Monthly Archives: March 2015

"Censorship in Serbia is easy to prove" – RWB

Posted: March 4, 2015 at 4:42 am

Source: Beta, Tanjug

BELGRADE -- Executive director of Reporters Without Borders Christian Mihr has said that "censorship in Serbia is neither direct nor transparent, but is easy to prove."

Mihr is one of the authors of the organization's recently published report about media freedom in the world, the Beta agency said.

In an interview for the Slavko Curuvija Foundation's Cenzolovka website - Mihr said that authorities in Serbia had "a very negative stance towards media freedom and suppressed critical, free reporting and influenced editorial policies by pressuring the media, often financially, via advertising."

Commenting on a recent statement made by EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who questioned the validity of the report by Reporters Without Borders regarding censorship in the media in Serbia, Mihr said that, during 2014, independent media and journalists who were critical were exposed to "serious pressure on several occasions, despite the fact that the process of Serbia's EU membership negotiations is under way."

Articles criticizing the government have been removed from the internet, while independent journalists were threatened or exposed to pressure, he said, according to the Beta report.

"Media freedom must be a strong condition for Serbia's admission to the EU," Mihr said.

Recollecting that Serbia had dropped on the organization's media freedom list by 13 places this year, Mihr estimated that this was "sad for a country which is a candidate for EU membership."

Commenting on the statement of Johannes Hahn that evidence was needed to support the claims of media freedom violations in Serbia, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said earlier this week that it showed the EU official was "an honorable man."

"I did not hear this evidence. I guess the idle ones who up until now made various insults will find them," Vuci remarked, and added he was "grateful to Hahn for showing he was ready to stand under fierce media pressure, but cared much more about the truth."

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"Censorship in Serbia is easy to prove" - RWB

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American Economic Collapse Dollar Collapse Warning Martial Law – Video

Posted: at 4:41 am

American Economic Collapse Dollar Collapse Warning Martial Law
Visit this site to learn more (RECOMMENDED: First link uses a proxy) USD COLLAPSE,MARTAL LAW, FEMA Camps, and RFIDs Anonymous Warning to Americans SUBSCRIBE for Latest on USD ...

By: Mere Nire

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American Economic Collapse Dollar Collapse Warning Martial Law - Video

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Ron Paul Found Racist… Again – Video

Posted: at 4:41 am

Ron Paul Found Racist... Again
No matter how many times he gets caught being racist, supporting racism, being supported by racists, libertarians will to the death deny that he is. Source: Ron Paul: Congressional Black...

By: Jason Unruhe

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Ron Paul Found Racist... Again - Video

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Paul: What is the Department of Homeland Security good for?

Posted: at 4:41 am

By RON PAUL GUEST COLUMNIST

Late Friday night, Congress passed legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security for one week. This vote followed weeks of debate over efforts to attach a prohibition on funding President Obama's executive order granting amnesty to certain illegal immigrants to the Homeland Security funding bill.

Despite the heated rhetoric from both sides, no one seriously believes that Congress will allow Homeland Security funding to lapse. Most in Congress believe that, without the Department of Homeland Security, Americans would be left unprotected from terrorists and natural disasters. As with most areas of bipartisan agreement, the truth is the exact opposite of the DC consensus. The American people would be much better off if Congress transferred the few constitutional functions performed by Homeland Security to other parts of the government and then shut down the rest of the department.

Many Americans associate Homeland Security with the color-coded terrorist warning system and the "if you see something, say something" public relations campaign. These programs were designed to inspire public confidence in the department, but instead they inspired public ridicule.

Ironically, the best case for shutting down this department is its most well-known component -- the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). More terrorist attacks have been thwarted by airline passengers than by the TSA! The TSA may be ineffective at stopping terrorists, but it is very effective at harassing innocent Americans like Lucy Forck. Three-year-old Lucy, who uses a wheelchair, not only had to endure an intrusive screening from TSA agents, but the agents also took away her beloved stuffed animal.

When not abusing children who use wheelchairs, TSA subjects airline passengers to rules that seem designed to make air travel as unpleasant as possible. For example, TSA recently forced a Campaign for Liberty staffer to throw away a jar of Nutella she had in her carry-own luggage. I am sure all airline passengers feel safe knowing that TSA is protecting them from sandwich spreads.

Ending the TSA would return responsibility for airline security to airports and airlines. Private businesses have a greater incentive than a government bureaucracy to ensure their customers' safety. Those conservatives who think this is a radical idea should try to think of one area where they trust government bureaucrats to do a better job than private business owners.

Another agency within Homeland Security that the American people could do without is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Having spent 15 years in Congress representing a coastal area subject to hurricanes and floods, I have seen first-hand how FEMA places adherence to bureaucratic rules ahead of aiding victims of a natural disaster. As a result, it is not uncommon for disaster victims to wait months or even years for assistance.

FEMA not only fails to provide effective relief to disaster victims, it also impedes private disaster relief efforts. FEMA even hinders disaster victims' efforts to help themselves. While in Congress, I heard stories of individuals being threatened with fines or even jail time if they returned to their property without FEMA's permission. One individual in my district was threatened with arrest if he removed a tarp that FEMA put on his house -- even though FEMA was supposed to have put it on his neighbor's house!

Ten years after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, it is clear that this department has failed to protect our security, but has infringed on liberty. If Congress really wanted to enhance our security and our liberty it would shut down this unnecessary, unconstitutional department.

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Full-Body Transplants Are a Crazy, Wildly Unethical Idea

Posted: at 4:41 am

For the last week, an Italian neurosurgeon has been executing a full-blown media offensive, talking up his plan to stitch one persons head to another persons body. If the powers-that-be would just get over their ethical queasiness, Sergio Canavero of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group says he could accomplish the feat by 2017.

But full-body transplants arent so crazy. In fact, it might surprise you that there was a successful operation as far back as 1818. Well, successful if you ignore that the transplantee freaked out and murdered his doctors family. Oh wait. That was Frankenstein. I take it back, full body transplants are totally crazy.

What the hell, going to the moon was crazy too, right? And a maybe-crazy-but-what-the-hell moonshot is exactly how Canavero sees his plan to help patients with severe physical impairments. Why did the US and the Soviet Union just vie for being the first to space? Because it is about measuring dicks. We want to demonstrate as a country, to say: I am the best, he says. Canaveros latest paper glosses over questions of ethics and practicality and tacklesthe trickiest aspect of the head-swapping procedure: The spinal splice.

Canaveros plan focuses on sewingtwo people together by their spinal cords. (Hooking up the rest of the utilitiesblood vessels, airways, blood vesselsis incredibly difficult, but trifling in comparison.) Step one is to sever the cords with a special, ultra-thin blade. Canavero rightly notes most cases of spinal trauma are well, traumatic: Snapping your neck on a skateboard ramp is bound to leave the spinal cord in an untidy condition. Those nerve cells scar, and scarring would impede their regeneration (if cells in the central nervous system could regeneratewell get to that in a sec). A clean wound, on the other hand, heals cleanly. Canavero likens those million sharply severed neurons to spaghetti. Italians adore spaghetti, I love spaghetti, and spaghetti is what is called for here, he says.

The job of fusing those spaghetti-like spinal sections together falls to a substance called polyethylene glycol. This stuff has actually been pretty good at repairing the motor functions in rats with spinal traumathough even the kindest critic will point out that successful rat experiments are a far cry from proving that the stuff will repair human spines. Still, Canavero is raring to go. I have enough animal data, he says. Give me a brain dead organ donor. Say someone is in a traumatic car accident, and doctors say that he cannot be saved. In the time between when the persons family says its OK to pull the plug and the moment the doctors actually do so, Canavero asks for three to four hours. I sever the spinal cord, add polyethylene glycol, and start measuring electrophysiological responses, he says.

After surgery (and during it, one hopes), Canavero will keep the patient in a coma. He estimates it will take about at least two weeks for the first axons to beginlacing themselves together, at which point the patient can be revived. Throughout the coma and for some time after, Canavero will bathe the spinal splice with a mild electrical current. This is not a free Frankenstein joke from the good doctor: Its actually a method thats seen surprisingly promising results healingrealhuman patients with spinal trauma. Canavero is confident that this will keep the muscle cells operational. Combined with physical therapy, Canavero estimates his as-yet-unchosen patient (any volunteers?) will be back on her (new) feet in about a year.

In case this wasnt entirelyclear: Canaveros plan is insane. Like, James Bond villain insane. And its not just because his plan fits together like a Voltron of bad science (which it does). Its kind of a bummer, actually, because his plan couldmaybework, if he was given free rein to cut and sew living peoples heads to dead peoples bodies until he got it right. But besides ethics, theres an unfortunate fact of biology standing in his way: The central nervous system in higher vertebrateslike humansdoes not regenerate. Hes insane. You cant put a head on somebody else! says Binhai Zhang, a neurosurgeon at UC San Diego. The reason why goes down to your DNA. The genes in a mature mammalian central nervous system that control regeneration are repressed, says Michael Beattie, a professor of neurosurgery at UC San Francisco. Theyll stay that way, no matter how much you treat the spinal cord with polyethylene glycol and electrical currents. (Although, hey, who wants to work on un-repressing those genes?)

Nobody knows for sure why the cells in your brain and spine arent wired for regrowth. After all, your peripheral nervous systemthe circuitry for every other part of your bodyconducts electrical impulses in exactly the same way, but its genes can code for self-repair. Beattie says this may have to do the fact the spine and brain contain the circuitry coded for movement, not just for conducting signals. Spinal cells must knit themselves together in super-complex configurations in order to command the motor functions youve learned over a lifetime. Once the connections are made, you dont want the wrong connections getting created, he says.

The only reliable way to induce spinal cell regrowth in higher order vertebrates is with stem cell therapy. Last year scientists showed pluripotent stem cells could regrow damaged spinal cordsbut only in rats. Mark Tuszynski studies stem cells in spinal injury at UC San Diego, and he says even with this advance the research community is years away from attempting suchtreatments on humans. Its not at the stage yet where there can be meaningful advances in clinical trials, he says. Plus stem cells will need help, in the form of drugs that knock down natural regeneration inhibitors that your body creates (because cancer), and still more drugs to keep your body from creating scar tissue around the wound. (Though in fairness, thats the idea behind Canaveros super-thin knife.) All of this research remainsyears away from clinical application.

And this slow, careful tempodo no harm being a hallmark of western medicineis what drives Canaveros bold assertion that he will have a successful head transplant in 24 months. There are all these people who tell you: Who is this guy who can do this in two years? When you go public with something like this, you have to have two balls like this. There are people who are not so strong-balled and will just get crushed by the critics. But I love the critics. This is a feat of theoretical neuroscience and the evidence is there and its going to work. In case you need clarification, his main argument there is Haters gonna hate.

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Human Population and My Ancestors

Posted: at 4:40 am

Here is a fun plotting game (suggested by my colleague David Norwood).

We all know that in the past there were not as many humans on Earth as there are now. Right now we are around 7 billion humans on this planet but just 200 years ago the population was around 1 billion (or less). So, the further back in time you go the fewer humans are on Earth.

Ok, now what about your ancestors? Personally, I have two parents. Both of my parents had parents so that I had 4 grandparents. My grandparents had parents which gives me 8 great-grandparents and so on. The further back in time I go, the more ancestors I have.

Now lets merge these two sets of data. How far back in time do I have to go such that the number of my ancestors is the same as the human population? To answer this, I need two things. First, I need a plot of the Earths population. This isnt too difficult. Just check out this page on Wikipedia regarding World Population. There are plenty of graphs from which you can get population data. I used one of those along with plotlys web digitizer to get the data.

What about a plot of the number of ancestors? If I call myself the zeroth generation and my parents the 1st generation, then I can write the number of humans in a generation as:

Where Ng is the number of humans (just in that generation) and n is the generation number. But what is the time frame for a generation? If my ancestors have children at the age of 20 instead of 30, there will be a different number of ancestors 300 years from now. Of course the actual time between generations varies. For this calculation I will use 25 years for all generations.

Now for the plot.

According to this estimation, in the year 1280 I had 351 million ancestors and there were 351 million humans on Earth. But what does this really mean? Nothing.

When life gives you meaningless problems, make homework. I think that is an old saying. Well, here is some homework.

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Human Population and My Ancestors

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Sri Lankan tourist development 'the result of human rights abuse'

Posted: at 4:40 am

Tourists need to be aware that they are visiting a post-conflict country with a 26-year history of civil war, crimes that remain unaccounted for, and an alarming human rights record," Angela Mattli, from the society, told Telegraph Travel. "They should also be aware of the fact that the military plays a significant role in the tourism sector as well.

Tour operators should not offer hotels or tourist attractions run by the armed forces if it cannot be proven that their ownership is not based on land grabbing or other human rights abuses, the report also suggested.

Passikudah

While recognising that some operators make the effort to improve their compliance with human rights provisions, STP said its report showed that these efforts are not enough to make up for the lack of consultation procedures, for land expropriation, forced resettlement and restricted access to the sea in Sri Lanka.

Tourism Concern, another ethical travel campaign group, said it too investigated tourism development in post-war Sri Lanka in 2011. It now backs the recommendations STP has made for tour operators to exercise due diligence regarding human rights in the country.

Abta, the Association of British Travel Agents, welcomed the report for highlighting what it said were important issues. It described Sri Lanka as a fast growing destination with lots to offer tourists but said that, as with all destinations, it is vital tourism develops in a way that protects environments, promotes long term economic benefit and respects human rights.

We will continue to work with our members to review issues and raise any matters with the Sri Lankan authorities, a spokesman added.

Kuoni, an operator with tours running in Sri Lanka, told Telegraph Travel it is committed to human rights due diligence. We will continue to engage with partners in Sri Lanka to discuss issues and solutions, its spokesman said.

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Sri Lankan tourist development 'the result of human rights abuse'

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Human Augmentation Market to Pose 43.5% CAGR Through 2020, States MarketsandMarkets in its New Research Study Now …

Posted: at 4:40 am

London, UK (PRWEB) March 03, 2015

The human augmentation market is mainly driven by the considerable growth of the augmentation market. The wearable augmentation sector is predicted to outpace the in-built augmentation sector in terms of size in the upcoming years.

The eye-wear sector dominates the North American human augmentation market owing to a big number of new products launches in the region. Furthermore, strong economy of the North American region, high technological advancements as well as the rising demand for advantageous products in the medical application segment are amid the main factors giving impetus to the growth of the human augmentation market in North America. This regional market is anticipated to post the highest CAGR during 2015-2020.

As for the global human augmentation market, it is projected to reach USD 1135 million in 2020, showing a 43.5% CAGR during 2015-2020.

New market research report Human Augmentation Market by Product (In-Built Augmentation and Wearable Augmentation), Application (Medical, Defense, Industrial), & Geography - Global Forecast to 2020 worked out by MarketsandMarkets has been recently published at MarketPublishers.com.

Report Details:

Title: Human Augmentation Market by Product (In-Built Augmentation and Wearable Augmentation), Application (Medical, Defense, Industrial), & Geography - Global Forecast to 2020 Date: February 16, 2015 Pages: 159 Price: US$ 4,650.00 http://marketpublishers.com/report/life_sciences/healthcare/human-augmentation-market-by-product-application-geography.html

This cutting-edge report provides a granular analysis of the global human augmentation market on the basis of products, applications, and geography. It gives a clear picture of the current market scenario as well as offers insights into the historical development of the market. The research report delves deep into the market trends, scrutinizes the competitive landscape of the market and also uncovers important information on the performance of the major market participants. The research study contains a whole set of important statistical data on the production, consumption and foreign trade; investigates the main market growth restraints, drivers, challenges and opportunities. Additionally, the new report offers an extensive future outlook for the worldwide human augmentation market till 2020.

More new market research publications by the publisher can be found at MarketsandMarkets page.

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Year Zero: Our life timelines begin

Posted: at 4:40 am

Editors note: this post originally appeared on the authors blog, Solve for Interesting. This lightly edited version is reprinted here with permission.

In 10 years, every human connected to the Internet will have a timeline. It will contain everything weve done since we started recording, and it will be the primary tool with which we administer our lives. This will fundamentally change how we live, love, work, and play. And well look back at the time before our feed started before Year Zero as a huge, unknowable black hole.

This timeline beginning for newborns at Year Zero will be so intrinsic to life that it will quickly be taken for granted. Those without a timeline will be at a huge disadvantage. Those with a good one will have the tricks of a modern mentalist: perfect recall, suggestions for how to curry favor, ease maintaining friendships and influencing strangers, unthinkably higher Dunbar numbers now, every interaction has a history.

This isnt just about lifelogging health data, like your Fitbit or Jawbone. It isnt about financial data, like Mint. It isnt just your social graph or photo feed. It isnt about commuting data like Waze or Maps. Its about all of these, together, along with the tools and user interfaces and agents to make sense of it.

Every decade or so, something from military or enterprise technology finds its way, bent and twisted, into the mass market. The client-server computer gave us the PC; wide-area networks gave us the consumer web; pagers and cell phones gave us mobile devices. In the next decade, Year Zero will be how big data reaches everyone.

The battle for our digital lifelog is already well underway. You probably buy into Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or a handful of others for your calendar, your email, and your media. Media was a gateway drug to a walled garden: your content is locked in, and the barriers to entry are simply too huge to leave.

The reality is that once inside the walled gardens of GAFA [Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon], consumers will see the walls begin to rise. My music is in the cloud, but soon enough, courtesy of the gateway drug of the quantified self movement, my medical records will be in the cloud, my home security will be managed from the cloud, my banking and my energy needs too.

If a consumer subscribes to one cloud service, then they are very likely to continue with all the extensions of that cloud service platform rather than mix and match. It becomes increasingly inconvenient to remain service agnostic. The dominant players nurture their walled-gardens of creative content and other services tethered to their digital formats and devices. Jeremy Silver, Digital Medieval.

Alistair Crolls Strata + Hadoop World keynote on Year Zero.

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Year Zero: Our life timelines begin

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Futurist Jack Uldrich to Discuss Future Trends in Pharmaceuticals, Finances and Farming

Posted: at 4:40 am

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 03, 2015

Futurist Jack Uldrich says, "Half of the predictions about the future are wrong; the trouble is people dont know which half. This might seem like an odd statement coming from a futurist, but the point is that no one can predict the future. The future can and should be prepared for, and that is the cornerstone of my work.

This March, Uldrich is crossing the country speaking on topics such as The Internet of Things, How to Future-Proof Your Business, and Unlearning. His lineup of keynote engagements currently includes:

March 04: Canola Council of Canada Banff, Canada

March 05: Farm Credit Bank of Texas Charleston, SC

March 06: Indiana Farm Bureau Indianapolis, IN

March 09: CICA 2015 International Conference Captive Insurance Orlando, FL

March 12: National Fluid Power Association San Diego, CA

March 19: Cleveland Community College Cleveland, OH

March 24: Siemens PLM Software Scottsdale, AZ

Originally posted here:
Futurist Jack Uldrich to Discuss Future Trends in Pharmaceuticals, Finances and Farming

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Monthly Archives: March 2015

"Censorship in Serbia is easy to prove" – RWB

American Economic Collapse Dollar Collapse Warning Martial Law – Video

Ron Paul Found Racist… Again – Video

Paul: What is the Department of Homeland Security good for?

Full-Body Transplants Are a Crazy, Wildly Unethical Idea

Human Population and My Ancestors

Sri Lankan tourist development 'the result of human rights abuse'

Human Augmentation Market to Pose 43.5% CAGR Through 2020, States MarketsandMarkets in its New Research Study Now …

Year Zero: Our life timelines begin

Futurist Jack Uldrich to Discuss Future Trends in Pharmaceuticals, Finances and Farming

The Prometheus League

Breaking News and Updates

Prometheism

Forbidden Fruit

The Evolutionary Perspective

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Lucid Dreams from Childhood

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