BEES COOL MAN

Pesticide data may tell why bees die

A Bayer CropScience pesticide is at the center of a legal battle for research data that could help explain what's killing U.S. honeybees in large numbers.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in a Washington, D.C., federal court, accuses the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of hiding the honeybee data.

The Natural Resources Defense Council sued after the EPA missed a deadline to respond to a Freedom of Information request the council submitted July 17.
It's not unheard of for federal regulators to take years to fulfill an FOIA request. But in the case of Bayer's pesticide chlothianidine, the Natural Resources Defense Council decided to push hard.

DEATH OF DEMOCRACY

Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes

A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges.

The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years, said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold.

THE QUICKENING

At top of Greenland, new worrisome cracks in ice

In northern Greenland, a part of the Arctic that had seemed immune from global warming, new satellite images show a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a major glacier, scientists said Thursday.
And that's led the university professor who spotted the wounds in the massive Petermann glacier to predict disintegration of a major portion of the Northern Hemisphere's largest floating glacier within the year.
If it does worsen and other northern Greenland glaciers melt faster, then it could speed up sea level rise, already increasing because of melt in sourthern Greenland.

GREEN BROWN

UFO HOT SPOT

Buyer keen on caravan park UFO hot spot

A potential buyer has been found for a caravan park in central Australia reportedly ranked fifth in the world for reportings of UFO sightings.
The owners say a buyer from Adelaide is interested in the roadhouse and camp ground at Wycliffe Well, despite fears of alien invasion.

Maintenance worker Russell Redding says there is nothing to fear from the numerous 'visitors' who do not arrive with cars and caravans. Mr Redding says sightings have happened as recently as this week.

"I saw a black line in the sky. A huge amount of lights came on. Then all of a sudden the lights closed like a building closing down, but it was parallel and it closed right down to one light and it lifted off and it went on an angle then that light turned off," he said.

FLEXIBLE VOWS

Russia's leader Vlad (the Impaler) Putin dumped his wife for Alina Kabaeva ...
When you're the leader of the not so free world you need something to take the stress out of a hard day.

IRONY FIST

Makers of War On Terror game in street protest

THE makers of board game War On Terror will today take to the streets after it was banned by a High Street giant.
Co-creator of the game, Cambridge web designer Andrew Sheerin, has decided to hit back asking why it is shops will sell games which depict violence - but will not sell his tongue-in-cheek creation.

A Zavvi spokesman claimed "poor sales" lay behind the same-day recall.

OUR COSMOS

Cosmic magnetism revealed

Japanese physicists may have solved a longstanding mystery in cosmology -- how the large-scale magnetic fields found in today's galaxies and galaxy clusters were initially created. Kiyotomo Ichiki at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and colleagues suggest that these fields originated in the very early universe from interactions between photons and electrons before the first atoms had time to form. The fields produced may have been strong enough to affect the formation of early stars, says the team (Sciencexpress 1120690).

Scientists are still unsure about where the substantial magnetic fields in the present-day universe came from.

COOL RUNNINGS

Flat-panel fridge set for debut

A new approach to refrigeration and cooling works by repeatedly applying an electric field to long molecules called polar polymers.
Advocates of the method say it will achieve a ten-fold increase of efficiency over conventional cooling.
The new method instead takes its cooling power from the ordering and disordering of the polymers, which are distributed in a thin film just a millionth of a metre thick.
In an electric field, the molecules spontaneously line up, creating heat. Removing the field causes the polymers to cool down again as a result of the electrocaloric effect.

A similar idea called magnetic refrigeration has existed for years, employing certain materials with "magnetic dipoles" that act like tiny compass needles. Cycling the materials through a magnetic field performs a similar order/disorder dance that can remove heat.

THE QUICKENING

Arctic sea ice melt 'even faster'

Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than last year, despite a cold winter.
Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that the year began with ice covering a larger area than at the beginning of 2007.
But now it is down to levels seen last June, at the beginning of a summer that broke records for sea ice loss.
Scientists on the project say much of the ice is so thin as to melt easily, and the Arctic seas may be ice-free in summer within five to 10 years.

UGLY TRUTH

Cute 'rising star' Lin Miaoke, left, and the 'ugly' singer Yang Peiyi, 7.

Olympic child singing star revealed as fake

The little girl who starred at the Olympic opening ceremony was miming and only put on stage because the real singer was not considered attractive enough, the show's musical director has revealed.

Pigtailed Lin Miaoke was selected to appear because of her cute appearance and did not sing a note, Chen Qigang, the general music designer of the ceremony, said in an interview with a state broadcaster aired Tuesday.
Photographs of Lin in a bright red party dress were published in newspapers and websites all over the world and the official China Daily hailed her as a rising star on Tuesday.
But Chen said the girl whose voice was actually heard by the 91,000 capacity crowd at the Olympic stadium during the spectacular ceremony was in fact seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, who has a chubby face and uneven teeth.

"The reason why little Yang was not chosen to appear was because we wanted to project the right image, we were thinking about what was best for the nation," Chen said in an interview that appeared briefly on the news website Sina.com before it was apparently wiped from the Internet in China.

CASPIAN OIL

Russian Scientist: Government Knows About UFO Bases

According to Fuad Gasimov, academician and head of the Seismological Department of the National Aerospace Agency the often-sighted space craft have bases deep in the Caspian, one off the north part of the Absheron Peninsula, the other in the north sector of the Caspian Sea.

"I had been associated with the Institute of Earth Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. during the Soviet era," Gasimov told the Baku Sun. "Since then we have information on the existence UFO bases around Baku. But it was strongly kept as a military secret."

MEN DA CITY

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang
Former Deputy Director-General, Information Department

From the horse's ... mouth:
The Chinese government puts people first, and is dedicated to maintaining and promoting its citizens' basic rights and freedom. Chinese citizens have freedom of religion.

Mendaciousness, dissemblement, obscurantism. Call it what you like. Just don't call it lying.

CASPIAN OIL

US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice was speaking in Georgia in June 2008 when a prescient message scrolled across the screen: Bear takes to prowling streets.

28 May, 2006
Terror alert as Caspian oil pipeline opens
In the foothills of the Caucasus mountains, a long line of broken mud cuts across the meadows. If you go anywhere near it, camouflaged guards carrying automatic weapons emerge from the forest beyond.
These guards in the Borjomi region of Georgia - trained by US army and SAS veterans - are pawns in a new great game gripping Central Asia: their job is to protect the oil pipeline buried 10ft below.
The $4bn Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan pipeline, on stream from today, is key in American plans to reduce dependency on Opec oil producers in the turbulent Middle East. Pumping oil 1,000 miles from the Caspian sea to the Mediterranean through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, it will avoid Russia - increasingly seen by the US as a resurgent superpower prepared to use control of energy resources as a political weapon.

Since coming to power in 2004 Georgia's president, Mikhail Saakashvili has steered his country away from Russia towards co-operation with the US. 'Georgia will be America's partner in spreading democracy around the world,' Bush told rapturous crowds during the first visit of a US president to the country last year.

10 July 2008
Russia, US Swap Warnings as Condoleezza Rice Visits Georgia
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tbilisi as the US and Russia accused each other of stoking unrest in Georgia while US troops began exercises with regional armies near Russia's borders.
Her trip came a day after she signed a deal allowing Washington to base part of a new US missile defense system in the Czech Republic, prompting a stark warning from Moscow that it would respond militarily.

11 August 2008
US, Russian ambassadors spar at UN over Georgia
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad exchanged sharp words with the Russian ambassador on Sunday, accusing Moscow of seeking "regime change" in Georgia and resisting attempts to make peace after days of fighting have left hundreds of civilians dead.
Khalilzad disclosed during a U.N. Security Council session that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday morning "that a democratically elected president of Georgia — and I quote — must go."

Bush, Cheney Increasingly Critical of Russia Over Aggression in Georgia
The White House stepped up its criticism of Russia for escalating the conflict in Georgia, with President Bush warning Monday that Russia's "disproportionate response" is unacceptable and Vice President Cheney adding that the crisis threatens long-term relations between Moscow and Washington.

Cheney was even more pointed, telling Saakashvili on Sunday afternoon that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered," according to his press secretary.

TECHNO BABBLE

‘Fakeproof’ e-passport is cloned in minutes

New microchipped passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports.
Tests exposed security flaws in the microchips introduced to protect against terrorism and organised crime.
The flaws also undermine claims that 3000 blank passports stolen last week were worthless because they could not be forged.

UFO FLAP

Tens of People Witnessed UFO in Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad witnessed an UFO. For nearly an hour the unknown silver object hung over the local Blue Lakes. According to the witnesses, the discus-shaped UFO attracted attention of the locals who had a rest at the lakes and they started waving their hands as a sign of greeting to the object. Some people started making shots of the object and shooting video with their mobile phones.

Despite the fact that tens of people witnessed the phenomenon, neither Baltic Navy nor the Ministry of Emergency Situations have officially commented the incident saying that they did not register any unknown flying objects that day.

BEYOND BELIEFS

Political writer Hirsi Ali discusses democracy and Islam

The word "apostate" has fallen into relative disuse in the West in the last couple of 100 years. The idea that leaving your religion, apostasy, should be punished, has largely died out since the Enlightenment. But Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who's been in Australia over the last few days, is in continuous fear for her life because she is an apostate from Islam.

In 2004, in the Netherlands, her friend, the filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, was stabbed to death for an anti-Islam film for which she wrote the script. A death threat against her was pinned to the corpse with a knife. In her subsequent book, Infidel, she stepped up her attack on global Islam. And in Australia she's been talking about the ideas of the Enlightenment.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali says the creed of Islam itself, rather than the way it's practised, is the problem, because the ideas of Mohammed are incompatible with the ideas of liberal democracy.

POLLUTED PLANET

Mars Lander finds toxic substance in soil

The Phoenix Mars Lander may have detected perchlorate, a potentially toxic substance used in rocket fuel, in soil samples taken from the red planet, NASA scientists say.
The space agency said further tests were required to confirm the presence of perchlorate in Martian dirt and rule out contamination from the spacecraft.
Phoenix is the latest NASA probe sent to discover whether water, a crucial ingredient for life, ever flowed on Mars and if life, even in the form of microbes, exists or ever existed there.
Last week, NASA said Phoenix had provided definitive proof that water exists on Mars after further tests on ice found by the lander in June.

A NASA spokeswoman declined to characterise perchlorate as detrimental to life.

Health Implications of Perchlorate Ingestion
Perchlorate a powerful oxidant used in solid rocket fuels by the military and aerospace industry has been detected in public drinking water supplies of over 11 million people at concentrations of at least 4 parts per billion (ppb). High doses of perchlorate can decrease thyroid hormone production by inhibiting the uptake of iodide by the thyroid. Thyroid hormones are critical for normal growth and development of the central nervous system of fetuses and infants.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

UK Terror detention plans 'muddled'

Plans to extend terror detention to 42 days could undermine the independence of judges and lead to the collapse of trials, peers have warned.
The Lords constitution committee said letting Parliament vote on whether to allow extensions in the pre-charge time limit beyond 28 days was "muddled".
This would create a "recipe for confusion", rather than a "system of checks and balances", it added.

The Home Office said the changes would protect people and civil liberties.

HELLO SUNSHINE

"Major Discovery" From MIT Primed to Unleash Solar Revolution

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases.
Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

THE BUZZ

All we are saying, is give bees a chance

There is increasing reason to believe that Gaucho and other members of a family of highly toxic chemicals - neonicotinoids - may be responsible for the deaths of billions of honeybees worldwide.
Something is killing the bees. Some scientists suspect a virus; others mites, even cellphones. (Bees are not known to use phones, though, having their own communications system - a dance called the "waggle.")

Rachel Carson was vilified by an industry smear nearly 50 years ago, after the release of her book, "Silent Spring." "If we were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson," said American Cyanamid, the maker of DDT, "we would return to the Dark Ages ... insects, vermin and disease would once again inherit the Earth."

But, as Carson so eloquently put it in a CBS documentary in 1964:
"Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we now have acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is part of nature, and his war is inevitably a war against himself."

PSYCHO TRAINING

'Beasting in army training'

There were these NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) kits we had to wear, they were really heavy and you can hardly breathe in them.
I was made to run in that and do press-ups. We ran with rifles over our heads in extreme heat.
This was a punishment if you were late for a parade, if you hadn't done your block jobs, if your locker wasn't up to scratch or if you started mouthing-off to the wrong person.
Psychologically you are messed up and you don't do it (the misdemeanour) again. Physically it leaves you shattered - and these beastings would go on for a long time, hours on end.
Anybody who's got a higher rank than you can order a beasting. This happened at Catterick, Tidworth and Germany. Tidworth and Germany were the worst.

KNIT WIT

Heil Knitler

Knitler should Have Been Stopped At Munich

Well there goes the semiotic neighborhood. Rachel Matthews, a "celebrity knitter," has kicked up quite a kerfuffle in the UK for writing a book on how to knit historical tyrants. She's got Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and—because to leave him out would have been unthinkable—Adolf Hitler.

POWER PLAY

Embedded Video

Around 9:30 on Friday night, a bicyclist pedaling down Seventh Avenue veered to the left, trying to avoid hitting a police officer who was in the middle of the street.
But the officer, Patrick Pogan, took a few quick steps toward the biker, Christopher Long, braced himself and drove his upper body into Mr. Long.
Officer Pogan, an all-star football player in high school, hit Mr. Long as if he were a halfback running along the sidelines, and sent him flying.
As of Tuesday evening, a videotape of the encounter had been viewed about 400,000 times on YouTube.
"I can't explain why it happened," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Tuesday. "I have no understanding as to why that would happen."

[Might it have something to do with psychopathic/authoritarian types attracted to the Police uniform as a way of exerting control over others? Who view anyone outside of their narrow world view of compliance and domination with hatred and disdain?]