News: October 2014

2014-10-30

2014-10-29

Fwd: Google looking for cancer

'Google Inc. is designing tiny magnetic particles to patrol the human body for signs of cancer and other diseases, in the latest example of the Internet giant's sweeping ambition.

Google said its nanoparticles, less than one-thousandth the width of a red blood cell, would seek out and attach themselves to cells, proteins or other molecules inside the body. The company also is working on a wearable device with a magnet to attract and count the particles, as a monitoring tool.

The goal is to provide an early warning system for cancer and other diseases, with an eye toward more effective treatment.

"Every test you ever go to the doctor for will be done through this system," said Andrew Conrad, head of the Life Sciences team at the Google X research lab, who disclosed the project on Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal's WSJD Live conference. "That is our dream."'

http://online.wsj.com/articles/google-designing-nanoparticles-to-patrol-human-body-for-disease-1414515602

2014-10-28

9 Reasons to Fear Ebola

Fwd: Egypt

'31 Egyptian Soldiers Are Killed as Militants Attack in Sinai'

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/world/middleeast/militants-kill-at-least-26-egyptian-soldiers-in-sinai-peninsula-attack.html?_r=0

'Cairo has raised the idea of a building an eight-mile barrier along its border with Gaza to deter Islamist terrorists from moving in and out of the Palestinian territory.

The terrorists are believed to be crossing via terror tunnels, even though Egypt has reportedly destroyed more than 1,800 underground passages in a bid to clamp down on Hamas and other terror groups operating there.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/10/27/egypt-considers-gaza-wall-to-block-hamas-terror-attacks/

2014-10-27

Iran's non-Muslims face prison, execution, despite 'reform' claims, says new UN report

Fwd: Ebola

'The missteps and delays in diagnosis of the Liberian man prompted some states to impose or consider restrictions on travelers coming from the West African countries where the virus has killed nearly 5,000 people.

Responding to concerns that mandatory quarantine would inhibit doctors and nurses from traveling to West Africa, Cuomo said New York wanted to encourage personnel to go, lauding their "valor" and "compassion," while also protecting public safety at home.

"These people are extraordinary for their valor and their courage and their compassion," Cuomo said. "Anything we can do to encourage it, we want to do."

He added that New York was not changing the policy announced on Friday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/27/us-health-ebola-usa-newyork-idUSKBN0IG12920141027

Nightmares End: Horror And Terror And Gareth In 'The Walking Dead' 503

2014-10-26

Fwd: HK

'After weeks of protests that have shaken this financial hub of 7.2 million people, residents thought they had seen it all. Then, on Tuesday night, something even more extraordinary happened, on live television: a polite debate between earnest students wearing black "Freedom Now" T-shirts and top Hong Kong leaders over the future of democracy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/22/world/asia/hong-kong-student-protesters-and-city-leaders-meet-to-discuss-democracy.html?_r=0

Fwd: 45,000 year old genome

'Scientists have reconstructed the genome of a man who lived 45,000 years ago, by far the oldest genetic record ever obtained from modern humans. The research, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, provided new clues to the expansion of modern humans from Africa about 60,000 years ago, when they moved into Europe and Asia.

And the genome, extracted from a fossil thighbone found in Siberia, added strong support to a provocative hypothesis: Early humans interbred with Neanderthals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/science/research-humans-interbred-with-neanderthals.html?_r=0

Fwd: Israel

'A Palestinian driver plowed his car into a group of people waiting at a light rail station in northern Jerusalem on Wednesday, the police said, killing an Israeli baby and injuring eight other people. The driver was shot and seriously injured by police officers as he tried to flee, according to the police, in an episode that added to the escalating tensions in the city.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/world/middleeast/2-israeli-soldiers-wounded-near-egypt.html

"Nine people were injured, three seriously, including an American infant who died after sustaining critical injuries," he continued.

Fwd: Ebola

'McCaughey said future Ebola patients should be treated at the bio-containment centers in the way the two infected Dallas nurses are currently being treated.

She added that while the centers can currently only treat 11 patients at a time, expanding the capacity of those facilities would be easier than preparing hundreds of hospitals to treat Ebola.

ttp://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/mccaughey-cdc-ebola/2014/10/22/id/602440/?Dkt_nbr=EE9E-1&nmx_source=J_post&nmx_medium=widget&nmx_content=405&nmx_campaign=widgetphase2

10 things candy makers won't tell you

2014-10-25

within three weeks of finishing 'Episode VII

2014-10-23

Shooting of Ferguson

Slain Ferguson teen Michael Brown was shot in the hand at close range, an official county autopsy report obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows, bolstering police officer Darren Wilson's claims that the 18-year-old had attacked him.

The Washington Post also reported early Tuesday that at least six African-American witnesses back Wilson's account of the shooting -- that he was attacked by Brown. This challenges earlier accounts that suggested that most black witnesses to the shooting said that Brown was shot for seemingly no reason at all while he had his hands raised.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Ferguson-Michael-Brown-officer-shooting/2014/10/22/id/602363/

Fwd: Canada

'The man who gunned down a Canadian soldier at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday was a convert to Islam who had already been designated "high-risk" by authorities.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/canadian-parliament-shooting/who-canadian-parliament-shooter-n231921

2014-10-22

Fwd: Ebola

'The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday announced
that all travelers arriving in the U.S. from the three Ebola-stricken
African countries will be subject to a 21-day monitoring program.

The new rules apply to anyone returning from Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Guinea -- not just those who hold passports from those nations. This
would include American journalists, health care workers and travelers.

Returning travelers will have to give authorities an address, two
phone numbers and two email addresses, as well as the address and
contact of a personal contact. They will be required to take their
temperatures once per day and report to public health authorities, for
21 days.'

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/22/cdc-requiring-21-day-monitoring-for-all-travelers-arriving-from-ebola-stricken/

2014-10-20

Fwd: Ebola

'The outbreak began in Nigeria when a Liberian man, Patrick Sawyer, who had been nursing a sick relative at home, flew to Lagos on 20 July, against medical advice. He became ill on the plane and collapsed at the airport, but was treated for malaria because he did not reveal he had been in contact with the disease.

It took three days, during which time nine medical staff nursing him became infected, before Ebola was diagnosed and he was placed in isolation. He died two days later.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/20/nigeria-ebola-crackdown-example-to-world

2014-10-16

Fwd: Fusion

'Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work.

Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck, and is about 10 times smaller than current reactors, McGuire told reporters.

In a statement, the company, the Pentagon's largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.'

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/15/lockheed-breakthrough-nuclear-fusion-energy

This is wonderful!

2014-10-13

Killer Bees : Documentary on Africanized Killer Bees invading America

Fwd: Oil

'Indeed, this July the United States replaced Saudi Arabia as the world's No. 1 oil producer, and virtually every industry study indicates that the trend will continue through the next two decades and beyond.

http://www.nationalreview.com/energy-week/388610/americas-new-oil-weapon-arthur-l-herman

Fwd: Russia/Syria

'Syrian rebels have overtaken a joint Russian-Syrian secret facility that they claim was a covert intelligence collection base. Opposition fighters say the post was used to snoop in on the communications of opposition groups -- and perhaps even the nearby Israelis.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/07/syrian-rebels-seize-russian-spy-station-near-israeli-border.html

Fwd: Antarctic Volcanos

'A string of a dozen volcanoes, at least several of them active, has been found beneath the frigid seas near Antarctica, the first such discovery in that region.

Some of the peaks tower nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) above the ocean floor — nearly tall enough to break the water's surface.

"That's a big volcano. That's a very big volcano. If that was on land it would be quite remarkable," said Philip Leat, a vulcanologist with the British Antarctic Survey who led a seafloor mapping expedition'

http://www.livescience.com/15006-underwater-volcanoes-discovered-antarctica.html

Fwd: Ebola

Technologies like this allow us to imagine a new form of quarantine. Rather than relying on primitive instruments, indiscriminate profiling or questionnaires, we should consider running a pilot program to test asymptomatic travelers using sensitive P.C.R.-based techniques. Obviously, such technologies are expensive, but the cost is not prohibitive. A typical P.C.R. reaction, including labor, costs between $60 and $200 (we have already spent 100 times more disposing of the contaminated sheets from the home Mr. Duncan stayed in). Since the test takes about a third of the time of a trans-Atlantic flight, the flight would become the quarantine.

Huge logistical questions would need to be solved. Where would such a screening test be administered — before departure from West Africa, or upon landing? Could we imagine a walking quarantine in which travelers were granted provisional entry, but recalled if they tested positive? What infection precautions would need to be in place for such testing? What forms of consent would be required? Who would bear the costs? Who exactly would be tested?'

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/opinion/how-to-quarantine-against-ebola.html?_r=0

Fwd: Much faster LEDS

'Duke University researchers have made fluorescent molecules emit photons of light 1,000 times faster than with previous designs — a speed record, and a step toward realizing superfast light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for nanophotonic devices, such as telecommunication lasers and as single-photon sources for quantum cryptography.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/high-speed-fluorescence-for-1000-times-faster-leds

2014-10-10

Fwd: Left and Right turns for light

'How can a beam of light tell the difference between left and right? Tiny particles have now been coupled to a glass fiber. The particles emit light into the fiber in such a way that it does not travel in both directions, as one would expect. Instead, the light can be directed either to the left or to the right. This has become possible by employing a remarkable physical effect – the spin-orbit coupling of light. This new kind of optical switch has the potential to revolutionize nanophotonics.'

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141006084915.htm

Looks like a Diode for light

The Best And Worst Countries In The World For Eating

2014-10-09

Fwd: Affordable Fusion

'Fusion energy almost sounds too good to be true -- zero greenhouse gas emissions, no long-lived radioactive waste, a nearly unlimited fuel supply.

Perhaps the biggest roadblock to adopting fusion energy is that the economics haven't penciled out. Fusion power designs aren't cheap enough to outperform systems that use fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

University of Washington engineers hope to change that. They have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that, when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant, would rival costs for a new coal-fired plant with similar electrical output.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141008131156.htm

2014-10-07

The Same-Sex Marriage Fight Is Over - Atlantic Mobile

A quick explanation is in order: The Supreme Court does not have to take most cases. It has discretion over most of its jurisdiction. A party who lost a case below may petition the Court for review; the technical term is "writ of certiorari," or "cert." for short. It is hornbook law that a denial of cert. has no legal meaning. It doesn't mean the Court approves of the decision below. It just means the Court doesn't want to look at the issue now.
So the Court officially gave no hint as to how it would rule when—or, as of today if—the same-sex-marriage issue comes before it. Unofficially, I don't see how that can be true. I don't see how today's decision doesn't signal that even within the Court, the fight is over.
http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/The-Same-Sex-Marriage-Fight-Is-Over/381146/

2014-10-06

Fwd: Mirror

The overwhelming American majority that favored foreign interventions after 9/11 has melted, yielding isolationism unseen since the 1930s. How did it come to this?

http://thefederalist.com/2014/10/02/how-to-make-and-keep-peace/

Fwd: Cerebellum

'A new study published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 2 could rewrite the story of ape and human brain evolution. While the neocortex of the brain has been called "the crowning achievement of evolution and the biological substrate of human mental prowess," newly reported evolutionary rate comparisons show that the cerebellum expanded up to six times faster than anticipated throughout the evolution of apes, including humans.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141002123629.htm

Best Smart Phones

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-smartphones-2014-10?op=1

Why the NSA Wants a Quantum Computer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPY4CklJbzY

2014-10-03

UN Ebola chief raises 'nightmare' prospect that virus could mutate and become airborne

2014-10-02

Fwd: Ebola

'Dr. Gavin MacGregor-Skinner, a specialist in treating Ebola, sounded the alarm today on CNN about how ill-prepared U.S. customs is when dealing with visitors from Ebola-stricken areas.

MacGregor-Skinner, an ‎Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences at Penn State University, International Development Consultant, told Jake Tapper about how dangerous Ebola is.

"When my team was in Nigeria and we were treating Ebola patients the first thing they said to me was 'Should we tell the truth?' 'Yeah when you come back we're telling the truth.'

As we flew out of Nigeria I had my temperature taken and I was interviewed twice. As I came through Germany I had my temperature taken I was interviewed and questions were asked 'Where have you been? What have you done?'

When I got back to Washington D.C. I said 'I've been working with Ebola patients." I was told 'Welcome back. Off you go!' No one took my temperature. No one asked me any questions. So we told the truth. There was no process, there was no program here to make sure we were OK."'

http://gotnews.com/video-ebola-doc-one-asked-questions-dc-customs/

But the system has its limits, relying on the traveler to reveal whether he or she has been exposed. And it leaves it to local officials to conduct the screening as they see fit, Dr. Cohen said. It is unclear how consistently or effectively those screenings are conducted across West Africa, and Dr. Cohen said she did not know how many potential travelers had been caught by screeners — if any.

"Our expectation is that people who are sick or people who are exposed should be getting the message they shouldn't be traveling."'

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/us/man-in-us-with-ebola-had-been-screened-to-fly-but-system-is-spotty.html?_r=0

Fwd: Active Screening

'Later on Wednesday, a member of Porter's staff e-mailed to provide more details of what the senator has in mind:

Portman has called for "active screenings" at U.S. ports of entry so that all passengers from countries with known outbreaks of Ebola are questioned as they arrive. Just as incoming international passengers are now asked where they have been, whether they are bringing in fruits or vegetables or have been in contact with livestock, travelers from West Africa would be asked if they were in contact with someone with Ebola or someone displaying symptoms of Ebola, or if they demonstrated any symptoms.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119660/ebola-airport-screening-would-not-have-detected-texas-case

Fwd: Ebola

'The Obama administration is quietly dusting off an effort to impose new federal quarantine regulations, which were vigorously resisted by civil liberties organizations and the airline industry when the rules were first proposed by the Bush administration nearly four years ago.

White House officials aren't saying what their rules might ultimately require. But the previous administration proposed giving the federal government the authority to order a "provisional quarantine" of three business days — or up to six calendar days — for those suspected of having swine flu or other illnesses listed in a presidential executive order.

The Bush-era proposal would also have required airlines and cruise lines to store more information about domestic and international passengers, such as e-mail addresses, traveling companions and return flight information. The information would be subject to review by federal officials in a health emergency, though it would be voluntary for passengers to provide the data….

"Particularly for flu, the disease is transmitted very rapidly. Within a few days, it's all over the place," Nuzzo said.'

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25814.html

Two direct final rules were published on December 26, 2012, that amend the Interstate and Foreign Quarantine Regulations...

The updates enhance definitions related to control of communicable diseases and use current medical terminology where appropriate. The final rules are the first step in helping modernize the federal quarantine regulations.

http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/final-rules-control-communicable-diseases.html

This Physicist Says She Has Proof Black Holes Simply Don't Exist

http://huffpost.com/us/entry/5885940

The problem is that we have pretty good evidence that black holes do
exist. If they don't exist then we have some explaining to do.

Years ago I saw how a few scientific dissenters theorized that black
holes were really just neutron stars, which is kind of like "black
hole-lite". However neutron stars couldn't account for the evidence
of billion solar mass black holes at the center of every galaxy.

John Coffey

2014-10-30

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