Month: August 2012

After 32,000 Years, An Ice Age Flower Blooms Again


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Discover Magazine | August 22 2012

Fruit
This campion plant grew from a 32,000-year-old fruit.
AP/Institute of Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Deep in the frozen tundra of northeastern Siberia, a squirrel buried fruits some 32,000 years ago from a plant that bore white flowers. This winter a team of Russian scientists announced that they had unearthed the fruit and brought tissue from it back to life. The fruits are about 30,000 years older than the Israeli date palm seed that previously held the record as the oldest tissue to give life to healthy plants.

The researchers were studying ancient soil composition in an exposed Siberian riverbank in 1995 when they discovered the first of 70 fossilized Ice Age squirrel burrows, some of which stored up to 800,000 seeds and fruits. Permafrost had preserved tissue from one species—a narrow-leafed campion plant—exceptionally well, so researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences recently decided to culture the cells to see if they would grow. Team leader Svetlana Yashina re-created Siberian conditions in the lab and watched as the refrigerated tissue sprouted buds that developed into 36 flowering plants within weeks.

This summer Yashina’s team plans to revisit the tundra to search for even older burrows and seeds.

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The Health Benefits Of Pistachios: Heart Health, Eye Health, Cancer Prevention

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Natural Society | August 21 2012

CancerAlthough from Western Asia originally, pistachios have been eaten for thousands of years throughout the Mediterranean. Nuts in general are a great source of protein and healthy fats, but did you know that pistachios have numerous additional benefits? Scientists have found these little tough nuts to be useful in preventing cancer, lowering lipids in the prevention of heart disease, and preventing diabetes, all while delivering a good source of antioxidants. And these aren’t the only health benefits of pistachios.

Outlining the Health Benefits of Pistachios

A study published by the American Association for Cancer Research indicates that people who ate about 2 ounces of pistachios a day for four weeks saw higher blood levels of gamma-tocopherol, a type of vitamin E. Gamma-tocopherol is known to protect against various cancers, including lung cancer. A powerful fat-soluble antioxidant, the vitamin E in pistachios is also essential for beautiful skin, protection from UV radiation damage, and strengthening cell membranes.

Another study found that eating pistachios lowered lipids and lipoproteins, a risk factor for heart disease. The researchers report that “Inclusion of pistachios in a healthy diet beneficially affects cardiovascular disease risk factors in a dose-dependent manner, which may reflect effects on Stearoyl CoA Desaturase (SCD). “ Penny Kris-Etherton, professor of nutrition and primary investigator of the study also says: ”our study has shown that pistachios, eaten with a heart healthy diet, may decrease a person’s CVD risk profile.”

According to research published in the Journal of Nutrition, a diet rich in pistachios (1.5 to 3 ounces per day) was linked to increased beta-carotene and gamma-tocopherol in the blood.

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Victor Thorn ~ Executive Orders: Their Use And Abuse By Many U.S. Presidents

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American Free Press | August 22 2102

President Barack Obama is following on the heels of previous presidents such as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, whose disdain for constitutional checks and balance was often evident in the flurry of executive orders (EOs) and presidential decision directives (PDDs) signed in an effort to get around Congress.

Once used as a way to establish schedules for executive office employees or to help agencies under the White House carry out their duties, EOs and PDDs are increasingly being used as a means to bypass the due process of proper legislation.

Through these, Obama is following the precedent set by his predecessors, bypassing the legislative process and instead relying on making up the rules himself through various governmental agencies and hand-selected czars. And while Obama, who has issued 134 EOs, does not hold a candle to past presidents like FDR, who issued an incredible 3,522 EOs, or Woodrow Wilson, who signed 1,807 EOs, his use is pushing the bounds for which they were originally intended.

By comparison, George Washington issued eight EOs, and Thomas Jefferson signed only four.

In Obama’s case, his views about the proper role Congress should play in creating or challenging laws were made clear in a March 6 press conference when he said:

“If Congress refuses to act, I’ve said that I’ll continue to do everything in my power to act without them.”

For instance, since Congress wouldn’t pass a cap-and-trade environmental bill, he used the Environmental Protection Agency to make its own rules through the Clean Air Act. Cap and trade refers to a complicated system that involves setting pre-determined limits on carbon emissions produced by factories.

When the American people resisted the DREAM Act, Obama turned to an executive order that granted blanket immunity for a million illegal aliens. And rather than going to Congress to get approval under the War Powers Act prior to last year’s Libyan invasion, the White House went to the UN to get approval for war.

But while Obama’s frequent use of EOs is not unprecedented, the scope of the new  rules he makes pushes the envelope for just how far a president can go in making his own decrees.

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The New Totalitarianism Of Surveillance Technology

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poorrichards blog | August 18 2012 | The Guardian

If you think that 24/7 tracking of citizens by biometric recognition systems is paranoid fantasy, just read the industry newsletter.

Closed-circuit television
Tom Cruise as John Anderton in the futuristic film Minority Report, where the advertisements use recognition technology to call out to the shoppers. Photograph: Allstar/20th Century Fox

A software engineer in my Facebook community wrote recently about his outrage that when he visited Disneyland, and went on a ride, the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

Yes, I know: it sounds like a paranoid rant. Except that it turned out to be true. News21, supported by the Carnegie and Knight foundations, reports that Disney sites are indeed controlled by face-recognition technology, that the military is interested in the technology, and that the face-recognition contractor, Identix, has contracts with the US government – for technology that identifies individuals in a crowd.

Fast forward: after the Occupy crackdowns, I noted that odd-looking CCTVs had started to appear, attached to lampposts, in public venues in Manhattan where the small but unbowed remnants of Occupy congregated: there was one in Union Square, right in front of their encampment. I reported here on my experience of witnessing a white van marked “Indiana Energy” that was lifting workers up to the lampposts all around Union Square, and installing a type of camera. When I asked the workers what was happening – and why an Indiana company was dealing with New York City civic infrastructure, which would certainly raise questions – I was told: “I’m a contractor. Talk to ConEd.”

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