Sarah Scoles, - NewScientist (U.K.)
Stephan: Here is a fascinating report on the latest in the attempt to detect alien signals.
Mysterious radio wave flashes from far outside the galaxy are proving tough for astronomers to explain. Is it pulsars? A spy satellite? Or an alien message?
BURSTS of radio waves flashing across the sky seem to follow a mathematical pattern. If the pattern is real, either some strange celestial physics is going on, or the bursts are artificial, produced by human – or alien – technology.
Telescopes have been picking up so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) since 2001. They last just a few milliseconds and erupt with about as much energy as the sun releases in a month. Ten have been detected so far, most recently in 2014, when the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, caught a burst in action for the first time. The others were found by sifting through data after the bursts had arrived at Earth. No one knows what causes them, but the brevity of the bursts means their source has to be small – hundreds of kilometres across at most – so they can’t be from ordinary stars. And they seem to come from far outside the galaxy.
The weird part is that they all fit a pattern that doesn’t […]
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Stephan: This is the current state of neonicotinoid regulation in the U.S., and it is rather pathetic. Like DDT even skeptics now have to deal with the research on neonicotinoids, because the evidence for the harm they do is overwhelming. But it is easy to see the hand of special interests in this moratorium. Products already on the market are exempted, so the impact for good will be greatly compromised.
Through corruption and greed we are tipping into a real crisis in agriculture, a double whammy: drought in the food basket counties in California, and the demise of the bees, essential agents for pollination.
I think it is important to note that this regulation only occurred because of citizen action. Enough people were willing to stand up for the life-affirming option to compel this EPA action. We must continue to exert our intention to create non-toxic agriculture and humane husbandry policies that work with the meta-systems of Earth. This is a first step.
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a moratorium that will restrict the use of new pesticides that have been blamed for declining bee populations, though the policy does not apply to products currently on the market.
The chemicals in question, neonicotinoids, are a new class of insecticides that affect the central nervous system of insects and result in paralysis and death.
On Thursday, the EPA sent letters to companies that have applied for permits to use neonicotinoid pesticides, telling them the moratorium stands until they have assessed the risks on bee populations. The pesticides are known to have chronic effects on honey bees, birds, butterflies and other pollinator species, and are considered to be a factor in overall pollinator declines.
“EPA believes that until the data on pollinator health have been received and appropriate risk assessments completed, it is unlikely to be in a position to determine that such uses would avoid ‘unreasonable adverse effects on the environment,” the agency wrote, reported the Hill.
The EPA has made the study of new pollinator risks an agency priority, but the moratorium has no effect […]
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, - Agence France-Presse (France)
Stephan: Here is the latest on the Wealth Inequity Trend. We see the effects on the island in many ways, one of which directly came into our kitchen. Ronlyn has been asked to increase the number of dozens of organic treats she bakes ever other week for the youth nutrition program she and other volunteer women make happen. As a society we are not meeting the needs of the people that make up society, and only citizen action is going to change this.
Credit: redeeminggod.com
WASHINGTON — Most Americans’ incomes continued to fall last year, but the richest 20 percent saw theirs rise, a new Labor Department report showed Thursday.
In fresh data that adds fire to a growing debate over income inequality, the department said that Americans on average saw income decline for the second straight year in the 12 months to June 2014.
The average pre-tax income fell 0.9 percent from the same period a year earlier, to $64,432.
But broken down into quintiles, those in the top 20 percent of incomes saw their money stream grow by 0.9 percent to $166,048 on average.
Every other group lost ground, with the bottom 20 percent losing the most: their average income dropped 3.5 percent to $9,818.
Those losses came despite an economy that was picking up pace and generating well over 200,000 jobs a month last year.
While the majority of incomes fell, consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of US economic activity, rose 1.0 percent on average.
The largest increase was an 11.3 percent rise in healthcare spending, which has climbed every year since 1996, to an average […]
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RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and MICHAEL WINES, - The New York Times
Stephan: Just from a scientific point of view the laboratories of the states are fascinating to follow. It is so obvious that wellness oriented policies are more life-affirming, effective, efficient, and cheaper. And yet Red value states continue to pursue options that are not life-affirming but simply satisfy greed, prejudice or fear. Oklahoma is an example of this.
Here is a state that by the nature of its geology is prone to earthquakes when fracking fluid is injected. And yet fracking is very profitable for the few people that own the industry although, as this reports lays out, quite harmful to society as a whole. The usual claim is that fracking creates jobs. But one can't brag that fracking creates jobs when more jobs would be created converting to non-carbon energy.
So why do Oklahomans vote into office politicians who support a process that destructively shakes their world? That to me is the interesting research question. One sees this paradox play out, in Kansas, Wisconsin, Florida and other states controlled by Republicans. So it is something very fundamental in the human psyché, and neuroscience therefore is an invaluable tool for exploring an answer.
A wastewater injection well site in Prague, Okla. From 2010 to 2013, Oklahoma oil production roughly doubled, gas production rose 50 percent and the amount of wastewater buried annually jumped one-fifth, to nearly 1.1 billion barrels.
Credit Nick Oxford for The New York Times
PRAGUE, Okla. — Yanked without warning from a deep sleep, Jennifer Lin Cooper, whose family has lived near here for more than a half-century, could think only that the clamor enveloping her house was coming from a helicopter landing on her roof. She was wrong.
A 5.0-magnitude earthquake — the first of three as strong or stronger over several days in November 2011 — had peeled the brick facade from the $117,000 home she bought the year before. […]
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Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senator and Majority Leader U.S. Senate - Mitch McConnell official website
Stephan: Like Senator Tom Cotton's letter signed by 47 Senators, this is a quite extraordinary document. The Majority Leader of the Senate is telling the world not to trust the Obama Administration's representations concerning climate policy, in the middle of an international climate conference. McConnell is saying the commitments made by the U.S. are not to be relied upon. Think about that.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued the following statement regarding the Obama administration’s unworkable Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) in preparation for global climate talks in Paris:
“Even if the job-killing and likely illegal Clean Power Plan were fully implemented, the United States could not meet the targets laid out in this proposed new plan. Considering that two-thirds of the U.S. federal government hasn’t even signed off on the Clean Power Plan and 13 states have already pledged to fight it, our international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal.”
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