Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, April 09, 2013.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Son of Shaft by The Bar-Kays
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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Thin Ice — the movie
By raypierre
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Some of my friends have made a film, Thin Ice, which tells the story of CO2 and climate from the standpoint of the climate scientists who are out there in the trenches trying to figure out what is going on. I have a small role in the film myself, and I am sure RealClimate readers will recognize many more familiar faces. One of the many things I like about this film is that it puts a human face on climate science. It’s harder to demonize people when you feel you know them, and realize that in the end they’re not that different from you and your neighbors (except maybe they know more about CO2 and climate than some others you might meet).
A description of the project, including trailers and clips can be found here. The film will be available during Earth Week for free streaming. Or even better, you can arrange a free screening for your group (details for obtaining a free Earth Week download for screening are available here). Read below the fold for more information
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The key messages from this 73 minute film are that scientists can be trusted and that ultimately we have to quit using fossil fuels. We do not try and say how this should be done, but we hope that the film will lead audiences into some deeper thinking on the issue and perhaps even a shift toward solutions. Check out the website www.thiniceclimate.org, where you can see the 3 minute trailer. The website contains another 3 hours of supplementary material in 37 short video clips about various aspects of climate science.
We’d like your help in spreading these messages by hosting a screening in your community. It’s also a chance to talk with them afterwards through a panel discussion/Q&A. We are making the film available as a free download (2GB) for a 2 ½ day period after Earth Day starts in New Zealand – just complete the Screenings Information sheet attached and e-mail to thiniceclimate@vuw.ac.nz so we can post it on the website and send you download instructions. The film will also be available free for streaming to those who are happy just to watch it at home.
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U.S. secret: CIA collaborated with Pakistan spy agency in drone war
By Jonathan S. Landay
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Even as its civilian leaders publicly decried U.S. drone attacks as breaches of sovereignty and international law, Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency secretly worked for years with the CIA on strikes that killed Pakistani insurgent leaders and scores of suspected lower-level fighters, according to classified U.S. intelligence reports.
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The documents show that while the ISI helped the CIA target al Qaida, the United States used drone strikes to aid the Pakistani military in its battle against the Taliban Movement of Pakistan, or TTP – assistance that the Obama and Bush administrations never explicitly acknowledged or legally justified.
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The U.S. intelligence reports illustrate how the Pakistani army retained its grip on national security policy after 2008 elections ended the nation’s fourth bout of military rule and brought to power a civilian government, which condemned drone strikes as violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty and international law. The strikes killed hundreds of civilians and produced new recruits for Islamist extremist groups, charged the government, which resigned last month in advance of May 11 parliamentary voting.
What remains unclear is the degree to which the government under President Asif Ali Zardari, which tried unsuccessfully to wrest control of the ISI from the military, acquiesced in the CIA-ISI collaboration.
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Climate change included in US science teaching guidelines for the first time
By Suzanne Goldenberg
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American school children will for the first time receive extensive lessons on climate change following the adoption on Tuesday of new science education guidelines.
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The Next Generation Science Standards are not mandatory. But scientists and educational experts in 26 states helped to develop them, and they will for the first time bring a degree of cohesion to the teaching of climate change, said Frank Niepold, co-chair of the climate education group at the US Global Change Research Program,
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Mario Molina, deputy director at the Alliance for Climate Education, said the experts drafting the guidelines had cut 35% from the sections devoted to climate change, in response to public comments. He did not believe it was political, but was response to a need to compress a great deal of material.
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The standards are also much vaguer about the causes of climate change. An earlier version for primary school students had said explicitly that human activity was a driver of climate change. "It's not as explicit in terms of the connection between human activities and climate change," Molina said.
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Texas stabbing: Student arrested as 14 wounded
By (BBC)
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A student has been charged with a stabbing rampage that left 14 wounded at a college in Texas, police say.
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The suspect was wrestled to the ground by a student, then arrested by police, witnesses said.
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Mr Gilliland said the attacker was believed to have been armed with a knife or a pencil.
Diante Cotton, 20, said he saw half a dozen people with injuries to their faces and necks being loaded into ambulances and medical helicopters.
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International |
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Death penalty 'becoming thing of the past', says Amnesty
By Nick Childs
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Executions in India, Japan, Pakistan, and Gambia were disappointing regressions, Amnesty notes.
But elsewhere the death penalty was "becoming a thing of the past," secretary-general Salil Shetty said.
The five countries carrying out most executions remain China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the US.
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However, no precise statistics can be given for China, where numbers are secret, but where the group says it believes thousands were executed - more than the rest of the world put together.
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Draft history curriculum: 'list-like' and 'too narrow'
By Judith Burns
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A draft history curriculum for England is "list-like", "prescriptive" and omits "the histories of Britons who are not white Anglo-Saxons", says a report.
The group, Curriculum for Cohesion, of teachers, academics and employers calls the draft "unteachable, unlearnable and un-British".
They warn that if adopted the curriculum may alienate pupils from ethnic and religious minority groups.
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"This was a golden opportunity for the government to develop a historically rich and forward-looking curriculum, but it has become a crass bit of backward-looking, ideological nation building."
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Bin Laden 'aide' trial delayed by US budget row
By (BBC)
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A terrorism trial for Osama Bin Laden's son-in-law that has been delayed by US budget cuts will be held next year, a New York judge has said.
He made the decision a day after saying it was "stunning" that lawyers would not be ready because of unpaid leave imposed by the so-called sequester.
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Mr Cohen said all court-appointed defenders were required to take nearly six weeks of unpaid leave by the autumn because of the 5.1% across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration.
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Save the Children highlights war-zone child sex crimes
By (BBC)
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The charity Save the Children says the majority of victims of rape and other sexual violence in many of the world's conflict zones are children.
Its report is based on data and testimonies from several countries including Colombia, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Save the Children says programmes to stop such violence and help children recover are chronically underfunded.
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Save the Children's report - Unspeakable Crimes Against Children - says figures from a range of countries affected by conflict over the past decade show that children are often the majority of sexual abuse victims in war and its aftermath.
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France begins withdrawing troops from Mali
By (Al Jazeera)
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France has withdrawn its first batch of soldiers from Mali, as it begins to pull out troops sent to battle rebel fighters in the west African nation.
Paris, which sent 4,000 troops to Mali in January to block a feared advance on the capital Bamako from the north, is preparing to hand over to a UN-mandated African force of 6,300 in the coming weeks.
It will gradually pull its soldiers out of the country, where its intervention has driven insurgents from most of their northern strongholds, but plans to leave a permanent 1,000-strong force in the country.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Fox reporter gets subpoena reprieve
By (UPI)
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A Fox News reporter won at least a reprieve from a subpoena forcing her to reveal an anonymous source covering the Colorado theater shooting or go to jail.
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Holmes' defense team was livid at the prosecution leak, saying it violated gag orders issued by a judge in the days after the shooting. Holmes' lawyers were granted authority to begin a search to identify Winter's source.
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Samour ruled the diary is potentially protected by Holmes' doctor-patient privilege and wouldn't be considered for evidence unless Holmes' defense team mounts an insanity defense.
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Joe Biden Blames The NRA And The 'Black Helicopter Crowd' For A 'Bizarre Campaign Of Disinformation'
By Brett LoGiurato
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"It's kind of scary, man," Biden said, mocking the NRA's warning of a federal gun registry that would come hand-in-hand with an expansion of background checks for gun purchases. "The black helicopter crowd is really upset."
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"There's no way that Uncle Sam can go find out whether you own a gun because we're about to really take away all your rights and you're not going to be able to defend yourself and we're going to swoop down with Special Forces folks and gather up every gun in America," Biden said.
"It's bizarre. But that's what's being sold out there," he said, adding that the new background check laws on the table don't "do anything that's not already being done."
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Did McConnell Use Senate Employees for Oppo Research on Ashley Judd?
By Nick Baumann and Adam Serwer
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A secret recording of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and aides discussing in February how they might attack actor/activist Ashley Judd, then a potential 2014 challenger to McConnell, attracted widespread attention after Mother Jones published it Tuesday morning. Much of the news coverage focused on the McConnell team's comments about Judd's religious views and her mental-health history. But the tape might raise ethics questions for McConnell and his staff.
Senate ethics rules prohibit Senate employees from participating in political activities while on government time. But the tape indicates that several of McConnell's legislative aides, whose salaries are paid by the taxpayer, were involved with producing the oppo research on Judd that was discussed at the February 2 meeting.
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We asked Jesse Benton, McConnell's campaign manager; Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for his Senate office; and Phil Maxson, the LA named on the tape, to explain whether the oppo work was done on Senate time, but they did not respond.
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Student loan interest rates set to double on July 1
By Kaitlin Funaro
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Rates on government subsidized Stafford loans will rise to 6.8 percent from the current 3.4 percent unless Congress steps in and halts the change.
The average student graduates with nearly $27,000 in loan debt and the consumer advocacy group U.S. PIRG estimates that the rate hike would tack an extra $1,000 onto each loan.
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"The revenue from student loans should be used to keep education affordable, and should never be used to pay down the deficit or for other federal programs," Senack said.
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Beyonce and Jay-Z visit to Cuba queried in US Congress
By (BBC)
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A visit to Cuba by US pop singer Beyonce and her rap star husband Jay-Z is coming under scrutiny in connection with the US economic embargo.
Two Republican members of Congress have requested official information on whether the couple had US government permission to travel there.
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Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, both members of Congress from Florida, have asked the US treasury department to clarify what licence the two stars had obtained to travel to Cuba.
"Cuba's tourism industry is wholly state-controlled; therefore, US dollars spent on Cuban tourism directly fund the machinery of oppression that brutally represses the Cuban people," they wrote.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
. . . Adopting a mutated version of their favorite brand of rum (Bacardi) as their name, the band started playing heavily around Memphis, and eventually caught the attention of Stax/Volt, which signed the sextet in early 1967 . . . the label began grooming the Bar-Kays as a second studio backing group that would spell Booker T. & the MG's on occasion. That spring, the Bar-Kays cut their first single, "Soul Finger," a playful, party-hearty instrumental punctuated by a group of neighborhood children shouting the title. "Soul Finger" reached the pop Top 20 and went all the way to number three on the R&B chart, establishing the Bar-Kays in the public eye . . .
With 1971's Black Rock album, the Bar-Kays debuted their first-ever lead vocalist, Larry Dodson, and incorporated some of the psychedelic-inspired rock/funk fusions of Sly & the Family Stone and Funkadelic. After playing on Isaac Hayes' hit Shaft soundtrack, . . . (the) new lineup took a more mainstream funk direction, scoring a minor hit with a takeoff on Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" dubbed "Copy Cat." The follow-up, another good-humored goof on a recent hit, was "Son of Shaft," which in 1972 became the group's first Top Ten R&B hit since "Soul Finger." That summer, the Bar-Kays played a well-received set at Wattstax (the black answer to Woodstock), but it wasn't enough to keep their commercial momentum going, especially as Stax/Volt headed toward eventual bankruptcy in 1975.
. . . the Bar-Kays signed with Mercury in 1976 and began the most commercially productive phase of their career. Writing most of their own material and using more synthesizers, their label debut, Too Hot to Stop, was a hit, powered by the smash R&B single "Shake Your Rump to the Funk." The group consolidated their success by opening for George Clinton's P-Funk machine on an extensive tour, and that loose, wild aesthetic was now a more accurate reflection of the Bar-Kays' brand of funk, although they were more easily able to bridge into disco.
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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How to explain the atmosphere with a soccer ball
By Darby Minow Smith
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The next time your weird uncle Jim says it’s arrogant to assume lil’ ol’ people can affect something as big as the atmosphere, try using the visual described in this video. . .
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Farming Nemo: How Aquaculture Will Feed 9 Billion Hungry People
By Andrew Tarantola
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Shrimp fountains don't grow on trees, you know—nor do Ahi Tuna steaks, Fish McBites, or fried calamari. But that hasn't stopped an increasingly affluent human population from annually demanding more and more seafood. As a result, an estimated 85 percent of the ocean's fish stocks are now either fully exploited or overfished. But an ancient form of aquatic farming, and current $60 billion-a-year industry, may hold the key to both protecting wild fish populations and your local sushi shop.
Conventional current fisheries are facing a crisis of supply, as any show on the History or Discovery channels can tell you (looking at you, Big Shrimpin'/Deadliest Catch/Swords/Wicked Tuna). Not only are fishermen pulling fewer fish out of the sea, the ones that are harvested are far smaller than those caught just a few decades ago. What's more, overly broad Area of Effect methods used to capture desired fish—long lines and trawl nets, for example—all too often ensnare and kill marine mammals and fish, known as by-catch, or damage delicate habitats. While many countries have enacted strict treaties and regulations dictating what, when, and how many fish can be gathered during a season, many fisheries are still treated, essentially, as non-renewable resources.
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Many of these fresh water hatcheries are the "flow-through" variety, which need an intensive supply of running water to carry away waste—up to a 100 tons for every kilogram of smolts. The growing fish require a large amount of feed as well—feed typically made out of wild fish and offal. Three pounds of wild fish are required, on average, to produce a pound of farmed salmon (which is totally the opposite of what we're going for). What's more, the salt water pens do very little to keep waste, disease, and parasites from spreading from the salmon stock into the surrounding environment. And if the pen is situated in an area with insufficient water flow, toxic heavy metals will accumulate on the seafloor and wreak havoc on the local environment.
These toxins also build up in the salmon themselves at concentrations far higher than in their wild counterparts. . .
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Science and Health |
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Manipulating Calcium Accumulation in Blood Vessels May Provide a New Way to Treat Heart Disease
By (ScienceDaily)
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Hardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis, is the primary cause of heart disease. It is caused by calcium accumulation in the blood vessels, which leads to arteries becoming narrow and stiff, obstructing blood flow and leading to heart complications. Although many risk factors for atherosclerosis have been identified, the cause is not known and there is currently no way to reverse it once it sets in. In a new study published 9th April in the open access journal PLOS Biology, researchers have characterized the cells responsible for driving this calcium build-up in vessel
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The researchers sorted cells from the aortas of mice into two groups. Both groups originated from bone marrow and expressed a cell surface protein, called Sca-1, but only one group expressed another cell surface protein called PDGFRα. They found that the cells which only expressed Sca-1 could become either osteoblasts or osteoclasts, whereas the cells which expressed both Sca-1 and PDGFRα were committed to an osteoblastic lineage.
The team then treated the cells with a protein called PPARγ, which is known to promote the formation of osteoclasts and inhibit the formation of osteoblasts. When treated with PPARγ, only Sca-1 expressed cells preferentially differentiated into osteoclast-like cells. Furthermore, in vivo study demonstrated that, while bidirectional cells that were injected into mouse models of atherosclerosis increased the severity of calcium build-up in arteries, cells that were then treated with a drug activating PPARγ markedly decreased this effect and even reversed the calcification.
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Treatment Leads to Near-Normal Life Expectancy for People With HIV in South Africa
By (ScienceDaily)
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In South Africa, people with HIV who start treatment with anti-AIDS drugs (antiretroviral therapy) have life expectancies around 80% of that of the general population provided that they start treatment before their CD4 count drops below 200 (cells per microliter), according to a study by South African researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine.
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The authors found that -- as in HIV-negative adults -- the most significant factor determining the life expectancy of patients starting HIV treatment was their age when they started treatment: the average life expectancy (additional years of life) of men starting antiretroviral therapy varied between 27.6 years at age 20 and 10.1 years at age 60, while corresponding estimates in women were 36.8 and 14.4 years, respectively.
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Although these results are encouraging, this study also highlights that many HIV patients are still starting treatment with very low CD4 counts, and health services must overcome major challenges, such as late diagnosis, low uptake of CD4 testing, loss from care, and delayed antiretroviral therapy initiation, if near-normal life expectancies are to be achieved for the majority of people with HIV in South Africa.
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U.S. family trashes 20 lbs. of food/month
By (UPI)
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The average U.S. family throws away 20 pounds of food a month or about $2,000 worth every year for a family of four, a researcher says.
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Scientists say food waste in landfills releases methane gas as it decomposes. Methane is about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas that fosters global warming, Floros said.
Reducing food waste would contribute to solving great global challenges providing more food to a growing population, reducing greenhouse gases and reducing the amount of freshwater needed to grow crops, Floros said.
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Leaf-like material 'traps bedbugs', say researchers
By (BBC)
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A material designed to mimic the hooked hairs found on leaves could help trap and control bedbugs, the Journal of the Royal Society Interface reports.
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The scientists carefully studied the microscopic hairs on the kidney-bean leaves, looking at their geometry, orientation, sharpness of tips, density and height. They used this as a template to develop a synthetic material. They found this was able to catch the bedbugs temporarily, but it did not stop them as effectively as the real thing.
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Ian Burgess, of the Medical Entomology Centre said: "A bedbug is not small, an adult can be 5-6mm long. You would need an extensive amount of hooky-hairs to capture them. It might be able to catch little ones, but whether it traps big ones is the question.
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Others suggest that rather than a control device, the material might be useful to get a handle on population numbers.
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Technology |
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NASA Twitter account wins award
By (UPI)
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NASA accepted the prize -- which honors the best of social media across sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Foursquare and others -- at the fifth annual Shorty Awards ceremony in New York Monday, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., reported.
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"Our success stems from inspiring content that connects with people," David Weaver, NASA's associate administrator for communications, said. "Our story of science and innovation resonates with everyone. Social media enables us to reach people directly like never before."
NASA, which uses almost 500 social media accounts to communicate its mission to a wide range of followers, has 3.8 million followers of its @NASA Twitter account, the most in the federal government.
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Bitcoin Surpasses $200 Mark, Continuing 'Epic' Rise
By Bill Chappell
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Bitcoin, the digital currency that trades outside the control of central banks and international borders, reached new heights Tuesday, surpassing the $200 mark for the first time. That level comes just five days after bitcoin approached $150, a development that Mt.Gox, the largest exchange service for the currency, deemed to be "epic."
Bitcoin's rise has been sharp. It was only two months ago that exchange rates put a single bitcoin's value at around $20.
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"Most transactions are still coming from affluent regions, like the United States and Northern Europe," he says. "What we are seeing is not a Cyprus bubble."
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And the currency is gaining wide attention, with TechCrunch explaining how to "mine" bitcoins, and Forbes offering four reasons bitcoin is worth studying. Back in 2011, NPR's Planet Money team acquired some bitcoins, in an experiment that ended when robbers looted the virtual bank that had been holding the currency.
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Cher's Alive, Despite What You Read On Twitter
By Mark Memmott
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It's supposed to be about Monday's death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and looks to have been popularized by the website "IsThatcherDeadYet," which was not upset to hear about the Iron Lady's passing. "It's fair to say that we are not fans," site co-creator Jared Earle told The Guardian.
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Monday at 7:58 a.m. ET, just after the news broke of Thatcher's death, the hashtag popped up on Twitter. The first tweet from someone who seemed to have read it wrong came four minutes later:
"So sad to hear that Cher is dead. #nowthatcherisdead."
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Backup Camera Supporters Urge Regulators to Finalize Vehicle Mandate
By Shane McGlaun
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Lawmakers in Washington have been considering a mandate that would force automakers to install rear view cameras in most all-new vehicles. Two members of Congress and parents of children injured (or killed) by inattentive drivers backing over them are now calling on regulators to finalize the regulations.
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The NHTSA has proposed standards that would have required automakers to install backup cameras on all new vehicles by the year 2014. The regulation was expected to be in effect by September of 2014 and was estimated to cost the auto industry in the area of $1.9 billion to $2.7 billion annually. The regulation would also likely increase the purchase price of new vehicles.
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The backup camera regulations are intended to help eliminate the blind spots on vehicles that could obscure pedestrians, particularly the elderly and children, from the driver's view. The NHTSA says that about 100 children age 5 or under die each year in backup accidents and more than half of those are one year old or younger.
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Cultural |
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Italy roused to halt plunder of Asolo village
By Lizzy Davies
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The north-eastern Italian village of Asolo is known as the "town of a hundred horizons" and its beauty has bewitched for centuries.
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Last week, the town's Northern League-led authority unveiled a plan to build new housing on surrounding land and create a 75-acre industrial zone nearby. The administration of mayor Loredana Baldisser said this was necessary for the area's development.
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On Sunday, a group of residents took to a central square to protest. A petition demanding the plans be halted has been signed by nearly 500 people. On the petition, headed In Defence of Asolo, Daniele Ferrazza, a former mayor of the town, wrote: "Because of the love I feel for this part of Italy I will leave no stone unturned in defending it against the assault and the plundering of a handful of people who are without history and without scruples of conscience."
Laura Puppato, a senator for the centre-left Democratic party (PD) in the wider region of Veneto, chastised Asolo's politicians for trying to achieve what she called the "cementification" of the countryside. "Now this new urban expansion, which has no rationale to it, is putting at risk one of the last paradises of a Veneto which for some time has become a land of urban woe and cultural poverty," she wrote in the newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano.
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Why Are People Changing Their Minds about Same-Sex Marriage?
By Lisa Wade, PhD
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. . . It’s true that we’ve seen a real shift in support for the issue and acceptance of homosexuality in general; since 2011, the majority of Americans are in favor of extending marriage to same-sex couples and the trend has continued.
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People offered a range of reasons for why they changed their minds. The most common response involved coming into contact with someone that they learned was homosexual. A third of respondents said that knowing a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person was influential in making them rethink their position on gay marriage. This is consistent with the Contact Hypothesis, the idea that (positive) experiences with someone we fear or dislike will result in changes of opinion.
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I thought that the 5% that said they’d changed their minds for religious reasons were especially interesting. Support for same-sex marriage is rising in every demographic, even among the religious. Following up on this, Pew offers an additional peek into the minds of believers. The table below shows that 37% of the religious both believe that same-sex marriage is compatible with their belief and support it, but an additional 28% who think marriage rights would violate their religious belief are in favor of extending those rights nonetheless.
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'Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead' could reach number one following Margaret Thatcher's death
By Adam Sherwin
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Lady Thatcher’s death could propel The Wizard Of Oz track "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead to the top of the charts.
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Within 24 hours of the former Prime Minister’s death, the song had risen to number 9 in the iTunes best-sellers chart. It reached number 2 on the Amazon singles download chart.
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A song specifically written to attack Lady Thatcher, "Tramp The Dirt Down" by Elvis Costello, also rose to 79 on the iTunes chart.
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However there appears to be a limit to the public appetite for all things Thatcher-related. A peak-time BBC1 90-minute obituary, narrated by Andrew Marr and broadcast on Monday night, attracted fewer than 3 million viewers. News bulletins providing blanket coverage of the death failed to record a viewing rise.
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Church of England rejects blessings for same-sex couples
By Sam Jones
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The Church of England has ruled out offering blessings to same-sex couples, insisting that such public gestures belong only to heterosexual marriage.
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The report stresses the church's immutable definition of marriage as "a faithful, committed, permanent and legally sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman, central to the stability and health of human society", but recognises the existence of same-sex relationships, which it terms "forms of human relationships which fall short of marriage in the form God has given us".
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Despite the church's traditional and unchanging view of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, the new archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has expressed his admiration from some same-sex relationships.
"You see gay relationships that are just stunning in the quality of the relationship," he told the BBC on the morning of his enthronement last month, adding that he had "particular friends where I recognise that and am deeply challenged by it."
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |