Grand Old Man of the Left Rails Against "Global Warming" Religion

Most of the driving force behind the CAGW bandwagon and crusade has come from the left. Leftist environmentalist movements particularly, but the anti-globalist left and the anti-American left have also leaped on board the bandwagon with enthusiasm. So how do you explain Alexander Cockburn, one of the more prolific and literate leftists of them all, condemning CAGW as a capitalist-inspired fiction of destruction?

The marquee slogan in the new cold war on global warming is that the scientific consensus is virtually unanimous. This is utterly false. The overwhelming majority of climate computer modelers, the beneficiaries of the $2 billion-a-year global warming grant industry, certainly believe in it but not necessarily most real climate scientists-people qualified in atmospheric physics, climatology and meteorology.

...The first global warming modelers simply threw up their hands at the complexity of the water problem and essentially left out the atmospheric water cycle. Over time a few features of the cycle were patched into the models, all based on unproven guesses at the effect of increased ocean evaporation on clouds, the effect of clouds on reflecting the sun's energy and the effect of cloud warming on rainfall and snow. All of these "band aid" equations are hopelessly inadequate to repair the computer models' inability to describe the water cycle's role in temperature.

Besides the inability to deal with water, the other huge embarrassment facing the modelers is the well-researched and well-established fact published in many papers that temperature changes first and CO2 levels change 600 to 1,000 years later....

Much more at the Source

Readers of Al Fin will find nothing new in Cockburn's arguments. The most interesting thing is the person making the argument. How will the true believers of CAGW confront this heretic of the left? Will they accuse him of being in the pay of coal interests? Or will they simply ignore him?

Because the one thing they cannot afford to do is to engage him on the face of his arguments. Because based upon rational argument the CAGW true believers cannot win. They can only have faith in the righteousness of their cause.

Still No Gender Equity in Physics

It has long been known that at the elite levels of math and physics, women lag men badly. While Harvard University fired Larry Summers for hinting at the mere possibility of gender inequity at elite levels of math and physics, people who actually work in the field have known about the disparity for many years.

Harvard researchers recently claimed to be able to narrow the gender gap using improved interactive teaching methods, but a newer, larger, more definitive study done at CU Boulder suggests that better teaching methods may actually widen the gender gap!

Interactive classes don't necessarily solve the performance imbalance between the genders in physics classes, according to a new study that stands in stark contrast to previous physics education research. In fact, while students as a rule benefit from interactive classrooms, the teaching technique may even increase the imbalance in some cases.

The conclusion comes from research at the University of Colorado at Boulder where physics professors attempted to duplicate an earlier Harvard study. The researchers in both studies looked at interactive teaching methods, which can include online homework systems, help-room sessions, student discussions, and other methods that have not typically been part of science classes in the US.

Unlike the Harvard study, which showed significant narrowing in the performance gap between male and female students, the CU Boulder study indicated that the gap stayed roughly the same in both partially and fully interactive classrooms. There were some instances where the gender gap got worse, particularly in the partially interactive classrooms.

On the bright side, both male and female students performed better in the interactive classes than students laboring in traditional lecture-based classes. Overall, however, male students benefited as much or more than females, which doesn't help to narrow gender-based performance gaps.

Source

While Harvard researchers under new President Drew Faust appear committed to gender equity in physics (whether it actually exists or not), the intelligence research community at large has had no success in finding a way to narrow the gender gap.

Gaza and the Arab Death Cult

Some of you may remember when the word "Beirut" was shorthand for bloody barbaric anarchy. Now the word is "Gaza." If only the barbarity were limited to a single city or strip of coast. Unfortunately, the seeds of this death cult seem to lie within Arab Islam.

We need to stop making politically correct excuses. Arab civilization is in collapse. Extremes dominate, either through dictatorship or anarchy. Thanks to their dysfunctional values and antique social structures, Arab states can't govern themselves decently.

We gave them a chance in Iraq. Israel "gave back" the Gaza Strip to let the Palestinians build a model state. Arabs seized those opportunities to butcher each other.

The barbarity in Gaza has become so grotesque that not even the media's apologists for terror can ignore it (especially since Islamist fanatics began to target journalists).

Over the weekend, Hamas gangbangers-for-Allah grabbed a Fatah functionary and dropped him from the roof of a high-rise to check out the law of gravity (the only law that still obtains in Gaza). Tit-for-tat, Fatah gunmen grabbed a Hamas capo and gave him the same treatment.

Source

Of course, we are accustomed to seeing Arabs behead innocent bystanders they have snatched off the streets. But usually they could connect these innocents with Zionists or Crusaders, somehow. In Gaza we are seeing what this generation of Arabs is all about. It is not just Gazans. It is not just Palestinian Arabs. Clearly when you look at the state of world terrorism, you can trace most of it to its source in Arab Islam.

Iran would probably protest and say that it deserves a lot of the credit for muslim bloodletting today. Perhaps. But it is the Arabs who participate most enthusiastically, regardless of where you look. Or, in the case of muslim violence in Europe, it is Arab-inspired and financed extremist mosques that serve as the focus for Islamic Supremacist violence.

So, what is wrong with arabs?

Anti-Americanism: An Interesting, and Very Old, Phenomenon

It is always fascinating to listen to people describing their hatreds. America hatred is old, and dates back multiple decades or more in Europe and the third world.

Anti-American sentiment in Europe originated with the discovery of America, the study of the Native Americans, and the examination of its flora, fauna, and climate. The first anti-American theory, the "degeneracy thesis," portrayed America as a regressive and culturally bankrupt continent. The theory that the humidity and other atmospheric conditions in America physically and morally weakened both men and animals was commonly argued in Europe and debated by early American thinkers such as Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.

In 1768 Cornelius de Pauw, court philosopher to Frederick II of Prussia and chief proponent of this thesis, described America as "degenerate or monstrous" colonies and argued that, "the weakest European could crush them with ease."[16]

The theory was extended to argue that the natural environment of the United States would prevent it from ever producing true culture. Paraphrasing Pauw, the French Encyclopedist Abbé Raynal wrote, "America has not yet produced a good poet, an able mathematician, one man of genius in a single art or a single science."[17] (So virulent was Raynal's antipathy that his book was suppressed by the French monarchy.)

....[a] Nazi propaganda poster address[ed] the Dutch public in 1944 with the words: "The USA are supposed to save European culture". The image utilize[d] a number of themes, some of which (racism, use of excessive force, American culture and the influence of Judaism) are still in use within some varieties of modern anti-Americanism.

The French Revolution created a new type of anti-American political thought, hostile to the political institutions of the United States and their impact upon Europe. Furthermore, the Romantic strain of European thought and literature, hostile to the Enlightenment view of reason and obsessed with history and national character, disdained the American project.

The German poet Nikolaus Lenau encapsulated the Romantic view, "With the expression Bodenlosigkeit (rootlessness), I think I am able to indicate the general character of all American institutions; what we call Fatherland is here only a property insurance scheme."

With the rise of American industry in the late nineteenth century, intellectual anti-American discourse entered a new form. Mass production, the Taylor system, and the speed of American life and work became a major threat to some intellectuals' view of European life and tradition.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "The breathless haste with which they (the Americans) work - the distinctive vice of the new world - is already beginning ferociously to infect old Europe and is spreading a spiritual emptiness over the continent."

Source

If you are an American traveling to Europe or the UK, you might be surprised at some of the personal hostility you may face.

European elites tend to look at Americans as a subcivilized mass, whose function is to be obedient consumers in a system run by big business. The role of competition in U.S. economic life--and in every other aspect of life--is ignored, because competition is something Continental Europeans like to keep to a minimum and under careful control.

Although Americans are seen as highly materialistic consumers, they are also despised and feared for their spiritual interests, their participation in religious worship and their subscription to creeds of morality. Europeans see no inconsistency in their condemnation of the U.S. for being at one and the same time paganly unethical and morally zealous.

The truth is, any accusation that comes to hand is used without scruple by the Old World intelligentsia. Anti-Americanism is factually absurd, contradictory, racist, crude, childish, self-defeating and, at bottom, nonsensical. It is based on the powerful but irrational impulse of envy--an envy of American wealth, power, success and determination. It is an envy made all the more poisonous because of a fearful European conviction that America's strength is rising while Europe's is falling.

Source

Several experiences of an American ex-pat in London reported in the British press stirred up a hornet's nest of comments--which tended to reinforce the truth of what her narration.

Typical British pub banter is one thing, says Christian Cox, but the "pure hatred" she says is directed at her for being American is really starting to wear her down.

The former model moved to London a year ago, where she is setting up her own business, and has been surprised at how some people have reacted to her nationality.

Ms Cox, 29, says she has been called, among other things, "terrorist", "scum", "low life", and feels that she is constantly being held to account for the actions of President Bush and for US foreign policy.

This is despite the fact that she doesn't agree with the war in Iraq and didn't vote for Bush.

Source
Reading the comments accompanying the article suggests that many Britons have indeed become intellectually brittle and intolerant. This is unfortunate, given the imminent threat from muslim immigrants that the UK is currently facing. Perhaps a great deal of the blame for English intolerance should be placed at the feet of the British press.

Had the USSR won the cold war, rather than the western world, I suspect that criticism of the USSR would be muted, out of fear of retribution. No one fears retribution from the US, for although the US is wealthy and powerful, historically it has tended to rescue Europeans, not attack them.

This America hatred bears watching. It was there long before Bush and will be there long after Bush. As long as it does not affect the actions of European governments beyond occasional condemnations and non-binding resolutions, there should be no problem. If it rises to the level of an all-out trade war, things could get rather dicey.

There is a slowly rising undercurrent of anti-Europeanism in reaction to perceived anti-Americanism. Eventually, if the reciprocal hatred is allowed to escalate too far, a trade war may be the least of concerns.

Europeans are finding it more difficult to manage healthy economies at the same time as they try to maintain burgeoning social welfare demands. Further, Europeans are under siege from immigrants who are suceptible to barbarian, anti-liberal ideas originating from a militant, imperialist, supremacist religion. Anti-americanism may serve as a useful diversion from the more serious problems that Europeans face. Think of it as an ideological methamphetamine.

As Russia Fades

Russians are having a difficult time coming to terms with their loss of "superpower" status.

Russia today is a much diminished version of the Soviet Union. The population of 140 million is shrinking because of a plunging birth rate, and falling life expectancy. The Russian GDP, at $900 billion, is less than seven percent of the United States (which has more than twice as many people). That, however, is an improvement. In the early 1990s, when economists and accountants got the first good look at the Russian economy since the early 20th century, it was found that the Russian GDP was about four percent of the U.S. GDP. Add back all the lost components of the Soviet Union, and you still don't have a GDP amounting to more than six percent of the American one. How did the Soviet Union achieve superpower status on such a thin economic base? They did it mostly with illusion, and an excessive arms budget that ruined the economy.

....Soviet weapons, as impressive as they appeared to be, always came out a distant second when they were used against Western ones. The main thing that kept the Soviet military reputation going was the need of Western militaries to make the Soviet Union look strong, in order to justify high Western military budgets.

The one effective weapon the Soviets did have were their nuclear armed ballistic missiles. Better maintained than the rest of the military, enough of this missile fleet would work, if used, to devastate Western nations. Russia still has a large part of that nuclear arsenal. But that does not make Russians feel like a superpower. That's because Russia no longer has the huge fleet, air force and army.

...It took Russia over four centuries to build that empire, and the inept Soviet Bureaucrats a few weeks to lose it all. An increasing number of Russians want it back, but are unwilling to confront how they lost it in the first place, or why rebuilding the empire is an uncertain and dangerous enterprise. This is all very dangerous stuff.

Source

Russia's problem derives to a large extent from the "knowledge problem." Centralised economies are forced to contrive false data in order to make economic plans. But the error in data compounds with time, until no one really knows what is happening in the economy.

The recent actions of the Putin government in confiscating private enterprises and nationalising them, or selling them to Putin cronies, are placing the Puting economy squarely within the danger area of the knowledge problem. There is no amount of oil and gas wealth that can compensate the national economy for these mistakes. Certainly savvy international investors understand the problem, and will keep their distance--until Russia wises up.

Stochastic Resonance: Non-Quotidian Carbon Ejector---Sending the Boogey-Molecule to Oblivion

Carbon Dioxide has become a molecule to be feared by lightweight intellects the world around. And although at this time lightweight intellects far outnumber the heavyweight variety, there are still enough deep and rational thinkers to devise solutions to many problems--even that of the boogey-man molecule that is become death, the destroyer of worlds.

the idea proposed by Alfred Wong of the University of California, Los Angeles, at last week's meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in Acapulco, is about as lateral as they come. Dr Wong reckons the problem is not so much that CO2 is being thrown away, but that it is not being thrown far enough. According to his calculations, a little helping hand would turn the Earth's magnetic field into a conveyor belt that would vent the gas into outer space, whence it would never return.

The site of the conveyor Dr Wong is proposing to build is the Arctic. More specifically, he is suggesting it be over one of his workplaces, the High Power Auroral Stimulation facility near Fairbanks in Alaska that he set up 20 years ago to stimulate and study artificial auroras.

... His idea starts with the fact that CO2 molecules like to team up with loose electrons, to form CO2 ions. A few percent of the CO2 molecules in the air manage to find such electrons. As a result they become negatively charged.

The second piece of luck is that all over the Earth there is a constant vertical electrical field. The surface and the atmosphere form a giant battery, as the lightning discharges of thunderstorms demonstrate. This field tends to make negatively charged ions, such as those of CO2, drift upward. At first this happens slowly, because collisions with other molecules keep throwing the drifting ions off course. But after a few days they arrive at an altitude, about 125km up, which is so rarefied that an ion can move freely about. This is when the last stage of their one-way trip into space begins: sailing along the magnetic field of the Earth.

High in the polar regions, the lines of magnetic force point almost straight upwards. When a charged particle is in a magnetic field, it tends to travel along that field's lines of force, spiralling as it goes. In the case of a CO2 ion at an altitude of 125km, it spirals round 17 times a second.

... The leg-up he proposes comes in two stages. First, he has to ionise more CO2. There are many ways this might be done, but for a first experiment Dr Wong proposes zapping dust in the atmosphere with powerful lasers, to release electrons that can then combine with CO2. Having created the ions, he will then nudge those that have drifted upwards to the appropriate height with radio waves of exactly 17 cycles a second, which will give them a nice stock of energy at the beginning of their spiralling phase.

Once they are there, Dr Wong expects the incoming stream of charged particles that cause auroras to deliver the bonus that will make the whole thing work, by dumping some of their energy into the spiralling as well. This should happen through a process called stochastic resonance: the spiralling molecules get preferential treatment, so to speak, because they stand out in what is otherwise an environment of random movements.

Source

One cannot help but admire Dr. Wong's ability to combine a strong imagination with a facility for logical chaining. Such problem-solving thinking--almost lateral thinking--is in short supply in science, as in most other human endeavors. And yet it is lateral thinking that is most likely to take the best of humanity into the next level.

For whatever reason, lateral thinking is not taught in schools as a matter of course, though it should be. If it were, far less human energy and capital would be wasted on faulty CAGW GCM models, and other politically inspired pseudo-science.

Hat tip Green Watch.

Global Warming as Religion

This is not the only blog to draw a comparison between the nature of belief in global warming, and belief in religion. The excellent website + blog Numberwatch has recently developed the analogy quite well:

Religions vary in their treatment of unbelievers, which ranges from disregard to slaughter. The new religion relies at present on verbal assault and character assassination, though there are those who would go further. They call the infidels “deniers” – a cheap and quite despicable verbal reference to the Holocaust. There is a sustained campaign to deny the deniers any sort of public platform for their views.

Apostates are universally even more reviled than infidels. They have turned their backs on the true faith, whichever that might happen to be. Partial apostates, or heretics, are even more loathed and through the ages have been subjected to the most appalling punishments and deaths. In the case of the “sceptical environmentalist”, Bjorn Lomborg, he is of the faith. In fact he is a serial believer; accepting, for example, that eating celery causes two percent of all cancers and, of course, that global warming is man made, but he rejects the sacrificing of humanity to the belief. This is unacceptable! What are a few million deaths from dirty water, mosquito bites and other hazards so long as people can be made to conform? So far he has only been assaulted with insults and custard pies. Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, broke with the movement over its growing anti-human, anti-scientific tendencies and drift into extremism. The last straw for him was the campaign against chlorine, not only an essential component of human life but also the basis of one of the most dramatically life-saving hygienic interventions. He has, consequently, been subjected to a prolonged campaign of vilification, described as an eco-Judas, turncoat and traitor. Every minor commentator or blogger who manifests disbelief can expect to be the target of abuse from self-appointed protectors of the creed.

....Freedom of speech and publication is at the very heart of science. Even the most foolish of hypotheses is allowed to be offered for examination. In much of religion the opposite is true; challenging the established dogma is heresy, for which the punishment has ranged from ostracism to horrific torture and death. One of the greatest ironies produced by the successful policy of entryism by the eco-theologians is that it is none other than the Royal Society that has been orchestrating the attempt to censor any deviation from establishment beliefs. Authoritarian politicians, such as Congressman Brad Miller, would give such suppression the force of law.

It is a curious repetition of history that those who advance the hypothesis that the sun is the controlling element in changes of climate are vilified, just as Galileo was, for supporting the Copernican heliocentric description of the solar system. Yet the sun is clearly the driver for climate – if it stopped shining, the earth’s temperature would drop to near absolute zero. In the establishment dogma the sun is barely mentioned, while the puny efforts of mankind are gratuitously magnified out of proportion. In a scientific approach to climate, a full understanding of the behaviour of that solitary driver would be the first prerequisite, but this is waived in the interests of piety; so leading solar researchers have been deprived of funding.

....Contradictions and irrationality also abound in the modern theocratic world. The EU, for example, gratuitously destroys a tiny industry making traditional barometers, on the grounds of an irrational fear of mercury, then imposes the use of fluorescent light bulbs that distribute that same dreaded substance in huge quantities across the continent, all on the basis of the threat of global warming.

People who have never heard of Wien or Planck confidently assert that it is “obvious” that man-made CO2 will cause runaway warming of the planet, when it is not at all obvious to many who are familiar with the works of those gentlemen. It is obvious in the sense that it is obvious that believers will have everlasting life or that a senseless act of self-immolation will earn the eternal attentions of 72 virgins in Paradise. The capacity to believe six impossible things before breakfast has been restored from fantasy to accepted normality.

By all means, visit the Source for more.


The logical response to a question for which you do not know the answer is: "I don't know." But in religion and global warming, the government school educated, the psychologically neotenous, the academically lobotomised--all of these are willing to go far out on a limb, far beyond what they can demonstrate to be true, in declaring the strength of their belief, of their certainty!

This is why government should have absolutely nothing to do with promoting religion, and that includes the religion of global warming. If you believe in an absurd religion, keep it to yourself! Otherwise you may become like those absurd primitive fanatics who go around slicing people's heads off, and stoning women to death. Is that what you want? We hope not.

Say your prayers as you like, but stay out of our way. Otherwise, we cannot be held to account for the consequences. Religions must know their place.

Russia is Running Behind in Nanotechnology

Russia's nanotechnology development is lagging badly behind more advanced economies--including China.

"I think what Russia is doing is trying to catch up" with the European Union, Japan and the United States, said Mark Morrison, scientific manager at Britain's Institute of Nanotechnology.

Russia also has an eye on up-and-coming China and India, which are making major inroads in nanotechnology, and wants to ensure it is developing its own technology instead of buying it from other countries, Morrison said.

Source


China is becoming a world leader in nanotechnology metrics.

China is now one of the world leaders in terms of its number of newly registered nanotechnology firms, nanotechnology publications and nanotech related patents. Over the past three years, the number of companies in the field of nanotechnology in China has grown and reached over 800. This growth rate is very rapid and it has yet to show signs of slowing down. The sales to date have been largely domestic, but with the increasing global interest on the development of nanotechnology and with the advantage of modern communication we can for sure speculate that this could be a very profitable investment in the near future.

Source

Russia's vodka-sotted mafiacracy has been slow to awaken to the growing threat of military-nanotechnology--particularly along its southern borders. China has long eyed the mineral riches of Eastern Siberia. Illegal Chinese immigration into Siberia is leading to an ethnic Chinese majority in several Siberian cities. Think of it as the "reconquista" of parts of Siberia that were once Chinese--plus interest.

The vision of a wealthy and expanding China with a military stronger than Russia's, and with advanced military technologies that Russia cannot match, must disturb Putin's sleep at times. China is not a soft democracy like the US or Europe. China's leadership practices a ruthless calculus of power. The deaths of millions of Chinese or Russians would not weigh on their conscience.

Russia has oil wealth to invest in nanotechnology research. But foreign investment will maintain its distance--thanks to Putin's idiotic seizures of private business assets and their subsequent nationalisation, and sale to Putin's cronies.

Putin has a lot of things to be afraid of, that are not discussed here. Losing the nanotechnology race to Asian neighbors is just one more.

I Am Legend

This is the classic science fiction film "Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price, based on the book by fine multi-genre author Richard Matheson "I Am Legend."

The last human being living on an Earth now populated by zombie/vampires, Dr. Robert Morgan forces himself to go about his daily life. If you want to know why a wood lathe is a primary tool for survival for Dr. Morgan, watch the film.

Hat tip to a cute girl blogger with a lot of spirit and drive.

Good Money After Bad: Stupid! In America

Of course they want more money! Everybody wants more money! Especially people who don't know what the focque they are doing. People such as government school teachers, administrators, and union officials.

This video was made over a year ago, but it could have been made ten or twenty years ago. It was true back then, and it is even more true with every passing year.

Government schooling is a huge, corrupt enterprise. Any parent who sends his children to government schools, without providing extracurricular training to make up for the educational deficit, is guilty of parental malpractice. You cannot trust the government system to educate your children--not if you are competent and you want your children to be competent.

The future will be more challenging for your children than your life has been for you. Yet children in government schools are being cheated out of the competence they will need for the future's challenges.

There are very few things the government does reasonably well. That is why the founding fathers wanted government to stay out of people's lives as much as possible. Sadly, today's governments are dedicated to doing the opposite.

That is because today's citizens are dependent wimps and incompetent fools, when it comes to interacting with government. How could they not be--if they were educated by government schools?

Micro Homes: Keeping Everything Within Easy Reach

This video has a German narration dubbed over the top of an English language news story. A good chance to practice your German, eh?

Here is more on the micro-home from "we make money not art".

Go here for a BBC video introduction to the micro-home.

More from the Small House Society

Peace and Submission

It is difficult to understand another culture without having lived in it. The next best way to understand it is to look at it through the eyes of those who have experienced the culture in extremis.

This website tells the stories of courageous people who have lived in a culture that imprisoned body and soul. One must wonder where they got the courage to make their escape.


Civilisations tend to clash. If you are a good academically lobotomised multiculturalist, you understand that all cultures are morally equivalent, except western culture. Western culture has sinned against all the pure cultures of the world, and must be destroyed. That is what you must know, as a good multiculturalist.

Of course what you will know after you actually understand other cultures in their naked state, is quite something different. But then, once you know the truth, you can not call yourself a multiculturalist anymore. Because anyone who understands that there are huge moral gulfs between cultures can never be accepted by the communion of multiculturalism. The truth is too discordant, like fingernails sliding down a chalkboard.

We Are All Cyborgs Now, Tesla's Dream, and more

Scientists at Tel Aviv University have cultured brain cell networks in the lab that can be taught rudimentary memories--and can retain the memories for a few days.

"The main achievement was the fact that we used the inhibition of the inhibitory neurons" to stimulate the memory patterns, says physicist Eshel Ben-Jacob, senior author of a paper on the findings published in the May issue of Physical Review E. "We probably made [the cell culture] trigger the collective mode of activity that … [is] … possible."

The results, Ben-Jacob says, set the stage for the creation of a neuromemory chip that could be paired with computer hardware to create cyborglike machines capable of such tasks as detecting dangerous toxins in the air, allowing the blind to see or helping someone who is paralyzed regain some if not all muscle use.

Source

MIT researchers have used a pair of metal coils to transmit electrical energy wirelessly over a short distance to light a 60 W lightbulb.

The research, published in the June 7 edition of Science Express (the online publication of Science magazine), is the experimental demonstration of a theory outlined last November by the MIT team. (See "Charging Batteries without Wires.")

....Two copper helices, with diameters of 60 centimeters, are separated from each other by a distance of about two meters. One is connected to a power source--effectively plugged into a wall--and the other is connected to a lightbulb waiting to be turned on. When the power from the wall is turned on, electricity from the first metal coil creates a magnetic field around that coil. The coil attached to the lightbulb picks up the magnetic field, which in turn creates a current within the second coil, turning on the bulb.

This type of energy transfer is similar to a well-known phenomenon called magnetic inductive coupling, used in power transformers. However, the MIT scheme is somewhat different because it's based on something called resonant coupling. Transformer coils can only transfer power when they are centimeters apart--any farther, and the magnetic fields don't affect each other in the same way. In order for the MIT researchers to achieve the range of two meters, explains Soljačić, they used coils that resonate at a frequency of 10 megahertz. When the electrical current flows through the first coil, it produces a 10-megahertz magnetic field; since the second coil resonates at this same frequency, it's able to pick up on the field, even from relatively far away. If the second coil resonated at a different frequency, the energy from the first coil would have been ignored.

Source

Scientists at Harvard have made incremental progress in the quest for improved "self-assembly" in nanotechnology. Although this represents a small degree of progress, it actually illustrates how far nanotechnology has to go to challenge natural processes of self assembly in living systems.

Researchers at U Maine are looking into using potatoes to replace petroleum in the making of plastics. Although researchers have been making plastic from maize for several years, the recent multiple demands for maize in biofuels has prompted a search for other renewable feedstocks in the production of plastics.



One of the main obstacles to large scale use of cyborg implants, is the absence of good chip to nerve interfaces. By developing ways of programming artificially grown neural nets, the Tel Aviv researchers above are creating an important component in the development of a broadly useful cyborg implant industry.

Scientists have developed chips that act as useful "relays" of neural signals, and useful "playback mechanisms" of complex neural signals to guide the rebuilding of damaged brain tissue. But what is needed for cyborg implants is a real-time interactive neural signal to electronic interface and translating system.

As for Tesla's Dream, Nikola Tesla had always wanted to be able to transmit useful energy through the air and through the ground. The MIT research above suggests that if Tesla had possessed the necessary electronic technology, he would have made breakthroughs in this area over a hundred years ago.

Carnival of Space #6: ISDC in Dallas

For those who could not attend the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Dallas earlier this month, this weeks Carnival of Space gives a good overview.

Here is another ISDC wrapup.

Anyone truly interested in the future of space development, exploration, tourism, and colonisation should take the trouble to attend one of the yearly space conferences sponsored by one of the several national and international space organisations. You can make connections with others involved in space, and learn a lot of new things before most other people.

It is worth the time.

Adult Fibroblasts Reprogrammed to Become Embryonic Stem Cells?

This research appears to confirm earlier research published last year, that differentiated cells from adult mice can be induced to revert to the pluripotency of an embryonic stem cell.

Now, scientists at Whitehead Institute have demonstrated that embryonic stem cells can be created without eggs. By genetically manipulating mature skin cells taken from a mouse, the scientists have transformed these cells back into a pluripotent state, one that appears identical to an embryonic stem cell in every way. No eggs were used, and no embryos destroyed.

“These reprogrammed cells, by all criteria that we can apply, are indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells,” says Whitehead Member and MIT professor of biology Rudolf Jaenisch, senior author of the paper that will appear online June 6 in Nature.

What’s more, these reprogrammed skin cells can give rise to live mice, contributing to every kind of tissue type, and can even be transmitted via germ cells (sperm or eggs) to succeeding generations. “Germline transmission is the final and definitive proof that these cells can do anything a traditionally derived embryonic stem cell can do,” adds Jaenisch.

Two additional papers report similar findings. The first, by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, will be published in the same issue of Nature. The second, from Konrad Hochedlinger, formerly of the Jaenisch lab and now at Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Stem Cell Institute, will appear in the inaugural issue of the journal Cell Stem Cells. Additionally, another paper in Nature from Kevin Eggan, also of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and a former member of the Jaenisch lab, describes using mouse zygotes, rather than eggs, for somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Jaenisch cautions that “all these results are preliminary and proof of principle. It will be a while before we know what can and can’t be done in humans. Human embryonic stem cells remain the gold standard for pluripotent cells, and it is a necessity to continue studying embryonic stem cells through traditional means.”

In August 2006, a team of researchers at Kyoto University led by Yamanaka reported a landmark discovery that by activating four genes in a mouse skin cell, they could reprogram that cell into a pluripotent state resembling an embryonic stem cell. However, the resulting cells were limited when compared with real embryonic stem cells, and the Kyoto team was unable to generate live mice from these cells.

A team of researchers decided to replicate this experiment, while refining certain technical aspects.

Source

The approach taken by the researchers is intriguing, and so far appears to show that these reprogrammed mature fibroblasts are functionally and genetically indistinguishable from pluripotent ESCs.

Dirty Snow Responsible for Over a Third of Arctic Warming

Soot from industry in China and other industrial northern nations, and soot from forest fires, is staining Arctic snow darker, helping to cause a substantial amount of arctic warming. Other causes of arctic warming include other atmospheric particles, clouds, land use, solar variability, and possibly greenhouse gases.

The public has a difficult time mentally distinguishing soot and other atmospheric particles from CO2 and other greenhouse gases. That is unfortunate, since the distinction is extremely important when considering the future of climate, and possible human interventions to mitigate possible warming.

Such a huge impact on arctic warming should have been discovered prior to this time, and would have been, if GCM climate models actually had any credibility. The stubborn tendency of climate modelers to refuse to look at other reasons for warming suggests that many other credible causes of warming may have been suppressed in the rush to blame CO2.

Geoengineering for Climate Control

Humans dislike things they cannot control. The weather and climate are two things that humans cannot control, but would like to be able to. Similar to central air and heating in homes and automobiles--set the thermostat and let the machinery control the climate to suit your comfort and convenience. Such climate control falls under the category of "geoengineering."

Geoengineers consider such control within the realm of possibility.

The experiments, described in the June 4 early online edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, look at what might happen if we attempt to slow climate change by “geoengineering” a solar filter instead of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The researchers used a computer model to simulate a decrease in solar radiation across the entire planet, but assumed that that the current trend of increasing global carbon dioxide emissions would continue for the rest of this century.

....Although the term “geoengineering” describes any measure intended to modify the Earth at the planetary scale, the current study focuses on changes that reduce the amount of solar radiation that reaches the planet’s surface. Several methods to accomplish this have been suggested, from filling the upper atmosphere with light-reflecting sulfate particles to installing mirrors in orbit around the planet.

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Several scientists have expressed concern that such schemes might not work well enough, or might fail prematurely and result in catastrophic heating of the Earth. More intelligent scientists might ask whether reducing solar radiation might actually work too well--resulting in a far more deadly and dangerous out-of-control global cooling.

At least the people at the Lifeboat Foundation Climate Shield Project are looking at all sides of the problem, preparing for all eventualities. You may need to reduce insolation or you may need to increase it, depending upon the circumstances. Even so, humans should always approach such levels of mega-control cautiously.

This convenient online Geoengineering paper describes a "Climate Change Manhattan Project." Those who wish more background on the topic might wish to look through that paper, which deals with the rationale for such intervention, along with possible problems.

According to NASA, the sun's activity points to a possible transition in magnetic activity beginning within ten years or so. If solar climatologists are correct, and this change is pointing toward a cooler climate for earth in the 2020's, it would probably be counter-productive to further reduce insolation with geoengineered projects.

There is nothing wrong with studying and preparing for projects of geo-engineering which may be needed sometime in the future. Climate is unstable. Climate has always been unstable. If humans require stability from the climate, they will need to become far more powerful in relation to nature than they are currently.

A Collapsing Europe? Things You are not Supposed to be Told

On June 10-11, Pepperdine University in Malibu will host a two day conference on "The Collapse of Europe?" Boasting participants such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Claire Berlinsky, Phyllis Chesler, Wafa Sultan, and many more, the conference looks into the dark corners of European decline, and what may be coming next for the rest of the world.

Many people lack an understanding of exponential demographic growth among sub-populations in a multicultural society, and what that can portend for the indigenous, hosting society--even if the hosting society is more advanced than the rapidly growing subculture.

Postmodern analysis is incapable of taking an honest look at the most salient population trends in the developed world, out of incompetent methodology and a general disinclination to look at concepts that contradict the underlying principles of postmodernist multiculturalism. Given the postmodern ideological training of most journalists, it is not surprising that they cannot bring themselves to address the demographic decline of their own culture.

Which is why such conferences as this are necessary.

Freeman Dyson on Global Warming

Part 1 of 2


Part 2 of 2

Freeman Dyson is one of the grand old men of physics, who has some serious problems with the sleight-of-hand computer modeling techniques used by IPCC sanctioned climatologists. If you think Freeman Dyson is in the pay of oil and coal interests, or that he is not qualified to hold the IPCC stooges in contempt, feel free.

CAGW has become one of the primary religions of the academically lobotomised.

Getting to Ampakines--How Much Longer?

Brain boosting drugs in the new Ampakine class are back in the news--this time in connection with the problem of respiratory depression from sedative/hypnotic drugs.

Researchers at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, AB) and Cortex Pharmaceuticals (Irvine, CA) believe that AMPAKINE drugs may provide protection from drug-induced respiratory depression, while simultaneously allowing the sedative or analgesic to continue working as it was intended.

The drug tested in this study belongs to a novel class of molecules known as AMPAKINE compounds being developed by Cortex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. located in Irvine, California. AMPAKINE compounds act on the most common excitatory receptor in the brain, the AMPA "Glutamate type receptor," which has been shown in rodent models to boost the brain's own protein for improving age-related deficits in memory mechanisms. In primate models AMPAKINE compounds have replicated the studies in rodents and in adults patients suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, significant clinical and statistical improvement in increase attention and decrease hyperactivity have been observed. The U. Alberta research provide evidence that another important AMPAKINE indication is to stimulate primitive areas of the brain called the pre-Botzinger Complex responsible for breathing, without causing side effects. The pre-Botzinger Complex generated respiratory-related oscillations similar to those generated by the whole brainstem in vitro, and neurons with voltage-dependent pacemaker-like properties that have been identified in this brain region.

In a study published in 2006, Dr. John J. Greer of U. Alberta demonstrated that certain AMPAKINE compounds enhance the respiratory drive and breathing rhythm at the brain-stem level containing the pre-Botzinger Complex in laboratory rats whose respiration rates were purposely suppressed by administration of central nervous system depressants.

Dr. Greer found that respiratory depression induced by these agents can be reversed or prevented in test animals with an experimental AMPAKINE drug, without a reduction of pain relief or sedation.

Greer and coworkers treated rats with the opioids analgesic fentanyl or the barbiturate sedative Phenobarbital, both commonly prescribed in the United States. Greer used a technique known as plethysmography, which measures blood flow throughout the body, to determine the level of respiratory distressed caused by the drugs. When drugged rats were treated with the AMPAKINE , the respiratory distress quickly resolved. The drug worked in both newborn and adult rats. Interestingly, the drug on its own did not affect blood flow in animals not treated with the sedative drugs, nor did administration of the drug cause noticeable arousal in the animals.

Greer concluded, in a study published in the September 20, 2006 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory Critical Care Medicine, that CX546, "effectively reverses opioid- and barbiturate-induced respiratory depression without reversing the analgesic response."

"These results open up the real possibility of combining an ampakine compound with commonly prescribed barbiturates or opiates to reduce the likelihood that life-threatening respiratory depression will occur," noted explained Roger G. Stoll, Ph.D., Chairman, President, and CEO of Cortex.

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Ampakines hold out a promise for effective palliative treatments for Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative disease. Currently, the Cortex drug CX717 is being held up by the FDA over toxicity concerns. Consequently the stock price of Cortex is currently quite low--trading below US $3 a share for over a year.

It is easy to see that should Cortex navigate through the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the FDA and reach approval for any of its Ampakines in development, that the stock price could rise rapidly.

Frankly, it is the potential for cognitive enhancement in normal people that fascinates me the most about the Ampakines. But the potential to make a substantial profit on a fairly small investment is also attractive. But do your own research before investing.

Here is more about Cortex' attempt to satisfy the FDA's concerns about possible toxicity of CX717 in animal studies.

Here is a recent report on a study that suggests that Ampakines might benefit Huntington's Disease patients, through their role in releasing BDNF in the brain.

Artificial Cells, Synthetic Biology, Revolutionary Life Forms

Living cells are able to thrive miles below the earth and the sea, and can survive transit through the vacuum of space. While we are waiting for nanotechnology to come of age, some revolutionary biologists are learning to design novel life forms almost from scratch--life designed for specific human purposes.

The people who are defying Nature's monopoly on creation are a loose collection of engineers, computer scientists, physicists and chemists who look at life quite differently than traditional biologists do. Harvard professor George Church wants "to do for biology what Intel does for electronics"—namely, making biological parts that can be assembled into organisms, which in turn can perform any imaginable biological activity. Jay Keasling at UC Berkeley received $42 million from Bill Gates to create living microfactories that manufacture a powerful antimalaria agent. And then there's Craig Venter, the legendary biotech entrepreneur who made his name by decoding the human genome for a tenth of the predicted cost and in a tenth of the predicted time. Venter has put tens of millions of dollars of his own money into Synthetic Genomics, a start-up, to make artificial organisms that convert sunlight into biofuel, with minimal environmental impact and zero net release of greenhouse gases. These organisms, he says, will "replace the petrochemical industry, most food, clean energy and bioremediation."

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Many of the things that Drexler, Merkel, and Freitas expect out of future nanotechnology can be accomplished in the nearer term by specially designed life-forms. Biology has an evolutionary head start of billions of years over nanotech. While Crick and Watson made their earthshaking discoveries in the mid-20th century, equivalent foundational discoveries for workable molecular assembly nanotech have yet to be made.

It is certainly true that a mastery of biology possessed by malevolent individuals could endanger all life on earth, it is more likely that such a mastery would be used to move industrial and chemical processes to cleaner and more sustainable forms.

Still No Consensus on Climate

Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing that a scientific consensus exists on climate change. Certainly there is no consensus at the very top echelons of scientists -- the ranks from which I have been drawing my subjects -- and certainly there is no consensus among astrophysicists and other solar scientists, several of whom I have profiled. If anything, the majority view among these subsets of the scientific community may run in the opposite direction. Not only do most of my interviewees either discount or disparage the conventional wisdom as represented by the IPCC, many say their peers generally consider it to have little or no credibility. In one case, a top scientist told me that, to his knowledge, no respected scientist in his field accepts the IPCC position.

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The series

Statistics needed -- The Deniers Part I
Warming is real -- and has benefits -- The Deniers Part II

The hurricane expert who stood up to UN junk science -- The Deniers Part III

Polar scientists on thin ice -- The Deniers Part IV

The original denier: into the cold -- The Deniers Part V

The sun moves climate change -- The Deniers Part VI


Will the sun cool us? -- The Deniers Part VII

The limits of predictability -- The Deniers Part VIII
Look to Mars for the truth on global warming -- The Deniers Part IX

Limited role for C02 -- the Deniers Part X

End the chill -- The Deniers Part XI

Clouded research -- The Deniers Part XII

Allegre's second thoughts -- The Deniers XIII

The heat's in the sun -- The Deniers XIV
Unsettled Science -- The Deniers XV
Bitten by the IPCC -- The Deniers XVI
Little ice age is still within us -- The Deniers XVII
Fighting climate 'fluff' -- The Deniers XVIII
Science, not politics -- The Deniers XIX
Gore's guru disagreed -- The Deniers XX
The ice-core man -- The Deniers XXI
Some restraint in Rome -- The Deniers XXII
Discounting logic -- The Deniers XXIII

Forms of Anxiety: Apprehension vs. Arousal

One of the major failings of Psychiatry is that it is unable to differentiate between mental disorders of different etiologies that produce similar symptoms. One form of anxiety, for example, is not the same as another--and the treatments should reflect the differences in etiology.

The DSM classifications lack the fine discrimination that neural-genetic etiology could provide. But neuro-reasearch is slowly providing psychiatry with the background knowledge that it has been lacking for so long.

The researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to map the brain areas with heightened neural activity during a variety of psychological probes.

As the researchers had predicted, the anxious apprehension group exhibited enhanced left-brain activity and the anxious arousal group had heightened activity in the right brain. The anxious apprehension group showed increased activity in a region of the left inferior frontal lobe that is associated with speech production. The anxious arousal group had more activity in a region of the right-hemisphere inferior temporal lobe that is believed to be involved in tracking and responding to information signaling danger.

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While EEG had localized apprehension to the left brain and arousal to the right brain, fMRI was able to further localize apprehension to the left inferior frontal lobe and arousal to the right inferior temporal lobe. This distinction is extremely important for the study of the different anxiety disorders, and eventual treatments.

Consider deep brain stimulation treatments, for example. Being able to place electrodes in the precise location for the precise disorder should be more efficacious than uniform placement for all disorders within a broad classification.

Wisteria

...Did he bring you paper fans--to hide your secret?

Water From Air

Everyone needs clean water for drinking and cooking.

The brainchild of Technion Architecture and Building Planning grad students Joseph Cory and Eyal Malka, “WatAir,” is an inverted pyramid array of panels that collects dew from the air and turns it into fresh water in almost any climate.

Inspired by the dew-collecting properties of leaves, one 315 sq ft unit can extract a minimum of 48 liters of fresh water from the air each day. Depending on the number of collectors used, an unlimited daily supply of water could be produced even in remote and polluted places.

According to Cory, WatAir can be easily incorporated into both rural and urban landscapes because it has a relatively small base. Its vertical and diagonal design utilizes gravity to increase the collection areas. The panels are flexible and easy to collapse when not in use, and provide shelter from rain and heat and play areas for children.

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The most common way of producing fresh water in dry coastal areas is desalination by pressure driven membrane separation. But that method is very energy intensive and expensive--suitable for Dubai and other oil-rich emirates, but not available to the world's poor.

One key to condensing water from the atmosphere, is to be able to cool your condensing surface below the dew point of the air. Another important point is the nature of the condensing surface--to encourage droplet formation and discourage re-evaporation. Thirdly, the condenser must move the droplets together into a collectible quantity of water. WatAir appears to have addressed these concerns, according to the reports.

200 X Better than Tamiflu Against H5N1 Avian Flu?

In vitro activities of AviFluCide, specific to H5N1, and of FluCide, lead us to suggest that AviFluCide could be as much as 100-200X (10,000% to 20,000%) more efficacious in H5N1 avian influenza treatment than oseltamivir. Nanoviricides are being constructed against Rabies, Dengue virus and Hepatitis C virus. Our technology also enables the possibility of stockpiling one drug that can specifically attack a number of pathogens. Additionally, nanoviricides open up an interesting new approach to epidemic threat containment. Theoretically, a nanoviricide can be constructed against a field pathogen using antibody fragments as ligands, leading to the fastest possible response to a natural epidemic or bioterrorism threat.

At the recent Nanotech 2007 Conference in Santa Clara, the president of Nanoviricides unveiled an electron microcraph showing the destruction of murine CMV by a nanoviricide. Here is an abstract of the presentation.

Although Tamiflu is a relatively old antiviral drug, it is currently seen as the best defense against an avian flu outbreak/pandemic in humans.

Nanomedicine offers the ability to approach age-old medical problems from a fresh perspective. Nanotechnology opens the door to the perspectives of workers from several disciplines that contribute to nanomedical principles.

Although large pharmaceutical companies tend to fall into the type of unimaginative ruts that plague all large organisations, the ability of small focused startups in biotech and nanotech medicine allow the constant infusion of new ideas and techniques into the larger field of pharmacology and pharma-therapy.

This type of startup activity feeding into larger pre-existing industry is only possible in a culture that values independence of thought and action. Such a culture tolerates the inevitable risk that accompanies startups--venture capital, entrepreneurial risk, etc.

Such revolutionary activity could not occur so freely in cultures that value security over all else. That is why so many cutting-edge researchers tend to migrate away from nanny/security cultures to more open opportunity cultures.

Europe--Still Holding On

Europe and the United States still act as the twin turbines of the global economy, accounting for 60 percent of all trade and investment flows.

Americans invested five times as much money in Germany last year as they did in China, and U.S. firms in total have poured four times as much money into tiny Belgium as they have into India. Europe provides three-quarters of all foreign investment in the United States, creating millions of American jobs.

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The recent elections of Merkel in Germany and Sarkozy in France suggests that Europeans are not ready to give up on themselves completely--not yet. Although tax rates and unemployment rates may be higher on the East side of the Atlantic, Europe still draws breath. Though native European birthrates are below replacement, suggesting a future with insufficient workers and tax revenues to prop up ever more cash-starved welfare mandates, Europeans may be beginning to wake up from a drugged sleep. Though European capital cities are filling with uneducated, untrained, violence-minded and primitive religious immigrants with no love for Europe or her values, Europe's faint vital signs may be starting to strengthen. Perhaps.

Still, Germany, Scotland, France, and other countries are losing some of their best educated professionals to more vibrant countries that offer better opportunities for achievement and advancement.

Figures released by Germany's Federal Statistics Office showed that the number of Germans emigrating rose to 155,290 last year - the highest number since the country's reunification in 1990 - which equalled levels last experienced in the 1940s during the chaotic aftermath of the Second World War.

...OECD figures show that Germany is near the top of a league of industrial nations experiencing a brain drain which for the first time since the 1950s now exceeds the number of immigrants.

Stephanie Wahl, of the Institute for Economics, based in Bonn, said that those who are leaving Germany are mostly highly motivated and well educated.

....Fed up with comparatively poor job prospects at home - where unemployment is as high as 17 per cent in some regions - as well as high taxes and bureaucracy, thousands of Germans have upped sticks for Austria and Switzerland, or emigrated to the United States.

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The Netherlands and other Northern European countries are experiencing similar troubles.

There is clearly a marked difference in outlook between Europeans looking for an opportunity to succeed and excel, and those who are just looking to be taken care of by the nanny state. Certainly at this time of declining birth rates, climbing social welfare expenses, and threats to the homeland from primitive religious immigrant bigots, Europe cannot afford to lose her best and brightest.

Interestingly, a parallel brain drain is benefiting Western Europe, at the expense of Eastern Europe, Africa, Southern and East Asia, and the former USSR.

Nations with lower tax rates and higher opportunity levels tend to reap the benefit of the brain drains.

Marvelous Video of Protein Messenger Traversing a Cell

The protein Paxillin is involved in the growth and movement of cells. UCSD researchers have produced an amazing video of paxillin molecules transiting a cell along with actin filaments. This research suggests a future where more and more of the complex cell signaling pathway of proteins will be captured on video for study and experiment.

Scientists have captured on video the intracellular version of a postal delivery service. Reporting in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (BBRC), bioengineering researchers at UC San Diego published videos of a key message-carrying protein called paxillin moving abruptly from hubs of communication and transportation activity on the cell surface toward the nucleus. Paxillin was labeled with a red fluorescence marker to make it stand out in live cells.

“It’s amazing to us. We thought the cell was so simple,” said Shu Chien, the senior author of the BBRC paper and a professor of bioengineering at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “But it’s really very complex and I’m not sure we’re covering much as yet. We certainly don’t know all the interactions among these molecules that bring the cell into action.”

Examining living cells through a microscope, Chien and the paper’s co-author, associate project scientist Ying-Li Hu, filmed red-fluorescence-tagged paxillin molecules traveling from cells’ outer membrane along green-fluorescence-labeled traces of cytoskeleton. Even without video evidence, scientists have confirmed over the past 10 years that higher organisms use paxillin as a transmitter of locomotion and gene-expression signals from several classes of growth-factor receptors to the nucleus.

Cancer researchers are eager to understand paxillin’s many interactions because their malfunctions have been linked to a variety of cancers, tumor metastasis, and other disease processes. Tumor-causing versions of signaling molecules may attach to paxillin and disturb the normal adhesion and growth factor signaling steps required for controlled proliferation and cell growth. For example, human papilloma virus, which can cause cervical cancer, makes a protein that binds to paxillin and that interaction may contribute to the carcinogenic potential of the sexually transmitted virus.

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Click here to view the video and accompanying report.

Hugo Chavez Threatens to Shoot YouTube, Destroy the Internet

What must an ambitious dictator do to silence his political opponents? El Presidente Hugo Chavez closed down the broadcast station that had challenged his authority. But the station refuses to stay down!

Over at YouTube, El Observador Online is posting videos of its newscasts on a special YouTube channel available to anyone in the world over the internet.

So Chavez has succeeded in shutting down the old media that challenged him--the transmitters, the broadcasts--but the content continues being produced and disseminated. The media revolution has only begun to be felt by the dictators of the world.

Chavez means to recreate the successes of Mugabe's Zimbabwe and Fidel's Cuba, in his own little dictatorship. But Venezuela was a democracy before Chavez began destroying the rule of law, and many Venezuelans may not wish to join Zimbabweans and Cubans in the 17th century existence they enjoy.

The real revolution is what the new technologies are bringing to all of the world. Decentralisation of information, of the means of production, of the means of distribution. The internet is only the beginning, Hugo. You can try to shoot YouTube and destroy the internet--but that would make you a reactionary--a couter-revolutionary. You would be buried and never missed.

Better re-consider your plans, Hugo. The times, they are a changing.

Update: See this CNN newsreporton the YouTube insurrection, and click on the CNN news video reporting on the use of text messaging in the Venezuelan opposition movement.

Views of A China Collapse Affecting the US Economy

Economists are mixed in their view of how a collapse of the Chinese economy would affect the US.

Kenneth Rogoff, economics professor at Harvard University:
A sharp slowdown in Chinese growth represents the single biggest risk to U.S. and global growth today. China's massive excess savings have been helping to hold down mortgage interest rates everywhere. Trade with China has been a major driver in the revival of U.S. productivity that has helped boost growth and lower inflation. Above all, China's generally peaceful integration into the world economy has been helping lower market volatility, thereby driving up the price for risky assets such as housing and equities. Most investors are far too sanguine about the risk of a China meltdown, forgetting that China is still very much a poor developing country with huge political, social, and financial vulnerabilities.. The immediate impact on the United States would be through a sharp rise in interest rates and market volatility, and a concomitant drop in equity and housing prices.

....Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute:
The U.S. is not that vulnerable to a slowdown in China. We don't export a lot there, and the main problem for us would be any slowdown in Chinese capital flowing into [U.S. Treasury bonds]. But there is also a lot of capital coming out of the Middle East, so I don't see the U.S. as vulnerable to China. But Latin America .and certainly the Asian countries that supply China with raw materials and parts would be hit.

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Read more views at the link above.

China's economic growth has been impressive up to this point, although the underlying economic infrastructure of China remains less solid and substantial than most analysts would like.

If China can reform its banking industry, and sell off the non-performing state owned enterprise sector, it would go a long way toward reassuring the more savvy foreign investors of China's long term commitment to eliminating corruption, and solidifying its economic foundations.