Acid Rain Has Turned Canadian Lakes into a Kind of Jelly
by John Metcalfe
CityLab
Nov 19, 2014
A legacy of industrial pollution is allowing slimy ooze to thrive.
Yum! A researcher holds slimy plankton taken from a lake in Ontario. (Ron Ingram/MECC)
Swimmers who dive into a number of Canadian lakes might not emerge clean and refreshed, but dripping with globs that resemble slimy fish eggs. A legacy of industrial pollution has caused great changes in the country’s water chemistry, creating a boom in tiny organisms that transform lakes into “jelly.”
That’s the gooey news from scientists behind a new paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, who say that populations of this particular organism have doubled since the 1980s in many of Ontario’s lakes. The reasons involve a complex dance of species, but here’s the short version: Acid rain caused by smelting operations and other human activity removed calcium from the soil in drainage areas. That depleted the calcium levels in many lakes, which has hurt a kind of plankton (Daphnia) that needs the element to build armor. Enter a competing plankton, Holopedium, which requires far less calcium to bulk up and is coated with a gel that’s excellent at repelling predators.
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[hat tip: Frank Gotz]
The dark side of social media: Baroness Susan Greenfield says social media is rewiring our brains
news.com.au
Nov 17, 2014
Baroness Susan Greenfield is a brain scientist who says time spent with electronic devices is rewiring the brain. Source: News Limited
WE’RE all guilty of it. We’re at the pub, dinner table or enjoying a fun arvo with a group of friends and, instead of talking to the people we’re with, we’re preoccupied with our phones.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, video games and — dare I say it — news.com.au all provide endless distractions, as well as more opportunities to share, connect and spout your views than ever before.
But what effect is this having on us? More crucially, how is it affecting our brains?
Renowned British neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield says modern technology is not only changing the way we interact, it is changing the wiring in our brain.
Professor Greenfield, who is also a member of the British upper house, says the hyper-connectedness of today’s youth gives them shorter attention spans and makes them more narcissistic, more susceptible to depression and anxiety, and less empathetic.
“The mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilised, characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity,” she told parliament in 2009.
Her interest in the subject has culminated in her book Mind Change, released in August, in which she argues:
● That social media is affecting our sense of identity and ability to empathise,
● That video games are shortening attention spans, and increasing our recklessness and aggression, and
● That search engines are making us confuse information for knowledge.
Prof Greenfield says that the brain is exquisitely designed to adapt to its environment and, because technology has created a vastly changed social environment, it follows that our brains may also being changing in an unprecedented way.
What effect does our addiction to screens have on the way we relate to each other? Source: Supplied
She argues that today’s youth are developing in a world where relationships are increasingly formed online, which means we are less able to rehearse important social skills.
“Human beings love talking about themselves. Nature has developed body language so you can be sure that your interaction is reasonably secure, and you don’t make yourself vulnerable, through eye contact, gestures and pheromones,” Prof Greenfield told news.com.au.
But words — the primary means through which people interact on social media — make up only 10 per cent of the impact made when you meet someone.
“If you are not rehearsing those visual clues, you are going to be at a disadvantage,” Prof Greenfield said.
She said people were much more likely to insult others online because they didn’t have those cues.
“If someone says ‘I hate you’ to someone’s face, they may not say it again because the way it makes that person feel may be extremely hurtful, which can give the person who said it a physiological churning,” Prof Greenfield said.
“Those constraints are not available on social networking. You don’t have that handbrake … That’s what I’m concerned about.”
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[hat tip: Neil Sanders]
VIDEO — The Truth About Net Neutrality
Stefan Molyneux
Jul 29, 2014
Advocates say that Net Neutrality means guaranteeing free speech on the Internet. Without it, big telecoms could control what you see and how you see it. But what is the truth about Net Neutrality?
Google Is Making Magnetic Nanoparticles That Will Search For Disease Inside Your Body
Canadian Awareness Network
Nov 3, 2014
by JILLIAN D’ONFRO OCT. 28, 2014, 1:27 PM
Google is in the early stages of creating tiny, magnetic nanoparticles that will be able to search the human body for cancer and other diseases, The Wall Street Journal’s Alistair Barr and Ron Winslow report.
Google’s goal is “an early heads-up” on disease to ultimately facilitate more effective treatment by making medicine proactive instead of reactive.
Google’s particles will be less than 1/000 the width of a red blood cell and will attach themselves to specific cells, proteins, and other molecules inside the body, depending on what they’re “decorated” with. For example, Google could coat its nanoparticles with a specific antibody that would recognize and attach to a protein on the surface of a tumor cell.
Google is also working on a small wearable device that would attract and count the particles. In that way, the system would be used for testing and monitoring health: You could be alerted through the wearable if a lot of the particles were attaching to tumor cells. Google admits, however, that it still needs to better understand what constitutes as a healthy level of disease-carrying molecules in the blood and what would be a cause for a concern (Google’s “Baseline Study” is already trying to define what a healthy human looks like). The idea is that people would be constantly monitoring their bodies, so they wouldn’t wait until they felt physically sick to go to the doctor.
Google would likely let people consume its nanoparticles through a pill, but is reportedly at least five to seven years away from a product that would be approved by doctors.
“Every test you ever go to the doctor for will be done through this system,” Andrew Conrad, head of the Life Sciences team at Google X and the man leading the project, said at The Wall Street Journal’s “WSJD Live” conference. “That’s our dream.”
Conrad told The Wall Street Journal that Google would not collect or store any medical data itself, but would license the technology out.
“We’re going to be inventors that work on the technology— disruptive, innovative technology—and then we’re going to look for partners who will bring it forward,” Conrad told Backchannel’s Steven Levy.
More than 100 Googlers — with backgrounds including chemistry, astrophysics, and electrical engineering — are working on this nanoparticle project. The company is also collaborating with MIT, Stanford, and Duke.
Watch a video from the WSJ conference:
Read more Here
VIDEO — G20 Brisbane: Police State Lockdown Begins – Asia-Pacific Perspective
The Asia-Pacific Perspective
Nov 13, 2014
ISIL attacked Saudi Arabia
by Viktor Titov
New Eastern Outlook
11.11.2014
Saudi Arabia has recently witnessed the aggression that should have happened sooner or later due to its short-sighted policy in Syria, Iraq and Iran. As an old saying goes: “If you dig a hole for others, you’re sure to fall in it yourself.”
A few days ago the Saudi town of al-Dalwa, situated in the oil-rich Eastern Province, suffered an attack of a group of armed Sunni terrorists, which resulted in seven civilian deaths. Most of the attackers were citizens of the kingdom. The prompt response of the local security forces allowed the servicemen to detain 20 members of an underground terrorist group, consisting mainly of those who had previously fought under the black banner of ISIL in Iraq and Syria. Law enforcement agencies of Saudi Arabia have managed to capture the head of the armed group, his name is kept secret. The only information that has become available to journalists is that this commander has recently returned from Syria where he was fighting against the pro-Assad forces.
Riyadh is now facing a harsh dilemma: on the one hand, the House of Saud is actively oppressing its Shia citizens, on the pretext of their disloyalty and their alleged attempts to undermine the national security of the kingdom due to the “evil Iranian influence.” On the other – Sunni terrorists, that Saudi Arabia is fighting today alongside with its closest ally – the US, have assaulted Shia civilians on the Saudi soil, and the latter were virtually enjoying the same rights as the rest of the population, including the right for protection. It is now official: Saudi citizens motivated by religious hatred are commiting manslaughter of their fellow citizens.
The only question is how Riyadh may react when the Sunni terrorists that it had trained and funded will unleash a wave of terror against the Shia population of KSA (Kingdom Saudi Arabia)? A similar course of events has already taken place in the neighboring Bahrain back in 2011, but Saudi regular troops were fast to cross the border in an attempt to prevent the violence from spreading.
It is no coincidence that the events in the city of al-Dalwa are completely ignored by the international media. Should this fact become widely known then the Saudi authorities will be forced to recognize the threat ISIL poses to Saudi Arabia along with acknowledging the underlying instability of Saudi society that can endanger the ruling Wahhabi regime.
Now that the Shia population of the Eastern Province is buzzing with discontent, the House of Saud has found itself in a tight corner. Should the authorities fail to prosecute terrorists, a violent unrest of the Shia population, similar the one that shook Saudi Arabia in 2011 -2012, in the wake of the above mentioned events in Bahrain, will be quick to follow. But if the terrorists are to be punished to the fullest extent of the Sharia law, then the Wahhabis and Salafis will accuse the royal family of “betrayal” of the Sunnis. This course of events will end no better, with a massive wave of violent terrorist attacks, carried out by ISIL militants all across Saudi Arabia. Now that ISIL thugs have faced harsh resistance in Syria and Iraq, they will be eager to move south to start a “sacred struggle against the corrupt pro-American reign of Al Saud family“. As for the Iraqi Shia population, they can only welcome this U-turn in their ongoing struggle against Islamists. Moreover, it is possible that the indignation of the Saudi Shia population of the Eastern Province will find some form of support in Tehran and Baghdad. This means that the fate of the kingdom’s territorial integrity will be put to the test. The nightmares of the Saudi ruling family seems to be coming true — Saudi Arabia can be split into several parts, which were joined together to create the kingdom back in 1929. This trend can be accelerated by the fact that a couple of weeks ago the Shia Houthis rebels seized power in Yemen, on the south-western borders of KSA.
ISIS: Raging on the Internet, but not in the Mosque and don’t blame the web
21st Century Wire says…
[Nov 15, 2014]
How real is ISIS? Is it more real, or less real than al Qaeda?
According to some, ISIS is flourishing more online than it is in brick-and-mortar life…
ISIS INTERNET MARKETING DEPT: The majority of ISIS manpower is working in the virtual space.
Award-winning, veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk poses that very question: “I’m even wondering whether “Isis” – isn’t more real on the internet, than it is on the ground.”
Fisk also goes on to say that the “virtual” has dropped out of virtual reality, and that this generation’s obsession with the truth (as it’s sometimes portrayed) online is the reason ISIS youths are going bonkers for beheadings. We support this supposition in part, but to blame the internet for the ISIS crisis would be one dimensional without factoring in the avalanche of financial and arms support the terrorists are receiving from entities like the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
This statement by Fisk, however, is sublime in both its quality and its accuracy:
“The belief, the absolute conviction that the screen contains truth – that the “message” really is the ultimate verity, has still not been fully recognised for what it is; an extraordinary lapse in our critical consciousness that exposes us to the rawest of emotions – both total love and total hatred”.
Yes, the internet is a powerful tool, and it may appear dangerous to some, but if anything is inverted in this 21st century conundrum, it’s not the technology. The minds of its users were more likely warped long before they switched their computers on.
What even worse still, is the amount of free publicity and PR exposure given to ISIS/ISIL/IS by international media conglomerates like CNN, FOX, and the BBC. When the Islamic State’ post a staged jihadist propaganda video on YouTube – you can be certain that western broadcasters will give their videos heavy rotation 24/7. ISIS could not afford the free marketing they get from our media moguls.
Their consciousness was buried by a globalised, corporatised mega-media machine – buried under successive layers of lies, omissions and mistruths coming from “the mainstream” gospel, including TV broadcasters and newspapers. Lies, piled on top of lies – and then shaming the public to accept the lies – leads to a highly dysfunctional and unconscious society, not only in the west (where lying is a celebrated and high art form), but in the Middle East too.
PN 