Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology – Organic Consumers Association

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Cost of GMO Food Labeling

Big Biotech loves to claim that GMO labels on food would be costly and drive up the price of food for consumers. But Joanna Shepherd-Bailey, PhD, and renowned tenured law professor from Emory, has issued a report that shows that GMO labeling would likely result in no increase in consumer costs at all.

New Report by Earth Open Source

However, a large and growing body of scientific and other authoritative evidence shows that these claims are not true. On the contrary, evidence presented in this report indicates that GM crops:

Based on the evidence presented in this report, there is no need to take risks with GM crops when effective, readily available, and sustainable solutions to the problems that GM technology is claimed to address already exist.

Conventional plant breeding, in some cases helped by safe modern technologies like gene mapping and marker assisted selection, continues to outperform GM in producing high-yield, drought-tolerant, and pest- and disease-resistant crops that can meet our present and future food needs.

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Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology - Organic Consumers Association

Behavioral and Social Sciences – National Academies Press

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The National Academies strive to apply the knowledge, analytical tools, and methods of the behavioral and social sciences to some of the nation's most pressing issues in efforts to understand them and to contribute to their solutions. Areas of expertise include anthropology, child development, demography, economics, education, gerontology, history, law, linguistics, political science, psychology, sociology, and statistics.

In 2010, more than 105,000 people were injured or killed in the United States as the result of a firearm-related incident. Recent, highly publicized, tragic mass shootings in Newtown, CT; Aurora, CO; Oak Creek, WI; and Tucson, AZ, have sharpened ...

For many household surveys in the United States, responses rates have been steadily declining for at least the past two decades. A similar decline in survey response can be observed in all wealthy countries. Efforts to raise response rates have ...

Every day in the United States, children and adolescents are victims of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. Despite the serious and long-term consequences for victims as well as their families, communities, and society, efforts to prevent, identify, and respond ...

The aging of the population of the United States is occurring at a time of major economic and social changes. These economic changes include consideration of increases in the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare and possible changes ...

Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves -- ...

Section 141 of The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 20101 provides funding for a research program on the causes and consequences of childhood hunger and food insecurity, and the characteristics of households with childhood hunger and food insecurity, with ...

As an all-volunteer service accepting applications from nearly 400,000 potential recruits annually from across the U.S. population, the U.S. military must accurately and efficiently assess the individual capability of each recruit for the purposes of selection, job classification, and unit ...

The Children's Health Act mandated the National Children's Study (NCS) in 2000 with one of its purposes being to authorize the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to study the environmental influences (including physical, chemical, biological, and ...

On July 26, 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) with the purpose of soliciting comments on how current regulations for protecting research participants could be modernized and revised. The ...

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Behavioral and Social Sciences - National Academies Press

Behaviorism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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For the similar term used in political science, see behavioralism.

Behaviorism (or behaviourism), is an approach to psychology that combines elements of philosophy, methodology, and theory.[1] It emerged in the early twentieth century as a reaction to "mentalistic" psychology, which often had difficulty making predictions that could be tested using rigorous experimental methods. The primary tenet of behaviorism, as expressed in the writings of John B. Watson, B. F. Skinner, and others, is that psychology should concern itself with the observable behavior of people and animals, not with unobservable events that take place in their minds.[2] The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as thoughts and beliefs.[3]

From early psychology in the 19th century, the behaviorist school of thought ran concurrently and shared commonalities with the psychoanalytic and Gestalt movements in psychology into the 20th century; but also differed from the mental philosophy of the Gestalt psychologists in critical ways.[4] Its main influences were Ivan Pavlov, who investigated classical conditioning although he did not necessarily agree with behaviorism or behaviorists, Edward Lee Thorndike, John B. Watson who rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods, and B.F. Skinner who conducted research on operant conditioning.[5]

In the second half of the 20th century, behaviorism was largely eclipsed as a result of the cognitive revolution.[6][7] While behaviorism and cognitive schools of psychological thought may not agree theoretically, they have complemented each other in practical therapeutic applications, such as in cognitivebehavioral therapy that has demonstrable utility in treating certain pathologies, such as simple phobias, PTSD, and addiction. In addition, behaviorism sought to create a comprehensive model of the stream of behavior from the birth of a human to their death (see Behavior analysis of child development).

There is no universally agreed-upon classification, but some titles given to the various branches of behaviorism include:

Two subtypes are:

Skinner was influential in defining radical behaviorism, a philosophy codifying the basis of his school of research (named the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, or EAB.) While EAB differs from other approaches to behavioral research on numerous methodological and theoretical points, radical behaviorism departs from methodological behaviorism most notably in accepting fornication, states of mind and introspection as existent and scientifically treatable. This is done by characterizing them as something non-dualistic, and here Skinner takes a divide-and-conquer approach, with some instances being identified with bodily conditions or behavior, and others getting a more extended "analysis" in terms of behavior. However, radical behaviorism stops short of identifying feelings as causes of sexual behavior.[2] Among other points of difference were a rejection of the reflex as a model of all behavior and a defense of a science of behavior complementary to but independent of physiology. Radical behaviorism has considerable overlap with other western philosophical positions such as American pragmatism.[10] Another way of looking at behaviorism is through the lens of egoism, which is defined to be a causal analysis of the elements that define human behavior with a strong social component involved.[11]

This essentially philosophical position gained strength from the success of Skinner's early experimental work with rats and pigeons, summarized in his books The Behavior of Organisms[12] and Schedules of Reinforcement.[13] Of particular importance was his concept of the operant response, of which the canonical example was the rat's lever-press. In contrast with the idea of a physiological or reflex response, an operant is a class of structurally distinct but functionally equivalent responses. For example, while a rat might press a lever with its left paw or its right paw or its tail, all of these responses operate on the world in the same way and have a common consequence. Operants are often thought of as species of responses, where the individuals differ but the class coheres in its function-shared consequences with operants and reproductive success with species. This is a clear distinction between Skinner's theory and SR theory.

Skinner's empirical work expanded on earlier research on trial-and-error learning by researchers such as Thorndike and Guthrie with both conceptual reformulationsThorndike's notion of a stimulusresponse "association" or "connection" was abandoned; and methodological onesthe use of the "free operant," so called because the animal was now permitted to respond at its own rate rather than in a series of trials determined by the experimenter procedures. With this method, Skinner carried out substantial experimental work on the effects of different schedules and rates of reinforcement on the rates of operant responses made by rats and pigeons. He achieved remarkable success in training animals to perform unexpected responses, to emit large numbers of responses, and to demonstrate many empirical regularities at the purely behavioral level. This lent some credibility to his conceptual analysis. It is largely his conceptual analysis that made his work much more rigorous than his peers', a point which can be seen clearly in his seminal work Are Theories of Learning Necessary? in which he criticizes what he viewed to be theoretical weaknesses then common in the study of psychology. An important descendant of the experimental analysis of behavior is the Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior.[14]

As Skinner turned from experimental work to concentrate on the philosophical underpinnings of a science of behavior, his attention turned to human language with Verbal Behavior[15] and other language-related publications;[16]Verbal Behavior laid out a vocabulary and theory for functional analysis of verbal behavior, and was strongly criticized in a review by Noam Chomsky.[17]

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Behaviorism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Milky Way’s Hungry Black Hole Has Been Eating Recently | NASA Space Science Video – Video

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Milky Way #39;s Hungry Black Hole Has Been Eating Recently | NASA Space Science Video
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - scientists have found evidence that the normally dim region close to the Milky Way #39;s central black hole, has ...

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Milky Way's Hungry Black Hole Has Been Eating Recently | NASA Space Science Video - Video

NASA Airborne Campaign To Measure Summer Melt Of Greenland Ice Sheet

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October 31, 2013

Image Caption: The NASA C-130 on the ramp after first arriving at Wallops this summer. Credit: NASA / Patrick Black

[ Watch The Video: 5 Questions About LVIS & IceBridge ]

NASA

For the first time, a NASA airborne campaign will measure changes in the height of the Greenland Ice Sheet and surrounding Arctic sea ice produced by a single season of summer melt.

NASAs C-130 research aircraft flew from the Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., to Greenland on Wednesday where they will conduct survey flights to collect data that will improve our understanding of seasonal melt and provide baseline measurements for future satellite missions. Flights are scheduled to continue through Nov. 16.

The land and sea ice data gathered during this campaign will give researchers a more comprehensive view of seasonal changes and provide context for measurements that will be gathered during NASAs ICESat-2 mission, which is scheduled for launch in 2016.

The more ground we cover the more comparison points well have for ICESat-2, said Bryan Blair of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., principal investigator for the Land, Vegetation and Ice Sensor, or LVIS.

Warm summer temperatures lead to a decline in ice sheet elevation that often can be significant in low-lying areas along the Greenland coast. In past years, the Jakobshavn Glacier, located in the lower elevations of western Greenland, has experienced declines of nearly 100 feet in elevation over a single summer. Higher elevations farther inland see less dramatic changes, usually only a few inches, caused by pockets of air in the snowpack that shrink as temperatures warm.

Surface melt is more than half of the story for Greenlands mass loss, said Ben Smith, senior physicist at the University of Washingtons Advanced Physics Laboratory, Seattle, and member of the science team that selected flight lines for this campaign. The rest of Greenlands mass loss comes from ice flowing downhill into the ocean, often breaking off to form icebergs, and from melting at the base of the ice sheet.

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NASA Airborne Campaign To Measure Summer Melt Of Greenland Ice Sheet

NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg Invites Quilters to Contribute a Star Block

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International Space Station Expedition 37 Flight Engineer Karen Nyberg of NASA, a lifelong lover of sewing, is inviting fellow crafters to join her in stitching together a global community space quilt.

Nyberg, who is in the final weeks of her mission aboard the orbiting laboratory, recently shared a star-themed quilt block she was able to complete during her limited free time in space. She is now inviting quilters from the public to create their own star-themed quilt blocks to help celebrate her mission and passion for the quilting arts.

"Now that I've tried my hand sewing in space, I can say one thing with certainty: it's tricky," Nyberg said in a video sent down from the space station. "This is what I've made. It's far from being a masterpiece, but it was made in space. I'm inviting all of you to create your own star-themed quilt block. We'll be combining them with my block to create a quilt for next year's 40th anniversary International Quilt Festival in Houston. I can't wait to see what we make together."

Nyberg's complete video and other video clips of her quilting aboard the space station will be featured in a NASA exhibit at the 39th annual International Quilt Festival Thursday through Sunday, Nov. 3 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. Sewing and quilting include many of the principles and technical skills used in developing equipment for spaceflight missions. The exhibit will include sewn samples from spacesuits and parachutes, a cargo transfer bag and other soft goods from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The deadline for submitting a block for the quilt is Aug. 1, 2014. For more information about where to send your block, visit:

Home

Nyberg and The International Quilt Festival will collaborate on having the squares stitched together for display at the 40th annual International Quilt Festival in 2014 and at other public displays. The Houston festival is the largest annual quilt festival in the world, attracting more than 60,000 guests annually.

Nyberg arrived at the space station with Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency in May. The trio is scheduled to return to Earth Nov. 10.

For Nyberg's complete biography, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/np5ICw

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NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg Invites Quilters to Contribute a Star Block

Executive vice-chair of emergency medicine at UPMC talks about E. coli risks – Video

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Executive vice-chair of emergency medicine at UPMC talks about E. coli risks
Dr. Clifton Callaway, professor and executive vice-chair of emergency medicine at UPMC, talks to Channel 4 Action News about the risks of E. coli.

By: WTAE-TV Pittsburgh

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Executive vice-chair of emergency medicine at UPMC talks about E. coli risks - Video