Soil on Mars 'good for asparagus'

There is still no answer to the old question of whether there has ever been life on Mars but apparently there could be vegetable life.

NASA scientists say the soil they have collected from the northern polar regions of the red planet would be good for growing asparagus and turnips, but probably not strawberries.

Read more.

5 Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity is Doomed

Psychologists know you have to be careful when you go poking around the human mind because you're never sure what you'll find there. A number of psychological experiments over the years have yielded terrifying conclusions about the subjects.

Oh, we're not talking about the occasional psychopath who turns up. No, we're talking about you. The experiments speak for themselves:

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Think about that when you're walking around the mall: Eight out of ten of those people you see would torture the shit out of a puppy if a dude in a lab coat asked them to.

Hopeless.

Humans are hopeless.

Read all five.

Bypass Blocked Usenet

Large ISPs are blocking Usenet
for the possible availability of child pornography. However, the
underlying issue is really one of control -- ISPs can't control people
from using Usenet responsibly, and lack the manpower to police it
appropriately.

Luckily for those of us who are sensible, rational,
responsible, law-abiding adults who embrace Usenet as an invaluable
resource, there are ways to get around these internet restrictions.

Read more.

Oceans clearing greenhouse gases faster than expected

Greenhouse gases over the tropical Atlantic are disappearing faster than expected, according to the first comprehensive measurements taken in the region.

Read more.

Associated Press expects you to pay to license 5-word quotations (and reserves the right to terminate your license)

In the name of "defin[ing] clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt" the Associated Press is now selling "quotation licenses" that allow bloggers, journallers, and people who forward quotations from articles to co-workers to quote their articles. The licenses start at $12.50 for quotations of 5-25 words. The licensing system exhorts you to snitch on people who publish without paying the blood-money, offering up to $1 million in reward money (they also think that "fair use" -- the right to copy without permission -- means "Contact the owner of the work to be sure you are covered under fair use.").

It gets worse:

If you pay to quote the AP, but you offend the AP in so doing, the AP "reserves the right to terminate this Agreement at any time if Publisher or its agents finds Your use of the licensed Content to be offensive and/or damaging to Publisher's reputation."

...

The New York Times, an AP member organization, refers to this as an “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt.” I suggest it’s better described as yet another attempt by a big media company to replace the established legal and social order with with a system of private law (the very definition of the word “privilege”) in which a few private organizations get to dictate to the rest of society what the rules will be.

...

Welcome to a world in which you won’t be able to effectively criticize the press, because you’ll be required to pay to quote as few as five words from what they publish.

Welcome to a world in which you won’t own any of your technology or your music or your books, because ensuring that someone makes their profit margins will justify depriving you of the even the most basic, commonsensical rights in your personal, hand-level household goods.

Read the rest.

The Shrinking Influence of the US Federal Reserve

Humiliation for Mr. Dollar: Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve Bank, faces a general investigation by the International Monetary Fund. Just one more example of the Fed losing its power.

...

For seven years, US President George W. Bush refused to allow the IMF to conduct its assessment. Even now, he has only given the IMF board his consent under one important condition. The review can begin in Bush's last year in office, but it may not be completed until he has left the White House. This is bad news for the Fed chairman.

When the final report on the risks of the US financial system is released in 2010 -- and it is likely to cause a stir internationally -- only one of the people in positions of responsiblity today will still be in office: Ben Bernanke.

Read more.

I've Seen the Future, and It Has a Kill Switch

Microsoft is doing some of the most creative thinking along these lines, with something it's calling "Digital Manners Policies." According to its patent application, DMP-enabled devices would accept broadcast "orders" limiting capabilities. Cellphones could be remotely set to vibrate mode in restaurants and concert halls, and be turned off on airplanes and in hospitals. Cameras could be prohibited from taking pictures in locker rooms and museums, and recording equipment could be disabled in theaters. Professors finally could prevent students from texting one another during class.

The possibilities are endless, and very dangerous. Making this work involves building a nearly flawless hierarchical system of authority. That's a difficult security problem even in its simplest form. Distributing that system among a variety of different devices -- computers, phones, PDAs, cameras, recorders -- with different firmware and manufacturers, is even more difficult. Not to mention delegating different levels of authority to various agencies, enterprises, industries and individuals, and then enforcing the necessary safeguards.

Once we go down this path -- giving one device authority over other devices -- the security problems start piling up. Who has the authority to limit functionality of my devices, and how do they get that authority? What prevents them from abusing that power? Do I get the ability to override their limitations? In what circumstances, and how? Can they override my override?

Oh, the roads we travel.

Read more.

Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense in their homes, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

Read more.

All-Seeing Car Reads Road Signs For You

As cars become smarter than the people driving them and do more of the things humans should be doing for themselves — checking blind spots, watching for lane departures, anticipating collisions — it was only a matter of time before a car started reading road signs.

Read more.

Astronomers on Verge of Finding Earth's Twin

Just last week, astronomers announced they had discovered three super-Earths — worlds more massive than ours but small enough to most likely be rocky — orbiting a single star. And dozens of other worlds suspected of having masses in that same range were found around other stars.

"Being able to find three Earth-mass planets around a single star really makes the point that not only may many stars have one Earth, but they may very well have a couple of Earths," said Alan Boss, a planet formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Washington, D.C.�

The universe is teeming with life and our technology at this point is just too primitive to detect it. All in time people. All in time. I hope I'm around to see it.

Read more.

RIP George Carlin - Religion is bullshit.

Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High

But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials started looking into the matter as early as October after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the principal says, shaking his head.

Read more.

Experts unveil 'cloak of silence'

Scientists have shown off the blueprint for an "acoustic cloak", which could make objects impervious to sound waves.

The technology, outlined in the New Journal of Physics, could be used
to build sound-proof homes, advanced concert halls or stealth warships.

Read more.

In 2050, your lover may be a ... robot

Romantic human-robot relationships are no longer the stuff of science fiction -- researchers expect them to become reality within four decades. And they do not mean simply, mechanical sex.

...

"There will always be many millions of people who cannot make normal satisfactory relationships with humans, and for them the choice is not: 'would I prefer a relationship with a human or would I prefer a relationship with a robot?' -- the choice is no relationship at all or a relationship with a robot."

Read more.

WTF!? Internet Addiction Nominated for Entry in the Manual of Mental Disorders

Block cites research from South Korea, where, he says, the affliction is considered a serious public health problem, and the government estimates that 168,000 children may require psychotropic medications.

Trying to get everyone on some type of medication?

Read more.

Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life

Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers.

...

Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.

Read more.

Flooding grows in upper Midwest; storms pound Michigan

Officials estimated that 100 blocks were underwater in Cedar Rapids, where several days of preparation could not hold back the rain-swollen river.

Read more.

Mobile phone addiction: Clinic treats children

However, it may take a year to wean them off the "drug", said Dr Maite Utgès, director of the Child and Youth Mental Health Centre in Lleida, north-east Spain, where they have been treated for the past three months.

Read more.

Oral sex blamed for throat cancer rise

No one understands the precise reason for the increase, though experts suspect it's linked to changes in sexual practices that emerged in the 1960s and '70s. For example, oral sex is a known risk factor for HPV-related throat cancers, and studies have shown that people who have come of age since the 1950s are more likely to have engaged in oral sex than those who were born earlier.

What? I am going to have a hard time believing that humans rarely engaged in oral sex prior to the 1960's.

Read more.

Oil shortage a myth, says industry insider

There is more than twice as much oil in the ground as major producers say, according to a former industry adviser who claims there is widespread misunderstanding of the way proven reserves are calculated.

...

Current estimates suggest there are 1,200 billion barrels of proven global reserves, but the industry's internal figures suggest this amounts to less than half of what actually exists.

The misconception has helped boost oil prices to an all-time high, sending jitters through the market and prompting calls for oil-producing nations to increase supply to push down costs.

...

However, mathematically it is more accurate to add the proven oil capacity of individual fields in a probabilistic manner based on the bell-shaped statistical curve used to estimate the proven, probable and possible reserves of each field. This way, the final capacity is typically more than twice that of simple, arithmetic addition, Dr Pike said. "The same also goes for natural gas because these fields are being estimated in much the same way. The world is understating the environmental challenge and appears unprepared for the difficult compromises that will have to be made."

Read more.

The West is becoming 'obsessed with Islam,' Vatican warns

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, said that the Church “has to have regard for all religions" and that the West's fascination with Islam was putting inter-faith dialogue at risk.

...

"I'm going to India next month and I want to give this message that all religions are equal.

"Sometimes there are priorities because of particular situations, but we mustn't get the impression there are first-class religions and second-class religions."

Read more.

Security scans will show sex organs

SECURITY scanners that can see through passengers' clothing and reveal details such as their sex organs, colostomy bags and breast size, are being installed in 10 US airports.

...

While it allows the security screeners - looking at the images in a separate room - to clearly see the passenger's sexual organs as well as other details of their bodies, the passenger's face is blurred, TSA said.

The scan only takes seconds and is to replace the physical pat-downs of people that is currently widespread in airports.

Read more, then just go to the airport in your birthday suit.

Hate speech or free speech? What much of West bans is protected in U.S.

"In much of the developed world, one uses racial epithets at one's legal peril, one displays Nazi regalia and the other trappings of ethnic hatred at significant legal risk and one urges discrimination against religious minorities under threat of fine or imprisonment," Frederick Schauer, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, wrote in a recent essay called "The Exceptional First Amendment."

"But in the United States," Schauer continued, "all such speech remains constitutionally protected."

Canada, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. Israel and France forbid the sale of Nazi items like swastikas and flags. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Canada, Germany and France.

And we fight every day to keep our free speech.

Read more.

LA obscenity case nauseates some potential jurors

Ira Isaacs readily admits he produced and sold movies depicting
bestiality and sexual activity involving feces and urine. The judge
warned potential jurors that the hours of fetish videos included
violence against women, and many of them said they don't want to serve
because watching would make them sick to their stomachs.

...

"There's no question the stuff is disgusting," said Diamond, who has
spent much of his career representing pornographers. "The question is
should we throw people in jail for it?"

Um. No.

Read more.

Film content, editing, and directing style affect brain activity, NYU neuroscientists show

Using advanced functional imaging methods, New York University neuroscientists have found that certain motion pictures can exert considerable control over brain activity. Moreover, the impact of films varies according to movie content, editing, and directing style. Because the study, which appears in Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind, offers a quantitative neuroscientific assessment of the impact of different styles of filmmaking on viewers' brains, it may serve as a valuable method for the film industry to better assess its products and offer a new method for exploring how the brain works.

Read more.

Oil reserves 'will last decades'

The one thing that I did not expect to find in my investigation was that the proven reserves on some of the region's oldest fields are in fact rising.

The Forties Field, one of the biggest and most iconic, is still producing oil 33 years after the first oil was pumped ashore.

Read more.

Threat of world Aids pandemic among heterosexuals is over, report admits

A quarter of a century after the outbreak of Aids, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that the threat of a global heterosexual pandemic has disappeared.

...

Dr De Cock, an epidemiologist who has spent much of his career leading the battle against the disease, said understanding of the threat posed by the virus had changed. Whereas once it was seen as a risk to populations everywhere, it was now recognised that, outside sub-Saharan Africa, it was confined to high-risk groups including men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and sex workers and their clients.

Read more.

Physicists have 'solved' mystery of levitation

Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.

Read more.

Army: Sun, Not Man, Is Causing Climate Change

The Army is weighing in on the global warming debate, claiming that climate change is not entirely man-made. Instead, Dr. Bruce West, with the Army Research Office, argues that "changes in the earth’s average surface temperature are directly linked to ... the short-term statistical fluctuations in the Sun’s irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles."

Read more.

Vote by Numbers

IT appears that Hillary Clinton is going to suspend her presidential campaign this weekend, at the urging of Democratic Party leaders and superdelegates. Before that happens, Mrs. Clinton and the superdelegates might want to know this: if the general election were held today, Barack Obama would lose to John McCain, while Mr. McCain would lose to Mrs. Clinton.

This conclusion comes not from wishful thinking but from a new method of analysis on the statistics of polls that has been accepted for publication in the journal Mathematical and Computer Modeling.

Read more.

Israeli minister says alternatives to attack on Iran running out

"If Iran continues its nuclear weapons programme, we will attack it," said Shaul Mofaz, who is also transportation minister.

Read more.

Drop 'middle-class' academic subjects says schools adviser

Children should no longer be taught traditional subjects at school because they are "middle-class" creations, a Government adviser will claim today.

Professor John White, who contributed to a controversial shake-up of the secondary curriculum, believes lessons should instead cover a series of personal skills.

Pupils would no longer study history, geography and science but learn skills such as energy- saving and civic responsibility through projects and themes.

Go away, you idiot.

Read more.

McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too

If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.

Read more.

Teens' Nude Pics "Spread Like Wildfire"

Teenagers are increasingly snapping naked pictures of themselves on their cell phones, officials say, with the photos often falling into the wrong hands.

Sometimes the photos end up in everyone's hands, via the Internet.

Read more.

Lanier plans to seal off rough ’hoods in latest effort to stop wave of violence

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

Read more.

Website Lets You Send a Post-Rapture E-Mail to Friends 'Left Behind'

If millions of Christians suddenly disappear from the face of the Earth as the opening act for Armageddon, Threat Level thinks most nonbelievers will be too busy freaking the hell out to check their e-mail. But if they do log in, now they can be treated to some post-Rapture needling from their missing friends and loved ones, courtesy of web startup YouveBeenLeftBehind.com.

For just $40 a year, believers can arrange for up to 62 people to get a final message exactly six days after the Rapture, that day when -- according to Christian end times dogma -- Christians will be swept up to heaven, while doubters are left behind to suffer seven years of Tribulation under a global government headed by the Antichrist.

Christ on a cross.

Read more.

New rules for US make it tougher for travellers

New security measures requiring New Zealanders to register online before they go to the United States are expected to cause problems for last-minute business travellers and people flying there for funerals.

What bullshit.

From January next year, the US will require visitors from countries which now do not need a visa - including New Zealanders - to register online at least three days ahead.

No, really. What bullshit.

Read more.

New agreement lets US strike any country from inside Iraq

A proposed Iraqi-American security agreement will include permanent American bases in the country, and the right for the United States to strike, from within Iraqi territory, any country it considers a threat to its national security, Gulf News has learned.

...

Iraqi analysts said that the second item of the controversial agreement which permits American forces on Iraqi territories to launch military attacks against any country it considers a threat is addressed primarily to Iran and Syria.

Read more.

Dumbing down maths tests 'threat to economy'

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on children, said: "This is a damning critique of maths education in this country. Our education system is too often failing to get the basics right, which risks damaging the national economy. There is a serious concern that political meddling has led to a dumbing down of maths education."

Read more.

Expect new drugs to treat aging, researchers say

Speaking on a panel of aging experts, Sinclair had the boldest predictions. He said scientists can greatly increase longevity and improve health in lab animals like mice, and that drugs to benefit people are on the way.

"It's not an if, but a when," said Sinclair, who co-founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals to pursue such drugs.

...

Sinclair said treatments could be a few years or a decade away, but they're "really close. It's not something (from) science fiction and it's not something for the next generation."

Read more.

One in four don't believe in God, poll finds

Fewer than three-quarters of Canadians believe in a god, suggests a new Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey.

...

The poll found 72 per cent of respondents said they believed in a god, while 23 per cent said they did not believe in any god. Six per cent did not offer an opinion.

Polls have told a different story in the United States.

Read more.

MONTANA GOVERNOR IS SITTING ON AN OIL MINE

Here's some very good news about oil that the manipulators on Wall Street don't want you to know: there could be as much as 40 billion barrels of crude lying untouched in eastern Montana.

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By comparison, Saudi Arabia has the largest known oil reserves at 260 billion barrels.

Read more.

Child Sex Tourism: Brazilian Teens Testify About Being Lured into Minor Prostitution for American Tourists

Imagine that you are a poor 13 year old Brazilian girl living with your poor family on your poor people’s land; the Indigenous Area AKA your reservation. A North American illegally enters the Indigenous Area, asking for your help on his tourist fishing boat, namely sweeping, laundry and cooking. You agree because your family needs the money. Your mother and step-father are scared because they have heard the stories about what has happened to “the others.” Against all hope, they wave and watch as you and nine other girls go off with this American stranger.

When you get to the boat, you learn that your real job is to drink whiskey and beer and have sex with the foreigners who are in your country on a fishing trip. After the foreigners have sex with you and go back home, you are left pregnant, not knowing who fathered your baby.

The world we live in.

Read more.

Pupils 'will soon be able to download lessons directly into their brains'

Children will learn by downloading information directly into their brains within 30 years, the head of Britain's top private schools organisation predicted today.

Chris Parry, the new chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, said "Matrix-style" technology would render traditional lessons obsolete.

He told the Times Educational Supplement: "It's a very short route from wireless technology to actually getting the electrical connections in your brain to absorb that knowledge."

Read more...no wait, just download it into your brain.

Nanowire 'Paper Towel' Designed to Clean Up Oil Spills

MIT researchers and colleagues say they have created a membrane that can absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil, and can be recycled many times for future use. The oil itself can also be recovered.

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The new material appears to be completely impervious to water. “Our material can be left in water a month or two, and when you take it out it's still dry,” Stellacci said. “But at the same time, if that water contains some hydrophobic contaminants, they will get absorbed.”

Read more.

Five tips to ensure the TSA doesn't steal your stuff

Taking. Something. Always.

That's what TSA means to airline passengers ...

...

Thieving TSA? You might be forgiven for thinking so.

Since it was created in 2001, the agency has fired about 200 employees accused of stealing. Although the TSA has taken steps to discourage these government workers from helping themselves to our personal effects — including background checks on new hires, video cameras in screening areas and rules forbidding backpacks or lunchboxes at checkpoints — more and more passengers like Fleiss are coming forward to say they've been ripped off by the very people who are supposed to protect them.

...

You don't need a travel columnist to tell you this agency has a problem. The evidence speaks for itself.

But here's what you might not know. The stealing isn't as random as the TSA may want you to believe (www.tsa.gov/blog/2008/02/tsa-our-officers-public-and-theft.html). Fleiss visited an optometrist for a replacement pair of glasses, and learned that since the TSA was created seven years ago, he'd seen a "marked increase" in patients requesting receipts for insurance claims relating to security-related thefts. "He said there is a huge market for stolen designer eyewear frames in the New York area," he added. "You put it together."

One aviation insider I spoke with believes stealing is a systemic problem the federal agency is unable to control, particularly at problem airports like New York's LaGuardia Airport and Philadelphia International Airport. Not all of the screening areas in U.S. airports are under surveillance, and the TSA's rules have a big loophole that shifts liability for stolen baggage claims to the airline when luggage is delayed, he told me. In other words, there's little incentive for the stealing to stop. "It's the 800-pound gorilla no one wants to discuss at TSA," he says.

...

Bottom line: if you want to see your valuables again, don't let a TSA agent near them.

Read the rest.

Tissue of dead humans to be cloned

Scientists are to be permitted to use tissue from dead people to create cloned
human stem cells for research, under a legal change put forward by the
government.

Read more.

Scientists reveal dangers of older fathers

A mass study found that deaths of children fathered by over-45s occurred at almost twice the rate of those fathered by men aged between 25 and 30.

Scientists believe that children of older fathers are more likely to suffer particular congenital defects as well as autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy. The study was the first of its kind of such magnitude in the West, and researchers believe the findings are linked to the declining quality of sperm as men age.

Read more.