WAKE-UP CALL

Scientists unveil new detectors in race to save Earth from next asteroid

 

A meteorite crash that caused devastation in Chelyabinsk, Russia occurred on the same day a 40m-diameter asteroid swept to within 27,000km of Earth.

Astronomers at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston were quick to reassure the public that they had plans to provide better warnings of future impacts.

"The hundreds of people injured in Russia show it is time to take action and no longer be passive about these events," said Rick Tumlinson, chairman of the US company Deep Space Industries. His company is preparing to launch a series of small spacecraft later this decade. These are aimed at surveying nearby asteroids to see if they can be mined for metals and ores.

TWIToons 130123

MATERIEL CHANGE

'Super-material' graphene gets government backing | Science | The Guardian

UK will commercialise material with technological applications ranging from telecommunications and electronics to energy production and distribution.

The atom-thick honeycomb lattice of carbon conducts electricity a million times better than copper, is transparent and is stronger and more stretchable than other conductors.

 

THE QUICKENING

Ice sheet warming faster than thought: study

 

A study of temperature records over more than half a century shows the west Antarctic ice sheet is warming nearly twice as quickly as previously thought.

A re-analysis of temperature records from 1958 to 2010 revealed an increase of 2.4 degrees Celsius over the period, three times the average global rise.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Libor scandal grows as the fathers of two mass murderers were to testify

trolls?

ESCAPE FREEDOM

Escape from Freedom

Escape from Freedom, known as The Fear of Freedom outside North America, is a book by the Frankfurt-born psychologist and social theorist Erich Fromm.

First published in the US by Farrar and Rinehart in 1941, the book explores humanity's shifting relationship with freedom, with particular regard to the personal consequences of its absence.

Its special emphasis is the psychosocial conditions that facilitated the rise of Nazism.

Escape from Freedom (book)

Escape from Freedom Summary & Study Guide (Kindle)

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Here is the short story... View in fullscreen.

BIG BROTHER

Student expelled for refusing spychip

A student in a Texas school district has been told she is to be expelled for refusing to wear a student ID badge that essentially places her in an “electronic concentration camp".

“Regimes in the past have always started with the schools, where they develop a compliant citizenry,” John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute said.

“They are getting students used to living in a total surveillance state where there will be no privacy, wherever you go and whatever you text or email will be watched by the government."

IRONY CURTAIN

Moscow bans protest against political repressions 'due to lack of political repressions'

 

The Moscow authorities have refused to grant permission for a rally against “political repressions” and “violations of human rights,” saying that state law does not recognize such a phenomenon in the country.

 

 

LEAF - GEDDIT?

Scientists unlock nature's hydrogen secrets

 

Professor Pace says the discovery takes a leaf out of nature's handbook, for the first time identifying the specific water molecules in a plant's photosystem that are converted into oxygen.

"Nature very early on in the evolutionary process on Earth figured out how to do this particular piece of chemistry with close to 100 per cent efficiency," he said.

OCCUPY THIS

Bank of England official: Occupy Movement right about global recession

 

The Occupy Movement has found an unlikely ally in a senior Bank of England official, Andrew Haldane, who has praised protesters for their role in triggering an overhaul of the financial services sector.

DEMOCRACY DYING

GOP Is Stealing Elections

Mathematics showed changes in actual raw voting data that had no statistical correlation other than programmable computer fraud. This computer fraud resulted in votes being flipped from Democrat to Republican in every federal, senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial election since 2008 (thus far) and in the 2012 primary contests from other Republicans to Mitt Romney.

BIG BROTHER

ASIO insulted by statements it could abuse data retention powers

 

David Irvine, director-general at ASIO, has said it is insulting to think ASIO staff would abuse powers given to it around data retention.

“Most ASIO officers would find it frankly insulting to think that an organisation which prides itself on acting in accordance with the law and very, very heavy accountability processes would allow itself to deviate into unwarranted intrusions into privacy,” Irvine told Background Briefing yesterday.

[ Thankfully powers such as those proposed are not and have never been abused by aneyone, ever. ]

LIFE AFTER LIFE

A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife

As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.

"According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent," Alexander writes in the cover story of this week's edition of Newsweek

"You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever."
"You have nothing to fear."
"There is nothing you can do wrong."

BOOK: Proof of Heaven
by Dr Eben Alexander [Book & Audio formats]

INVISIBLE WOMEN

Women shelved in Ikea's Saudi catalogue

Swedish home furnishing retailer Ikea has landed itself in hot water in its home country after women and girls were airbrushed out of some of the pictures in its Saudi Arabian catalogue.

A version of Ikea's yearly catalogue, published on its Saudi website, shows images that are identical to those in other editions except for one detail: the women are gone.

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Agence France Presse's slap to photographers

Agence France Presse filed a complaint against Haiti-based photographer Daniel Morel, claiming heengaged in an “antagonistic assertion of rights” after the photographer objected to the use by AFP of images he posted online of the Haitian earthquake.

+++

As the traditional news media business model disintegrates, photojournalists across the world are finding themselves unemployed. Picture editors have found a novel approach to sourcing photography content: facebook and twitter.

Editors simply copy images from online, without attribution, approval or payment to the photographer.

In this example, AFP took a photographer's work, credited it to another person, sold it for thousands of dollars, paid nobody, and then sued the original photographer for “antagonistic assertion of rights”.

ASTRONOMICAL VALUE

Priceless Tibetan Buddha statue looted by Nazis was carved from meteorite

A priceless Buddha statue looted by Nazis in Tibet in the 1930s was carved from a meteorite which crashed to the Earth 15,000 years ago, according to new research.

The relic bears a Buddhist swastika on its belly – an ancient symbol of luck that was later co-opted by the Nazis in Germany.

Analysis has shown the statue is made from an incredibly rare form of nickel-rich iron present in falling stars.

The 1000-year-old carving, which is 24cm high and weighs 10kg, depicts the god Vaisravana, the Buddhist King of the North, and is known as the Iron Man statue.

EARTH CHANGES

As icebergs melt, so does Greenland's distaste for mining

 

 

As icebergs in the Kayak Harbour pop and hiss while melting away, this remote Arctic town and its culture are also disappearing as the climate changes.

 

 

Narsaq's largest employer, a prawn factory, closed a few years ago after the crustaceans fled north to cooler water. Where once there were eight commercial fishing vessels, there is now one. As a result, the population here, one of southern Greenland's major towns, has been halved to 1500 in just a decade.

 

Suicides are up.

 

THICK BLUE LINE

South African miners charged with murder of colleagues shot by police

Platinum miners were arrested following strikes in South Africa have been charged with the murder of their 34 colleagues who were shot dead by police.

Prosecuting authorities in the North West Province brought murder charges against 270 mineworkers based on an old apartheid-era law related to “common purpose".

Under this law, any form of unrest resulting in deaths allows the state to prosecute any people involved in the struggle, even if they were fighting against injustice. (workers.org)

The murder charge – and associated charges for the attempted murder of 78 miners injured at the Marikana mine near Johannesburg – was brought by the national prosecuting authority under an obscure Roman-Dutch common law previously used by the apartheid government.

UPDATE

S. Africa to free miners as murder charges quashed.

OUR ALIEN MASTERS

Why I had no choice but to spurn Tony Blair: Desmond Tutu
Instead of recognising that the world we lived in, with increasingly sophisticated communications, transportations and weapons systems necessitated sophisticated leadership that would bring the global family together, the then-leaders of the US and UK fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us.

Tony Blair should face trial over Iraq war, says Desmond Tutu