Pollinators participate in the sexual-reproduction of plants. When you eat an almond, beet, w[youtubeatermelon or sip on coffee, you’re partaking of an ancient relationship between pollinators and flowers. But since the 1990s, worldwide bee health has been in decline and most evidence points to toxic pesticides created by Shell and Bayer and the loss of genetic biodiversity due to the proliferation of GMO monocrops created in laboratories by biotech companies like Monsanto.
But never worry, those real life pollinators—the birds and the bees, as they say—may soon be irrelevant to the food needs of civilization. Harvard roboticists are developing a solution to the crisis: swarms of tiny robot bees made of titanium and plastic that can pollinate those vast dystopian fields of GMO cash crops.
The Harvard Microrobotics Lab has been working on its Micro Air Vehicles Project since early 2009. Borrowing from the biomechanics and social organization of bees, the team of researchers is undergoing the creation of tiny winged robots to fly from flower to flower, immune to the toxins dripping from petals, to spread pollen. They even believe that they will soon be able to program the robobees to live in an artificial hive, coordinate algorithms and communicate amongst themselves about methods of pollination and location of particular crops.
Of course, published reports from the lab also describe potential military uses—surveillance and mapping—but the dime-sized cyber-bees have yet to be outfitted with neurotoxin tipped stingers.
As investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker has demonstrated, the address for the Congress of Chechen International Organizations just happened to be the home address of Graham E. Fuller, formerly Vice Chairman of the Reagan-era CIA’s National Intelligence Council. The relationship between Ruslan and this former top CIA official was not a loose one. Tsarni married Fuller’s daughter in the mid-1990s and lived in Fuller’s home for some time, basing his terror-supporting operation under Fuller’s own roof.
(Video courtesy – YOUREPORTER.IT)
A strong tornado hit the Italian region of Emilia Romagna on Friday at around 1400 GMT according to Italian media, injuring 11 people and damaging several houses. Numerous fields were damaged by the strong storms and the harvest could be ruined.
RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
Thousands of opposition activists have gathered in central Moscow, to mark one year since mass protests that ended in violent clashes. Last year’s anti-government rallies left dozens injured, and saw hundreds of arrests – READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/cto98p
RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
Syria says Israel has effectively declared war, after its planes bombed targets in Damascus, the second airstrikes in as many days. Syria’s state media says Israeli rockets targeted a military research centre on the outskirts of the capital. Video footage and eye witness accounts suggest the attacks hit weapons dumps, triggering large explosions.
Syria says a number of people were killed and wounded amid widespread destruction. The Arab League has condemned the strikes and demanded the UN Security Council act to stop any more. The League say there has been a “dangerous violation of an Arab state’s sovereignty”. Article 2 of the United Nations Charter bans the use of force against the territorial integrity of any state. RT’s Gayane Chichakyan in Washington and Polly Boiko in London told RT more about the reaction coming from the UK and the US.
RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
As many as 10000 drones could be prowling American skies by 2020, says the US Aviation Administration. And as Washington continues to boost domestic surveillance in the name of public safety, growing numbers of young Americans are choosing to get in on the action. RT’s Anastasia Churkina has the story.
RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
Who flies the drones America uses to take out military targets in foreign locales all over the globe? I had the chance to talk to an Air Force drone pilot operating out of Whiteman Air Force Base, and astonishingly, he admitted to me that he took part in strikes on wedding parties in Middle East & Asian countries said to harbor terrorists.
I confronted him with some of the troubling news that has emerged about the secret White House kill list and the apparent readiness to destroy the lives of innocent bystanders in pursuit of a target – women, children and elderly villagers who are all considered nothing more than “collateral damage.” Clearly, he didn’t want to hear it.
Did he, too, find these people dispensable? Did he share the cold rationale of our leaders that it is “worth it” to kill these civilians to target an enemy? I tried to find out when I saw him during a wedding I attended, all while I was deeply aware of the unsettling irony that the celebration we were attending was seen differently than the weddings, funerals and other gatherings that U.S. airstrikes have unofficially declared to be venues of war.
Perpetual wars spilling across many borders is now a foregone conclusion. The public pays it little mind. Drones take this even further, targeting individuals determined to be combatants – without a declaration of war against their country and without formal charges, allegations or complaints against those individuals.
Due process is effectively dead. The White House, the Pentagon, and the pilots who operate their predator drones have become judge, jury and executioner while the public isn’t even told who is on their kill list, or why.
How far will things go? And how far removed will their operators be from the situation? Will they retain the judgement to know when things have gone too far? Or will the lives they hover over become mere blips on a screen?
Aaron Dykes is a co-founder of TruthstreamMedia.comwhere this article first appeared. As a writer, researcher and video producer who has worked on numerous documentaries and investigative reports, he uses history as a guide to decode current events, uncover obscure agendas and contrast them with the dignity afforded individuals as recognized in documents like the Bill of Rights.
By Russ McSpadden
PN 