Monthly Archives: May 2010

2nd ship joins Freedom Flotilla – Ma’an News Agency

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Atlanta Journal Constitution
2nd ship joins Freedom Flotilla
Ma'an News Agency
Bethlehem - Ma'an - The second ship to join the Freedom Flotilla en route to Gaza left Istanbul Saturday afternoon, joining eight other boats from three ...
The Freedom FlotillaMidEastYouth.com
Aid convoy sets off for GazaAljazeera.net
Seattle medical delegation looks at women's changing role in GazaSeattle Post Global
ikhwanWeb.com -Press TV -Palestine Note (blog)
all 772 news articles »

British Petroleum’s Reponse to EPA on Dispersants

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MICHAEL DeMOCKER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE A hermit crab scuttles through clumps of oil from the spill in a tidal pool near a breakwater in Grand Isle on Friday, May 21, 2010.

What is BP doing to the ocean off the coast of the U.S.?  You could see for yourself at the BP live spill feeds.    The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is hosting the live video feed of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.  (Unfortunately, at the moment none of the live feeds seem to be working).

On May 22, BP Responded to the EPA’s Directive on Dispersants.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released BP’s response to EPA’s directive on dispersants. EPA’s directive to BP required them to evaluate available, pre-approved dispersants for toxicity and effectiveness and report back to EPA within 24 hours. After receiving their response late Thursday night, EPA immediately called a meeting with BP to discuss the issue on Friday, May 21. EPA will continue to work over the next 48 hours to ensure BP is complying with the directive.

BP’s response to EPA’s directive, as well as the directive itself, can be found here.

Basically, BP cannot give the EPA an answer as to toxicity, biodegradability and how long the chemicals will persist in the environment, because the ingredients of the chemical mixtures are “proprietary” — secret.

BP and several of the dispersant manufacturers have claimed some sections of BP’s response contain confidential business information (CBI). By law, CBI cannot be immediately made public except with the company’s permission. EPA challenged these companies to make more information public and, as a result, several portions of the letter can now be made public. EPA is currently evaluating all legal options to ensure that the remaining redacted information is released to the public. EPA continues to strongly urge these companies to voluntarily make this information public so Americans can get a full picture of the potential environmental impact of these alternative dispersants.

The EPA’s (unhelpful and not informative) website on the on-going Gulf Leak is here. You can probably get more information from the New Orlean’s NOLA website.  They sum it up here.

“BP replied that it was concerned that Sea Brat No. 4, the only other federally approved dispersant available in sufficient quantity, “contains a small amount of a chemical that may degrade to a nonylphenol,” one of a group of chemicals that “have been identified by various government agencies as potential endocrine disruptors, and as chemicals that may persist in the environment for a period of years.”

BP is dumping from 70,000 – 50,000 gallons of various “proprietary” chemicals in the ocean per day. This can’t possibly be good for sea life, or a good way to deal with the leak, but at the moment it’s about all they are doing.  When is the U.S. government going to actually take control of this [...]

Natural compounds in carnivorous plants could fight human fungal infections

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The vast array of plants in nature includes carnivorous plants that kill to survive. How can a plant zap a flying or crawling insect? By using a highly evolved group of compounds and secondary metabolites to trap and absorb prey. Now Tel Aviv University researchers say they've found a way these natural plant compounds could benefit human health by fighting serious fungal infections.

The Venus fly trap is probably the best known example of a carnivorous plant. Native to the tropics, these plants lure unsuspecting beetles, ants, flies and other creatures into a cavity filled with liquid that botanists call a "pitcher". The instant insects fall into this trap, enzymes are activated that dissolve the bugs and provide the plant with needed nutrients, such as carbon and nitrogen, which can be difficult to extract from soil. Read more...



AyurGold for Healthy Blood

Delta 4 Poised to Launch

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Delta 4 Poised to Launch with Next Generation GPS Satellite, Ken Kremer

"The launch of a Delta 4 rocket carrying the first in a new series of next generation GPS satellites has been rescheduled for Sunday night (May 23) at 11:17 PM EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida after the countdown was halted barely 4 minutes prior to liftoff, shortly before midnight on Friday (May 21). The last minute countdown scrub was called after loss of "the telemetry signal between the GPS and the satellite ground support equipment," according to a statement issued by the Air Force and United Launch Alliance (ULA)."

Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010 | Bad Astronomy

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I am very sad to write that Martin Gardner, a skeptical giant and genius by any standard, died today in Tulsa Norman, Oklahoma.

Martin_GardnerWikipedia has a list of his remarkable achievements. He was a lifelong friend of James Randi, who has written a brief statement at the JREF page. I’ve heard Randi tell many a tale about him. His love for Martin was worn on his sleeve.

I never met Martin, but he influenced my life anyway. I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I think I was in sixth grade when I found a copy of one of his many books filled with brain teasers and math puzzles. I’ve always loved puzzles, but Martin’s books showed me how to think around some problems, how to take that needed step to the side to see the solution lying beyond… and more importantly, trained me how to find the path to that solution.

Very few people wake up one day seeing the world rationally; it’s a series of steps that takes you there. Eventually you look around and realize it, and when you look behind you you see the footsteps that brought you to that place. Off in the distance, well behind me, but at a critical point in my life, I can see where Martin gave me a nudge. It was a small push, to be sure, just a gentle poke, but with time it acquired vast leverage.

The skeptic community mourns the loss of one of our giants, but we know we’re all better off for the time we had him here.

Picture credit: Wikipedia and Konrad Jacobs, used under a Creative Commons license.


Houston Comes To Washington

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Unpaid lobby goes to bat for NASA, Houston Chronicle

"Rice University doctoral candidate Laurie Carrillo flew to Washington, D.C., on her own dime to stump for NASA, one of 152 students and other unpaid citizens who have taken up the call to save space agency programs by knocking on the doors of Capitol Hill. "Maybe 20 percent of the people are still neutral, sort of wait-and-see. But their antenna are up, and I think that's really heartening," said the native of San Antonio who began her distinguished academic career at Rice with a $48,000 scholarship from NASA headquarters."

League City councilman appeals for NASA budget, Galveston Daily News

"Cuts among NASA contractors at the Johnson Space Center would undermine League City's economy should Congress approve President Barack Obama's 2011 NASA budget, Councilman Mike Lee said. Lee traveled to Washington, D.C., with members of the Citizens for Space Exploration, an organization of people from 31 states that urges Congress to support human space missions."

Alternator Field Feed

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I am modifying a perfectly good alternator to provide an isolated negative terminal and extracting the internal regulator so I can apply an external "smart" regulator.

I notice that the field is provided with power from a small dedicated rectifier off the 3-phase output. Why has the designer ad

The Precise Meaning of Precision

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I expect this is a good question for RedFred, but I'll put it out for everyone.

I know that ISO discourages the use of the word "precision" and I think I see why. It gets used to describe the resolution of an instrument, the repeatability, and the reproducibility. Gorblimey! Little wonder fol

Thomas Goetz has the wrong debate. FDA doesn’t intend to restrict.

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I think everyone in this space has been way off base as to what the problem is with FDA and Congress wanting to investigate the DTC Genomics companies.

The whole mindset is wrong.

What I hear from this debate is "It's my data, mine, mine, mine. Gimmee, Gimmee, you can't keep me from my data Big Brother!"

From Mr Goetz's Blog
"The controversy seems to have stirred the FDA to assert its authority – and that of physicians – over any and all medical metrics."

"To me, getting access to this information is a civil rights issue. It’s our data."

This is a straw man argument that has been set up to make regulating these companies seem unseemly and an invasion of privacy.

IT IS A DEAD WRONG ARGUMENT and I will not stand for it being perpetuated anymore.

This is not about getting access to your data.

Fine, you want a whole genome, go get it!

The FDA is not asking should people be able to go out and buy this. It is asking several other questions.

1. Is Interpretation of biometric data considered medicine?
The answer here is certainly confusing. I think it rests solely with intent.
Do you intend to tell someone something about a disease they now have based on this biometric data that you analyzed?

If the answer is yes, that is viewed legally and medically as a diagnosis.
Which ultimately I think is medicine and falls under medical regulations.

2. Is DTCG analyzing biometric data and intending to give an interpretation of that data which indicates a disease a person has?

It depends on what you define disease as.

Most legal experts defer to the International Classification of Diseases

3. Should we regulate a system which has not given indication of their quality control if they are indeed intending to provide medical diagnosis?

4. Are these methods of obtaining human samples to derive biometric data for the intent of analyzing and providing information about disease considered medical devices?

This is precisely the argument and precisely what Congress and the FDA are trying to define.

So stop acting like a bunch of little kids running around because someone took your kool aid away!

If I hear another, "It's my data" whine again I will scream.

This is not about restricting access to biometric data.

Which by the way, some states do already.

Is an EKG biometric data? What about a cholesterol?

Probably, no one is stopping you from going out and buying a machine to obtain this data yourself.

But any doctor will tell you, it is the interpretation that can vary widely. As demonstrated by the multiple interpretations that Venter et.al complained about

What they are intending to do is to prevent a third party from having NO ONE to answer to when providing interpretation of that very SAME biometric data.

The Sherpa Says: Regulation here will most definitely not stifle innovation as bad as a consumer death or class action lawsuit or lack of trust from consumers because of the aforementioned.