City Forces All Residents To Give Copy Of House And Business Keys To The Government

Despite widespread objects from citizens, the city of Cedar Falls Iowa has passed passed a controversial ordinance requiring all residents to provide the Government with a copy of the keys to their homes and business.   link

Highly radioactive tea with over 1000 bq/kg of Japan nuclear radiation found in Paris.

As Japan embarks on a campaign of cover up and censorship to hide the discovery of radioactive tea within its own borders, hundreds of miles from the Fukushima nuclear plant, tea with dangerous levels of Japan nuclear radiation are found in Paris, France.   link

Japan Censors Tests Showing Radiation In Tea Above Legal Limits Over 300 Miles From Fukushima

Whereabouts of 30 nuclear power plant subcontractors unknown: Health Ministry

The whereabouts of about 30 subcontractors who helped deal with the crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is unknown, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said on June 20. The workers are among some 3,700 who worked to control the disaster in March, the month the plant was struck by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. The workers' names were listed in records showing that they had been loaned dosimeters, but when the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), contacted the companies they were associated with, the companies replied that there was no record of those workers.   link

Potential Nuclear Catastrophes Spread Across The US As 1 Sievert Per Hour Water Found Leaking From Fukushima

The US faces nuclear disasters across the nation as Fukushima residents are found to have radioactive urine and radioactive water measuring over 1 sievert per hour is found leaking from the plant.

NJ Salem 2 Nuclear reactor cooling pump fail forces closure

Physicist Speaks On Concerns With Material At Los Alamos Lab


Ft. Calhoun nuclear workers carrying in fuel cans by hand in order to keep pumps running.   link

 

Physician and Epidemiologist Say 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown Might Be the Result of Fallout from Fukushima

The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age: 4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 – 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 – 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week.  This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate.  Data from Chernobyl, which exploded 25 years ago, clearly shows increased numbers of sick and weak newborns and increased numbers of deaths in the unborn and newborns, especially soon after the meltdown. These occurred in Europe as well as the former Soviet Union. Similar findings are also seen in wildlife living in areas with increased radioactive fallout levels.   link

The United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has published on their website their annual report about the world situation on drugs in 2010. In this report, the INCB has included the preoccupying recommendation towards governments to outlaw  traditional plants such as Ayahuasca (a decoction made with botanicals like Banisteriopsis Caapi and Psychotria Viridis) and Tabernanthe Iboga among others, neglecting their important role as traditional medicine, as a sacrament and as therapeutic tool. These are the primary uses of these plants found in societies all over the world.   link  

News Flash: Evidence Found for Large Saltwater Ocean Beneath Saturn's Enceladus

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered the best evidence yet for a large-scale saltwater reservoir beneath the icy crust of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The data came from the spacecraft's direct analysis of salt-rich ice grains close to the jets ejected from the moon. Data from Cassini's cosmic dust analyzer show the grains expelled from fissures, known as tiger stripes, are relatively small and predominantly low in salt far away from the moon. But closer to the moon's surface, Cassini found that relatively large grains rich with sodium and potassium dominate the plumes. The salt-rich particles have an "ocean-like" composition and indicate that most, if not all, of the expelled ice and water vapor comes from the evaporation of liquid salt water. The findings appear in this week's issue of the journal Nature.   link

Quantum magic trick shows reality is what you make it

Conjurers frequently appear to make balls jump between upturned cups. In quantum systems, where the properties of an object, including its location, can vary depending on how you observe them, such feats should be possible without sleight of hand. Now this startling characteristic has been demonstrated experimentally, using a single photon that exists in three locations at once.

Despite quantum theory's knack for explaining experimental results, some physicists have found its weirdness too much to swallow. Albert Einstein mocked entanglement, a notion at the heart of quantum theory in which the properties of one particle can immediately affect those of another regardless of the distance between them. He argued that some invisible classical physics, known as "hidden-variable theories", must be creating the illusion of what he called "spooky action at a distance".

A series of painstakingly designed experiments has since shown that Einstein was wrong: entanglement is real and no hidden-variable theories can explain its weird effects.

But entanglement is not the only phenomenon separating the quantum from the classical. "There is another shocking fact about quantum reality which is often overlooked," says Aephraim Steinberg of the University of Toronto in Canada.   link

Kurzweil: A Future of Humans Merged With Machines (video) - Vigilant Citizen

Previous articles on this site have described how the concept of transhumanism was subtly promoted in music videos, movies and video games. In the recent months, the transhumanist agenda took a much more direct approach as Ray Kurzweil became the voice of the movement he calls “Singularity” – the merging of humans with machine. While pop stars dance around as robots to wow the younger crowds, Kurzweil addresses the adult and mature population.   link
***Note: transhumanist concept of singularity is "Technological Singularity"

Sinister Sites – The Denver International Airport

An apocalyptic horse with glowing red eyes welcoming visitors? Check.
Nightmarish murals? Check.
Strange words and symbols embedded in the floor? Check.
Gargoyles sitting in suitcases? Check.
Runways shaped like a Nazi swastika? Check.
OK, this place is evil.
But seriously, there are so many irregularities surrounding the DIA, that a voluminous book could be written on the subject.  The facilities and the art displayed lead many observers to believe that the DIA is much more than an airport: it is literally a New-Age cathedral, full of occult symbolism and references to secret societies. The art at the DIA is NOT an aggregation of odd choices made by people with poor taste, like many people think. It is a cohesive collection of symbolic pieces that reflect the philosphy, the beliefs and the goals of the global elite. The DIA is the largest airport in America and it has cost over 4.8 billion dollars. Everything regarding this airport has been meticulously planned and everything is there for a reason.

The Airport
The airport facilities themselves raised a ton of questions regarding the true purpose of the mega-structure. Numerous “creative” theories are floating around the DIA regarding underground military bases, aliens and/or reptilian creatures. While I’m aware that anything is possible, we will stick to the documented facts.
The airport was built in 1995 on 34,000 acres. Its construction forced the Stapleton International airport to shut down, although it used more gates and runways than the DIA. The initial cost of construction was 1.7 billion $ but the final project elevated the bill to 4.8 billion: 3.1 BILLION $ over budget.  Numerous irregularities have been reported regarding the construction of the site:  link

Top 10 Most Sinister PSYOPS Mission Patches

...Since then, other organizations involved in space travel and secret operations began using mission patches, including those that specialize in PSYOPS (psychological warfare): the CIA, the Department of Defense and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). What does space travel have to do with psychological warfare? Spy satellites. Since 1960, the NRO (whose existence was only declassified in 1992) has launched dozens of secret spy satellites into space, collecting an incredible amount of information on the United States’ friends, enemies and citizens. As it is nearly impossible to obtain information regarding these highly classified endeavours, mission patches offer a rare glimpse into the world of PSYOPS. Even if one is not well-versed in symbolism, it is easy to perceive a sinister “vibe” emanating from the patch designs. Laced with strange symbols, ominous creatures, obscure Latin phrases and even dark humor, these patches reflect the mindstate of those wearing the patches.   link

Why Sex With Creatures from the Future Is a Bad Idea

When time travel finally becomes possible, we might want to think twice about getting it on. According to a new study on tiny shrimp (Artemia franciscana), sex with partners from a different time could kill you. Researchers at the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE) in Montpellier, France, collected preserved brine shrimp eggs from various generations, and then reanimated them with water. Nicolas Rode and colleagues mated pairs of brine shrimp that had been reanimated from eggs preserved since 1985, 1996 and 2007, a period representing roughly 160 generations. They found that females that mated with males from the past or future died off sooner than those that mated with their own generation. The longer the time-shift, the earlier they died: The 22-year time difference shortened female lifetimes by 12 percent; the effect was 3 percent for the 11-year time-shift.   link

New Uncontacted Group Confirmed in Brazil

The Brazilian government has confirmed the existence of a previously unknown group of so-called uncontacted people who have remained isolated from industrial society. In April, the Brazilian government agency charged with protecting the country's indigenous tribes took aerial photographs of the group's Amazon dwellings. The photos were released June 22 by Survival International, an advocacy group for indigenous people.  link

Nebular Clouds --It Appears that the Phosphorus Essential for Our DNA Originated There

We seem to be inside a "local bubble" in a network of cavities in the interstellar medium, probably carved by massive star explosions millions of years ago. The interstellar medium (or ISM) is the matter that exists in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, dust, and cosmic rays. It fills interstellar space and blends smoothly into the surrounding intergalactic space.   link

Video camera reveals secrets of ancient Mayan tomb - video (BBC)

The inside of a Mayan tomb thought to be 1,500 years old has been filmed by archaeologists for the first time. Using a tiny video camera, the researchers were able to capture images of the burial chamber in Palenque in south-eastern Mexico. As the device was lowered 16ft (5m) down into the tomb, they saw red paint and black figures emblazoned on its walls. The scientists say the images will shed new light on the Mayan civilisation.   link

Micro-camera Provides First Peek Inside Mayan Tomb

A Mayan tomb closed to the world for 1,500 years has finally revealed some of its secrets as scientists snaked a tiny camera into a red-and-black painted burial chamber.
The room, decorated with paintings of nine figures, also contains pottery, jade pieces and shell, archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) reported Thursday (June 23).
The tomb is located in Palenque, an expansive set of stone ruins in the Mexican state of Chiapas. According to the INAH, the tomb was discovered in 1999 under a building called Temple XX. But the stonework and location prevented exploration.   link

Human infants capable of advanced reasoning

Recent research reported in PhysOrg showed that babies seem to be able to distinguish right from wrong even at the age of six months, and consistently choose helpful characters over unhelpful ones. Now new research suggests very young children are also able to use advanced reasoning to solve problems. Scientists Hyowon Gweon and Laura Schulz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US studied 83 16-month-old infants to find out if they could distinguish between events caused by themselves and outside influences and how the difference would affect their reactions to failed outcomes.   link

Diet reverses type 2 diabetes

A Newcastle University team has discovered that Type 2 diabetes can be reversed by an extreme low calorie diet alone. Affecting two and half million people in the UK – and on the increase – Type 2 diabetes is a long-term condition caused by too much glucose, a type of sugar, in the blood.  In an early stage clinical trial of 11 people, funded by Diabetes UK, all reversed their diabetes by drastically cutting their food intake to just 600 calories a day for two months. And three months later, seven remained free of diabetes.   link

Baby star blasts jets of water into space

Astronomers have found a nascent star 750 light years from earth that shoots colossal jets of water -- a cosmic fire hose -- out its poles in bullet-like pulses. In a process that almost defies adjectives and analogies, each jet of water is the equivalent of a hundred million times the water flowing through the Amazon River every second and the speed of the jet is the equivalent of 80 times the muzzle velocity of an AK-47 assault rifle. The blast creates huge shockwaves around the star and the process may be responsible for sprinkling the universe with water. And it could go on for a thousand years in each star. Astronomers think all baby stars go through this process as they form, and that our sun did it too once.   link

City Life Could Change Your Brain for the Worse

Meyer-Lindenberg’s findings, published June 23 in Nature, are a neurological investigation into the underpinnings of a disturbing social trend: As a rule, city life seems to generate mental illness.

Compared to their rural counterparts, city dwellers have higher levels of anxiety and mood disorders. The schizophrenia risk of people raised in cities is almost double. Literature on the effect is so thorough that researchers say it’s not just correlation, as might be expected if anxious people preferred to live in cities. Neither is it a result of heredity. It’s a cause-and-effect relationship between environment and mind.  link

New Apple Technology Stops iPhones From Filming Live Events

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Fans at concerts and sports games may soon be stopped from using their iPhones to film the action -- as a result of new technology being considered by Apple, The Times of London reported Thursday. The California company has plans to build a system that will sense when a person is trying to film a live event using a cell phone and automatically switch off their camera. A patent application filed by Apple, and obtained by the Times, reveals how the software would work. If a person were to hold up their iPhone, the device would trigger the attention of infra-red sensors installed at the venue. These sensors would then instruct the iPhone to disable its camera.   link

Terrorist 'pre-crime' detector field tested in United States

Planning a sojourn in the northeastern United States? You could soon be taking part in a novel security programme that can supposedly 'sense' whether you are planning to commit a crime.
Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programme designed to spot people who are intending to commit a terrorist act, has in the past few months completed its first round of field tests at an undisclosed location in the northeast, Nature has learned.  NatureNews link

Man Robs Bank Of $1 To Get Health Care In Jail

A 59-year-old man has been jailed in Gastonia, N.C., on charges of larceny after allegedly robbing an RBC Bank for $1 so he could get health care in prison. Richard James Verone handed a female teller a note demanding the money and claiming that he had a gun, according to the police report.   He then sat down and waited for police to arrive. “… I say, ‘I’ll be sitting right over here, on the chair, waiting for the police,’” Verone told reporters, recalling the June 9 robbery in an interview from Gaston County Jail. Verone said he asked for $1 to show that his motives were medical, not monetary, according to news reports. With a growth in his chest, two ruptured disks and no job, Verone hoped a three-year stint in prison would afford him the health care he needed. (end)   link

Humans May Have ’Magnetic’ Sixth Sense

Humans may have a sixth sense after all, suggests a new study finding that a protein in the human retina, when placed into fruit flies, has the ability to detect magnetic fields. The researchers caution that the results suggest this human protein has the capability to work as a magnetosensor; however, whether or not humans use it in that way is not known. "It poses the question, ’maybe we should rethink about this sixth sense,’" Steven Reppert, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, told LiveScience. "It is thought to be very important for how animals migrate. Perhaps this protein is also fulfilling an important function for sensing magnetic fields in humans."   link

Women can't keep breast implants for life: FDA

The Food and Drug Administration will work to revise safety labels for silicone breast implants after reviewing data from several long-term studies, which also showed that the products had a small link to a rare form of cancer.  (Reuters) - Women who get silicone breast implants are likely to need additional surgery within 10 years to address complications such as rupturing of the device, U.S. health regulators said on Wednesday.  link

Half of World's Refugees are Running From US Wars

America’s wars are forcing Afghans and Iraqis to flee their homes in greater numbers. According to a recent U.N. High Commission for Refugees study, nearly one half of the world’s refugees are from Afghanistan and Iraq, 3.05 million and 1.68 million, respectively. But neither the United States nor much of the developed world bears the burden of the 10.55 million refugees under the UNHCR’s purview globally. Instead, Pakistan, Iran, and Syria serve as the top host countries. The Economist has charted the numbers:   link

Dolphins kept vigil on Irishman's body

A GRIEVING mother said yesterday that she drew comfort at her son’s funeral yesterday after learning that a pod of dolphins had kept a vigil on his body after his fatal accident in Australia.   link

Mirage "City" Mysteriously Appears in China - Projection Technology or Vortex?

Where is the Chinese reports about this phenomena?
Here is the link to the original video report at ITN: Buildings and mountains appear in China mirage
-From Huffington post: ITN, a broadcast network in Britain, posted video last week of a stunning mirage in East China that features a city skyline, replete with what appear to be buildings and trees.
-Video-curation site Devour.com writes the mirage appeared over the Xin'an River in East China.
-ITN is the only news network to report on it, although MSN UK picked up the video.
-This is not the first time mirages like this, which Devour calls superior mirages, have been reported in China. In 2006, China Daily, an English language newspaper, posted four images of what it said were mirages off the coast of Eastern China's Shandong province. 
Source; huffingtonpost.com   link

Japan’s newest popstar outed as CGI creation

Miss Eguchi blogged that her goal is “to become a new idol like never before by taking the best parts of my AKB big sisters”. This was true, but in a creepy-Frankenstein kind of way.  Turns out that Aimi Eguchi is in fact a composite CGI creation using the body parts of the other 7 band members.

“Her less than organic origins were exposed when fans of the band became suspicious about the appearance of its newest member, remarking that she bore a striking similarity to some of her band-mates. While it is not unusual for new faces to join AKB – the band has 48 members with older girls often being replaced by newcomers when they “graduate” onto modelling and acting – something was obviously amiss.
 And there were other clues. Her birthday – February 11 – is the date of the founding in 1922 of confectioner Ezaki Glico and rearranging the letters of her name in Japanese spells out the company’s name.
Soon, Ezaki Glico was forced to come clean and admit that the nation’s newest pop sensation was a fake. It turned out that Miss Eguchi had been born from a computer programme and piece together from the best features of six of the band members. In fact, she had borrowed the the eyes of Atsuko Maeda, the mouth of Mariko Shinoda and the nose of Tomomi Itano. Her singing voice came straight from the vocal chords of Yukari Sasaki.”
- The Telegraph   link

Massive Nebula Discovered Enveloping the Red Supergiant Betelgeuse

The small red circle in the middle is Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in the constellation of Orion, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. with a diameter about four and half times that of the Earth’s orbit. The black disc corresponds to a very bright part of the image that was masked to allow the fainter nebula to be seen.  link

12 Things That The Mainstream Media Is Being Strangely Quiet About Right Now

As the mainstream media continues to be obsessed with Anthony Weiner and his bizarre adventures on Twitter, much more serious events are happening around the world that are getting very little attention.  In America today, if the mainstream media does not cover something it is almost as if it never happened. Right now, the worst nuclear disaster in human history continues to unfold in Japan , U.S. nuclear facilities are being threatened by flood waters, the U.S. military is bombing Yemen, gigantic cracks in the earth are appearing all over the globe and the largest wildfire in Arizona history is causing immense devastation.  But Anthony Weiner, Bristol Palin and Miss USA are what the mainstream media want to tell us about and most Americans are buying it.
In times like these, it is more important than ever to think for ourselves.  The corporate-owned mainstream media is not interested in looking out for us.  Rather, they are going to tell us whatever fits with the agenda that their owners are pushing.
That is why more Americans than ever are turning to the alternative media.  Americans are hungry for the truth, and they know that the amount of truth that they get from the mainstream media continues to decline.
The following are 12 things that the mainstream media is being strangely quiet about right now....

#1 The crisis at the Fort Calhoun nuclear facility in Nebraska has received almost no attention in the national mainstream media.    link

NASA Emails ALL Employees to PREPARE! June 10, 2011

Comets Honda and Elenin fulfill Mayan, Hopi and Christian Prophesies as the Mayan calendar approaches its end on October 28, 2011 - Carl Calleman

Many people have now heard about the upcoming entry to the inner solar system of the comet Elenin (http://elenin.org) and there is a whole range of ideas and speculations about what this might entail. Comets have always been seen as harbingers of auspicious or (more commonly) ominous tidings and this one certainly is no exception. Ideas have been suggested that it is in fact a brown dwarf star, a spaceship or causes earthquakes. Regardless, this upcoming fall two comets, Honda and Elenin, later to be followed by Levy, will arrive creating a sequence of celestial bodies in the skies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swhme7X7tWI). The comet Elenin, which has received the greatest attention of these, is estimated to be at its shortest distance from Earth around October 16-20, 2011 close to the midpoint of the seventh day of the Ninth wave (or Universal Underworld). Especially since this is right before the true 13 Ahau culmination date of the Mayan calendar (October 28, 2011), this comet is, regardless of the specific nature and role that it may have, an end time phenomenon. These comets will then arrive against the background of deepening global political and economic chaos produced because the institutions of the world are not consistent with the incoming unity consciousness of the Ninth wave. This mandates a study of how this comet is related to end time prophecies from various sources.  link

3 Comets ELENIN LEVY & HONDA. ARE ON THE WAY NOW 2011 !!
http://www.astrosociety.org/elenin/ab2011-72.pdf 
2012 - Apocalypse or New Sun ?  
URGENT! 3 DAYS OF DARKNESS - ELENIN ECLIPSES SUN 
Woman predicts March 11 (Comet ELenin) 

Three Comets Soon to Arrive - Hopi Prophecy is Fulfilled

2012 - Apocalypse or New Sun ?

Image of the Day -The Brightest Object in the Observable Universe

At the center of this barred spiral galaxy lurks quasar QSO 1229+204 -- an object brighter than anything in the known universe. The distant quasar appears so bright that astronomers had to use the high resolving power of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) just to observe the host galaxy that astronomers discovered is in the process of colliding with a dwarf galaxy, which possibly fuels a supermassive black hole causing QSO 1229+204 to shine so brightly. link

Graham Hancock & Robert Bauval on Elephantine discussing the Ark of the Covenant

Scientists Successfully Implant Chip That Controls The Brain Allowing Thoughts, Memory And Behavior To Be Transferred From One Brain To Another

In a scene right out of a George Orwell novel, a team of scientists working in the fields of “neural engineering” and “Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems” have successfully created a chip that controls the brain and can be used as a storage device for long-term memories. In studies the scientists have been able to record, download and transfer memories into other hosts with the same chip implanted. The advancement in technology brings the world one step closer to a global police state and the reality of absolute mind control.
More terrifying is the potential for implementation of what was only a science fiction fantasy – the “Thought Police” – where the government reads people’s memories and thoughts and then rehabilitate them through torture before they ever even commit a crime based on a statistical computer analysis showing people with certain types of thoughts are likely to commit a certain type of crime in the future.
We already pre-emptively invade nations and torture alleged terrorist suspects with absolutely no due process of law, so the idea of pre-emptively torturing a terrorist suspect before hand to prevent them from committing an act of terrorism in the future really isn’t that far fetched of an idea.   link

Unbelievable! Court Rules US Taxpayers, Not BP Or Transocean, Are Liable For Gulf Oil Spill Clean Up Costs

US District court has dismissed over 100,000 lawsuits brought against BP And Transocean to pay for oil spill clean up costs and environmental damages caused to the Gulf of Mexico from the BP Gulf Oil Spill. The court ruled that injury stopped the moment the well was sealed and the Federal Government, aka The US Taxpayer, is now liable for clean up costs along with any damages caused by deficiencies of the cleanup of the Gulf Of Mexico.   link  

Evidence of Ancient Electrical Devices found in the Great Pyramid?

Because of the machine like technical appearance of the Great Pyramid and the precision with which it was built, in 1977, I began developing a theory that the original function of the Great Pyramid was not a tomb but a power plant. Within the context of the power plant, all its attributes and anomalous features that other theories were unable to explain without resorting to religious symbolism, found a practical answer. The Queen’s Chamber, I proposed, served as a reaction chamber and the shafts leading to this chamber supplied two chemicals that when mixed together created hydrogen. In 1993 I was viewing the exploration by Gantenbrink and when Upuaut II came to the end of the shaft, what is now famously known as Gantenbrink’s “door” came into view with two metal pins attached.   link

Explore tunnels inside Great Pyramid of Giza in 3D tour

On 25 May, New Scientist was first to reveal some exciting findings from an innovative robotic exploration of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. A robot built at Leeds University in the UK, called Djedi, explored a mysterious tunnel thought to lead to a secret chamber in the pyramid - providing stunning pictures of so-far-undeciphered hieroglyphs written in red paint, alongside lines cut into the tunnel walls by stone masons. All are currently being analysed by egyptologists - and many more revelations are expected as Djedi's video streams are interpreted over time.

Dassault Systèmes, a technology partner of the Leeds roboticists, has produced a compelling video fly-through to help people understand precisely where the tunnel was in the pyramid and where the hieroglyphics had been found.  link

Animals and Love: Exclusive Excerpt From Exultant Ark

On the question of love’s existence in the hearts and minds of animals, science has been mainly mute. Few textbooks on animals discuss the possibility of love. For instance, the word love can be found in neither the index of The Oxford Companion to Animal Behavior nor the Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior. There are, I think, two main reasons for this. First, it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove feelings of love in another individual, even a human. This is the challenge of private experiences. It is why the study of animal feelings in general was largely neglected for the century following the 1872 publication of Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. But humans can at least give verbal expression to their loving feelings; so far, animals cannot, although there is the potential for revelations from language-taught great apes.

Second, our sense of superiority over other animals has made us loath to accept the idea that they can have such presumably complex feelings as love. That nonhumans are conscious remains controversial for some scientists, although their numbers are dwindling. Nevertheless, biologists usually use the term bond in place of love when referring to nonhumans. This is a safety net to avoid anthropomorphism.   link

Scientists find out what fear looks like from space

In what is believed to be the first research of its kind, University of Technology, Sydney marine biologist Dr Elizabeth Madin and colleagues - including Dr. Joshua Madin of Macquarie University and Professor David Booth from UTS - have used Google Earth satellite images to observe the indirect effects of behavioural interactions between predators and prey in the lagoon habitat at Heron Island.
The results, published in the paper "Landscape of fear visible from space" in the first issue of the journal Nature Scientific Reports, have revealed distinct patterns of grazing halos - rings of bare sand devoid of seaweed - within the algal beds surrounding isolated groups of coral.  link

Creatures not adapting to environmental changes in Antarctic, study finds

Organisms found in the Antarctic region are not quick to adapt to changes in the environment, new international research shows. The study, carried out by 200 scientists from 15 countries, is the culmination of a 7-month expedition on board the Polarstern vessel of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research in the German-based Helmholtz Association.   link

Port of Athens Was Once an Island, French-Greek Team Finds

Piraeus, the main port of Athens, was an island from 4 800 -- 3 400 BC, in other words 4 500 years before the Parthenon was built on the Acropolis. This discovery was made by a French-Greek team (1) led by Jean-Philippe Goiran, a CNRS researcher at the 'Archéorient -- Environnements et Sociétés de l'Orient Ancien' Unit (CNRS/Université Lyon 2), who studied and dated sediments collected in the Piraeus area. The research was carried out in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Athens, Paris 1 and Paris Ouest, and is published in the June 2011 issue of the journal Geology.   link

Breeding with Neanderthals helped humans go global

WHEN the first modern humans left Africa they were ill-equipped to cope with unfamiliar diseases. But by interbreeding with the local hominins, it seems they picked up genes that protected them and helped them eventually spread across the planet. The publication of the Neanderthal genome last year offered proof that Homo sapiens bred with Neanderthals after leaving Africa. There is also evidence that suggests they enjoyed intimate relations with other hominins including the Denisovans, a species identified last year from a Siberian fossil. But what wasn't known is whether the interbreeding made any difference to their evolution. To find out Peter Parham of Stanford University in California took a closer look at the genes they picked up along the way.  link

Honeybees Might Have Emotions

Honeybees have become the first invertebrates to exhibit pessimism, a benchmark cognitive trait supposedly limited to “higher” animals. If these honeybee blues are interpreted as they would be in dogs or horses or humans, then insects might have feelings. Honeybee response “has more in common with that of vertebrates than previously thought,” wrote Newcastle University researchers Melissa Bateson and Jeri Wright in their bee study, published June 2 in Current Biology. The findings “suggest that honeybees could be regarded as exhibiting emotions.”
Bateson and Wright tested their bees with a type of experiment designed to show whether animals are, like humans, capable of experiencing cognitive states in which ambiguous information is interpreted in negative fashion.  link

The complete Akkadian dictionary

Akkadian, or Assyro-Babylonian, is the oldest attested written language – the code for the cuneiform writing system. Texts written in Akkadian date back as early as 2800 BC, and although it hasn’t been spoken for well over two thousand years, the language can be considered invaluable to the unraveling of the first human civilizations from Mesopotamia.

A hundred years in the making, the last volume in a exhaustive series of Akkadian dictionaries was finally completed and released by scholars at the University of Chicago. The 21 complete volumes have been elaborated as a result of pain painstakingly analyzing and deciphering hundreds of thousands of clay tablets.   link

CERN LHC Creates Temperatures 100,000 Times Hotter than the Center of the Sun

Scientists using the world's largest atom smasher have created some of the hottest and densest matter ever achieved on Earth achieving a state of matter called a quark gluon plasma that existed in the milliseconds after the big bang 13.7 billion years ago.

Physicists using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Centre for Nuclear Research, smashed heavy lead ions together at close to the speed of light, generating temperatures of more than 1.6 trillion degrees Celsius, 100,000 times hotter than the center of the Sun.   link

Scientists Prove Existence of 'Magnetic Ropes' That Cause Solar Storms

George Mason University scientists discovered recently that a phenomenon called a giant magnetic rope is the cause of solar storms. Confirming the existence of this formation is a key first step in helping to mitigate the adverse effects that solar storm eruptions can have on satellite communications on Earth. 

The discovery was made by associate professor Jie Zhang and his graduate student Xin Cheng using images from the NASA Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) spacecraft.   link

Tsunami lit up the heavens

Japan’s recent monster earthquake did more than jolt the island nation and send a tsunami racing across the Pacific Ocean. Hundreds of kilometers overhead, that tsunami also lit up the atmosphere in celestial glowing ripples.

In the first picture of its kind, scientists photographed these “airglow” ripples as they washed over Hawaii hours after the quake. The report will appear in an upcoming Geophysical Research Letters.   link 

International Particle of Mystery

The ­generic line on dark matter is that nobody knows what it is because nobody has seen it. The former claim remains unassailable—any number of hypothetical particles could be dark matter. As to whether or not anybody has seen it, scientists are as divided as ever, and the discourse among rival dark matter hunters is getting chippy. The controversy centers on an Italy-based research group that runs DAMA, a particle detector that the researchers have claimed for years is picking up dark matter particles. But the group has been secretive about its data, critics say, and physicists have by and large remained skeptical. Indeed, in April a top experimental collab­oration known as XENON100 reported findings that appeared to rule out the possibility that DAMA’s signal came from dark matter.   link  

Mercury's Messenger Reveals Surprises

On March 18, 2011, the MESSENGER spacecraft entered orbit around Mercury to become that planet's first orbiter. Mercury, the last frontier of planetary exploration that NASA will reach for quite some time, "is the last of the classical planets, the planets known to the astronomers of Egypt and Greece and Rome and the Far East,” said Sean C. Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the mission’s principal investigator. “It’s an object that has captivated the imagination and the attention of astronomers for millennia.”  link

Aurora Mystery Solved?

On Jan. 20, 2010, Per-Arne Mikalsen was photographing a vast aurora erupting over the northern Norwegian town of Andenes. Because solar activity is on the increase, aurora spotters have many opportunities to see the Northern Lights. On this particular night the aurora was intense, stretching toward the southern latitudes of Norway.In one of the photographs taken by Mikalsen was an "object" that couldn't be identified. Although Mikalsen had taken several images at the same location, just one photo showed a mysterious green parachute-like object hanging with the main aurora. (This time, it appears that the Russian military was not involved in the making of this strange shape in the sky.)
At first it seemed easy to dismiss the object as a lens flare or a spot on the camera lens, but after further study it became clear that the answer wasn't that simple.   link

Will Timothy Leary's papers turn us on to LSD?

What was Timothy Leary really up to? We may soon know more now that the New York public library is buying 335 boxes of his papers, videotapes, letters and photographs for $900,000. Once it has spent 18 months to two years sorting them out, the collection will be available to the public. These papers are not just the rants of this decidedly peculiar man – the 1960s drugs guru whom Richard Nixon called "the most dangerous man in America". There is correspondence with the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Cary Grant, Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Arthur Koestler.   link

Image of the Day: The Ghostly World of a Dying Star

The incredibly beautiful planetary nebula, NGC 6210, is a complex cloud of gas produced in the dying stages of a star slightly less massive than our Sun., about 6,500 light-years away, in the constellation of Hercules. In this image, NGC 6210, multiple shells of gas ejected by the dying star are superimposed on one another in different orientations, giving the nebula its odd shape.  This extraordinary image shows the inner region of this planetary nebula in unprecedented detail, where the central star is surrounded by a thin, bluish bubble that has a delicate filamentary structure, superposed onto an asymmetric, reddish gas complex where holes, filaments and pillars are clearly visible.   link

No simple solution for Great Lakes Water losses greater than thought, new study claims

Two new studies have thrown everything we thought we knew about the missing water of the Great Lakes into question, again. As often happens in big environmental conundrums, ordinary citizens are left wondering helplessly which computer model to believe. And any measure that helps one part of the lakes is pretty much guaranteed to do harm to others up or downstream. The lakes hold one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water. In the late 1990s, water levels fell sharply in Lakes Huron and Michigan, which are joined at the north end. Docks and harbours were suddenly high and dry, and plants invaded former sand beaches. Residents blamed dredging in the St. Clair River, which drains Lake Huron to the south. Too much dredging to let the big freighters through sucks out water, they claimed, like a bathtub with too big a drain.  link

 

Secret of NIMH? Memory Implant Boosts Brain Function in Rats

Benedict Carey writes in the New York Times:
Though still a long way from being tested in humans, the implant demonstrates for the first time that a cognitive function can be improved with a device that mimics the firing patterns of neurons. In recent years neuroscientists have developed implants that allow paralyzed people to move prosthetic limbs or a computer cursor, using their thoughts to activate the machines.
In the new work, being published Friday, researchers at Wake Forest University and the University of Southern California used some of the same techniques to read neural activity. But they translated those signals internally, to improve brain function rather than to activate outside appendages.   link

Marine Life Facing Mass Extinction, Report Says

London (CNN) -- Marine life is under severe threat from global warming, pollution and habitat loss, with a high risk of "major extinctions" according to a panel of experts.
These are the conclusions of a distinguished group of marine scientists who met at Oxford University, England, in April to discuss the impact of human activity on the world's oceans.The meeting, led by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), examined the combined effects of pollution, acidification, ocean warming, over-fishing and depleting levels of oxygen in the water.   link

China Water Spout - June 13, 2011

Pictures: Over one million evacuated in China floods

BEIJING - MORE than one million people in China have been evacuated following downpours that have raised water levels in rivers to critical highs, and triggered floods and landslides, the government has said.

The summer rains have left at least 168 people dead or missing so far, and weather authorities warned Friday that flood-hit areas across the southern half of China would experience a fresh round of heavy rainfall.   link

GASLAND Trailer 2010

http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

Seismic equipment sent to assess weird 'rumblings' in Windsor and Essex County

WINDSOR, Ont. — Natural Resources Canada is sending in seismic monitoring equipment following recent complaints about mysterious rumblings and vibrations in Windsor and Essex County. “We reached out to NRC because they have the equipment,” said Teri Gilbert, issues project co-ordinator for the local Ontario Environment Ministry office. “They have agreed to provide assistance to us. The equipment will be deployed this week in the latest bid to identify the source of rumblings that have disturbed dozens of area residents.
The ministry has identified four locations within the city where the seismic monitors will be set up. link

Leading Financial Advisers, Trend Forecasters Urge People to Protect Themselves from Coming Unrest

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/06/leading-financial-advisers-and-trend.html

Why women really do love self-obsessed psychopaths

Bad boys, it seems, really do get all the girls. Women might claim they want caring, thoughtful types but scientists have discovered what they really want – self-obsessed, lying psychopaths.

A study has found that men with the "dark triad" of traits – narcissism, thrill- seeking and deceitfulness – are likely to have a larger number of sexual affairs. Peter Jonason, of New Mexico University in Las Cruces, believes that these traits may have an innate, genetic component that explains why some men seem unable to stop themselves behaving badly. The dark triad of traits are the self-obsession of narcissism, the impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous behaviour of psychopaths and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism. "We have some evidence these traits may represent a successful evolutionary strategy," Dr Jonason told New Scientist magazine.   link

Human consciousness is much more than mere brain activity

How does the animated meat inside our heads produce the rich life of the mind? Why is it that when we reflect or meditate we have all manner of sensations and thoughts but never feel neurons firing? It's called the "hard problem", and it's a problem the physician, philosopher and author Raymond Tallis believes we have lost sight of – with potentially disastrous results. In his new book, Aping Mankind – about which he was talking this week at the British Academy – he describes the cultural disease that afflicts us when we assume that we are nothing but a bunch of neurons. Neuromania arises from the doctrine that consciousness is the same as brain activity or, to be slightly more sophisticated, that consciousness is just the way that we experience brain activity.
If you think the brain is a machine then you are committed to saying that composing a sublime poem is as involuntary an activity as having an epileptic fit. You will issue press releases announcing "the discovery of love" or "the seat of creativity", stapled to images of the brain with blobs helpfully highlighted in red or blue, that journalists reproduce like medieval acolytes parroting the missives of popes. You will start to assume that the humanities are really branches of biology in an immature form.  link