Secret Service.
The student came to me and told me that the Secret Service had taken his poster.
“Halfway through my afternoon class, the assistant principal got me out of class and took me to the office conference room,” she says. “Two men from the Secret Service were there. They asked me what I knew about the student."
They told her the incident “would be interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student could be indicted,” she says.
[Dissent is now unchristian. Dissent is now undemocratic. Dissent is now un-American. Dissent is now dangerous.]
Secret Service Investigates
Selina Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class “to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights,” she says. One student “had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head.
Then he made a thumb’s down sign with his own hand next to the President’s picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster.
An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called policewho turned the matter over to the Secret Service.
The student came to me and told me that the Secret Service had taken his poster.
“Halfway through my afternoon class, the assistant principal got me out of class and took me to the office conference room,” she says. “Two men from the Secret Service were there. They asked me what I knew about the student."
They told her the incident “would be interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student could be indicted,” she says.
[Dissent is now unchristian. Dissent is now undemocratic. Dissent is now un-American. Dissent is now dangerous.]
MARTIAL LAW
Bush: Military may have to help if bird flu breaks out
President Bush says the possibility of an avian flu pandemic is among the reasons he wants Congress to give him the power to use the nation's military in law enforcement roles in the United States.
"I'm concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the United States and the world," he told reporters during a Rose Garden news conference on Tuesday.
Such an event would raise difficult questions, such as how a quarantine might be enforced, he said.
[The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bans the military from participating in police-type activity on U.S. soil.
CNN reported Bush began discussing the possibility of changing the law last month, in the aftermath of the government's sluggish response to civil unrest following Hurricane Katrina. However many of the tales of civil unrest at evacuation sites appear to be rumors]
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
American Army chaplain ends up in Guantanamo
I witnessed my first IRFing (Initial Response Forced cell extraction) after a military policeman had performed the "credit card swipe" - pressing his fingers inside a detainee's buttock crack to look for a weapon.
This type of physical contact is not acceptable under Islamic law and the detainee had pushed the guard away.
But prisoners were not allowed to touch an MP and immediately eight guards were summoned.
They put on riot protection gear - helmets, heavy gloves, shin guards and chest protectors - before forming a huddle and chanting in unison, getting themselves pumped up.
Still chanting, they rushed the block, their heavy boots sounding like a stampede on the steel floor. Detainees throughout Camp Delta started to yell and shake their cage doors.
When the IRF team reached the offending detainee, the team leader drenched him with pepper spray and opened the door to his cell. The others charged in. He was no match for eight men in riot gear.
The guards used their shields and bodies to force him to the floor. With his wrists and ankles tied, he was dragged down the corridor to solitary confinement.
When it was over the guards high-fived each other and slammed their chests together like professional basketball players - an odd victory celebration for eight men who took down one prisoner.
I witnessed my first IRFing (Initial Response Forced cell extraction) after a military policeman had performed the "credit card swipe" - pressing his fingers inside a detainee's buttock crack to look for a weapon.
This type of physical contact is not acceptable under Islamic law and the detainee had pushed the guard away.
But prisoners were not allowed to touch an MP and immediately eight guards were summoned.
They put on riot protection gear - helmets, heavy gloves, shin guards and chest protectors - before forming a huddle and chanting in unison, getting themselves pumped up.
Still chanting, they rushed the block, their heavy boots sounding like a stampede on the steel floor. Detainees throughout Camp Delta started to yell and shake their cage doors.
When the IRF team reached the offending detainee, the team leader drenched him with pepper spray and opened the door to his cell. The others charged in. He was no match for eight men in riot gear.
The guards used their shields and bodies to force him to the floor. With his wrists and ankles tied, he was dragged down the corridor to solitary confinement.
When it was over the guards high-fived each other and slammed their chests together like professional basketball players - an odd victory celebration for eight men who took down one prisoner.
Monday, October 10, 2005
DUMBING DOWN
Learning to Be Stupid in the Culture of Cash
"I don't read," says a junior without the slightest self-consciousness. She has not the smallest hint that professing a habitual preference for not reading at a university is like bragging in ordinary life that one chooses not to breathe. She is in my "World Literature" class...
The novel she has trouble reading is Isabel Allende's "Of Love and Shadows," set in the post-coup terror of Pinochet's junta's Nazi-style regime in Chile, 1973-1989. No one in the class, including the English majors, can write a focussed essay of analysis, so I have to teach that. No one in the class knows where Chile is, so I make photocopies of general information from world guide surveys. No one knows what socialism or fascism is, so I spend time writing up digestible definitions. No one knows what Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" is, and I supply it because it's impossible to understand the theme of the novel without a basic knowledge of that work--which used to be required reading a few generations ago. And no one in the class has ever heard of 11 September 1973, the CIA-sponsored coup which terminated Chile's mature democracy. There is complete shock when I supply US de-classified documents proving US collusion with the generals' coup and the assassination of elected president, Salvador Allende.
[At this university, the favored academic concentrations are communications, criminal justice, and social work--basically how to mystify, cage, and control the masses.]
"I don't read," says a junior without the slightest self-consciousness. She has not the smallest hint that professing a habitual preference for not reading at a university is like bragging in ordinary life that one chooses not to breathe. She is in my "World Literature" class...
The novel she has trouble reading is Isabel Allende's "Of Love and Shadows," set in the post-coup terror of Pinochet's junta's Nazi-style regime in Chile, 1973-1989. No one in the class, including the English majors, can write a focussed essay of analysis, so I have to teach that. No one in the class knows where Chile is, so I make photocopies of general information from world guide surveys. No one knows what socialism or fascism is, so I spend time writing up digestible definitions. No one knows what Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" is, and I supply it because it's impossible to understand the theme of the novel without a basic knowledge of that work--which used to be required reading a few generations ago. And no one in the class has ever heard of 11 September 1973, the CIA-sponsored coup which terminated Chile's mature democracy. There is complete shock when I supply US de-classified documents proving US collusion with the generals' coup and the assassination of elected president, Salvador Allende.
[At this university, the favored academic concentrations are communications, criminal justice, and social work--basically how to mystify, cage, and control the masses.]
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
VISUAL THEATRE
"It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell," reads the ad, which ran this week in the National Journal and earlier in the Armed Forces Journal. The ad also stated: "Consider it a gift from above."
Boeing-Bell Hellicopter advert 'should not have been published
Boeing and its joint-venture partner Bell Helicopter apologized yesterday for a magazine ad published a month ago — and again this week by mistake — depicting U.S. Special Forces troops rappelling from an Osprey aircraft onto the roof of a mosque.
[Officials for Boeing and Bell Helicopter said this magazine ad for the Osprey aircraft should never have been published.]
PSYCHOPATHS RULE
Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”
Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”
Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
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