Monday, Jan 05th
Last update08:04:20 AM GMT
A deadly strain of bird flu with the potential to infect and kill millions of people has been created in a laboratory by European scientists – who now want to publish full details of how they did it.
"The fear is that if you create something this deadly and it goes into a global pandemic, the mortality and cost to the world could be massive," a senior scientific adviser to the US Government told The Independent, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Environmentalists and other well-adjusted citizens of Earth, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that, thanks to illuminating documentaries like Josh Fox's Gasland and determined pressure from activists in and out of the mainstream, the toxic ravages of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, are no longer the shale gas sector's dirty secret.
The bad news is that, thanks to the United States' morally bankrupt political system and its Supreme Court's reality-defying ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the fracking lobby's power of the purse is greater than it has ever been.
Tanya Rosenblit recounts clash of civilizations she experienced on Israeli bus; ‘until yesterday, I was sure that I live in a free country,’ she says
Until yesterday, I was sure that I live in a free country. I was certain that a person’s dignity and freedom are supreme values in our diverse society. Indeed, there are calls against one group or another, but people, whoever they are, regardless of religion, creed or gender, will be respected, because this is the kind of society I grew up in. These are the values I learned.
U.S. officials are offering 11 Swiss banks, among them Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX), a deal that allows them to avoid criminal prosecution in exchange for revealing full details of their U.S. offshore business to Washington, a paper reported on Sunday.
Famed for the care with which it protects account holders' anonymity, the Alpine state has been forced to act by a series of U.S. probes into alleged tax evasion by Americans concealing their assets in Swiss banks.
It's not the first crowd control tool to use sound waves, but Raytheon's patent for a new type of riot shield that produces low frequency sound waves to disrupt the respiratory tract and hinder breathing, sounds a little scary.
And like Roman soldiers joining their shields to form a large impenetrable wall, these new riot shields can actually be networked together to form a larger acoustical horn, vastly improving their range, power, and effectiveness. There's no word on what the long-term medical implications might be if you find yourself on the wrong side of one of these shields. But I imagine the unpleasant experience is not unlike being force choked from afar by Darth Vader.
A dangerous enemy threatens America. This threat is hard to confront, because it does not represent any one government and is not in any one location; it operates in smaller cells all over. If not stopped, it is sure to inflict violence on the country, decimate cities and alter our way of life.
I'm not talking about al-Qaida, but about another menace just as dangerous as a terrorist in the long run: The utter failure to educate today's kids, tomorrow's adults. Did you see the test scores from around the nation that were released last week? Abysmal.
Nadia Karim Hassan says she stayed in her Baghdad neighborhood as long as she could, but by the height of the sectarian war in 2007, too many fellow Shiites were getting killed, and she had to leave the area and move into an abandoned building.
As American troops pull out of Iraq, one of the most striking consequences of the war remains unresolved today: the issue of people who were forced out of their homes and still can't go back. Relief organizations estimate there are some 2 million displaced people inside Iraq.
Louisiana state health officials are warning patients about potential dangers of using tap water in the sinus-irrigating neti pot after two patients died of Naegleria fowleri infection.
N. fowleri is known as a "brain-eating" amoeba because it can enter a patient's nose, infect the brain, and cause primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a brain-tissue destroying condition.
Corporate Capitalism dominates our planet. We can describe it as an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism or … we can describe it as A Self-Devouring Beast. Your choice. I don’t care. Either description is accurate. All I know is it’s a Capitalist world … we just live in it.
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