A report released Thursday by a National Research Council committee cites "the pressing need for substantial action to limit the magnitude of climate change and to prepare to adapt to its impacts."
Since the effects of greenhouse gases can take decades to come about, and then persist for hundreds or even thousands of years, waiting for impacts to occur before taking action will likely be too late for meaningful mitigation, according to the report.
Risky business: Report says act now to combat climate change
Archibishop Timothy Dolan: Attempts to legalize same-sex marriage are 'Orwellian social engineering'
The state's top Catholic Friday equated efforts to legalize gay marriage to "Orwellian social engineering."
Archibishop Timothy Dolan on his blog wrote that "history, natural law, the Bible...the religions of the world, human experience, and just plain gumption tells us" marriage is between a man and a woman. "The definition of marriage is hardwired into our human reason," Dolan wrote.
Marijuana cuts lung cancer tumor growth in half, Harvard study shows
The active ingredient in marijuana cuts tumor growth in common lung cancer in half and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread, say researchers at Harvard University who tested the chemical in both lab and mouse studies.
They say this is the first set of experiments to show that the compound, Delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), inhibits EGF-induced growth and migration in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expressing non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. Lung cancers that over-express EGFR are usually highly aggressive and resistant to chemotherapy.
Democracy for a Few - Israel's Repressive New Laws
Israel's double standard.
However, on the other hand, the Israeli military law used to manage the Palestinians are similar to those deployed in most Arab countries, where there is no real separation of powers and people are in many respects without rights. Even though there has been a Palestinian Authority since the mid-1990s, there is no doubt that sovereignty still lies in Israeli hands.
One accordingly notices that in this so-called free and democratic country, there are in fact two books of laws, one liberal for its own citizenry and the other for Palestinians under its occupation. Hence, Israel looks an awful lot like apartheid or colonialism.
It’s Official: Fukushima Was Hit With a Nuclear Meltdown
onstitutes a "full" or "partial" meltdown—neither is a strictly technical term, though in the popular usage of the word, today's revelation leans more towards the former. David Brenner, director of the Columbia University Center for Radiological Research, describes a "partial meltdown" as "fuel that's been damaged and partially melted. Some of the fuel has probably been oxidized and breached and melted at the top of the core where the heat rises."
Frack and ruin: the rise of hydraulic fracturing
Go to your nearest tap. Light a match, and place it next to the running water. If it catches fire, as it has in many American homes, your water supply has probably been polluted by a natural-gas extraction process called fracking. If no flames appear, don’t get complacent. Fracking is becoming the gold rush of the 21st century – as well as an urgent wake-up call on the irreparable damage we are wreaking on our environment. Fracking began in Britain in March, and is probably coming to a gas reservoir near you.
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves blasting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and often toxic chemicals, to break up shale formations thousands of feet under the earth, to release natural gas.
Iraq dossier drawn up to make case for war – UK intelligence officer
A top military intelligence official has said the discredited dossier on Iraq's weapons programme was drawn up "to make the case for war", flatly contradicting persistent claims to the contrary by the Blair government, and in particular by Alastair Campbell, the former prime minister's chief spin doctor.
In hitherto secret evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Major General Michael Laurie said: "We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care."
Anti-retroviral drugs 'help reduce' HIV transmission
An HIV-positive person who takes anti-retroviral drugs after diagnosis, rather than when their health declines, can cut the risk of spreading the virus to uninfected partners by 96%, according to a study.
The United States National Institutes of Health sampled 1,763 couples in which one partner was infected by HIV. It was abandoned four years early as the trial was so successful. The World Health Organization said it was a "crucial development".
The Uganda Anti-Gay Bill's U.S. Evangelical Roots
As in other Sub-Saharan African countries, Uganda has long had a taboo against homosexuality. But the political scapegoating of gays and lesbians is a relatively recent phenomenon, one deliberately exported by the American right.
Uganda is a country where American-style evangelical Christianity is exploding, and there are close links between many American anti-gay preachers, politicians, and activists, and their Ugandan counterparts. As Jeff Sharlet has reported, Bahati, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s sponsor, is the secretary of the Ugandan branch of The Family, the secretive American evangelical organization whose members include Sens. James Inhofe, Jim DeMint, and Tom Coburn.
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