Will Edward Snowden affect presidential race? Rand Paul hopes so.

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Snowden's leaks about NSA surveillance have launched a broad discussion about civil liberties, and Rand Paulis using civil liberties and NSA overreach as themes with which to frame his brand of libertarianism.

Will Edward Snowden affect the 2016 presidential race? Yes, its early yet, so in some ways the question appears very premature. But Snowdens leaks about the extent of National Security Agency surveillance have launched a wide-ranging discussion about civil liberties in the US. And its already clear that the issue could play a part in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination in particular.

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Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.

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Thats because Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky is using civil liberties and NSA overreach as themes with which to frame his brand of libertarianism. This was on full display at the just-completed Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Washington, D.C. Senator Pauls speech was almost entirely about the NSA and what he sees as its infringement on the rights of Americans.

Paul said the American Revolutions sons of liberty would make a bonfire of the secret orders that authorize NSA actions. In a reference to NSA monitoring of cell phone metadata, he said that I believe what you do on your cell phone is none of their [expletive] business.

Paul brought up the lawsuit hes filed against the NSA for its activities, and said he was talking about electing lovers of liberty, not just Republicans.

Dont forget, there is a great battle going on for the heart and soul of America, Paul said.

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Will Edward Snowden affect presidential race? Rand Paul hopes so.

Will Edward Snowden affect presidential race? Rand Paul hopes so. (+video)

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Snowden's leaks about NSA surveillance have launched a broad discussion about civil liberties, and Rand Paulis using civil liberties and NSA overreach as themes with which to frame his brand of libertarianism.

Will Edward Snowden affect the 2016 presidential race? Yes, its early yet, so in some ways the question appears very premature. But Snowdens leaks about the extent of National Security Agency surveillance have launched a wide-ranging discussion about civil liberties in the US. And its already clear that the issue could play a part in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination in particular.

Washington Editor

Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

Thats because Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky is using civil liberties and NSA overreach as themes with which to frame his brand of libertarianism. This was on full display at the just-completed Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Washington, D.C. Senator Pauls speech was almost entirely about the NSA and what he sees as its infringement on the rights of Americans.

Paul said the American Revolutions sons of liberty would make a bonfire of the secret orders that authorize NSA actions. In a reference to NSA monitoring of cell phone metadata, he said that I believe what you do on your cell phone is none of their [expletive] business.

Paul brought up the lawsuit hes filed against the NSA for its activities, and said he was talking about electing lovers of liberty, not just Republicans.

Dont forget, there is a great battle going on for the heart and soul of America, Paul said.

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Will Edward Snowden affect presidential race? Rand Paul hopes so. (+video)

The Libertarian, SchiffBot, Free Marketers, Get Raped, Pillaged And Plundered By Unregulated BitCoin – Video

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The Libertarian, SchiffBot, Free Marketers, Get Raped, Pillaged And Plundered By Unregulated BitCoin
"We are the World" is the devil song to libertarians. What #39;s 50k to a half a Billion dollar loss? ROFL!

By: Minethis1

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The Libertarian, SchiffBot, Free Marketers, Get Raped, Pillaged And Plundered By Unregulated BitCoin - Video

Libertarian wave wins big at CPAC

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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks at the Conservative Political Action Committee annual conference in National Harbor, Md., in this Friday, March 7, 2014 file photo.

Susan Walsh, Associated Press

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The tea party and especially Sen. Rand Paul won big over the weekend during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), but that is not stopping establishment GOP politicians like Sen. Mitch McConnell from targeting them, according to the New York Times Carl Hulse.

Top congressional Republicans are targeting conservative activist groups with a goal of undermining their credibility, according to Hulse. The goal is to deny them any Senate primary victories, cut into their fund-raising and diminish them as a future force in Republican politics.

I think we are going to crush them everywhere, Hulse quoted McConnell as saying.

The straw poll at last week's CPAC illustrated that tea party favorites are winning, according to the National Review's Tim Cavanaugh.

Sen. Rand Paul won with 31 percent of the vote, Sen. Ted Cruz came in second with 11 percent and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson came in third with 9 percent.

Cavanaugh writes that the straw poll illustrates a change in the direction of the party, citing poor performances by former power hitters like Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Paul Ryan.

The libertarian wave continued throughout the conference, which, according to Cavanaugh, followed a pattern that has characterized GOP events since at least 2008: When the small-government zealots are not around, you can hear a pin drop. When a member of the Paul family shows up, theres so much energy in the place it almost seems like Republicans can win an election.

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Libertarian wave wins big at CPAC

Beyond Fiji: the other Pacific paradises you must visit

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March 11, 2014, 4 p.m.

From New Caledonia to French Polynesia, and the Cook Islands to Samoa, there are more holiday destinations to discover in the south Pacific beyond Aussies' beloved Fiji, writes Craig Tansley.

From New Caledonia to French Polynesia, and the Cook Islands to Samoa, there are more holiday destinations to discover in the south Pacific beyond Aussies' beloved Fiji, writes Craig Tansley.

Blue lagoons, empty white sand beaches, rugged green mountainous interiors - what's not to love about the islands of the south Pacific? There's nowhere on earth as untouched and safe. Few Australians travel beyond Fiji, but New Caledonia and Vanuatu in Melanesia, and the Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Samoa in Polynesia are the ideal south seas getaways. Aside from their comparative affordability during the time of a fluctuating Australian dollar, there's virtually no crime, locals are famously friendly, adore visiting children, and don't tout or bargain on prices. As well, the landscapes are among the most pristine on the planet. So, while there's no reason to forego Fjji, there's a whole lot to love about the islands beyond it.

THE COOK ISLANDS

The Cook Islands are made up of 15 tropical islands spread across an area of ocean the size of Western Europe ... but with barely 15,000 inhabitants. Even on its most populated island, Rarotonga (your arrival point), there are just 10,000 locals. No building is higher than the tallest coconut tree and there's not one traffic light.

Perhaps its greatest asset is that its islands are tiny, meaning visitors can access every part of each island within minutes. There's just one main road on Rarotonga which circumnavigates the island in 25 minutes (most visitors hire scooters to get around).

There are far fewer Australian visitors coming to the Cook Islands than Fiji, with many of these visitors coming to get married.

Meanwhile, just 40 minutes away by plane, Aitutaki has become one of the south Pacific's most fabled honeymoon locations. Home to probably the best lagoon in the Pacific behind Bora Bora, Aitutaki has a handful of high-end resorts. It now attracts the rich and famous, but it's still the same sleepy south-seas hideaway it always was, home to 1400 locals surviving by farming and fishing.

But that's always been the Cook Islands' strength: it takes less than 45 minutes by plane from Rarotonga to discover islands where as few as 40 tourists visit a year. The Cook Islands are a beacon for honeymooners, but they also offer an ideal escape for families.

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Beyond Fiji: the other Pacific paradises you must visit

Inspiring womens leadership in the Pacific Islands

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What will it take to inspire womens leadership in the Pacific Islands?

On gender equality it is no secret that the Pacific Islands is lagging.

The region is home to some of the worlds highest domestic violence rates. Economic empowerment of women in many countries, particularly in Melanesia, is desperately low. Women lack access to finance, land, jobs and income. In my country, Solomon Islands, there is only one woman in parliament, and there are none in Vanuatu and Federated States of Micronesia a country which has never yet seen a woman elected.

Of course the reality is always more complicated than a data sheet. I have grown up among inspiring women and have been motivated by very strong Pacific Islanders like Shamima Ali in Fiji and Ethel Sigimanu in Solomon Islands, who have battled so hard to put gender equality on the agenda.

I know in turn that there are many men who, just like me, care immensely about the issue of womens rights and gender equality: men who recognize the social and economic benefits of educating their sisters and daughters, and encouraging their wives to be active in the workforce or to start businesses themselves.

I also believe that things are changing. In many churches in the Pacific, women are increasingly given leading roles in their congregations and conducting their own services. While still very few, more Pacific women have been elected to positions in parliament in places where this has been notoriously challenging: at the last elections, we counted three in Papua New Guinea and three to the Senate in Palau.

And from my own experience at the World Bank Group, I have been proud to see women taking the lead in some of our projects. In Buni village in Solomon Islands, women told me how they came together under a crowded mango tree to outvote men on an initiative that would boost their earnings, while an overwhelming majority of community leaders reported that this same project, the Rural Development Program, had made women more vocal and active in their communities.

Of course examples like these are not enough. I want to see more women leaders more women running businesses, university departments, media outlets and political parties and speaking out in the community. I know that Pacific women are just as smart and just as dedicated as their male counterparts; they make critical decisions every day and have a huge wealth of knowledge at their fingertips.

And womens leadership matters. It matters if we want to get the best people in the top positions in our societies, rather than excluding half of all possible candidates and all that they can offer. Currently almost half of womens productive potential globally is unutilized. A Goldman Sachs study found that narrowing the gender gap in employment could, by 2020, increase per capita income in emerging markets like Solomon Islands by as much as 14 percent.

For change to happen, societies need to recognize that womens leadership is pivotal. Its an issue for governments but also for schools, universities, parents and communities, to encourage girls as well as boys to take on leadership roles. Its an issue for workplaces and businesses, to offer opportunities for women including on boards and committees. We need data on womens participation in the economy, and concrete action plans to address the barriers.

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Inspiring womens leadership in the Pacific Islands

NASA Launches New Research, Seeks the Subtle in Parallel Ways

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nvestigations for the study of identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly and, in doing so, launched human space life science research into a new era. Although NASA's Human Research Program has been researching the effects of spaceflight on the human body for decades, these 10 investigations will provide NASA with broader insight into the subtle effects and changes that may occur in spaceflight as compared to Earth-based environments.

NASA and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) will jointly manage this ambitious new undertaking.

"We realized this is a unique opportunity to perform a class of novel studies because we had one twin flying aboard the International Space Station and one twin on the ground," says Craig Kundrot, Ph.D. and deputy chief scientist of NASA's Human Research Program.

"We can study two individuals who have the same genetics, but are in different environments for one year.

The investigations, which were picked from a pool of 40 proposals, introduce to space physiology the field of -omics, the integrated study of DNA, RNA, and the entire complement of biomolecules in the human body. Studying human physiology at this fundamental level will provide NASA and the broader spaceflight community with unique information.

This is because these tiny components of the human body tell researchers volumes about an individual's composition and their reaction to stressors like those associated with spaceflight. Investigating the subtle changes - or lack thereof - between the Kelly brothers at this level, after Scott's year in space and Mark's year on Earth, could shed light between the nature vs. nurture aspect of the effects of spaceflight on the human body.

The studies will focus on four areas: human physiology, behavioral health, microbiology/microbiome, and molecular or -omics studies. Human physiological investigations will look at how the spaceflight environment may induce changes in different organs like the heart, muscles or brain within the body. Behavioral health investigations will help characterize the effects spaceflight may have on perception and reasoning, decision making and alertness.

The microbiology/microbiome investigations will explore the brothers' dietary differences and stressors to find out how both affect the organisms in the twins' guts. Lastly, but potentially opening a whole new realm of information about humans exposed to the spaceflight environment are the molecular or -omics investigations.

These studies will look at the way genes in the cells are turned on and off as a result of spaceflight; and how stressors like radiation, confinement and microgravity prompt changes in the proteins and metabolites gathered in biological samples like blood, saliva, urine and stool.

Some of the investigations are brand new, some are already being considered as part of the research plans for the one-year mission set for 2015, and some are already being performed with crews living aboard the space station for six-month durations. These will allow the agency to build upon existing knowledge about long duration spaceflight.

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NASA Launches New Research, Seeks the Subtle in Parallel Ways

Microbes and Metabolites Fuel an Ambitious Aging Project

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Craig Venters new company wants to improve human longevity by creating the worlds largest, most comprehensive database of genetic and physiological information.

Last week, genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter announced his latest venture: a company that will create what it calls the most comprehensive and complete data set on human health to tackle diseases of aging.

Human Longevity, based in San Diego, says it will sequence some 40,000 human genomes per year to start, using Illuminas new high-throughput sequencing machines (see Does Illumina Have the First $1,000 Genome?). Eventually, it plans to work its way up to 100,000 genomes per year. The company will also sequence the genomes of the bodys multitudes of microbial inhabitants, called the microbiome, and analyze the thousands of metabolites that can be found in blood and other patient samples.

By combining these disparate types of data, the new company hopes to make inroads into the enigmatic processes of aging and the many diseases, including cancer and heart disease, that are strongly associated with the process. Aging is exerting a force on humans that is exposing us to diseases, and the diseases are idiosyncratic, partly based on genetics, partly on environment, says Leonard Guarente, who researches aging at MIT and is not involved in the company. The hope for many of us who study aging is that by having interventions that hit key pathways in aging, we can affect disease.

But despite decades of research on aging and age-related diseases, there are no treatments to slow aging, and diseases like cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimers continue to plague patients. A more comprehensive approach to studying human aging could help, says Guarente. The key is to go beyond genome sequencing by looking at gene activity and changes in the array of proteins and other molecules found in patient samples.

To that end, Human Longevity will collaborate with Metabolon, a company based in Durham, North Carolina, to profile the metabolites circulating in the bloodstreams of study participants. Metabolon was an early pioneer in the field of metabolomics, which catalogues the amino acids, fats, and other small molecules in a blood or other sample to develop more accurate diagnostic tests for diseases (see 10 Emerging Technologies 2005: Metabolomics).

Metabolon uses mass spectrometry to identify small molecules in a sample. In a human blood sample, there are around 1,200 different types; Metabolons process can also determine the amount of each one present. While genome sequencing can provide information about inherited risk of disease and some hints of the likelihood that a person will have a long life, metabolic data provides information on how environment, diet, and other features of an individuals life affect health.

Metabolic data can also help researchers interpret the results of genome-based studies, which can often pinpoint a particular gene as important in a disease or a normal cellular process without clarifying what that gene actually does. If a particular metabolite is found to correlate with a particular genetic signal in a study, then researchers have a clue as to the function of the DNA signal.

And changes in blood metabolites are not just caused by changes in human cell behavior: the microbes that live in our bodies produce metabolites that can be detected in blood, says John Ryals, CEO and founder of Metabolon. When you get certain diseases, we believe your gut microbiome is changing its composition, and that leads to changes in what molecules are being made, he says.

Ryals says his company, working with collaborators, has already shown that blood biochemistry changes with aging: You can tell how old someone is just by looking at their metabolites.

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Microbes and Metabolites Fuel an Ambitious Aging Project