Freedom House today announces the launch of an international consortium to support non-governmental organizations under threat around the world. The Embattled NGO Assistance Fund will help civil society activists withstand crackdowns and pressure, enabling them to continue their work to defend citizens' rights and freedoms.
Repression and Surveillance of Uighurs Still a Concern on Second Anniversary of Urumqi Crackdown
On the second anniversary of the brutal crackdown on peaceful Uighur demonstrators by Chinese security forces, Freedom House remains deeply concerned about the ongoing repression and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China.
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the [...]
Video: Andrew Horning Delivers a July 4th Message to Lawmakers
Andrew Horning delivers a July 4th, 2011 message to Indiana lawmakers and the Governor on the steps of the Indiana state capitol.
4th of July BBQ
I had a BBQ for the 4th of July. Look at how well it came out!
World’s Greatest Mayor
Watch this mayor punch the everloving shit out of a sheriff who wants to demolish a neighborhood.
All the mayors of the world should follow this heroic woman's example.
This is it – the Final Launch Day
But will it launch?
Current Status: GO
Launch Date: Friday July 8, 2011, 11:26 am ET
Odds of Launch: 30 percent
Shuttle: Atlantis
Mission: STS-135
Launch Pad: 39A
Mission Length: 12 days
EVA’s: 1
Primary Objectives: multi-purpose logistics module.
Commander: Chris Ferguson
Pilot: Doug Hurley
Mission Specialists: Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus
NOAA’s Forecast:
Today: Showers likely before 8am, then scattered showers and thunderstorms between 8am and noon, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after noon. Cloudy, with a high near 86. South southwest wind between 10 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
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To keep current with the news about the launch, I recommend you go to NASA’s Launch Blog which should be live around 6:30 am ET. You will need to refresh your browser to get the latest from that site, but it’s THE place to get the up to the minute stuff especially if you can’t watch NASA TV.
I will be watching the launch itself on NASA-TV
Image Credits: NASA / NOAA
Sunrise on the Moon
Sunrise over Tycho's crater. Click for larger. Image: NASA/Goddard and Arizona state University
It’s been a while since I posted an image from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter so I thought today would be good and I really liked this one of the sunrise on the crater Tycho’s central peak.
BTW: Congrats to Roger for his riddle win, he gets a tee shirt of his choice from HeadlineShirts.com.
I’d also like to mention after quite a few hours work it appears we’ve solved the server problems we were having and the missing elements on the site should be coming back on shortly.
Anyways here’s the NASA/Goddard and Arizona state University caption for the photo.
On June 10, 2011, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter angled its orbit 65* to the west, allowing the spacecraft’s cameras to capture a dramatic sunrise view of the moon’s Tycho crater. A very popular target with amateur astronomers, Tycho is located at 43.37*S, 348.68*E, and is about 51 miles (82 km) in diameter. The summit of the central peak is 1.24 miles (2 km) above the crater floor. The distance from Tycho’s floor to its rim is about 2.92 miles (4.7 km). Tycho crater’s central peak complex, shown here, is about 9.3 miles (15 km) wide, left to right (southeast to northwest in this view). Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University.
You can get larger images here.
Student Space Balloon
Click here to view the embedded video.
I love these balloon projects.
I will let one of the participants introduce the video, Tobias Lohf:
The challenge was to survive ambient air pressures as low as 1/100th of an atmosphere, temperatures as low as -60°C and finally to locate and recover the Cam.
The solution: We took a weather balloon and filled it with helium. Then we added a polystyrene box at it. A HD-Cam, GPS Tracker and a heating pad was on board. All the construction had a total weight of about 1kg.
It traveled approximately 80 miles before the balloon burst and the payload fell to Earth by parachute.
Very nicely done!
Stormy Saturn
Monster storm on Saturn. Click for larger. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
Now this is a storm! The storm is overtaking itself. The image was taken on February 25, 2011 after the storm was 12 weeks old and apparently the storm is still active. The interesting thing is the article (included below) the clouds moved and I had myself convinced the storm itself was instead moving north.
STS=135 Mission Profile
Click here to view the embedded video.
This is the last one folks. Make room in the back seat, here we come!
Bonus Riddle
WE HAVE A WINNER!
Welcome! Here we are at another bonus riddle, and before we begin the riddle, let’s go over the rules:
- Guesses on the bonus riddle will be by email to Tom or Marian.
- You will have 24 hours to submit your guesses; from noon CDT Monday July 4th, until noon CDT Tuesday July 5th.
- You get three guesses.
- Comments will be closed on the bonus riddle until after the submission deadline.
- The winner will be the first person to submit the correct answer. If nobody solves the riddle by noon CDT July 5th, it will be opened for everybody to give it a shot.
- Tom will have the final say in any controversy.
As always, Tom and I will only acknowledge receipt of your guesses. We will not give any feedback other than that. The people eligible to submit guesses are: Bill, John, Roger, Jeff, Rob, Patrick, Editus, Thom Cope, and Alex. If there is a winner, we will announce it at noon tomorrow. If there is no winner by that time, comments will open for everyone, just like the weekly riddle.
Gentlemen, start your engines!
The answer you seek is in the real world.
The eyes have it.
This sits very near one of the most recognizable asterisms in the cosmos.
Look for this after midnight.
This received its name because at first, its nature was wholly misunderstood.
Take a look at this image:
It’s your final clue.
And there you have it. Send your guesses in to Tom or Marian by email, and be sure to put “bonus riddle” in the subject line so your email doesn’t get lost. Good luck!
Friday Fluff – July 8th, 2011 | Gene Expression
1) Post from the past: From each according to their nature, to each according to their nature.
2) Weird search query of the week: “incest blogs.”
3) Comment of the week, in response to “Scientific American blogs!”:
What’s there to compete for? Do blogging and ads pay much? I mean, besides prestige, attracting smart readership, thought-worthy comments, and possible collaborations? I guess, I kinda answered my own question.
4) And finally, your weekly fluff fix:
NCBI ROFL: Do it for your health (and by “it” we mean sex). | Discoblog
The relative health benefits of different sexual activities.
“Although many studies examine purported risks associated with sexual activities, few examine potential physical and mental health benefits, and even fewer incorporate the scientifically essential differentiation of specific sexual behaviors. This review provides an overview of studies examining potential health benefits of various sexual activities, with a focus on the effects of different sexual activities. Findings on the associations between distinct sexual activities and various indices of psychological and physical function. A wide range of better psychological and physiological health indices are associated specifically with penile-vaginal intercourse. Other sexual activities have weaker, no, or (in the cases of masturbation and anal intercourse) inverse associations with health indices. Condom use appears to impair some benefits of penile-vaginal intercourse. Only a few of the research designs allow for causal inferences. The health benefits associated with specifically penile-vaginal intercourse should inform a new evidence-based approach to sexual medicine, sex education, and a broad range of medical and psychological consultations.”
hoto: flickr/ Luke Wisley
Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: What can 2,914 Australian twins tell us about ...
On the genetic structure of Afro-Indians | Gene Expression
The Pith: Afro-Indians are mostly African, with a substantial Indian minority ancestry. The latter is disproportionately female mediated. It also seems that that ancestry is more northwest Indian, and that natural selection has been operating upon them outside of the African environment.
Along the western coast of South Asia, from Makran in southwest Pakistan, down to the Konkan coast of southwest Iindia, there are isolated communities of Afro-Indians. They are called Siddis or Habshi. Their African origin is clear in their physical appearance, as well as aspects of their folk customs which tie them back to Sub-Saharan African. Nevertheless, they have assimilated to many Indian cultural traits. They generally speak the local language, and practice Islam, Hinduism, or Roman Catholic Christianity (in that order in proportion).
How and why did the Siddis arrive in India? The earliest date for their arrival almost certainly must be bounded by the period when Indo-Islamic polities rose to prominence in the early second millennium. The cosmopolitan melange of the armies of the Muslim warlords included diverse groups of Africans, some of whom took power, and established their own self-conscious Afro-Indian dynasties, set apart from the Turkish, Afghan, ...
Environmentalists Caused Recent Global Warming Trends And Need To Do It Again | The Intersection
This is a guest post by Jamie L. Vernon, Ph.D., a research scientist and policy wonk, who encourages the scientific community to get engaged in the policy-making process
While many of us were howling about global warming over the last decade, Earth’s surface temperature actually failed to significantly increase. Yes, I said it. Global surface temperature showed little warming between 1998 and 2008. But, don’t go and broadcast the demise of the global warming movement quite yet. The reasons for the cooling trend are not encouraging. In fact, they are quite threatening. And, if environmentalists have their way (and I think they should), global warming will reemerge and may do so at an alarming rate.
A team of researchers led by Harvard professor James Stock have determined that gases resulting from human activities in conjunction with natural variables can explain the “1999-2008 hiatus in warming.” Using published statistical models, they were able to demonstrate that a rapid increase in coal consumption in Asia likely generates sufficient sulfur emissions to reduce global surface temperatures. They write,
We find that this hiatus in warming coincides with a period of little increase in the sum of anthropogenic and natural forcings. Declining solar insolation as part of a normal eleven-year cycle, and a cyclical change from an El Nino to a La Nina dominate our measure of anthropogenic effects because rapid growth in short-lived sulfur emissions partially offsets rising greenhouse gas concentrations.
In other words, despite the influence of other natural variables, sulfur dioxide is the major driver of recent temperature fluctuations. Sulfur dioxide is a natural by-product of burning coal. Accumulation of sulfur dioxide aerosols in the atmosphere reflects the sun’s rays leading to a cooling effect on global surface temperatures. Because emissions from human activities greatly exceed natural production, increased dependence upon coal-based energy production can lead to sulfur dioxide-driven cooling effects that counteract the warming caused by increasing carbon dioxide.
The authors cite China’s growing dependence on coal as an energy source to explain the increase in sulfur emissions. From 2003 to 2007, Chinese coal consumption more than doubled. Prior to that, it took 22 years for China to double its coal usage. Whereas global coal consumption increased by 27% from 1980 to 2002, the recent Chinese growth rate which occurs over a 4 year period (5 times the previous rate) represents 77% of the 26% rise in global coal consumption.
So why not rely on sulfur dioxide as a geoengineering tactic for regulating global warming?
The sulfur dioxide produced by these coal-fired power plants is a pollutant that contributes to the production of acid rain. Forests, crops, buildings, aquatic life and human health are all negatively impacted by acid rain. In 1963, motivated by the environmental movement, the U.S. Congress passed the Clean Air Act (CAA), which established standards for regulating pollutants such as sulfur dioxide. However, it took until 1990 for Congress to strengthen CAA enough to force the coal industry to significantly cut or trap sulfur emissions. This legislation successfully decreased sulfur dioxide emissions by 40% from 1990 levels. As a result, the reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions dramatically reduced the cooling effects associated with these gases. Thus, removing sulfur dioxide to protect crops, forests, wildlife and human health resulted in the warming trend observed between 1990 and 2002.
Given the negative effects of sulfur dioxide on the environment and human health, we should expect Chinese environmentalists to act to reduce these pollutants. Indeed, China has already made some moves in this direction. Subsequent temperature increases will very likely be more dramatic than those observed during the 1990’s, because the global community has done little to reduce the warming effects that will occur due to continual accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
For those who would like to use this as evidence against global warming, I invite you to closely examine the following graph from the paper described herein. You’ll notice that the window of time during which this temperature stabilization was observed occurs at the high end of a 100 year warming trend. The temporary cooling does not suggest that warming observed since 1910 has been reversed or that we shouldn’t expect additional warming in the future.
Follow Jamie Vernon on Twitter or read occasional posts at his personal blog, “American SciCo.”
The Final Stage of Madness: The Ultimate Autographed Book Clearance Sale | The Loom
Thanks to everyone who has been taking my extra books off my hands in advance of a summer of house-gutting. If you’ve been holding out, or if you’ve been thinking about getting another book, your moment has come. Apparently, some brain-infecting parasite has taken such a grievous toll on my Economic Cortex that I now find myself offering you this final, ridiculous sale to end all sales. All the remaining autographed hardback books in my Amazon store are now ten dollars. All autographed paperback books are five dollars.
Let me break it down for you. Click on the links below to order your copies:
Parasite Rex, US hardback (1 left): $10 Sold out!
Parasite Rex, US paperback (3 left): $5 Sold out!
Parasite Rex, UK paperback (15 6 left): $5
Microcosm, US paperback (8 left): $5 Sold out!
Soul Made Flesh US paperback (1 left): $5Sold out!
Soul Made Flesh UK hardback (11 7 left): $10
Soul Made Flesh UK paperback (11 10 left): $5
Smithsonian Intimate Guide to ...
Stem Cells and Synthetic Scaffolds Save Man from Tracheal Cancer | Science Not Fiction
A patient with tracheal cancer was given a new trachea grown entirely in a lab from his own stem cells using a synthetic scaffold. The cancer has been diagnosed as terminal, but thanks to the surgery, the man is likely to be discharged in a few days. As Gautam Naik at the Wall Street Journal reports:
“It’s yet another demonstration that what was once considered hype [in the field of tissue engineering] is becoming a life-changing moment for patients,” said Alan Russell, director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Pittsburgh, who wasn’t involved in the latest operation. . .
With the patient on the surgery table, Dr. [Paolo] Macchiarini and colleagues then added chemicals to the stem cells, persuading them to differentiate into tissue—such as bony cells—that make up the windpipe.
About 48 hours after the transplant, imaging and other studies showed appropriate cells in the process of populating the artificial windpipe, which had begun to function like a natural one. There was no rejection by the patient’s immune system, because the cells used to seed the artificial windpipe came from the patient’s own body.
Dr. Russell of the McGowan Institute sounded a note of caution about using this technique to ...
European E. Coli Outbreaks Could Recur at Any Time in the Next Three Years | 80beats
Fenugreek seeds
The European Food Safety Authority has released a scientific report on the deadly E. coli outbreak that has sickened more than 3,500 people and killed at least 44 in the last seven weeks, and the news is grim: the apparent source of the contamination, a shipment of fenugreek seeds from Egypt, has been scattered all across the continent, making recall tricky and new outbreaks likely until the seed packets reach their expiration date in three years. Maryn McKenna of Superbug expertly breaks down the report in all its chilling detail:
The seeds took a tortuous path. That initial shipment — which was immense, 15,000 kg (33,000 lbs) — was containerized at the port of Damietta in Egypt, shipped by boat to Antwerp in Belgium, went by barge to Rotterdam in the Netherlands where it passed customs, and then was trucked to Germany. There, an importer broke up the shipment:
10,500 kg to a single German distributor;
3,550 kg to nine other German companies;
375 kg to a Spanish company;
250 kg to an Austrian distributor that sold the entire lot to a single Austrian company;
and 400 kg to a company in England.When ...
Tiny Biocomputer Can Detect Multiple Signs of Disease | 80beats
What’s the News: One of biologists’ favorite fantasies is a doctor who can fit inside a cell. This tiny physician, likely a device built from DNA, would make diagnoses by sensing molecules floating around the body that are signatures of certain diseases and would then release the appropriate drug.
While that vision is still a long way off, scientists have taken a significant step in that direction with a system that detects problems at several levels of cells’ machinery.
What’s the Context:
Disease are frequently the result of malfunctioning proteins, which zip around taking care of the daily business of the body. Proteins are made using our DNA as templates; as described by the Central Dogma of biology, first DNA is transcribed into an mRNA molecule, which is then translated by cellular machinery into the protein. One way to tell whether a protein is abnormal is by checking the mRNA molecule for errors.
The researchers’ first “biocomputer,” which they developed seven years ago, did just that. It consisted of a strand of DNA and a DNA-snipping enzyme. The DNA was designed to bind to mRNAs of specific proteins known to be involved in ...
