Stephan: This sounds loony, but the science is sound.
Giant dinosaurs could have warmed the planet with their flatulence, say researchers.
British scientists have calculated the methane output of sauropods, including the species known as Brontosaurus.
By scaling up the digestive wind of cows, they estimate that the population of dinosaurs – as a whole – produced 520 million tonnes of gas annually.
They suggest the gas could have been a key factor in the warm climate 150 million years ago.
David Wilkinson from Liverpool John Moore’s University, and colleagues from the University of London and the University of Glasgow published their results in the journal Current Biology.
Sauropods, such as Apatosaurus louise (formerly known as Brontosaurus), were super-sized land animals that grazed on vegetation during the Mesozoic Era.
For Dr Wilkinson, it was not the giants that were of interest but the microscopic organisms living inside them.
‘The ecology of microbes and their role in the working of our planet are one of my key interests in science,’ he told BBC Nature.
‘Although it’s the dinosaur element that captures the popular imagination with this work, actually it is the microbes living in the dinosaurs guts that are making the methane.’
Methane is known as a ‘greenhouse gas’ that absorbs infrared radiation from the sun, trapping it in […]
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Stephan: The terrible truth is the great mass of human consciousness hasn't really changed much over the millennia. What was true in Rome is true today. This essential reality is what fundamentalist religions rely upon.
NEW YORK — Nearly 15 percent of people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime and 10 percent think the Mayan calendar could signify it will happen in 2012, according to a new poll.
The end of the Mayan calendar, which spans about 5,125 years, on December 21, 2012 has sparked interpretations and suggestions that it marks the end of the world.
‘Whether they think it will come to an end through the hands of God, or a natural disaster or a political event, whatever the reason, one in seven thinks the end of the world is coming,’ said Keren Gottfried, research manager at Ipsos Global Public Affairs which conducted the poll for Reuters.
‘Perhaps it is because of the media attention coming from one interpretation of the Mayan prophecy that states the world ‘ends’ in our calendar year 2012,’ Gottfried said, adding that some Mayan scholars have disputed the interpretation.
Responses to the international poll of 16,262 people in more than 20 countries varied widely with only six percent of French residents believing in an impending Armageddon in their lifetime, compared to 22 percent in Turkey and the United States and slightly less in South Africa and Argentina.
But only seven percent […]
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ANALIESE PAIK, - Fairfield Green Food Guide
Stephan: The Virtual corporate states, and their allies the Theocratic Rightists now clearly understand that the power to effect the kind of policies they want can sometimes be best accomplished at the state level. Such tactics are easier, and far cheaper than working at the federal level. We have seen this in the war on women and the 1100 bills introduced to put women in their place. But it is also going on in the drive to force Americans to accept GMOs. Here is an example. Like the contraception bills this will be coming to your state legislature soon, if is not already happening. Note the difference between the Connecticut legislature's reaction to marijuana as compared with GMOs. The former is well known there strong public opinion for it. The latter, GMOs, is little known and even less understood. Thus, the power of public opinion. Once again, of course, this has received little or no national media coverage.
Connecticut’s Genetically Engineered Foods bill may still be alive, but it is no longer a bill requiring the labeling of GE foods. As of last night, the labeling provision was removed. Why was this bill eviscerated?
Rep. Richard Roy of Milford, co-chair of the Environment Committee and the original sponsor of the bill, when reached for comment this morning said ‘I feel very strongly that someone or some state has to challenge the use of the Bill of Rights, designed to protect we individuals, from using it to thwart the sharing of information and the subjugation of a whole industry. Residents of more than 50 other countries get simple information saying that saying that GMOs are present in a product. The freest society in the world cannot get that simple sentence.
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Matt McGrath, Science Reporter - BBC News (U.K.)
Stephan: This is one of those stories that will never make the American mainstream media, but which tell us two very important things. First, the medical insight about the importance of natural light in maintaining good eyesight. Second, that at a time when we are literally tearing our public education system apart, Asian nations have children studying so hard they are hurting their eyesight. Guess who will be running the future?
Up to 90% of school leavers in major Asian cities are suffering from myopia – short-sightedness – a study suggests.
Researchers say the ‘extraordinary rise’ in the problem is being caused by students working very hard in school and missing out on outdoor light.
The scientists told the Lancet that up to one in five of these students could experience severe visual impairment and even blindness.
In the UK, the average level of myopia is between 20% and 30%.
According to Professor Ian Morgan, who led this study and is from the Australian National University, 20-30% was once the average among people in South East Asia as well.
‘What we’ve done is written a review of all the evidence which suggests that something extraordinary has happened in east Asia in the last two generations,’ he told BBC News.
‘They’ve gone from something like 20% myopia in the population to well over 80%, heading for 90% in young adults, and as they get adult it will just spread through the population. It certainly poses a major health problem.’
Eye experts say that you are myopic if your vision is blurred beyond 2m (6.6ft). It is often caused by an elongation of the eyeball that happens when people are […]
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BOB EGELKO, Staff Writer - San Francisco Chronicle
Stephan: This is actually fairly remarkable, although it hasn't received much coverage. Only rarely does the majority leader of the party holding the White House come out publicly, let alone this strongly, against the President's policy. That Obama has broken his campaign pledge in 2008 is well known. Why he has done it is less clear, although I ran a story a few days ago that suggests some possible reasons. That and the campaign. What Pelosi, I think, is reacting to is the general sense in California that they were developing a rational legal structure based on the wine industry for taking marijuana out of the shadows and making a legitimate tax paying industry of it. One that would reduce crime, reduce law enforcement and judiciary costs, as well as serving the very real needs of thousands of patients for whom marijuana is a god-send.
My recommendation to the pro-marijuana forces is that they band together in the Democratic Party and go to Obama's campaign and tell them that they will not campaign, or do anything to support his re-election unless he commits to stop the attacks and to creating a rational policy ending prohibition. Without California it would be very hard for him to win the election. It is time to end this madness that is destroying millions of lives... and I don't mean marijuana is the cause.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has joined critics of the Obama administration’s campaign against medical marijuana suppliers in California, saying the government is endangering patients and undermining its own proclaimed policy of deferring to states on the issue.
‘I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medical marijuana to alleviate the suffering of patients in California,’ the San Francisco congresswoman said in a statement Wednesday.
It was Pelosi’s first public criticism of the actions announced in October by U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag of San Francisco and federal prosecutors in the state’s other three regions to crack down on marijuana dispensaries by going after their landlords.
The prosecutors accused pot suppliers of using California’s 1996 medical marijuana law as a cover for making huge profits. They said they would notify dispensaries’ landlords that they were violating federal drug laws and could lose their property or face criminal prosecution.
Since then, about 300 marijuana dispensaries in California have shut down because of fears of prosecution or eviction, including five in San Francisco, said Kris Hermes, spokesman for the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access. He said more than 1,000 medical marijuana suppliers are still operating.
Critics of […]
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