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May 4, 2009 4:25:32 GMT 4
Post by nodstar on May 4, 2009 4:25:32 GMT 4
MESSAGE FROM EAGLES DISOBEY[/size][/b]
Note from me ...
FOLKS ... PLEASE POST YOUR QUESTIONS FOR DAN IN THE QUESTIONS FOR DAN THREAD due to constraints on his time .. DON'T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY TO GET YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN PERSON ;D
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May 4, 2009 4:33:35 GMT 4
Post by nodstar on May 4, 2009 4:33:35 GMT 4
Swine Flu Genes From Pigs Only, Not Humans or Birds[/SIZE][/B] * By Brandon Keim Email Author * April 28, 2009 | www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/swinefluupdate/swineflu21 The deadly H1N1 influenza virus that’s fueling fears of a global pandemic is a hybrid of two common pig flu strains, scientists who have studied the disease told Wired.com Tuesday. Earlier reports called it a combination of pig, human and avian influenza strains. The findings may resolve some uncertainty about the nature of the virus, but much is still unknown about its origins and effects. “This is what we call a reassortment between two currently circulating pig flu viruses,” said Andrew Rambaut, a University of Edinburgh viral geneticist. “Why it’s emerged in humans is anyone’s guess. It hasn’t been seen before in pigs as far as I know.” Rambaut analyzed the gene sequences of viral samples taken from two infected California children. The samples were collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and made available to researchers through an international database of flu genomes. His conclusions were echoed by Eddie Holmes, a virus evolution specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, and Steven Salzberg, a University of Maryland bioinformaticist. Both have looked at the CDC-provided sequences. The CDC could not be reached for comment, but a document released to scientists and obtained by Wired.com affirms their analysis. The samples from California are the same viral strain as one that’s believed to have killed as many as 150 of an estimated 1,600 hospitalized Mexicans, and caused hundreds more infections worldwide, including at least 64 in the United States. The two strains whose genes are found in the hybrid belong to influenza families known generally as North American and Eurasian pig flu. The former was first described in the 1930s, and the latter in 1979. The Eurasian strain is generally found in Europe and Asia, rather than North America. Neither of the strains have ever proven contagious in humans. One of the genes inherited from the Eurasian strain has reportedly never been seen in humans. It codes for the neuraminidase enzyme — the N1 in H1N1 — which controls the expansion of the virus from infected cells. “The new neuraminidase gene that came in from Eurasian swine is one we’ve never before seen circulating in humans,” said Rambaut. “That’s one of the reasons it’s spreading rapidly. Very few people will have any immunity to this particular combination, which is what gives the concern that this will be a pandemic rather than just a normal seasonal flu outbreak. It remains to be seen how much and to what extent there is existing immunity.” In medical terms, the genetic origins of the virus may not matter. Whether it come solely from pigs rather than a mix of pigs, birds and humans doesn’t change its immunological novelty. However, understanding the origins could eventually help scientists determine how the virus evolved and where it originally emerged. The earliest cases occurred in the town of La Gloria in the Mexican state of Veracruz, not far from a large and notoriously unsanitary hog farm operated by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of giant American food company Smithfield Foods. Vercruz residents and some journalists have alleged that the virus could have evolved in the farm’s pigs, then passed into humans through water or insects tainted by infected waste. Many researchers, including the authors of a report issued last year by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, have warned that unsanitary conditions at industrial hog farms could prove a breeding ground for new forms of influenza. The World Health Organization has sent inspectors to the Granjas Carroll farm. The results of the investigation have not been announced. Smithfield issued a press release on Saturday stating that “it has found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine influenza in the company’s swine herd or its employees at its joint ventures in Mexico.” The company declined further comment, though CEO Larry Pope told USA Today that “(The term) swine flu is a misnomer.” Rambaut, Holmes and Salzberg declined to speculate on whether the new H1N1 virus evolved on a hog farm or specifically in the Granjas Carroll facility. However, it seems likely that pigs were the original host. “That’s a logical conclusion,” said Salzberg. “It was probably two different pigs, or one who got co-infected from others. The two strains mixed, and now you have a brand-new strain.” “Presumably somewhere there was a pig infected with both forms. We don’t know where or when. It could have been circulating in this form for a while,” said Rambaut. What comes next is anyone’s guess. “Influenza virus mutates remarkably rapidly so there is no doubt that the virus will mutate and evolve in humans,” said Holmes. “Quite what this evolution will result in is difficult to tell.” See Also:
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May 4, 2009 4:57:36 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 4, 2009 4:57:36 GMT 4
An invention that could change the internet for everRevolutionary new web software could put giants such as Google in the shade when it comes out later this monthThe Independent Sunday, 3 May 2009www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/an-invention-that-could-change-the-internet-for-ever-1678109.htmlThe biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this month with the launch of software that will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before. The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet's Holy Grail – a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does. Although the system is still new, it has already produced massive interest and excitement among technology pundits and internet watchers. Computer experts believe the new search engine will be an evolutionary leap in the development of the internet. Nova Spivack, an internet and computer expert, said that Wolfram Alpha could prove just as important as Google. "It is really impressive and significant," he wrote. "In fact it may be as important for the web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose. Tom Simpson, of the blog Convergenceofeverything.com, said: "What are the wider implications exactly? A new paradigm for using computers and the web? Probably. Emerging artificial intelligence and a step towards a self-organising internet? Possibly... I think this could be big." Wolfram Alpha will not only give a straight answer to questions such as "how high is Mount Everest?", but it will also produce a neat page of related information – all properly sourced – such as geographical location and nearby towns, and other mountains, complete with graphs and charts. The real innovation, however, is in its ability to work things out "on the fly", according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in "10 flips for four heads" and it will guess that you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out. Dr Wolfram, an award-winning physicist who is based in America, added that the information is "curated", meaning it is assessed first by experts. This means that the weaknesses of sites such as Wikipedia, where doubts are cast on the information because anyone can contribute, are taken out. It is based on his best-selling Mathematica software, a standard tool for scientists, engineers and academics for crunching complex maths. "I've wanted to make the knowledge we've accumulated in our civilisation computable," he said last week. "I was not sure it was possible. I'm a little surprised it worked out so well." Dr Wolfram, 49, who was educated at Eton and had completed his PhD in particle physics by the time he was 20, added that the launch of Wolfram Alpha later this month would be just the beginning of the project. "It will understand what you are talking about," he said. "We are just at the beginning. I think we've got a reasonable start on 90 per cent of the shelves in a typical reference library." The engine, which will be free to use, works by drawing on the knowledge on the internet, as well as private databases. Dr Wolfram said he expected that about 1,000 people would be needed to keep its databases updated with the latest discoveries and information. He also added that he would not go down the road of storing information on ordinary people, although he was aware that others might use the technology to do so. Wolfram Alpha has been designed with professionals and academics in mind, so its grasp of popular culture is, at the moment, comparatively poor. The term "50 Cent" caused "absolute horror" in tests, for example, because it confused a discussion on currency with the American rap artist. For this reason alone it is unlikely to provide an immediate threat to Google, which is working on a similar type of search engine, a version of which it launched last week. "We have a certain amount of popular culture information," Dr Wolfram said. "In some senses popular culture information is much more shallowly computable, so we can find out who's related to who and how tall people are. I fully expect we will have lots of popular culture information. There are linguistic horrors because if you put in books and music a lot of the names clash with other concepts." He added that to help with that Wolfram Alpha would be using Wikipedia's popularity index to decide what users were likely to be interested in. With Google now one of the world's top brands, worth $100bn, Wolfram Alpha has the potential to become one of the biggest names on the planet. Dr Wolfram, however, did not rule out working with Google in the future, as well as Wikipedia. "We're working to partner with all possible organisations that make sense," he said. "Search, narrative, news are complementary to what we have. Hopefully there will be some great synergies." What the experts say"For those of us tired of hundreds of pages of results that do not really have a lot to do with what we are trying to find out, Wolfram Alpha may be what we have been waiting for." Michael W Jones, Tech.blorge.com "If it is not gobbled up by one of the industry superpowers, his company may well grow to become one of them in a small number of years, with most of us setting our default browser to be Wolfram Alpha." Doug Lenat, Semanticuniverse.com "It's like plugging into an electric brain." Matt Marshall, Venturebeat.com "This is like a Holy Grail... the ability to look inside data sources that can't easily be crawled and provide answers from them." Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of searchengineland.com Worldwide network: A brief history of the internet- 1969 The internet is created by the US Department of Defense with the networking of computers at UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute.
- 1979 The British Post Office uses the technology to create the first international computer networks.
- 1980 Bill Gates's deal to put a Microsoft Operating System on IBM's computers paves the way for almost universal computer ownership.
- 1984 Apple launches the first successful 'modern' computer interface using graphics to represent files and folders, drop-down menus and, crucially, mouse control.
- 1989 Tim Berners-Lee creates the world wide web – using browsers, pages and links to make communication on the internet simple.
- 1996 Google begins as a research project at Stanford University. The company is formally founded two years later by Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
- 2009 Dr Stephen Wolfram launches Wolfram Alpha.
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May 4, 2009 12:27:59 GMT 4
Post by kiek on May 4, 2009 12:27:59 GMT 4
Nearby asteroid found orbiting sun backwards | Universum | WWW.NIBURU.NL | The discovery of a 2- to 3-kilometre-wide asteroid in an orbit that goes backwards has set astronomers scratching their heads. It comes closer to Earth than any other object in a 'retrograde' orbit, and astronomers think they should have spotted it before. The object, called 2009 HC82, was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona on the morning of 29 April. From observations of its position by five different groups, Sonia Keys of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center calculated it orbits the sun every 3.39 years on a path that ventures within 3.5 million km of the Earth's orbit. Combined with its size, that makes 2009 HC82 a potentially hazardous asteroid. What's really unusual is that the calculated orbit is inclined 155° to the plane of the Earth's orbit. That means that as it orbits the Sun, it actually travels backwards compared to the planets. It is only the 20th asteroid known in a retrograde orbit, a very rare group. None of the others comes as close to the Earth. More observations needed Comets, which originate on the outer fringes of the solar system, are much more likely to have retrograde orbits than asteroids. In part, this is because passing stars or planets can kick them out of their original orbits and onto unusual paths, bringing them into the inner solar system, where we tend to see them. Some retrograde asteroids may in fact be burnt-out comets, says Brian Marsden of the Minor Planet Center. The size and shape of the new asteroid's orbit "is very like Encke's comet except for inclination," he told New Scientist, although it shows no sign of a cometary tail. The calculated orbit is the best fit to the available observations, but small observational errors could make a big difference in that calculation. "I'd feel happier about it if we get some more observations," says Marsden. The asteroid is now far beyond Mars, but its orbit periodically brings it fairly close to Earth. "It should have been easily observable in 2000," says Marsden. "Why wasn't it seen then?" He hopes new observations will answer that question. Source: Newscientist.com Hi Christa,
This is listed on the Near Earth Object Program page, which displays the list of items currently ranked as "potentially hazardous arteroids" - 1054 in all to date.
This is the orbital diagram for 2009 HC82. It should not be used for accurate long-term trajectories (over several years or decades) or planetary encounter circumstances.
This is the JPL Horizons Web-Interface which provides limited access to their Horizons system. This system does provide accurate long-term ephemerides.
Peace and Joy Always
Sally Anne Thanks, Sally Anne, for the links! Much Love, Christa ;-))
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May 4, 2009 12:40:27 GMT 4
Post by kiek on May 4, 2009 12:40:27 GMT 4
Delara Darabi: 'Oh mother, I can see the noose'The secret hanging of Delara Darabi has sparked outrage around the world By Claire Soares Monday, 4 May 2009 Rights groups inside and outside Iran reacted with horror over the weekend as news of the secret hanging seeped out. More pictures It was 7am when Delara Darabi phoned home. "Oh mother, I see the hangman's noose in front of me," she garbled. "They are going to execute me. Please save me." Moments later a prison official snatched the handset away. "We will easily execute your daughter and there's nothing you can do about it," he barked at the parents. Then, with a chilling click, the line went dead. The desperate couple rushed to the Central Prison in Rasht, Iran, wailing at the guards to let them see their 22-year-old. As they prostrated themselves, an ambulance emerged, most probably with Delara's corpse inside. "They took Delara to the gallows with nobody around her," Mohammad Mostafaei, one of her lawyers, said in a letter distributed to human rights groups. "They put the rope on her delicate neck. I do not know who the cruel person was to pull the chair from under her feet." Related articles Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Who'd be female under Islamic law? Leading article: An outrage that shames Iran Ms Darabi – dubbed The Prisoner of Colours for the love of painting she developed whilst on death row – was convicted for murdering her father's wealthy cousin in September 2003, when she was just 17. Although she initially confessed to the crime, she later said she had been persuaded to take the blame by her older boyfriend Amir Hossein. It was in fact Mr Hossein who had killed the rich relation, she said, to get the money. The 19-year-old allegedly told Ms Darabi that she could save him from the gallows by confessing and that would be no risk to her own life because she was still a minor. The young woman complied. Her boyfriend was sentenced to 10 years in prison for complicity to murder; she was sentenced to death. The execution, which happened on Friday, caught everyone by surprise. Not only had there been no formal notification 48 hours before the hanging, as required under Iranian law, but, just a fortnight earlier, Ms Darabi had actually been granted a two-month stay of execution by the head of the judiciary. The day before their daughter would end up being walked to the gallows, her parents had even visited her in jail where she had excitedly informed them there was to be an appeal so new evidence could be heard. Twenty-four hours later, she was dead. Rights groups inside and outside Iran reacted with horror over the weekend as news of the secret hanging seeped out. "It appears Iran's head of judiciary has no ability to control his own judges," said Zama Coursen-Neff from the children's rights division of Human Rights Watch. "This is an outrageous violation of Iranian as well as international human rights law, and a callous affront to basic human dignity." Amnesty International said that the decision to rush the execution through in secret "appears to have been a cynical move on the part of the authorities to avoid domestic and international protests which might have saved Delara Darabi's life". Iran leads the world in executing juvenile offenders, according to human rights groups, accounting for two-thirds of such deaths in the past four years. The hanging of Ms Darabi was the second known execution of a juvenile offender this year and lawyers in Tehran estimate that at least 130 more are waiting on death row. It was the fate to which these young individuals were doomed that Ms Darabi sought to highlight through her haunting paintings. "Delara is not alone," she wrote to the president of Stop Child Executions. "Delaras are trapped in prisons and in need ... of defenders of human rights and humanity." Many of her images are monochrome, the harsh charcoal lines depicting anguished, tortured faces. Others incorporate disturbing splashes of red, spattering the white headscarves of female prisoners, or washed across the background to suggest the hell of incarceration. Those campaigning to free Ms Darabi put the artwork on display in Tehran. "I try to defend myself using colours, forms and words. These paintings are my swear to what I have not done," the prisoner wrote in the exhibition's blurb. "From behind the walls, I say hello to you, who has come to see my paintings." As her family buried her at the weekend and the EU joined the chorus of criticism against the Iranian authorities, the human rights lawyer, Mr Mostafaei, recalled the personal gift Ms Darabi had bestowed on him. "She painted a picture of an old man playing the violin," he said. "I did not know that he was playing her death song."
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May 4, 2009 13:46:19 GMT 4
Post by nodstar on May 4, 2009 13:46:19 GMT 4
The Biocentric Universe Theory: Life Creates Time, Space, and the Cosmos Itself[/size][/b] Discover Magazine discovermagazine.com/2009/may/01-the-biocentric-universe-life-creates-time-space-cosmos2009-05-03 Adapted from Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, by Robert Lanza with Bob Berman, published by BenBella Books in May 2009. The farther we peer into space, the more we realize that the nature of the universe cannot be understood fully by inspecting spiral galaxies or watching distant supernovas. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves. This insight snapped into focus one day while one of us (Lanza) was walking through the woods. Looking up, he saw a huge golden orb web spider tethered to the overhead boughs. There the creature sat on a single thread, reaching out across its web to detect the vibrations of a trapped insect struggling to escape. The spider surveyed its universe, but everything beyond that gossamer pinwheel was incomprehensible. The human observer seemed as far-off to the spider as telescopic objects seem to us. Yet there was something kindred: We humans, too, lie at the heart of a great web of space and time whose threads are connected according to laws that dwell in our minds. Is the web possible without the spider? Are space and time physical objects that would continue to exist even if living creatures were removed from the scene? Figuring out the nature of the real world has obsessed scientists and philosophers for millennia. Three hundred years ago, the Irish empiricist George Berkeley contributed a particularly prescient observation: The only thing we can perceive are our perceptions. In other words, consciousness is the matrix upon which the cosmos is apprehended. Color, sound, temperature, and the like exist only as perceptions in our head, not as absolute essences. In the broadest sense, we cannot be sure of an outside universe at all. For centuries, scientists regarded Berkeley’s argument as a philosophical sideshow and continued to build physical models based on the assumption of a separate universe “out there” into which we have each individually arrived. These models presume the existence of one essential reality that prevails with us or without us. Yet since the 1920s, quantum physics experiments have routinely shown the opposite: Results do depend on whether anyone is observing. This is perhaps most vividly illustrated by the famous two-slit experiment. When someone watches a subatomic particle or a bit of light pass through the slits, the particle behaves like a bullet, passing through one hole or the other. But if no one observes the particle, it exhibits the behavior of a wave that can inhabit all possibilities—including somehow passing through both holes at the same time. Some of the greatest physicists have described these results as so confounding they are impossible to comprehend fully, beyond the reach of metaphor, visualization, and language itself. But there is another interpretation that makes them sensible. Instead of assuming a reality that predates life and even creates it, we propose a biocentric picture of reality. From this point of view, life—particularly consciousness—creates the universe, and the universe could not exist without us. MESSING WITH THE LIGHT Quantum mechanics is the physicist’s most accurate model for describing the world of the atom. But it also makes some of the most persuasive arguments that conscious perception is integral to the workings of the universe. Quantum theory tells us that an unobserved small object (for instance, an electron or a photon—a particle of light) exists only in a blurry, unpredictable state, with no well-defined location or motion until the moment it is observed. This is Werner Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle. Physicists describe the phantom, not-yet-manifest condition as a wave function, a mathematical expression used to find the probability that a particle will appear in any given place. When a property of an electron suddenly switches from possibility to reality, some physicists say its wave function has collapsed. What accomplishes this collapse? Messing with it. Hitting it with a bit of light in order to take its picture. Just looking at it does the job. Experiments suggest that mere knowledge in the experimenter’s mind is sufficient to collapse a wave function and convert possibility to reality. When particles are created as a pair—for instance, two electrons in a single atom that move or spin together—physicists call them entangled. Due to their intimate connection, entangled particles share a wave function. When we measure one particle and thus collapse its wave function, the other particle’s wave function instantaneously collapses too. If one photon is observed to have a vertical polarization (its waves all moving in one plane), the act of observation causes the other to instantly go from being an indefinite probability wave to an actual photon with the opposite, horizontal polarity—even if the two photons have since moved far from each other. In 1997 University of Geneva physicist Nicolas Gisin sent two entangled photons zooming along optical fibers until they were seven miles apart. One photon then hit a two-way mirror where it had a choice: either bounce off or go through. Detectors recorded what it randomly did. But whatever action it took, its entangled twin always performed the complementary action. The communication between the two happened at least 10,000 times faster than the speed of light. It seems that quantum news travels instantaneously, limited by no external constraints—not even the speed of light. Since then, other researchers have duplicated and refined Gisin’s work. Today no one questions the immediate nature of this connectedness between bits of light or matter, or even entire clusters of atoms. Before these experiments most physicists believed in an objective, independent universe. They still clung to the assumption that physical states exist in some absolute sense before they are measured. All of this is now gone for keeps. WRESTLING WITH GOLDILOCKS The strangeness of quantum reality is far from the only argument against the old model of reality. There is also the matter of the fine-tuning of the cosmos. Many fundamental traits, forces, and physical constants—like the charge of the electron or the strength of gravity—make it appear as if everything about the physical state of the universe were tailor-made for life. Some researchers call this revelation the Goldilocks principle, because the cosmos is not “too this” or “too that” but rather “just right” for life. At the moment there are only four explanations for this mystery. The first two give us little to work with from a scientific perspective. One is simply to argue for incredible coincidence. Another is to say, “God did it,” which explains nothing even if it is true. The third explanation invokes a concept called the anthropic principle,? first articulated by Cambridge astrophysicist Brandon Carter in 1973. This principle holds that we must find the right conditions for life in our universe, because if such life did not exist, we would not be here to find those conditions. Some cosmologists have tried to wed the anthropic principle with the recent theories that suggest our universe is just one of a vast multitude of universes, each with its own physical laws. Through sheer numbers, then, it would not be surprising that one of these universes would have the right qualities for life. But so far there is no direct evidence whatsoever for other universes. The final option is biocentrism, which holds that the universe is created by life and not the other way around. This is an explanation for and extension of the participatory anthropic principle described by the physicist John Wheeler, a disciple of Einstein’s who coined the terms wormhole and black hole. SEEKING SPACE AND TIME Even the most fundamental elements of physical reality, space and time, strongly support a biocentric basis for the cosmos. According to biocentrism, time does not exist independently of the life that notices it. The reality of time has long been questioned by an odd alliance of philosophers and physicists. The former argue that the past exists only as ideas in the mind, which themselves are neuroelectrical events occurring strictly in the present moment. Physicists, for their part, note that all of their working models, from Isaac Newton’s laws through quantum mechanics, do not actually describe the nature of time. The real point is that no actual entity of time is needed, nor does it play a role in any of their equations. When they speak of time, they inevitably describe it in terms of change. But change is not the same thing as time. To measure anything’s position precisely, at any given instant, is to lock in on one static frame of its motion, as in the frame of a film. Conversely, as soon as you observe a movement, you cannot isolate a frame, because motion is the summation of many frames. Sharpness in one parameter induces blurriness in the other. Imagine that you are watching a film of an archery tournament. An archer shoots and the arrow flies. The camera follows the arrow’s trajectory from the archer’s bow toward the target. Suddenly the projector stops on a single frame of a stilled arrow. You stare at the image of an arrow in midflight. The pause in the film enables you to know the position of the arrow with great accuracy, but you have lost all information about its momentum. In that frame it is going nowhere; its path and velocity are no longer known. Such fuzziness brings us back to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which describes how measuring the location of a subatomic particle inherently blurs its momentum and vice versa. All of this makes perfect sense from a biocentric perspective. Everything we perceive is actively and repeatedly being reconstructed inside our heads in an organized whirl of information. Time in this sense can be defined as the summation of spatial states occurring inside the mind. So what is real? If the next mental image is different from the last, then it is different, period. We can award that change with the word time, but that does not mean there is an actual invisible matrix in which changes occur. That is just our own way of making sense of things. We watch our loved ones age and die and assume that an external entity called time is responsible for the crime. There is a peculiar intangibility to space, as well. We cannot pick it up and bring it to the laboratory. Like time, space is neither physical nor fundamentally real in our view. Rather, it is a mode of interpretation and understanding. It is part of an animal’s mental software that molds sensations into multidimensional objects. Most of us still think like Newton, regarding space as sort of a vast container that has no walls. But our notion of space is false. Shall we count the ways? 1. Distances between objects mutate depending on conditions like gravity and velocity, as described by Einstein’s relativity, so that there is no absolute distance between anything and anything else. 2. Empty space, as described by quantum mechanics, is in fact not empty but full of potential particles and fields. 3. Quantum theory even casts doubt on the notion that distant objects are truly separated, since entangled particles can act in unison even if separated by the width of a galaxy. UNLOCKING THE CAGE In daily life, space and time are harmless illusions. A problem arises only because, by treating these as fundamental and independent things, science picks a completely wrong starting point for investigations into the nature of reality. Most researchers still believe they can build from one side of nature, the physical, without the other side, the living. By inclination and training these scientists are obsessed with mathematical descriptions of the world. If only, after leaving work, they would look out with equal seriousness over a pond and watch the schools of minnows rise to the surface. The fish, the ducks, and the cormorants, paddling out beyond the pads and the cattails, are all part of the greater answer. Recent quantum studies help illustrate what a new biocentric science would look like. Just months? ago, Nicolas Gisin announced a new twist on his entanglement experiment; in this case, he thinks the results could be visible to the naked eye. At the University of Vienna, Anton Zeilinger’s work with huge molecules called buckyballs pushes quantum reality closer to the macroscopic world. In an exciting extension of this work—proposed by Roger Penrose, the renowned Oxford physicist—not just light but a small mirror that reflects it becomes part of an entangled quantum system, one that is billions of times larger than a buckyball. If the proposed experiment ends up confirming Penrose’s idea, it would also confirm that quantum effects apply to human-scale objects. Biocentrism should unlock the cages in which Western science has unwittingly confined itself. Allowing the observer into the equation should open new approaches to understanding cognition, from unraveling the nature of consciousness to developing thinking machines that experience the world the same way we do. Biocentrism should also provide stronger bases for solving problems associated with quantum physics and the Big Bang. Accepting space and time as forms of animal sense perception (that is, as biological), rather than as external physical objects, offers a new way of understanding everything from the microworld (for instance, the reason for strange results in the two-slit experiment) to the forces, constants, and laws that shape the universe. At a minimum, it should help halt such dead-end efforts as string theory. Above all, biocentrism offers a more promising way to bring together all of physics, as scientists have been trying to do since Einstein’s unsuccessful unified field theories of eight decades ago. Until we recognize the essential role of biology, our attempts to truly unify the universe will remain a train to nowhere. Adapted from Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, by Robert Lanza with Bob Berman, published by BenBella Books in May 2009.
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May 4, 2009 14:45:48 GMT 4
Post by galaxygirl on May 4, 2009 14:45:48 GMT 4
Pandemic Lotto by DarkSyde Sun May 03, 2009 at 05:48:54 AM PDT
With the recent outbreak of swine flu, interest in how these little buggers change to thwart mankind's hard won resistance and modern treatment has understandably increased. So far it's too early to say if the new strain is particularly contagious or unusually virulent; there's conflicting evidence for cautious optimism and genuine concern on both counts. The raw science can sound a bit mysterious:
But one thing is certain, hidden deep inside every tiny cell infected with flu is a fascinating act in one of nature's greatest stories, well worth knowing, and easy to follow with just a few basics.http://images2.dailykos.com/images/user/40885/138px_Flu_und_legende_color_c.jpgViruses are submicroscopic pirates, parasites of a sort, that need to board and commandeer a host cell many, many times their size to survive and multiply. In simple schematic the influenza virus is composed of eight strands of RNA acting as mini-chromosomes, coated in a roughly spherical container covered with knobby and spiky protrusions. The tiny virus uses these knobs and spikes to latch onto to receptor sites embedded in the outer membrane of a much larger animal cell, usually one lining the throat or respiratory tract in a bird or a mammal. After binding, it cleverly opens the portal controlled by those receptors and sneaks into the cell in a process called receptor mediated endocytosis -- a fancy word that means, in analogy, using a fake ID to get inside a high security area.
After slipping through the membrane, the RNA strands worm their way deeper and deeper, until they reach the cell's nucleus where they break into the cell’s chromosomes, get all frisky, and start making copies of themselves. If everything goes OK, from the virus's point of view anyway, hordes of newly minted RNA strands then work their way back out to the cell's membrane where they group into octets, don a glossy new coat, and exit the cell (Exocytosis), free to infect new cells and repeat the process.
Not so fast! In humans there are layers of interlocking systems that act as security -- preventing access inside the cell or inside the nucleus -- and that search and destroy any scrap of virus they sniff out. The over all immune response, especially the efficacy of those interlocking immune systems in warding off infection from a specific microbe, are what determine the susceptibility or resistance in a particular individual.
Some of the immune particulars are innate, you're either born with them or you're not, a worthy subject for enough books to fill a library. But some are learned, the components in the vast immune arsenal can 'remember' a particular virus after having once faced it, and the next time it rears its ugly head -- or spiky, knobby coat since it has no head – those trained components swing into action like well oiled micro-molecular machines. Among other measures, they deploy prefabricated antibodies that lock onto and clog up the particular arrangement of knobs and spikes in a particular strain of flu, thus wrapping the virus and leaving unable it to latch onto a cell's surface in the first place. Vaccines utilize learned resistance by introducing similar, weakened, or dead viruses that 'teach' the immune system what to prepare for if and when the hostile, live fire version shows up. Kind of like a flu drill teaches emergency responders how to deal with a real pandemic.
But say a person infected with a common strain of human flu we'll call "H" is working in close proximity to other animals, like chickens or pigs, infected with their own strain adapted to them, let's call that one "N". Sooner or later both strains, H and N, might be in one probably soon-to-be-deathly-ill critter, meaning that sooner or later two strains of flu virus infect a single host cell. When that happens, the newly replicated strands of RNA from each respective strain can get mixed up in the stampede to form up in groups of eight and exit the unlucky cell.
Suppose for example strand 5 from H finds itself grouped together with strand 1 from N. We could call that combo H5N1 for short and the sorting process that produced it could be referred to as recombination! Likewise, this re-sorting of RNA strands can result in different arrangements and kinds of knobs and spikes on the coat -- much like different genes in humans can affect an individual’s eye or skin color -- referred to as antigenic shift. Yes, this is simplified and not entirely accurate, but it gets us there.
When many combos of RNA strands and viral coat are tried out in this manner, sooner or later by sheer dumb luck, one permutation might arise better equipped to latch onto and take over human cells than others. And because the combo is new, depending on the details, learned resistance and prior vaccination are weak and ineffective, or over the top and counterproductive. If one such HN hybrid arises that's both highly contagious and terribly virulent in people, whammo! A deadly flu pandemic is born.
Which takes us to a much larger picture: Reshuffling the genetic deck is so damn useful in producing new adaptations that it's not limited to viruses in infected cells! Long ago, the remote ancestors of vast collections of living microbes, plants, and animals perfected the gene shuffle and rode it for a billion years to astonishing new heights of biological complexity: we're talking 'bout sex, baby! But the overall process for incremental changes in generations of man and microbe remains the same: variation in genetic combos, acted on by natural selection, producing cumulative change in form and function in a population of organisms over time.
That simple outline of how populations change through time at the genetic level goes far, far beyond swine flu. Fleshed out, it explains and unifies every organism, tissue, and cell, past and present, along with every sub-discipline in modern biology, in dazzling detail. It explains why our world is so richly draped in breathtaking, living diversity. Take it away and nothing in biology makes much sense. It furthers fits like a finely tailored glove with every other great field of modern science, from geology to astronomy. It has earned a place beside Quantum Physics or the Periodic Table of Elements as one of the most powerful, successful, well tested, elegant, and useful explanations ever devised. It's been called a fact and theory, some misinformed people think it's false, biologists might call it a 'change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time,' but most people know it simply as EVOLUTION.
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NEWS
May 5, 2009 0:01:36 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 5, 2009 0:01:36 GMT 4
May 2009 Geology media highlightsEurekAlert Public Release: 4-May-2009www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/gsoa-m2g050409.phpNew evidence from seismic imaging for subduction during assembly of the North China craton Tianyu Zheng et al., Seismological Laboratory (SKL-LE), Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China. Pages 395-398.The "frozen-in" information in the crust plays an important role in improving our understanding of cratonic formation and evolution, and of plate tectonics in the Precambrian. The Trans-North China orogen (TNCO) is a continental-to-continental collision belt generated by the assembly of the North China craton (NCC). The mechanism and modality of the collision are disputed. Here, Zheng et al. present a seismic image of the Western Block and the TNCO of the NCC-derived using receiver function analysis of the teleseismic records from a dense array. A low-velocity zone extending from the middle crust to the Moho is interpreted as a remnant of upper-middle crustal material associated with westward-dipping subduction beneath the Western Block of the NCC. Crustal uplifting and magmatic underplating resulting from subsequent tectonic events were responsible for modifying the remaining subduction architecture. The western boundary of the TNCO is located west of the boundary earlier identified by surface investigation. The results, combined with previous seismic imaging in the eastern NCC, provide insight into the amalgamation of the Eastern and Western Blocks and the subsequent tectonic deformation of the NCC. Reconstructing Earth's surface oxidation across the Archean-Proterozoic transitionQingjun Guo et al., State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550002, China. Pages 399-402.Earth's atmosphere experienced a substantial increase in free oxygen during the Archean-Proterozoic transition (2650-2100 million years ago), termed the Great Oxidation Event. Although the atmospheric oxygen content was still far less than today, surface environments were affected by oxidation. This change in redox conditions was associated with changes in ocean biogeochemistry. Interestingly, observed geochemical changes appear, in part, to be related also to Earth's earliest ice age. Guo et al. pursued a multi-geochemical study of a respective rock succession, in order to reconstruct the history of atmospheric oxygenation. Time-series data for multiple sulfur isotopes from carbonate-associated sulfate, as well as sulfides in sediments of the Transvaal Supergroup, South Africa, capture the significant rise of atmospheric oxygen (as well as the protective ozone layer), its subsequent consequences for ocean chemistry and biology, and the loss of atmospheric mass-independent sulfur isotope fractionation. In phase with sulfur is the earliest recorded positive carbon isotope anomaly, convincingly linking these environmental perturbations to the Great Oxidation Event. "Chevrons" are not mega-tsunami deposits -- A sedimentologic assessment Joanne Bourgeois and Robert Weiss, Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. Pages 403-406.Bourgeois and Weiss challenge the debated hypothesis that impact-generated tsunamis have deposited giant chevron-shaped dunes ("chevrons") on many of the world's coastlines. This highly speculative interpretation made one of its first splashes with a New York Times article (14 Nov. 2006) by Sandra Blakeslee and continues to capture public fascination. The "Holocene Impact Working Group" has argued, primarily outside the peer-reviewed literature, that there are many large, v-shaped dunes in the world that were deposited by mega-tsunamis, generated by oceanic asteroid impacts in the past 10,000 years. Bourgeois and Weiss make a counter-argument using the basic physics of tsunamis and sediment transport. They present three lines of argument: (1) the dunes are not limited to coastlines where mega-tsunamis could strike; (2) the orientation of the dunes does not match the travel direction of modeled tsunami waves; and (3) the giant scale of tsunamis proposed by researchers such as those of the Holocene Impact Working Group would wash out any bedforms such as chevron dunes. [Note: Now apply this to the giant chevron-shaped dunes on Mars.] Subglacial bedforms reveal complex basal regime in a zone of paleo-ice stream convergence, Amundsen Sea embayment, West Antarctica Robert D. Larter et al., British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK. Pages 411-414.Larter et al. present the most extensive, continuous area of seafloor sonar imagery collected to date on the Antarctic continental shelf, which reveals the "footprint" of a formerly much more extensive ice sheet. The swath bathymetry data collected on expeditions by the British Antarctic Survey and the German Alfred Wegener Institute show details of former subglacial features on parts of the seabed that are now up to 1600-m deep. The trends and characteristics of these features allow reconstruction of past ice flow paths and provide clues about the processes that enabled fast ice flow. Understanding the processes that control fast ice flow in "ice streams" is important because they account for most ice discharge from the large ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland, and knowledge of how large ice sheets responded to warming at the end of the last glacial period will help predict how the ice sheets will change in response to future warming. The new data indicate that conditions at the base of the former ice sheet were more complex than previously thought, suggesting much more research will be necessary to reliably predict the future behavior of modern ice sheets. Sulfur content at sulfide saturation in oxidized magmas Pedro J. Jugo, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON P3E 2C6, Canada. Pages 415-418.Although sulfur is a trace element in most magmas, it influences important magmatic processes. For example, sulfides (reduced sulfur) control the behavior of base and precious metals (such as copper, nickel, gold, palladium, platinum, etc.). Therefore, the ability to predict the chemical precipitation of sulfides from a magma is essential in the prediction of where mineral deposits could be located. On the other hand, if magmas are sufficiently oxidized, sulfide is unstable, sulfates become dominant, and no mineral deposits will form. In addition, magmas will tend to accumulate sulfur and metals and release them to the atmosphere during volcanic eruptions. Loss of metals to the atmosphere precludes the formation of ore deposits, but is otherwise inconsequential for geological processes. However, explosive, high-sulfur emissions reaching the stratosphere have strong, short-term impact on global climate, and assessing the impact of high-sulfur volcanism on climate through geologic history requires understanding of how often high-sulfur emissions occur. The study by Jugo links, for the first time, the change in sulfur content as a sulfide-saturated magma becomes progressively oxidized until sulfides are no longer stable. In contrast to long-held views, the study demonstrates that sulfur content increases exponentially with oxidation because of the increasing contribution of dissolved oxidized sulfur (sulfates). The implications are that most magmas related to volcanism in subduction zones have the potential to transport and release more sulfur than previously estimated; therefore, high-sulfur magmatism in geologic history is likely more common than currently assumed. For the formation of mineral deposits, the main implication is that, rather than having an "on-off" system for sulfide or sulfate stability, the transition is continuous. In addition, magma generation from oxidized mantle will enhance the metal transfer from the deep Earth to the crust. Downdip segmentation of strike-slip fault zones in the brittle crust Eliza S. Nemser and Darrel S. Cowan, Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-1310, USA. Pages 419-422.Segmentation within fault zones is widely recognized and can influence earthquake rupture behavior. Both along-strike and downdip segmentation have been observed along fractures and within dip-slip fault zones, whereas only along-strike segmentation has been documented within strike-slip fault zones. Nemser and Cowan report new field evidence of downdip segmentation within a strike-slip fault from the western Salton Trough region of Southern California. In this outcrop example, steeply dipping fault segments step over along mechanically weak stratigraphic units that accommodate bedding-parallel slip. They infer similar geometries at a much larger scale in the form of vertically restricted steep seismicity streaks defined by relocated crustal seismicity data along the nearby southern San Jacinto fault zone. Nemser and Cowan interpret these streaks as evidence of vertically restricted steep fault segments that may be linked by low-angle fault segments (décollements). A lack of spatial correspondence between earthquakes on low-angle fault planes and the locations of inferred décollements suggests that these structures are weak and behave aseisimically. Downdip segmentation of strike-slip faults may be common at a variety of scales; this result may lead to the reinterpretation of fault geometry and kinematics in many strike-slip fault zones. Evidence for microbial life in synsedimentary cavities from 2.75 Ga terrestrial environments Birger Rasmussen et al., Dept. of Applied Geology, Curtin University of Technology, Kent St, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia. Pages 423-426.Sediments deposited in lakes about 2.75 billion years ago preserve finger-like microbial deposits that grew in the roof of cavities that developed shortly after deposition. Analysis of sulfur isotopes in the structures suggests the presence of sulfur-metabolizing bacteria, while the isotopic composition of carbon in organic debris in the adjacent sediments indicates that methane-cycling microbes were present. Evidently, Earth's ancient land surface supported a complex microbial community, including microbes that inhabited gas-filled hollows in shallow sediments, extending the fossil record of cavity-dwelling life by more than 1.5 billion years. This discovery by Rasmussen et al. provides a new habitat in the search for early life on Earth and an analogue for life on Mars. Delta-37Cl systematics of a backarc spreading system: The Lau Basin Graham D. Layne et al., Dept. of Earth Sciences, IIC 1047, Memorial University, St. John's, Newfoundland A1B 3X5, Canada. Pages 427-430.Although chlorine is an extremely important agent for the dissolution and mass transfer of many elements by natural waters and brines in Earth's crust, the details of its recycling into the deep crust and mantle by plate tectonic action are very poorly understood. Of particular interest are the processes by which chlorine trapped in ocean sediments and in seawater-altered ocean floor basalt may be recycled to the lower crust and mantle as part of the "Subduction Factory," in systems such as the Lau Basin of the western Pacific Ocean.. Layne et al. use advanced microanalytical techniques to study the chlorine isotope compositions of lavas returned to the surface during subduction-related volcanism in the Lau Basin in order to learn details of these deep processes, despite the fact that the lavas have often been erupted directly in to the chlorine-rich waters of the modern ocean. Schwertmannite in wet, acid, and oxic microenvironments beneath polar and polythermal glaciers R. Raiswell et al., Earth and Biosphere Institute, School of Earth and Environment, Leeds University, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. Pages 431-434.Chemical conditions beneath glaciers are difficult to observe and are usually studied by sampling meltwaters emerging from glacial oulets or drill holes. These waters average chemical signals over a large area and cannot record small-scale spatial and temporal variability. By contrast, subglacial sediments contain minute (nanometer-sized) particles of iron oxides that can only have formed in transient geochemical "hotspots." Raiswell et al. have found minute crystals of schwertmannite, an iron hydroxy-sulfate mineral, in glaciers from the Antarctic and Arctic. Schwertmannite is typically found in acid mine drainage, where it forms by the oxidation of pyrite at low pH. These conditions can also be created in subglacial environments, but only in minute hotspots or "microenvironments." There, schwertmannite forms rapidly but is very unstable, and its survival requires freezing into ice within 100 years. So, frozen nanoparticle schwertmannite indicates the presence of transient geochemically active microenvironments deep within glacial ice. The formation, preservation, and delivery of nanoparticles of schwertmannite (and iron oxides) into the Southern Ocean may partially relieve iron-limited photosynthesis and assist in the removal of manmade carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Formation of cristobalite nanofibers during explosive volcanic eruptions Martin Reich et al., Departamento de Geologia, Universidad de Chile, Plaza Ercilla 803, Santiago, Chile. Pages 435-438.On 2 May 2008, the Chaiten volcano in Patagonia, Chile, started its first historical eruption. Eruption plumes and ash accumulation have forced the complete and permanent evacuation of about 4,000 people from the town of Chaiten and the closure of airports in both Chile and Argentina. Explosive volcanic eruptions, such as at Chaiten, release large amounts of fine particles into the atmosphere, and previous studies have reported the adverse health effects of "respirable" crystalline silica-ash particles (i.e., particles thinner than a human hair that enter directly into the lungs). Reich et al. used high-magnification microscopy techniques (transmission electron microscopy, TEM) to image the "respirable" particles present in volcanic ash sampled during the first week of the eruption. They obtained high-resolution, near-atomic scale images of crystalline silica identified as cristobalite. The presence of cristobalite is especially relevant, because this mineral has been previously identified as a health threat, raising concerns about adverse health effects of long-term exposure to ash. Reich et al.'s detailed TEM images document, for the first time, that "respirable" cristobalite in volcanic ash forms fibers, wires, and needles at the nanoscale. This information is of utmost importance to better assess the health risks of volcanic ash (and its contained nano-fibrous silica) associated with the short-term inhalation of ash during explosive volcanic eruptions, and also long-term exposure in ash-covered areas. [Note: So, this research on the effects of the "respirable" cristobalite could also have ramifications that need to be assessed in nanotechnology in general...] Chlorine enrichment in central Rio Grande Rift basaltic melt inclusions: Evidence for subduction modification of the lithospheric mantle M.C. Rowe and J.C. Lassiter, Dept. of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA. Pages 439-442.The study by Rowe and Lassiter draws important conclusions regarding magmatism in the central Rio Grande Rift based on microanalytical techniques. Rowe and Lassiter identify a new potential method for identifying the source of the "geochemical fingerprint" of basaltic lavas, and suggest that approx. 40-million-year-old subduction beneath the western United States altered the source for present-day volcanics. Giant trilobites and trilobite clusters from the Ordovician of Portugal Juan C. Gutierrez-Marco et. al., Departamento de Paleontologia, Instituto de Geologia Economica (CSIC-UCM), Facultad de Ciencias Geologicas, 28040 Madrid, Spain. Pages 443-446.Fossils from 465 million years ago recently discovered in Portugal have revealed the huge size reached by trilobites, the most diverse group of extinct marine arthropods. Gutierrez-Marco et al. describe the largest trilobites ever found, which, in life, would have reached up to 90 centimeters (35 inches). This remarkable record suggests evidence of polar gigantism in an area of Gondwana close to the South Pole during the Ordovician. The Portuguese trilobites also show an astounding array of behavioral clustering -- with some patches reaching groups of over a thousand specimens -- revealing a very diverse social conduct, including hiding from predators and sexual aggregations. This could have played a major role in the undisputed success of this group through the Paleozoic Era. The original discovery site and its fossils are one of the main attractions of the recently established Arouca Geopark in northern Portugal. Blake Nose stable isotopic evidence against the mid-Cenomanian glaciation hypothesis Atsushi Ando et al., Dept. of Paleobiology, MRC NHB 121, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, USA. Pages 451-454.A recent debate in paleoclimatic research concerns whether a transient glaciation event occurred across the mid-Cenomanian time interval (about 96 million years ago) despite the prevalence of an extensive greenhouse condition. In a study by Ando et al., this greenhouse glaciation hypothesis is rigorously tested through detailed stable isotope analyses of multiple calcareous microfossil groups from a Blake Nose deep-sea section off northern Florida. A significant advancement is achieved by the establishment of carbon isotope stratigraphy, facilitating precise correlation of their northwest Atlantic oxygen isotope trends with the European sedimentary records of sea-level change. Ando et al. find that the Cenomanian upper ocean oxygen isotope composition remained constant across the duration of rapid sea-level fall. This observation contradicts what is predicted from the glaciation hypothesis. Low-angle collision with Earth: The elliptical impact crater Matt Wilson, Northern Territory, Australia Thomas Kenkmann and Michael H. Poelchau, Museum fur Naturkunde, 10115 Berlin, Germany. Pages 459-462.Nearly all meteorite impact craters on Earth are circular. Elongated crater structures are expected only at impacts at angles lower than 12 degrees from the horizontal. Kenkmann and Poelchau document the first elliptical crater on Earth that provides insights into the mechanisms of crater formation at low angles. The diameter of the Proterozoic Matt Wilson impact structure (Northern Territory, Australia) is 7.5 by 6.3 kilometers, with its long axis trending northeast-southwest. The exposed crater floor shows a preferred stacking of thrust sheets within the central uplift, indicating a material transport top-to-southwest. This is explained by remnant horizontal momentum transferred from the impacting projectile to the target rocks. The Matt Wilson structure provides evidence for the usefulness of structural asymmetries as a diagnostic tool to infer the direction of impact. Field evidence for climate-driven changes in sediment supply leading to strath terrace formation Theodore K. Fuller et al., National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414, USA. Pages 467-470.Along the South Fork of the Eel River in northern California, the widest and most extensive bedrock terraces are covered with alluvial sediment, which was deposited when the landscape was eroding twice as fast as modern erosion rates. This study by Fuller et al. supports the hypothesis that extensive bedrock terraces are carved during conditions of elevated sediment supply. In addition, dating of terrace deposits reveals that the period of elevated sediment supply correlates in time with increased rates of annual precipitation during the late Pleistocene. Thus, their data suggest a link between climate-driven increases in sediment supply and the carving of bedrock terraces. Finally, a comparison between basin-wide erosion rates and estimated rates of vertical channel incision indicate that local hillslope relief has been increasing over the past 20,000 years. Early Neoproterozoic origin of the metazoan clade recorded in carbonate rock texture Fritz Neuweiler et al., Departement de Geologie et Genie geologique, Universite Laval, 1065, Avenue de la Medecine, Quebec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada. Pages 475-478.The Neoproterozoic interval of "hidden" evolution refers to a gap of unknown duration between the time when animals first evolved (uncertain) and the oldest known fossil or geochemical evidence of animals (latest Neoproterozoic, about 600-650 million years ago). Neuweiler et al. now propose to fill this gap. They describe distinctive, microscopic features in early Neoproterozoic limestone (between 779 and 1083 million years old) from the Northwest Territories of Canada, consisting of highly structured zones with multi-generational arrays of carbonate minerals, secondary voids, and internal sediment. Today, such a texture develops when aragonite crystals precipitate on the decaying connective tissue (collagen) of sponges in sediment on the sea floor. As sponge decay progresses, a complex fabric of calcareous material and voids is produced, which is identical to fabrics in Phanerozoic limestones (less than 542 million years old) containing known sponge body fossils and to the fabrics now reported from the early Neoproterozoic. Collagenous connective tissue is a fundamental character of all metazoans (animals), and so the presence in early Neoproterozoic rocks of a microscopic fabric directly associated with it implies that metazoan-grade organisms existed at that time. These purported ancestral metazoans did not have a canal system that would relate them to sponges, the simplest form of animal known today. Instead, they likely represent a structured consortium of protists in a shared collagenous scaffold. These results push back the earliest geologic evidence for animals by around 200 million years. This timing corroborates results of an integrated phylochronology and supports the concept of a biosphere that persisted through Snowball Earth.
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May 5, 2009 0:13:43 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 5, 2009 0:13:43 GMT 4
Virginia Tech virologist developing more potent vaccine technologyWith applicability to many virusesEurekAlert Public Release: 4-May-2009www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/vt-vtv050409.phpBlacksburg, VA – Virginia Tech virologist Chris Roberts' goal is to develop a platform for a flu vaccine that allows rapid modifications to meet new strains of flu. Since 90 percent of complicated flu cases occur among those over 65, the associate professor in biomedical sciences and pathobiology ( www.vetmed.vt.edu/org/dbsp/) has been working on a novel flu vaccine for the elderly. That is still his aim, but he is now more motivated than ever to speed development of his cell culture-based vaccine technology that is more rapid than the egg-based growth system presently used to create vaccines. Influenza is an enveloped virus. It obtains its envelope or membrane as it buds from the surface of the host cell it has invaded. Roberts is using this practice against the virus – introducing membrane-bound immune-system stimulatory molecules such as cytokines into cells in such a way that the virus will incorporate them as part of its envelope. "Using this approach, inactivated influenza vaccines can be created that have enhanced immunogenicity, meaning they can boost our immune response to the vaccine and hopefully provide better protection against invading viruses," Roberts said. Normally, cytokines are secreted proteins that boost and direct the immune system's response to inflammation and infections. When a foreign particle gets into the body, the body ultimately responds by stimulating 1) B cells to secrete anti-viral antibodies, 2) cytotoxic T cells to kill infected host cells, and 3) helper T cells to regulate and control the response of both cell types. Antibodies work by recognizing and binding to specific components of the virus such as the glycoproteins on the surface of the virus (envelope). This serves to neutralize the ability of the virus to infect cells in the respiratory tract. A vaccination introduces weakened or killed forms of a virus so that the body recognizes the pathogen and begins producing antibodies to fight it. These antibodies are then ready to fight off infection should they encounter the virus. Roberts' vaccine goes a step further and provides an immune-boosting signal on the surface of the vaccine. Presently, vaccines are made from eggs and it generally takes one or two special pathogen-free eggs per dose. It also takes four to five months to prepare enough doses of the vaccine for a given year. Several companies are actively working to develop cell culture based vaccines for flu, such as is already used for polio and chickenpox vaccines, for instance. "The process could someday allow us to reduce the amount of time required to make flu vaccines," said Roberts. "Cell culture based vaccines would also help us respond more rapidly when new viral strains emerge." Roberts' approach, to have the virus clothed in its own vaccine, capitalizes on the use of cell culture based systems for vaccine production. Roberts' group uses molecular biology techniques to fuse specific cytokines to components of the viral glycoproteins that facilitate their recognition by the virus assembly machinery. The resulting cytokine fusion proteins are then expressed in a virus permissive cell line and are actively incorporated into newly formed virus particles once those cells are infected with the virus. Now, when the virus leaves its host cell, it has cytokines bound to its outer surface and these particles are harvested, purified, and then chemically inactivated to create the vaccine. Importantly, these "killed vaccines," which Roberts' has dubbed FLU CYT-IVACs (for FLU CYTokine bearing Inactivated VACcine), still retain the bioactivity of cytokines. The research has been tested in young adult mice and several CYT-IVAC formulations have shown promise in providing enhanced protection against viral pneumonia. Roberts noted, "Preliminary testing has also revealed that some of these FLU CYT-IVACs are better at protecting aged or old mice against viral pneumonia than non-modified vaccine." He is already expanding this research to include the use of human specific cytokines in the FLU CYT-IVAC formulations. "Prior to being used as a human vaccine, these humanized FLU CYT-IVACs will have to undergo rigorous testing to ensure vaccine safety and this will require additional funding, which we are actively pursuing," Roberts said. "The significance lies in the versatility of the cell culture-based vaccine platform; you can custom make a vaccine to tailor to the present need – such as swine flu," Roberts said. "And you can produce an immune-boosting response in populations with lower immunity." This work was supported by the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases. The results of the mice trials have been published in the April 24, 2009 issue of Virology Journal ("Membrane-bound Cytokines Augment Influenca Virus Vaccines and Protect Against lethal Challenge in Mice," by Andrew S. Herbert, Lynn Heffron, Roy Sundick, and Paul C. Roberts). He and his collaborators also recently published a vaccine study in poultry in the January 2009 Journal of Interferon and Cytokine Research ("A Novel Method to Incorporate Bioactive Cytokines as Adjuvants on the Surface of Virus Particles," by Yufang Yang, David Leggat, Herbert, Roberts, and Sundick).
Roberts has been at Virginia Tech in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (www.vetmed.vt.edu/index.asp) since 2007 and is part of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute. He earned his bachelor's degree at Davidson College, Davidson, N.C.; and his master's degree and doctorate in microbiology and virology at Philipps-Universitat Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
Learn more about Roberts work at: www.vetmed.vt.edu/org/dbsp/faculty/roberts.aspFlu virus primerThe influenza virus is an RNA virus. It includes Influenza A, B, and C. Components of A and B are included in yearly vaccines. Type C is rare and sporadic. Influenza has a broad host range with swine and birds being the most important reservoirs for types that can infect humans, although most viruses are species specific. Epidemics are caused by antigenic drift – mutations that make the virus unrecognizable to the antibodies induced by last year's vaccine, for example. Seasonal flu usually results in an infection rate of 5 to 20 percent with about 36,000 deaths each year. But there have been three pandemics that killed millions of people, all caused by a totally new subtype of the Influenza A virus. - Spanish flu of 1918 – H1N1
- Asian flu of 1957-58 – H2N2
- Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 – H3N2
The letters and numbers refer to subtype of the viral surface proteins -- hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). Usually the older strains disappear once new strains spread throughout the population. "Diagnosis of newly emerging strains will continue to be difficult because we still are unable to predict all the variations in influenza strains that will evolve in nature," said Roberts. The first occurrence of the bird flu was 1997. There have been 421 confirmed cases with 257 deaths as of April 23, 2009. "So it is very lethal but not very conducive for human to human spread," Roberts said.Swine fluThis appears to be a "mixed" strain that possesses genetic elements derived from humans, avian species, and swine species of the virus, which makes it more difficult to pinpoint the exact origin. Through the efforts of the World Health Organization and numerous national agencies worldwide there is now a concerted surveillance effort that actually led to fairly quick assessment of this outbreak. Those agencies are to be commended, Roberts said. It may be too soon to predict how this strain will evolve during the next several months, which makes vaccine design challenging. Existing vaccines would be unlikely to offer much protection.
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NEWS
May 5, 2009 0:24:51 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 5, 2009 0:24:51 GMT 4
NASA's Fermi Explores High-energy "Space Invaders"NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center 05.04.09www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/space_invaders.htmlSince its launch last June, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a new class of pulsars, probed gamma-ray bursts and watched flaring jets in galaxies billions of light-years away. Today at the American Physical Society meeting in Denver, Colo., Fermi scientists revealed new details about high-energy particles implicated in a nearby cosmic mystery. "Fermi's Large Area Telescope is a state-of-the-art gamma-ray detector, but it's also a terrific tool for investigating the high-energy electrons in cosmic rays," said Alexander Moiseev, who presented the findings. Moiseev is an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Cosmic rays are hyperfast electrons, positrons, and atomic nuclei moving at nearly the speed of light. Astronomers believe that the highest-energy cosmic rays arise from exotic places within our galaxy, such as the wreckage of exploded stars. Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) is exquisitely sensitive to electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons. Looking at the energies of 4.5 million high-energy particles that struck the detector between Aug. 4, 2008, and Jan. 31, 2009, the LAT team found evidence that both supplements and refutes other recent findings. Compared to the number of cosmic rays at lower energies, more particles striking the LAT had energies greater than 100 billion electron volts (100 GeV) than expected based on previous experiments and traditional models. (Visible light has energies between two and three electron volts.) The observation has implications similar to complementary measurements from a European satellite named PAMELA and from the ground-based High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), an array of telescopes located in Namibia that sees flashes of light as cosmic rays strike the upper atmosphere.Last fall, a balloon-borne experiment named ATIC captured evidence for a dramatic spike in the number of cosmic rays at energies around 500 GeV. "Fermi would have seen this sharp feature if it was really there, but it didn't." said Luca Latronico, a team member at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Pisa, Italy. "With the LAT's superior resolution and more than 100 times the number of electrons collected by balloon-borne experiments, we are seeing these cosmic rays with unprecedented accuracy." Unlike gamma rays, which travel from their sources in straight lines, cosmic rays wend their way around the galaxy. They can ricochet off of galactic gas atoms or become whipped up and redirected by magnetic fields. These events randomize the particle paths and make it difficult to tell where they originated. In fact, determining cosmic-ray sources is one of Fermi's key goals.What's most exciting about the Fermi, PAMELA, and H.E.S.S. data is that they may imply the presence of a nearby object that's beaming cosmic rays our way. "If these particles were emitted far away, they’d have lost a lot of their energy by the time they reached us," explained Luca Baldini, another Fermi collaborator at INFN. If a nearby source is sending electrons and positrons toward us, the likely culprit is a pulsar -- the crushed, fast-spinning leftover of an exploded star. A more exotic possibility is on the table, too. The particles could arise from the annihilation of hypothetical particles that make-up so-called dark matter. This mysterious substance neither produces nor impedes light and reveals itself only by its gravitational effects."Fermi's next step is to look for changes in the cosmic-ray electron flux in different parts of the sky," Latronico said. "If there is a nearby source, that search will help us unravel where to begin looking for it." NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership mission, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S.Related links:Payload for Antimatter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics (PAMELA)High Energy Stereoscopic System Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC)
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NEWS
May 5, 2009 0:40:15 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 5, 2009 0:40:15 GMT 4
When atoms are getting closeShortest carbon-chlorine single bond detected until nowEurekAlert Public Release: 4-May-2009www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/lm-waa050409.phpThe description of compounds and interactions between atoms is one of the basic objectives of chemistry. Admittedly, chemical bonding models, which describe these properties very well, already exist. However, any deviation from the normal factors may lead to improving the models further. Chemists with Professor Thomas M. Klapötke at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München have now analyzed a molecule, which has an extremely short bond length. As reported by the researchers in Nature Chemistry, the carbon atom and the chlorine atom in the so-called chlorotrinitromethane molecule are only 1.69 Angstroms apart from one another. "Non-covalent interactions are one of the factors responsible for this short distance", declared Göbel, whose doctoral thesis revealed the new results. "A better understanding of these interactions is important and useful in all areas, where molecular recognition and self-assembly come into play." (Nature Chemistry, 3 May 2009). Chemical bond models that have been successfully used for well over a century assume that a good description of the properties of a compound can be obtained while ignoring all but the nearest-neighbour bonding interactions. The idea that electrostatic interactions between second, third and even further neighbors are important and should not be ignored has not been a common notion so far. The team of Professor Thomas M. Klapötke of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at LMU Munich, primarily concerned with the synthesis and investigation of new high-energy materials, has now demonstrated for the first time that even second and third neighbors can have a decisive effect on the properties of a chemical bond.For their investigation, the researchers chose the so-called chlorotrinitromethane molecule, a compound, consisting of the halogen chlorine and the pseudohalogen trinitromethyl group. The latter is composed of one carbon atom and three nitro groups. The trinitromethyl unit belongs to the group of pseudohalogens, which has properties similar to those of the halogens. Both groups are composed of non-metals, which are generally present in the gaseous or liquid state and form salts with metals. Contrary to the halogens, however, the pseudohalogens, instead of being true chemical elements, are chemical groups composed of different elements. Using X-ray structural analysis, the researchers succeeded for the first time in revealing the internal structure of the chlorotrinitromethane molecule and drawing conclusions concerning the distances between the individual atoms. In their analyses, the chemists came up against a particularly interesting property of the chlorotrinitromethane molecule, namely the distance between its chlorine atom and its carbon atom is only 1.69 Angstroms. An Angstrom is 10-7 millimeters. The distance, now detected between the atoms, is the shortest distance ever observed for comparable chlorine-carbon single bonds. All previously measured distances fall within the range of approximately 1.71 and 1.91 Angstroms. By means of theoretical calculations, carried out in cooperation with Professor Peter Politzer and Dr. Jane S. Murray of the University of New Orleans in the USA, the researchers were able to reproduce the distribution of electrical charges within the molecule. It turned out that the chlorine atom has a completely positive electrostatic potential, a rare case, since chlorine usually has a negative electrostatic potential in other molecules. Together with the charge distributions of the remaining atoms, this finding explains why the chlorine and carbon atoms are linked so tightly to one another. The results impressively show that electrostatic interactions between atoms within a molecule can have a significant effect on bond lengths, even if these atoms are not linked directly to one of the two atoms that form the bond.In the case of chlorotrinitromethane, this effect is particularly pronounced and leads to an unusually short chlorine-carbon bond. However, it could be of importance in various other cases, especially in areas, where molecules recognize one another and assemble to larger structures. These mechanisms play an important role, for example, in biological systems and in nanotechnology. Publication: "Chlorotrinitromethane and its exceptionally short carbon–chlorine bond"; Michael Göbel, Boris H. Tchitchanov, Jane S. Murray, Peter Politzer and Thomas M. Klapötke; Nature Chemistry online,3 May 2009 DOI: 10.1038/nchem.179
Any correspondence should be addressed to: Professor Thomas M. Klapötke Department Chemistry and Biochemistry Division Inorganic Molecule Chemistry Phone.: +49-(0)89 / 2180 77504 Fax: +49-(0)89 / 2180 77492 E-mail: tmk@cup.uni-muenchen.de Webseite: www.chemie.uni-muenchen.de/ac/klapoetke/
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NEWS
May 5, 2009 0:49:57 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 5, 2009 0:49:57 GMT 4
Protein analysis methods, viral vectors featured in Cold Spring Harbor ProtocolsEurekAlert Public Release: 4-May-2009www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/cshl-pam050409.phpCOLD SPRING HARBOR, NY – Many proteins do not function by themselves as stand-alone units. Instead, multiple proteins associate to form larger structures called protein complexes. The May issue of Cold Spring Harbor Protocols ( www.cshprotocols.org/TOCs/toc5_09.dtl) features a set of methods that can be used to analyze protein complexes. An additional featured article details the generation of viral vectors for gene transfer. " Systematic Monitoring of Protein Complex Composition and Abundance by Blue-Native PAGE," written by Harvey Millar and colleagues from the University of Western Australia, describes multiple experimental approaches using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). Blue-native PAGE (BN-PAGE) allows a range of protein complexes to be visualized. When combined with sodium dodecyl sulfate PAGE (SDS-PAGE), the procedure can resolve the complexes and their subunits by their molecular weight. In conjunction with differential in-gel electrophoresis (DIGE), BN-PAGE can be used to quantify changes in protein complex abundance or subunit composition between different samples. The article presents detailed methodology for BN-PAGE, SDS-PAGE, and DIGE. It is freely available on the website for Cold Spring Harbor Protocols. Genetically modified adenoviruses serve as one of the most versatile and efficient gene delivery systems in use today. Laboratories throughout the world use adenoviruses for the delivery of DNA to cells for basic science and for gene therapy applications. Unlike most other vectors, adenoviruses can infect post-mitotic cells, which makes them particularly useful as vectors for gene delivery into cells like neurons. In the May issue of Cold Spring Harbor Protocols, Robin Parks and colleagues from the Ottawa Health Research Institute provide " Construction and Characterization of Adenovirus Vectors," a set of detailed instructions for the generation, propagation, purification, and characterization of adenovirus vectors. This method is freely accessible on the website for Cold Spring Harbor Protocols.
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NEWS
May 5, 2009 6:11:10 GMT 4
Post by ubleck on May 5, 2009 6:11:10 GMT 4
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NEWS
May 5, 2009 8:35:49 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 5, 2009 8:35:49 GMT 4
China military build-up seems U.S.-focused: MullenNewsDaily Posted 2009/05/04 at 4:56 pm EDTwww.newsdaily.com/stories/tre54363x-us-usa-china-military/WASHINGTON, DC — China's build-up of sea and air military power funded by a strong economy appears aimed at the United States, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Monday.Admiral Michael Mullen said China had the right to meet its security needs, but the build-up would require the United States to work with its Pacific allies to respond to increasing Chinese military capabilities. "They are developing capabilities that are very maritime focused, maritime and air focused, and in many ways, very much focused on us," he told a conference of the Navy League, a nonprofit seamen's support group, in Washington. "They seem very focused on the United States Navy and our bases that are in that part of the world." China in March unveiled its official military budget for 2009 of $70.24 billion, the latest in nearly two decades of double-digit rises in declared defense spending. Beijing bristles at criticism, saying its spending is line with economic growth and defense needs, and its budget remains a fraction of the Pentagon's. Mullen acknowledged that "every country in the world has got a right to develop their military as they see fit to provide for their own security." But he said the build-up propelled by fast economic growth required the United States and allies or partners like South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand to work together to "figure out a way to work with (China)" to avoid miscalculations. Mullen's comments followed remarks by President Barack Obama's top adviser on Asia on Friday calling for high-level talks with the Chinese military to reduce mistrust.A brief naval clash in March in waters near China underscored that "the absence of a sound relationship between our two militaries is a part of that strategic mistrust," said Jeffrey Bader, senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council. In that encounter, the U.S. Defense Department said an unarmed U.S. Navy surveillance ship was shadowed and harassed by Chinese ships. Obama may need veto threat to keep Gates tanker planNewsDaily Posted 2009/05/04 at 4:58 pm EDTwww.newsdaily.com/stories/tre543650-us-tankers-usa-veto/WASHINGTON, DC — President Barack Obama may have to use a veto threat to preserve Pentagon plans for a winner-take-all competition to start a new multibillion-dollar U.S. aerial-refueling fleet, the head of the House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee said on Monday. "That is probably where we'll start and end," Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, said in reply to a question about moves in Congress that would guarantee Air Force purchases from both rival tanker suppliers -- Boeing Co and a team of Northrop Grumman Corp and Europe's EADS. Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who chairs the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, and other powerful lawmakers have endorsed a dual-source strategy as a means of jump-starting the long-delayed acquisition of an initial 179 new tankers valued at $35 billion.Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a Hawaii Democrat who heads another subcommittee that oversees Air Force programs, says this may be the only practical way to break a political logjam. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has strongly opposed dividing the tanker acquisition, saying it would double combined development costs, to $14 billion.Skelton, speaking at a defense-industry conference organized by Jane's, a publisher of military-related material, declined to discuss his personal stance on dividing the tanker buy. The issue is due to figure in debate on Obama's budget request for the 2010 fiscal year starting October 1. The detailed budget is due to be sent to Congress on Thursday. Skelton said the outcome likely would hinge on whether the White House was prepared to throw down a gauntlet to back Gates on the matter, citing the high threshold -- a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate -- required to override a presidential veto. "Very seldom is a veto overridden," he said, referring to whether the dual-source idea gains further traction in Congress. "I think that's what you should look for."A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Air Force has been stymied in its two previous attempts to start replacing its KC-135 tankers, which average nearly 50 years old. The first try, rooted in the post-September 11 collapse of the commercial airliner market, foundered amid a procurement scandal that sent two Boeing executives, one of them a former Air Force arms buyer, to prison for conflict-of-interest violations. Northrop won a competition in February 2008, but it was canceled after federal auditors upheld a Boeing challenge.Gates has said he wants to launch a new, winner-take-all competition this summer and award a contract next year. The Air Force says new tankers are its top acquisition priority.Momentum has been growing for the dual-source proposal in recent weeks. Both Boeing and Northrop have voiced support for the idea if the Pentagon changes course and ends up recommending it. Obama to meet Afghan, Pakistani leaders on strategyNewsDaily Posted 2009/05/04 at 7:03 pm EDTwww.newsdaily.com/stories/tre5430rv-us-obama-afghanistan-pakistan/WASHINGTON, DC — President Barack Obama presents his strategy for defeating al Qaeda to the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday amid growing U.S. concern that it is losing the war and neither is a reliable ally. The White House meetings with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are likely to be cagey affairs -- both visitors have been heavily criticized by Obama's administration and are also wary of each other. Equally, Obama's new strategy for defeating al Qaeda and Taliban militants operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan has not been universally welcomed in either country. It will be Obama's first face-to-face meeting with the two men to discuss his new regional strategy and is a chance to air his concerns about corruption and poor governance. One of the biggest challenges will be to convince Pakistan to take the threat of Islamist militancy seriously and prevent the Taliban from using its soil to attack Afghanistan, a major bone of contention between Islamabad and Kabul. "Pakistanis have a fundamental doctrinal disjuncture with what's happening because they are ... geared to dealing with India while they are facing marauders from the west," said Juan Zarate, a former deputy national security adviser in the Bush administration. With Taliban fighters moving closer to Islamabad, Admiral Michael Mullen told a Navy League conference on Monday he was "increasingly concerned" about the country."Over the past year there has been a gradual erosion and increase in the terrorist threat there," said Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.As it seeks reliable allies in the region, the United States, which has funneled $10 billion in aid to Islamabad over the past eight years, can sometimes give conflicting signals. At times it has praised Pakistan's military and at others accused it and its powerful spy agency of helping al Qaeda. "Some have raised concern that elements within the Pakistani military and intelligence services may be sympathetic to militant groups, leading to caution on our part," Obama's undersecretary of defense for policy, Michele Flournoy, told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee last week. Obama is calling for additional $1.5 billion in spending annually for five years to boost civilian development in Pakistan as part of his strategy for the region. PAKISTAN DEVELOPMENT AID SOUGHTU.S. Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar introduced a bill on Monday to authorize the funds, primarily for projects like roads, schools and hospitals. Kerry said while the funding was mainly intended for civilian projects, the administration could submit a plan directing some of it to military uses. Congress is considering an additional $2.3 billion in aid for Pakistan, including $400 million for counterinsurgency. While requesting huge boosts in assistance for Pakistan, the U.S. administration has sounded increasingly frustrated with the civilian government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused Islamabad of abdicating to the Taliban by agreeing to impose Islamic law in the Swat valley and Obama has expressed concern the government is "very fragile" and unable to deliver basic services. As he seeks to wind down the war in Iraq, Obama's strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan has won some praise for its focus on boosting aid and development and not relying entirely on a military solution to the fight against al Qaeda."Today the war is being lost in Afghanistan, but is not yet lost," Bruce Riedel, an author of Obama's strategy, wrote in a piece for the Brookings Institution last week. "President Obama has decided to send the resources to the war to break the movement of the Taliban. He is right to do so." But some argue it does not go far enough to change past policies that have failed to yield results. Many Pakistanis are angry that U.S. drone attacks have continued under Obama. Aimed at al Qaeda's leaders, the strikes from unmanned aircraft have often killed civilians. Others complain the United States has undermined democracy in Pakistan for decades by supporting its powerful military. Hawks in the Pakistani establishment fear Karzai's government is too close to arch-rival India and see support for the Taliban as a way of maintaining influence in Afghanistan. Gates plans to reassure allies on Iran outreachDefense secretary promises tough stance en route to Middle EastMSNBC updated 4:34 p.m. ET, Mon., May 4, 2009www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30555517/ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT - The top U.S. defense official cautioned Monday that the Obama administration's quest to bolster relations with Tehran most likely will be met at first by "a closed fist." Defense Secretary Robert Gates is on a delicate mission to soothe Mideast allies' concerns about American efforts to open diplomatic relations with Iran. Gates arrived in Cairo on the first leg of a Mideast tour that will include Saudi Arabia. He said part of his mission this week will be to assure the Saudis, and other Mideast allies, that any U.S. gesture toward Tehran will be for the purpose of improving security throughout the region. Building diplomacy with Iran "will not be at the expense of our long-term relationships with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states that have been our partners and friends for decades," Gates told reporters aboard a military jet headed to Cairo. A second U.S. official said the U.S. is only "at first base" with Tehran and that diplomatic deals aimed at scaling back tensions over Iran's nuclear program were still premature. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue more candidly. Another crucial issue for Gates on this trip will be negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. He will meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo early Tuesday. Gates has credited Egypt for working as an intermediary between the two sides. 'Reach out' cautiouslyOn the U.S. feelers to Iran, Gates acknowledged that there are likely "concerns in the region that may draw on an exaggerated sense of what's possible. And I just think it's important to reassure our friends and allies in the region that while we're willing to reach out to the Iranians, as the president said, with an open hand, I think everybody in the administration, from the president on down, is pretty realistic and will be pretty tough-minded if we still encounter a closed fist." Gates flies to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on Tuesday. He also noted concerns throughout the Mideast about Iran's influence in Baghdad, and said they could be staved off if more Arab nations opened embassies or otherwise became more involved in Iraq. Gates praised Egypt, for example, for having "taken some serious steps forward to re-engage." Critics of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accuse him of forging ties with fellow Shiites who are allied with Iran. The issue has been a flashpoint for Iraq's Sunnis, who, under Saddam Hussein, fought Iran decades ago. Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi urged Arab countries to increase their involvement in Iraq by reopening embassies, making official visits and increasing trade ties. "Arab countries must read the new strategic scene in Iraq. They have to open up and extend bridges with Iraq," al-Hashemi told reporters following talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Amman. Guantanamo on agendaGates said discussions in Riyadh would include U.S. efforts to have Yemeni detainees now being held at the Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rehabilitated in Saudi facilities. An estimated 100 of the 241 Guantanamo detainees are Yemeni. The U.S. is reluctant to release them to Yemen, where convicted terrorists have escaped from prisons. But the Yemeni government has so far balked at agreeing to send the Yemeni detainees to Saudi Arabia. Gates also welcomed any help Saudi officials could give to Pakistan's fragile government. "The Saudis in particular have considerable influence in Pakistan," he said. "And so I think that whatever they can do to bring Pakistanis together in a broader sense to deal with the challenge to the government in Islamabad obviously would be welcome." There are so many articles available via the "news wires" referencing the conflicts we face. What is blatantly apparent is the US Military and/or DoD stance for the continuance of increased military funding in spite of the reductions being sought by the Secretary of Defense.
What does that say about the US? Look at the articles above.
We have a Nose-out-of-Joint Chief of Staff citing the "possible escalations in weaponry proliference by the Chinese government" while pointing out that the Iraqi government "may not be able to handle the removal of troups from the major cities".
We have major "Hillbeanies" promoting a need for a "dual-source" proposal on a new AF fuel tanker being touted by lobbyists from the two companies who lost out in the first place to the tune of double the cost.
We have "top military advisors and/or officials speaking on conditions of anonymity" leaking strategic information on sensitive negotiations taking place or that will take place via diplomatic channels for non-military solutions to global issues.
If you are trying to promote a global war-machine, what better way to do it than ham-stringing the President and the Secretaries of State and Defense with this continued crapola - which is doing exactly what the goobers want.
Who, may I ask, are you trying to kid?
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NEWS
May 5, 2009 8:48:23 GMT 4
Post by towhom on May 5, 2009 8:48:23 GMT 4
Alaska volcano shows increased unrestOn Sunday, scientists said there was a marked increase of seismicityMSNBC updated 11:41 a.m. ET, Mon., May 4, 2009www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30560881/ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Mount Redoubt is acting up with greater intensity. It's rumbling and grumbling and producing a substantial ash and steam plume. On Sunday, scientists said there was a marked increase of seismicity at the volcano about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage. One plume went to 18,000 feet. The volcano has been in what is called a dome-building phase as it grows a lava dome in its crater. The dome has grown considerably in recent weeks. A tongue of lava now has advanced about 550 yards down the Drift Glacier Gorge. The volcano had its last major explosion on April 4.
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