The Art of Falling

Via Neatorama, similar pictures as posted earlier from Li Wei:

The Art of Falling:

"Photographer Kerry Skarbakka explores the falling human body in a set called The Struggle to Right Oneself. You’ll look at these and ask, “How did he do that? And how bad was he hurt?”

Using myself as model and with the aid of climbing gear and other rigging, I photograph the body as it dangles from dangerous precipices or tumbles down flights of stairs. The captured gesture of the body is designed for plausiblity of action, which grounds the image in reality. However, it is the ambiguiy of the body’s position in space that allows and requires the viewer to resolve the full meaning of the photograph. Do we fall? Can we fly? If we fly then loss of control facilitates supreme control.

The photograph that first grabbed my attention was Skarbakka falling in the shower, but you’ll have to look for that yourself because it’s a nude. Link -via reddit

Outcast by religion in Israel

Outcast by religion in Israel Sometimes religion can be the reason of a family break-up. Orthodox jews in Israël, for instance, can be completely ostracised when they decide to give up the faith of their parents.

Free-Falling Art Of Li Wei

Free-Falling Art Of Li Wei: "Chinese artist Li Wei from Beijing started off his performance series ‘Mirroring’ and later on took off attention with his ‘Falls’ series which shows the artist with his head and chest embedded into the ground.

His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality. Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and works with the help of props such as mirror, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics."

 

Unsung heroes

Guardian: "Unsung Heroes: What made old singles so great? Session musicians, that's what. So why are those players finding their royalties disappearing?

Scandinavians are descended from Stone Age immigrants

EurekAlert: "Today's Scandinavians are not descended from the people who came to Scandinavia at the conclusion of the last ice age but, apparently, from a population that arrived later, concurrently with the introduction of agriculture. This is one conclusion of a new study straddling the borderline between genetics and archaeology, which involved Swedish researchers and which has now been published in the journal Current Biology."

Balance Organs Affect Brain Blood Flow

ScienceDaily: "The organs of the inner ear have a direct effect on brain blood flow, independent of blood pressure and carbon dioxide levels in the blood. Researchers used a series of human centrifuge experiments to investigate the effects of stimulation of the otoliths and semi-circular canals on cerebrovascular response."

RU Kidding? Research Finds That Chatspeak Has No Impact On Children's Spelling Ability

ScienceDaily: "This will prolly comes as a bit of a shock to UR system, but findings from a group of researchers show that language commonly used in instant messaging has no effect on your child's spelling abilities. If anything, says a study author, using language variations commonly used in instant messaging and texting is actually a good sign."

New NIST Nano-ruler Sets Some Very Small Marks

ScienceDaily: "NIST has issued a new ruler, and even for an organization that routinely deals in superlatives, it sets some records. Designed to be the most accurate commercially available 'meter stick' for the nano world, the new measuring tool boasts uncertainties below a femtometer. That's 0.000 000 000 000 001 meter, or roughly the size of a neutron."

'McDonalization' of frogs

EurekAlert: "Everyone knows that frogs are in trouble. But a recent analysis of frog surveys done at eight Central American sites shows the situation is worse than thought. Under pressure from an invasive fungus, the frogs in this biodiversity hot spot are undergoing 'a vast homogenization.' 'We're witnessing the McDonaldization of the frog communities,' comments the lead author of the new study."

'Lies my parents told me'

EurekAlert: "Parents say that honesty is the best policy, but they regularly lie to their children as a way of influencing their behavior and emotions, finds new research from the University of Toronto and the University of California, San Diego."

Waterboarding Doesn't Work, Scientists Say

Wired: "Painful interrogation techniques like waterboarding don't work, according to a new review of the psychological literature. The belief that 'enhanced interrogation' produces valuable intelligence information is just 'folk neurobiology,' the lead researcher says."

New Drake Equation To Quantify Habitability?

ScienceDaily: "Researchers are laying the groundwork for a new equation that could mathematically quantify a habitat’s potential for hosting life, in a similar way to how the Drake equation estimates the number of intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way."

Who's Afraid of the Flu?

Time: "For the first time in history, the world is fighting a pandemic flu before it becomes a full-fledged catastrophe. But the real battle is the one in our heads"

Egypt Discovers the Flaw in Killing All Its Pigs

NY Times: "When the government killed all the pigs in Egypt this spring in an attempt to combat swine flu, it was warned the city would be overwhelmed with trash. Now, it is."

Grizzly bear decline in Canada

Guardian: "Demand for halt to hunting after decline in salmon stocks is blamed for bears starving to death

First it was the giant panda, then the polar bear, now it seems that the grizzly bear is the latest species to face impending disaster.

A furious row has erupted in Canada with conservationists desperately lobbying the government to suspend the annual bear-hunting season following reports of a sudden drop in the numbers of wild bears spotted on salmon streams and key coastal areas where they would normally be feeding.

The government has promised to order a count of bears, but not until after this year's autumn trophy hunts have taken place. It has enraged ecology groups which say that a dearth of salmon stocks may be responsible for many bears starving in their dens during hibernation. The female grizzlies have their cubs during winter after gorging themselves in September on the fish fats that sustain them through the following months.

'I've never seen bears hungry in the fall before, but last year they were starving,' said British Columbian wildlife guide and photographer Doug Neasloss. 'I noticed in the spring there weren't as many bears coming out, but I felt it was premature to jump to conclusions.' But now, he said, 'there just aren't any bears. It's scary.'

It was the same story, he said, from other guides over 16 rivers where once they would have been encountering dozens of grizzly bears. 'There has been a huge drop in numbers. I've never experienced anything this bad.' Reports from stream walkers, who monitor salmon streams across the vast territories, have been consistent, according to the conservation group Pacific Wild – no bears, and more worryingly, no bear cubs.

'There are just no bears out there, I'm hearing that from every side now,' said Ian McAllister from Pacific Wild. He said that because a few grizzlies have been wandering close to centres of human habitation people thought there were plenty of bears around. 'In fact it's the shortage of food that's driving them into town. They're starving,' he explained.

In one river alone, the Fraser on Canada's west coast, 10 million sockeye salmon were expected back to spawn there this summer. Only one million turned up. Canada's Ministry of Environment announced in July that it would ban hunting of grizzly bears on an additional 470,000 hectares, bringing the total protected area for grizzlies and black bears to 1.9 million hectares.

The news came after Jane Goodall, the renowned wildlife campaigner, added her voice to the campaign against the hunts, which are for trophies, not meat.

"I'm very distressed and shocked that the bear hunt – grizzly bear and black bear – is continuing in a country like Canada," she said. "These bears are such amazing, magnificent creatures and there are so many secrets still to discover about their lives."

Grizzlies once roamed across most of North America and the Great Plains until European settlers gradually pushed them back. Only 1,000 remain in the contiguous US, where they are protected, but the number is less clear in the vast wilds of Canada and Alaska, where they are prized by hunters who shoot hundreds of the 350kg giants every year, providing a lucrative income for provincial governments that license the hunts. 'It's appalling wildlife management, considering the widespread concern for coastal bears at the moment,' said McAllister.

Indigenous groups have added their voice to the call to save the bears, pointing out that trophy hunting is against their traditions and threatens tourism, which is a vital source of income for the remote areas of Canada.

But a senior biologist with the US National Wildlife Federation said the evidence remained anecdotal and called the reports 'alarmist'. Bears would not starve so quickly because of the decline in salmon while there were other food sources, such as berries, around, Sterling Miller told reporters. He said the long-term impact of the salmon decline on bears was a serious issue, but several years of data would need to be compiled to reveal a change in population trends.

A report released last week showed species numbers to have fallen dramatically in the province of Alberta, where local officials have decided to suspend the annual hunting season despite intense lobbying from hunters. 'There's no question that bears are worse off now than 20 years ago – both in numbers and range,' said Jim Pissot, of the group Defenders of Wildlife."

The Secrets Inside Your Dog's Mind

TIME: "Henry the schnoodle just did a remarkable thing. Understanding a pointed finger may seem easy, but consider this: while humans and canines can do it naturally, no other known species in the animal kingdom can. Consider too all the mental work that goes into figuring out what a pointed finger means: paying close attention to a person, recognizing that a gesture reflects a thought, that another animal can even have a thought. Henry, as Kivell affectionately admits, may not be "the sharpest knife in the drawer," but compared to other animals, he's a true scholar.

It's no coincidence that the two species that pass Hare's pointing test also share a profound cross-species bond. Many animals have some level of social intelligence, allowing them to coexist and cooperate with other members of their species. Wolves, for example--the probable ancestors of dogs--live in packs that hunt together and have a complex hierarchy. But dogs have evolved an extraordinarily rich social intelligence as they've adapted to life with us. All the things we love about our dogs--the joy they seem to take in our presence, the many ways they integrate themselves into our lives--spring from those social skills. Hare and others are trying to figure out how the intimate coexistence of humans and dogs has shaped the animal's remarkable abilities."

Crew For Final Scheduled Space Shuttle Mission Selected

Slashdot: "Toren Altair writes 'NASA has assigned the crew for the last scheduled space shuttle mission, targeted to launch in September 2010. The flight to the International Space Station will carry a pressurized logistics module to the station. Veteran shuttle commander and retired Air Force Col. Steven W. Lindsey will command the eight-day mission, designated STS-133. Air Force Col. Eric A. Boe will serve as the pilot; it will be his second flight as a shuttle pilot. Mission Specialists are shuttle mission veteran Air Force Col. Benjamin Alvin Drew, Jr., and long-duration spaceflight veterans Michael R. Barratt, Army Col. Timothy L. Kopra and Nicole P. Stott.' Reader Al points out other NASA news that the space agency's engineers have been testing a sleek new lunar rover that will be part of their eventual return to the moon. A video of the rover in action has been posted as well."

Government Urges Changes to Google Books Deal

NY Times: "The Justice Department said late Friday that a proposed legal settlement between Google and book authors and publishers should not be approved by the court without modifications."

Program Gets Girls to Go For Science

LiveScience: "Carl Pennypacker at UC Berkeley runs Universe Quest, a summer program to get girls excited about science. We follow a group of Girl Scouts who get to look through a telescope, go out to the beach to measure tides, design online games, and more."

APS podcast updates research on elephant seismic communication

EurekAlert: "Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell's insight that elephants 'talk' and 'listen' to vocalizations that they send through the ground grew from long hours of observation and experimentation, as well as her own in-depth knowledge of insects that communicate seismically. The Stanford University professor updates her research from the APS journal Physiology, in Episode 25 of Life Lines, the podcast of the American Physiological Society."

On Religion: A Temple With a Special View on Repentance

NY Times: "Rabbi Jonathan Gerard came out of retirement to take on a congregation of inmates at the the largest maximum-security prison in Pennsylvania."

Too many bars in rural America linked to high suicide rates instead of idyllic life

EurekAlert: "A new study has examined the relationship between suicide and number of alcohol outlets. Results show that suicides -- both completed and attempted -- occurred at greater rates in rural community areas with greater bar densities.Completed suicide rates were lower among blacks and Hispanics, and higher among low-income, older whites living in rural areas."

Tokyo Cracks Down on Train Groping, Again

Time: "In a city where unwanted physical contact on crowded trains is rampant, Tokyo's first 'Groping Prevention Week' tries a new tactic to tackle the ongoing challenge of making commuting a little safer for women"

Supermarket Bans Jedi Knight

Slashdot: "The employees at Tesco seem to be immune to mind tricks, and have kicked out the founder of the International Church of Jediism. Daniel Jones, 23, who founded the religion based on the Star Wars movies, was asked to leave because his robes were against store rules which forbid the wearing of 'hoodies' in their premises. 'I told them it was a requirement of my religion but they just sniggered and ordered me to leave,' he told The Daily Telegraph newspaper. 'I walked past a Muslim lady in a veil. Surely the same rules should apply to everyone.' It's exactly this kind of stuff that turns young Jedi's to the dark side."

Oddball Stars Explained: New Observations Solve Longstanding Mystery Of Tipped Stars

Science Daily: "A pair of unusual stars known as DI Herculis has confounded astronomers for three decades, but new observations have provided data that they say solve the mystery once and for all."

Homophobia on the rise in the Muslim world

Salon: "As recent incidents in Iraq show, in many Islamic countries, gays are ostracized, persecuted, even murdered"

Fossil Find Challenges Theories on T. Rex

NY Times: "The discovery of the creature, Raptorex kriegsteini, calls into question theories about the evolution of a much larger and heavier dinosaur."

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's LAMP shedding light on permanently shadowed regions of the moon

EurelAlert: "NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched on June 18 of this year, has begun its extensive exploration of the lunar environment and will return more data about the moon than any previous mission. The Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project, developed by Southwest Research Institute, is an integral part of the LRO science investigation. LAMP uses a novel method to peer into the perpetual darkness of the moon's so-called permanently shadowed regions."

Ear to the Universe starts listening

SciAm: "US radio array starts its search for extraterrestrial life."

Genetic Secrets Of Date Palm Unlocked

Science Daily: "Researchers have mapped a draft version of the date palm genome, unlocking many of its genetic secrets."

Under Pressure: The Impact Of Stress On Decision Making

Science Daily: "We are faced with making decisions all the time. Often, we carefully deliberate the pros and cons of our choices, taking into consideration past experiences in similar situations before making a final decision. However, a new study suggests that cognitive stress, such as distraction, can influence this balanced, logical approach to decision making."

Googlebooks crusade captures CAPTCHA king

The Register: "Bad for spam. Good for OCR. Google has acquired reCAPTCHA, a free CAPTCHA service that also serves as a means of digitizing printed books and newspapers. Among other things, the Mountain View web giant is looking to juice its ever-controversial library-scanning Book Search project."

First rocky planet outside solar system found

CNN: "Scientists have discovered the first confirmed Earthlike planet outside our solar system, they announced Wednesday."

With a flash of light, a neuron's function is revealed

EurekAlert: "Using light, scientists traced a fish's swimming response to the neurons that control it. Their technique could become a powerful way to learn how biological systems work."

In absence of other democratic institutions, freedom of press can lead to cycles of violence

EurekAlert: "While many have argued that media freedom is integral to a functioning democracy and respect for human rights, a new study is the first to examine the effects of media freedom in countries that lack such democratic institutions as fair elections."

Yale team finds mechanism that constructs key brain structure

EurekAlert: "Yale University researchers have found a molecular mechanism that allows the proper mixing of neurons during the formation of columns essential for the operation of the cerebral cortex, they report in the Sept. 16 online issue of the journal Nature."

Genetic sex determination let ancient species adapt to ocean life

EurekAlert: "A new analysis of extinct sea creatures suggests that the transition from egg-laying to live-born young opened up evolutionary pathways that allowed these ancient species to adapt to and thrive in open oceans."

Scientists cure color blindness in monkeys

EurekAlert: "Writing online in the journal Nature, scientists from the University of Florida and the University of Washington cast a rosy light on the potential for gene therapy to treat adult vision disorders involving cone cells -- the most important cells for vision in people. Scientists used gene therapy to cure two squirrel monkeys of color blindness -- the most common genetic disorder in people."

Swift Makes Best-ever Ultraviolet Portrait Of Andromeda Galaxy

ScienceDaily: "In a break from its usual task of searching for distant cosmic explosions, NASA's Swift satellite has acquired the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet. The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, is the largest and closest spiral galaxy to our own."

'Alert Status' Area In Brain Discoved: New Understanding Of Anesthesia

ScienceDaily: "A new understanding of how anesthesia and anesthesia-like states are controlled in the brain opens the door to possible new future treatments of various states of loss of consciousness, such as reversible coma, according to scientists."

Strange Dwarf Planet Has Red Spot

Space.com: "The dwarf planet Haumea has a dark, red spot, scientists find"

Fake Video Dramatically Alters Eyewitness Accounts

ScienceDaily: "Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that fake video evidence can dramatically alter people's perceptions of events, even convincing them to testify as an eyewitness to an event that never happened."

Molecular Evidence Supports Key Tenet Of Darwin's Evolution Theory

EurekAlert: "An international team of researchers has discovered evidence at the molecular level in support of one of the key tenets of Darwin's theory of evolution. As a model system, the research focused on one specific molecular machine, the TIM complex, which transports proteins into mitochondria."

Direct evidence of role of sleep in memory formation is uncovered

EurekAlert: "A Rutgers University, Newark and Collége de France, Paris, research team has pinpointed for the first time the mechanism that takes place during sleep that causes learning and memory formation to occur, according to research published in Nature Neuroscience."

Scientists say animal rights extremists threaten researchers and health outcomes

EurekAlert: "Two new expert commentaries released in the Sept. 16 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience spotlight the increasingly violent animal rights attacks and the need for an educated public and engaged research community to ensure the safety of animals and researchers, as well as the continuation of health advances."

Reading Kafka improves learning, suggests UCSB psychology study

EurekAlert: "Reading a book by Franz Kafka -- or watching a film by director David Lynch -- could make you smarter. According to research by psychologists at UC Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia, exposure to surrealism enhances the cognitive mechanisms that oversee implicit learning functions."

James Webb Space Telescope begins to take shape at Goddard

EurekAlert: "NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is starting to come together. A major component of the telescope, the Integrated Science Instrument Module structure, recently arrived at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., for testing in the Spacecraft Systems Development and Integration Facility."

URI researcher trips amputees in effort to develop improved prosthetic legs

EurekAlert: "A URI engineer has been tripping amputees in a laboratory study that seeks to improve the safety of prosthetic legs by developing a reliable and responsive stumble detection system."

Scary music is scarier with your eyes shut

EurekAlert: "Dr. Talma Hendler of Tel Aviv University reports that the simple fact of closing the eyes can elicit more intense physical responses in the brain itself, visible on fMRIs."

Tomgram: Chip Ward, The Ruins in Our Future

TomDispatch: "All of us have been watching drought in action this summer. When it hits the TV news, though, it usually goes by the moniker of 'fire.' As we've seen, California, in the third year of a major drought, has been experiencing 'a seemingly endless fire that has burned more than 250 square miles of Los Angeles County' (and that may turn out to be just the beginning of another fire season from hell).

Southern California has hardly been the only drought story, though. For those with an eye out, the southern parts of Texas, the hottest state in the union this year, have been in the grips of a monster drought. Seven hundred thousand acres of the state have already burned in 2009, with a high risk of more to come.

Jump a few thousand miles and along with neighboring Syria, Iraq has been going through an almost biblical drought which has turned parts of that country into a dustbowl, sweeping the former soil of the former Fertile Crescent via vast dust storms into the lungs of city dwellers.

In Africa, formerly prosperous Kenya is withering in the face of another fearsome drought that has left people desperate and livestock, crops, and children, as well as elephants, dying.

And, if you happen to be on the lookout, you can read about drought in India, where rice and sugar cane farmers as well as government finances are suffering. Or consider Mexico, where the 2009 wet season never arrived and crops are wilting in a parched countryside from the U.S. border to the Yucatan Peninsula.

Everywhere water problems threaten to lead to water wars, while 'drought refugees' flee the land and food crises escalate. It's a nasty brew. But here's the strange thing -- one I've commented on before: there has been some fine reporting on each of these drought situations, but you can hunt high and low in the mainstream and not find any set of these droughts in the same piece. There's little indication that drought might, in fact, be an increasing global problem, nor can you find anyone exploring whether the fierceness of recent droughts and their spread might, in part, be connected to climate change. The grim 'little' picture is now regularly with us. Whatever the big picture may be, it escapes notice, which is why I'm particularly glad that environmentalist and TomDispatch regular Chip Ward has written a drought piece in which, from his perch in Utah, he takes in the whole weather-perturbed American West. Tom"

Red Snow Warning
The End of Welfare Water and the Drying of the West

By Chip Ward

Pakistan’s Army Said to Be Linked to Many Killings

NY Times: "Two months after the Pakistani Army wrested control of the Swat Valley, bodies have been dumped on the streets in what rights advocates and residents say is the work of the military."

NASA's Mars Rover Might Be Stuck For Good

Space.com: "Efforts to free the stuck Spirit rover on Mars have been dragging on since May and today a NASA official said the robot may never get free."

Sidebar: Obama About-Face Goes to High Court

NY Times: "First the Justice Department decided it would not ask the Supreme Court to block the release of photographs showing the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then it changed its mind."

Factoring People Into Climate Change

The Nation: "More and more experts now say that climate change and population increase should be viewed together. Local politicians in developing countries often try to heat up the issue."

When you've doubled your genes, what's 1 chromosome more or less?

EurekAlert: "For animals, an extra chromosome can result in major problems, but plants are another matter. Many plants can survive an extra copy of their entire genome (polyploidy), and this process often results in a new species, making it an important mechanism in evolution. In fact, over 80 percent of plants may be a product of polyploidy. This research examines how polyploidy and genomic change can lead to evolutionary change, and affect plants' fitness and vigor."

Remarkable Creatures: A Feared Predator, Its Origin Evolving

NY Times: "Great whites, most experts now believe, are not descended from a megatoothed megashark, but from a more modest relative of mako sharks."

Evidence points to conscious 'metacognition' in some nonhuman animals

EurekAlert: "J. David Smith, Ph.D., a comparative psychologist at the University at Buffalo who has conducted extensive studies in animal cognition, says there is growing evidence that animals share functional parallels with human conscious metacognition -- that is, they may share humans' ability to reflect upon, monitor or regulate their states of mind."

TEDTalks : Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other's minds - Rebecca Saxe (2009)

TEDTalks: "Sensing the motives and feelings of others is a natural talent for humans. But how do we do it? Here, Rebecca Saxe shares fascinating lab work that uncovers how the brain thinks about other peoples' thoughts -- and judges their actions."

CIA Experiments on US Soldiers Linked to Torture Program

truthout: "A number of new reports have, in recent weeks, highlighted evidence of illegal human experimentation on US-held "terrorism" prisoners undergoing torture. Those reports come on the heels of a "white paper" by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), "Aiding Torture: Health Professionals' Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated", in the May 2004 inspector general's report.

This article looks at those recent charges, and reveals that experiments by a CIA researcher on human subjects undergoing SERE training went unreported in the legal memos the Bush administration drafted to approve their torture program. It will also connect major military and intelligence figures to the SERE experiments and tie some of them to major science and "experimental" directorates at the CIA and Special Operations Command."

Prosecutors in Iraq Case See Pattern by Guards

NY Times: "Prosecutors charge Blackwater guards repeatedly shot into the streets of Baghdad without regard for civilians."

Giant Stone-age Axes Found In African Lake Basin

ScienceDaily: "A giant African lake basin is providing information about possible migration routes and hunting practices of early humans in the Middle and Late Stone Age periods, between 150,000 and 10,000 years ago. Researchers have documented thousands of stone tools on the lake bed, which sheds new light on how humans in Africa adapted to several substantial climate change events during the period that coincided with the last Ice Age in Europe."

Students Take Pictures From Space On $150 Budget

Slashdot: "An anonymous reader writes 'Two MIT students have successfully photographed the earth from space on a strikingly low budget of $148. Perhaps more significantly, they managed to accomplish this feat using components available off-the-shelf to the average layperson, opening the door for a new generation of amateur space enthusiasts. The pair plan to launch again soon and hope that their achievements will inspire teachers and students to pursue similar endeavors.'"

Incorporating Human Behavior Into Wall Street Mathematical Models

Slashdot: "After watching the stock market struggle for the past year, financial experts from Wall Street and academia are putting more effort into bringing behavioral modeling into their complex financial calculations. 'The risk models proved myopic, they say, because they were too simple-minded. They focused mainly on figures like the expected returns and the default risk of financial instruments. What they didn't sufficiently take into account was human behavior, specifically the potential for widespread panic.' Analysts are looking at research from other fields to supplement the hard mathematics of risk assessment. 'Financial markets, like online communities, are social networks. Researchers are looking at whether the mechanisms and models being developed to explore collective behavior on the Web can be applied to financial markets.' Another avenue they're exploring is how we react to the spread of disease. Jon M. Kleinberg, a computer scientist at Cornell, said, 'The hope is to take this understanding of contagion and use it as a perspective on how rapid changes of behavior can spread through complex networks at work in financial markets.'"

Listeria L-forms: Discovery Of An Unusual Form Of Bacterial Life

ScienceDaily: "Researchers have discovered a new life form of Listeria, an opportunistic pathogen responsible for serious food poisoning. These bacteria can reproduce and proliferate as so-called L-forms. The methods to detect these bacteria should now be adapted."

Newton on the Beach: Principia Mathematica

via YouTube: Historian Simon Schaffer, the 2008 Harry Camp Memorial Lecturer, spoke on Newton's fascination with discoveries about ancient Indian philosophy and discussed the global network of information on which Newton relied for his Principia Mathematica. Schaffer is the co-author, with Steven Shapin, of "Leviathan and the Air Pump" (1985) and joint winner of the 2005 Erasmus Prize. Recent publications include edited collections "The Sciences in Enlightened Europe" (1999) and "The Mindful Hand" (2007). Stanford University: http://www.stanford.edu/ Stanford Humanities Center: http://shc.stanford.edu/ Stanford University Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/stanford

BBC Newsnight: The Rise of Israel's Military Rabbis (Part 1 of 2)

BBC Newsnight: The Rise of Israel's Military Rabbis (Part 1 of 2):


"September 7, 2009 on BBC Newsnight:

Israel's army is changing. Once proudly secular, its combat units are now filling with those who believe Israel's wars are "God's wars".

Military rabbis are becoming more powerful. Trained in warfare as well as religion, new army regulations mean they are now part of a military elite.

They graduate from officer's school and operate closely with military commanders. One of their main duties is to boost soldiers' morale and drive, even on the front line.

Israeli general warns of dangers of turning war into 'jihad'

This has caused quite some controversy in Israel. Should military motivation come from men of God, or from a belief in the state of Israel and keeping it safe?"

Risk Aversion At Odds With Manned Space Exploration

Slashdot: "Several readers including tyghe!! sent in a Popular Mechanics piece analyzing the Augustine Commission's recommendations and NASA itself in terms of a persistent bias towards risk aversion, and arguing that such a bias is fundamentally incompatible with the mission of opening a new frontier. 'Rand Simberg, a former aerospace engineer finds the report a little too innocuous. In this analysis, Simberg asks, what happens when we take the risk out of space travel? ... Aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan said a few years ago that if we're not killing people, we're not pushing hard enough. That might sound harsh to people outside the aerospace community but, as Rutan knows, test pilots and astronauts are a breed of people that willingly accepts certain risk in order to be part of great endeavors. They're volunteers and they know what they're getting into.'"

Urban Legends About the Smithsonian | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine

Urban Legends About the Smithsonian
The Smithsonian Institution has been a part of the American landscape since 1846. Yet perhaps because of the breadth and eclecticism of its collections, people still aren’t sure exactly what the Institution does or know much about the objects it contains. With that in mind, we would like to take this opportunity to clear up a few lingering misconceptions.

7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You

LiveScience: "Some personality quirks could take a toll on our health."

First complete image created of Himalayan fault, subduction zone

EurekAlert: "An international team of researchers has created the most complete seismic image of the Earth's crust and upper mantle beneath the rugged Himalaya Mountains, in the process discovering some unusual geologic features that may explain how the region has evolved."

Migrating birds chill to fatten up

EurekAlert: "Most migrating birds can't carry enough fuel to reach their destinations, so refuel en route. However the aviators expend twice as much energy during stopovers as they use in transit. Wondering whether migrating blackcaps save energy by dropping their body temperature during stopovers, Michał Wojciechowski and Berry Pinshow measured the bird's temperatures as they refuelled and found that they drop their body temperatures at night by up to 30 percent to conserve energy and fatten faster."

German Geothermal Project Leads to Second Thoughts After the Earth Rumbles

NY Times: "German officials are reviewing the safety of a plant that extracts heat from below the earth’s surface, an operation that scientists say set off an earthquake last month."

'Weekend jihadis'

BBC: "In the villages of Afghanistan, many young men are working for the government during the week, but fighting for the Taliban at weekends."

Sleep Helps Reduce Errors In Memory, Research Suggests

EurekAlert: "Sleep may reduce mistakes in memory, according to a first-of-its-kind study. The findings have practical implications for everyone from students flubbing multiple choice tests to senior citizens confusing their medications."

Worker Bees In 'Reproductive Class War' With Queen, New Research Discovers

ScienceDaily: "Bee colonies are well known for high levels of cooperation, but new research demonstrates a conflict for reproduction between worker bees and their queens, leading some workers to selfishly exploit the colony for their own needs. The study focused on Melipona scutellaris -- a Brazilian species of highly social stingless bees, found throughout the Atlantic rainforest. Colonies contain around 1,500 workers and are headed by one single-mated Queen."

Top wheat experts call for scaling up efforts to combat Ug99 and other wheat rusts

EurekAlert: "Wheat experts from 26 countries warn that rapidly-moving, wind-borne transboundary wheat diseases continue to threaten food security and wheat genetic diversity worldwide -- particularly in the ancient breadbasket stretching from the Middle East to India -- as they vowed new action to isolate and interrupt the steady march of dangerous wheat rust diseases."

UK: Treatment of (gay) genius mathematician Alan Turing "appalling"

BoingBoing: "At long last:

The Prime Minister has released a statement on the Second World War code-breaker, Alan Turing, recognising the 'appalling' way he was treated for being gay. Alan Turing, a mathematician most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes, was convicted of 'gross indecency' in 1952 and sentenced to chemical castration.

Treatment of Alan Turing was 'appalling' - PM (number10.gov.uk)

Previously:

• Campaign to get UK government to apologise for hounding Alan Turing to his death
• Happy 92nd, Turing!
• Bletchley Park snubbed by Brit govt, no love for birthplace of ...
• George Dyson's Google visit -- "Turing's Cathedral"
• Will Turing Machines be illegal?
• Turing Machine muffins"

Genome sequencing reveals genetic diversity of the bacteria that cause Buruli ulcer

EurekAlert: "A new study lays the groundwork for development of a cost-effective tool for studying the population structure and spread of Mycobacterium ulcerans, the causative agent of Buruli ulcer. Researchers at the Swiss Tropical Institute, Basel, Switzerland, and the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Legon, Ghana, developed SNP typing assays to systematically profile genetic diversity among M. ulcerans isolates by sequencing and comparing the genomes of selected strains."

Lawyers for TV überdouche Glenn Beck go after satirical website, saying the url itself is defamatory

BoingBoing: "Conservative television dirtbag Glenn Beck, formerly of CNN, now of FOX, is none too happy with the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com (website is down). Beck's lawyers are attacking this satirical website, which has only been up for one week, on the grounds that the very domain name is defamation. That's right, the url, apart from the contents. Apparently the whole thing started with Fark and Gilbert Gottfried. I'm confused, but Ars Technica has an exensive post up: Can a mere domain name be defamation? Glenn Beck says yes (via @EFF)"

The Gullwing Flies Again

Wired: "Mercedes-Benz updates one of the most iconic cars in history, and the result is stunning."

Facebook Ordered To Turn Over Source Code

Slashdot: "consonant writes 'A Delaware District Court judge has ordered Facebook to turn over ALL its source code to Leader Technologies, who allege patent infringements by Facebook. The patent in question appears to be for 'associating a piece of data with multiple categories.' Additionally, while the judge in question deems it fine to let Leader Technologies look at Facebook's source (for a patent, no less!) in its entirety for a single feature, it would be 'overboard to ask a patent holder to disclose all of their products that practice any claim of the patent-in-suit.''"

Afghanistan: Doubt Grows Over Another Distant War

Huffington Post: "KENT, Ohio — The demonstrations, the troops, the fresh anger are all long gone. Where anti-war protests raged, today a granite plaza invites peaceful reflection. On the spots where four young people fell in a spray of National Guard bullets, lanterns stand in remembrance."

50 millionth unique chemical substance recorded in CAS Registry

EurekAlert: "Chemical Abstracts Service, a division of the American Chemical Society, announced that on September 7 it recorded the 50 millionth substance in CAS, the world's most comprehensive and high-quality compendium of publicly disclosed chemical information. The recently registered substance is a novel arylmethylidene heterocycle with analgesic properties."

Monsanto: Playing God

The Nation: "After enough such protests, Monsanto began to catch on to the idea that messing around with the genes of life, altering seeds and foods and drinks and drugs, is something that just simply scares a lot of people -- reasonable people. It began to understand that using the powers of technology to interfere in life, heretofore generally thought of as the province of Nature, or God, and manipulate it at the basic genetic level so as to change its character, raises deep-seated doubts and worries."

Run a Free BitTorrent Tracker on Google

TorrentFreak: "By using Google’s App Engine, everyone can run a tracker without having to invest a single dime in hardware or bandwidth. The only problem is making the tracker compatible with the App Engine, but thanks to the newly released Atrack software it is a piece of cake to set one up."

Marijuana Farming Rebounds During Recession

Huffington Post: Machete-wielding police officers have hacked their way through billions of dollars worth of marijuana in the country's top pot-growing states to stave off a bumper crop sprouting in the tough economy.

Welcome awaits Iraq shoe thrower

BBC: "Job offers and money await the Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at George W Bush when he is freed on Monday, his family says."

Common mental disorders may be more common than we think

EurekAlert: "The prevalence of anxiety, depression and substance dependency may be twice as high as the mental health community has been led to believe."

Dramatic biological responses to global warming in the Arctic

EurekAlert: "The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past, according to the research of a large, international team led by Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State University. The team carried out ecosystem-wide studies of the biological response to Arctic warming, and documented a wide range of responses by the plants, birds, animals, insects and humans living there."

Archaeologists discover oldest-known fiber materials used by early humans

EurekAlert: "Scientists have discovered the oldest-known fiber materials that could have been used by humans for making clothing, shoes, and other items for domestic use. The fibers are flax, and are over 34,000 years old. Discovered in a cave in the Republic of Georgia, the excavation was led by a Harvard archaeologist."

Caltech scientists develop novel use of neurotechnology to solve classic social problem

EurekAlert: "Economists and neuroscientists from the California Institute of Technology have shown that they can use information obtained through functional magnetic resonance imaging measurements of whole-brain activity to create feasible, efficient, and fair solutions to one of the stickiest dilemmas in economics, the public-goods free-rider problem -- long thought to be unsolvable. This is one of the first-ever applications of neurotechnology to real-life economic problems, the researchers note."

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