GARETH COOK, - Scientific American
Stephan: Back in the early 1970s two friends of mine, Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, wrote a lovely book, The Secret Life of Plants. It drove materialists crazy, but time has shown their basic points about the consciousness of plants, and the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life were correct. Here is the latest concerning this trend. It doesn't really fully address the nonlocal aspects of consciousness, but it touches upon them, and that is a big move.
How aware are plants? This is the central question behind a fascinating new book, ‘What a Plant Knows,
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Stephan: This essay raises some very interesting issues about the military and its increasing interest in green solutions. Having been inside this system for several years at the policy level I can tell you the military ultimately is pragmatic. That's why the armed forces are moving green, and are also embracing meditation. In both instances these policies offer better solutions.
Retired Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson calls himself ‘an accidental environmentalist.
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AMANDA PAULSON, Staff Writer - The Christian Science Monitor
Stephan: Affordable college educations supported by the GI Bill created the technological revolution that pushed America to an era of global dominance. Now all the trends run in the opposite direction, and the result that is emerging is a world where other nations lead and America follows. But we continue to lie to ourselves about this, just as we lie to ourselves about healthcare, so I don't think much of consequence is going to get done to remedy this situation.
Aaron Marks graduates this spring with a business degree from a good college, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and, unlike many of his classmates, a good job.
He also has $191,000 in student loan debt.
Mr. Marks’s debt is extraordinarily high, but stories like his abound. Two-thirds of students graduate with debt, to the tune of $25,000, on average.
Keeping interest rates low on federally subsidized student loans – a challenge that has lately occupied Washington – would make only a dent in what student borrowers owe. Hence, the conversation is beginning to shift to the other side of the equation: the rising cost of college.
Between 1999 and 2009, tuition at public four-year colleges rose 73 percent on average, and tuition at private nonprofit colleges jumped 34 percent. In the same period, median family income fell by about 7 percent.
‘One of the reasons we have a hard time wrapping our arms around [the college affordability issue] is that there’s not one villain or one hero,’ says Patrick Callan, president of the Higher Education Policy Institute, a nonpartisan organization focused on higher ed issues. ‘It’s kind of the perfect storm.’
Among the contributing factors: state budget cuts, which prompted many public colleges to raise tuition […]
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JASON KOEBLER, - US News and World Report
Stephan: Another marijuana myth falls to actual data.
It’s long been the argument of law enforcement and anti-medical marijuana advocates that the government-sanctioned pot dispensaries cause an uptick in crime, especially burglary and muggings. The only problem is that argument isn’t necessarily true, according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
On its face, the argument makes sense-medical marijuana dispensaries feature large caches of high quality drugs, and its customers overwhelmingly walk in with a huge wad of cash and walk out with a desirable product. But the study, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, found that neighborhoods with medical marijuana dispensaries in Sacramento were no more likely to have crime than other neighborhoods.
The study’s authors say their research may debunk a 2009 report by the California Police Chiefs Association that said marijuana dispensaries ‘have been tied to organized criminal gangs, foster large [marijuana growth] operations, and are often multi-million-dollar profit centers.’
‘Because they are repositories of valuable marijuana crops and large amounts of cash, several operators of dispensaries have been attacked and murdered by armed robbers both at their storefronts and homes, and such places have been regularly burglarized,’ the report continues. ‘Drug dealing, sales to minors, loitering, heavy vehicle and […]
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Stephan: This drug resistant gonorrhoea is going to impact the Red value states the worst, because these are the states that offer the least in sex education, tell teens that condoms are useless, and that obsess on abstinence only, even though endless studies have shown that is the wrong way to go. These states already have the highest rates of STDs, and teen pregnancies so once this form of gonorrhoea takes hold it will spread there the most.
Drug-resistant strains of gonorrhoea have spread to countries across the world, the United Nations health agency says, and millions of patients may run out of treatment options unless doctors catch and treat cases earlier.
Scientists reported last year finding a ‘superbug’ strain of gonorrhoea in Japan in 2008 that was resistant to all recommended antibiotics and warned then that it could transform a once easily treatable infection into a global health threat.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said those fears were now reality with many more countries, including Britain, Australia, France, Norway and Sweden reporting cases of the sexually transmitted disease resistant to cephalosporin antibiotics – normally the last option against gonorrhoea.
‘Gonorrhoea is becoming a major public health challenge,’ said Manjula Lusti-Narasimhan, from the WHO’s department of reproductive health and research. She said more than 106 million people were newly infected with the disease every year.
‘The organism is what we term a superbug – it has developed resistance to virtually every class of antibiotics that exists,’ she told a briefing in Geneva. ‘If gonococcal infections become untreatable, the health implications are significant.’
If left untreated, gonorrhoea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirths, severe eye infections in babies and infertility in […]
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