Science Must Never Be Politicized Nor "Suppressed"

EPA analyst Alan Carlin raised questions about the impact of global warming on areas like Greenland. Shown here is an iceberg off Ammassalik Island, Greenland. (AP Photo)

Sen. Inhofe Calls for Inquiry Into 'Suppressed' Climate Change Report -- FOX News

Republicans are raising questions about why the EPA apparently dismissed an analyst's report questioning the science behind global warming.

A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency's alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming.

The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin's report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.

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My Comment: News like this only reinforces the perception that climate change is driven more by politics than by science.

First Electronic Quantum Processor Created

The two-qubit processor is the first solid-state quantum processor that resembles a conventional computer chip and is able to run simple algorithms. (Credit: Blake Johnson/Yale University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 29, 2009) — A team led by Yale University researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.

They also used the two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run elementary algorithms, such as a simple search, demonstrating quantum information processing with a solid-state device for the first time. Their findings will appear in Nature's advanced online publication June 28.

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Getting Old Is Better Than Expected

From Live Science:

When do we get old? People age 18 to 29 say "old age" starts at about 60. But those in middle-age figure it starts at 70. And those 65 and older put the threshold at 74.

So it goes with other perceptions about aging in a new survey form the Pew Research Center. The disparities between what younger people expect will happen as they age, and what really happens, are stark.

Good memory, good health, good sex. It's enough to make the grandkids cringe!

Adults age 18 to 64 were asked what they expect will happen when they get old. Those 65 and older were asked what actually has happened to them. The results (18-64 / 65 and older):

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Oldest Known Portrait Of St Paul Revealed By Vatican Archaeologists

The 4th-century portrait was found in the catacombs of St Thecla,
not far from the Basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls.

From Times Online:

Vatican archaeologists have uncovered what they say is the oldest known portrait of St Paul. The portrait, which was found two weeks ago but has been made public only after restoration, shows St Paul with a high domed forehead, deep-set eyes and a long pointed beard, confirming the image familiar from later depictions.

L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, which devoted two pages to the discovery, said that the oval portrait, dated to the 4th century, had been found in the catacombs of St Thecla, not far from the Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls, where the apostle is buried. The find was “an extraordinary event”, said Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

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Swine Flu 'Shows Drug Resistance'

From The BBC:

Experts have reported the first case of swine flu that is resistant to tamiflu - the main drug being used to fight the pandemic.

Roche Holding AG confirmed a patient with H1N1 influenza in Denmark showed resistance to the antiviral drug.

David Reddy, company executive, said it was not unexpected given that common seasonal flu could do the same.

The news comes as a nine-year-old girl has become the third to die in the UK with swine flu.

It is understood from her doctors at Birmingham Children's Hospital that she had underlying health conditions. It is not yet known whether swine flu contributed to her death.

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Men Agree On What's Hot In The Opposite Sex (But Girls Do Not)

Image: Queen of the seductive pose: Katie Price ticks the boxes for men as she is thin and confident

From The Daily Mail:

Men agree on what is attractive in the opposite sex far more than women do, says a study.

The survey of 4,000 adults found that most men liked women who were thin and posing seductively.

Women, in contrast, were enticed by a far wider range of male characteristics.

The results could explain why women feel pressured to conform to a narrow view of attractiveness, and suffer more eating disorders, the scientists said.

Participants in the study rated photographs of men and women aged 18 to 25 for attractiveness.

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Great Wall of Facebook: The Social Network's Plan to Dominate the Internet — and Keep Google Out

From Wired News:

Larry Page should have been in a good mood. It was the fall of 2007, and Google's cofounder was in the middle of a five-day tour of his company's European operations in Zurich, London, Oxford, and Dublin. The trip had been fun, a chance to get a ground-floor look at Google's ever-expanding empire. But this week had been particularly exciting, for reasons that had nothing to do with Europe; Google was planning a major investment in Facebook, the hottest new company in Silicon Valley.

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High-Tech Telescopes Yield New Galactic Photos: Gallery

From Popular Mechanics:

Some of the most important telescopes ever created are now floating in space. A freshly repaired Hubble Space Telescope is again snapping pictures, NASA's Kepler telescope is orbiting Earth fresh off its first light and Herschel—the largest space telescope ever—has taken its first images since its May 14th launch. While astronomers using ground-based telescopes are finding exoplanets at an impressive rate, thanks to refined techniques and collaborative efforts, space telescopes operating from beyond Earth's atmosphere have a geographic edge: With no interference, they can get a clearer view of the universe. The following images show some of the spectacular sights astronomers have been able to glimpse through the new hardware.

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Innovation: Physics Brings Realism To Virtual Reality

From New Scientist:

Innovation is our regular column that highlights the latest emerging technological ideas and where they may lead.

Computer games have come a long way from the pixelated graphics of the 1980s to the more polished characters of today. But the inexorable creep of Moore's Law has now taken us to the brink of further giant changes.

The latest multi-core processors and some smart software allow techniques used by physicists and engineers to simulate the real world in extreme detail to be used to create virtual worlds governed by real physics, rather than the simplified versions used today.

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Debate: Can The Internet Handle Big Breaking News?

From CNET News:

It happens time and time again: when news breaks, the Internet slows.

It's quite obvious at this point that the Internet has muscled its way into the lives of anyone who needs information. And Michael Jackson's death Thursday had as great an impact on the Internet as anything in the history of the medium that didn't involve the World Trade Center.

The statistics are amazing: Akamai said worldwide Internet traffic was 11 percent higher than normal during the peak hours between 3 p.m. PDT and 4 p.m., when news of Jackson's death was breaking. That traffic forced even Google to its knees for a brief period of time Thursday afternoon.

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Archaeological Treasure Trove Surfaces In S.C.

From The State:

HILTON HEAD — An archaeologist who’s been digging at the Topper Site in Allendale County for 11 years is uncovering new evidence that could rewrite America’s history.

University of South Carolina archaeologist Albert Goodyear found artifacts at this rock quarry site near the Savannah River that indicate humans lived here 37,000 years before the Clovis people. History books say the Clovis were the first Americans and arrived here 13,000 years ago by walking across a land bridge from Asia.

Goodyear’s discovery could prove otherwise.

His findings are controversial, opening scientific minds to the possibility of an even earlier pre-Clovis occupation of America.

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Why A Low-Calorie Diet Extends Lifespans: Critical Enzyme Pair Identified

The enzyme WWP-1, shown in green, is a key player in the signaling cascade that links dietary restriction to longevity in roundworms. Sensory neurons are shown in red. (Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Andrea C. Carrano, Salk Institute for Biological Studies)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 28, 2009) — Experiment after experiment confirms that a diet on the brink of starvation expands lifespan in mice and many other species. But the molecular mechanism that links nutrition and survival is still poorly understood. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified a pivotal role for two enzymes that work together to determine the health benefits of diet restriction.

When lacking one enzyme or the other, roundworms kept on a severely calorie-restricted diet no longer live past their normal lifespan, they report in the June 24, 2009, advance online edition of the journal Nature.

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Potential New Drugs Put at 970 Million

From Live Science:

Millions of new and useful drugs remain undiscovered. All chemists need to do is mix the right stuff.

That's the view of a new study that analyzes the "chemical universe" to identify existing molecules that could be combined into as-yet unknown chemicals. The researchers estimate there are at least 970 million chemicals suitable for study as new drugs.

The researchers have created a new publicly available database of the virtual molecules, and they will detail their results in the July 1 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

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Electronic Nose Can Pinpoint Where Wine Was Made

The new technology is said to be able to pinpoint where wine was made,
even identifying the barrel in which it fermented.

From The Telegraph:

Scientists have developed a way of identifying wine so accurately they can even say which barrel it was produced in.

It uses an electronic nose to make even the most confident sommelier a little nervous.

The technique exploits the unique and complex mix of thousands of compounds found in each bottle of wine that gives the drink subtly different scents and flavours

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Stone Age Wells Found In Cyprus

From The BBC:

Archaeologists have found a group of water wells in western Cyprus believed to be among the oldest in the world.

The skeleton of a young woman was among items found at the bottom of one shaft.

Radiocarbon dating indicates the wells are 9,000 to 10,500 years old, putting them in the Stone Age, the Cypriot Antiquities Department says.

A team from Edinburgh University has found six such wells, near the coastal town of Paphos. They are said to show the sophistication of early settlers.

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Google Voice Gives You One Number to Ring Them All

From Popsci.com:

The service, which launched publicly this week, includes automatic transcription of voicemail and recording of calls

Google Voice is one of those technical advancements that could change your way of communication. With it, you can sign up for a single phone number that rings every phone you own. Then you can hand out the number to everyone you know.

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PICTURES: Prehistoric European Cave Artists Were Female

From National Geographic:

June 16, 2009--Inside France's 25,000-year-old Pech Merle cave, hand stencils surround the famed "Spotted Horses" mural.

For about as long as humans have created works of art, they've also left behind handprints. People began stenciling, painting, or chipping imprints of their hands onto rock walls at least 30,000 years ago.

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China’s Manufacturing Boom Has Brought Widespread Pollution And Unexpected Changes To The Bodies, Minds, And Souls Of The Chinese People

A River Runs Through It -- Search Magazine

China’s manufacturing boom has brought widespread pollution—and unexpected changes to the bodies, minds, and souls of the Chinese people.

The cancer ward of Shenqiu County Hospital is busy on this weekday morning. Bicycles and motorbikes are scattered around the dusty brick courtyard and a white doctor’s jacket hangs from a tree to dry. A line of people stand outside a small one-story concrete building, patiently waiting their turn for a few minutes with Dr. Wang Yong Zeng, the chief oncologist. Most carry their life’s medical records with them, clutching the thick folders full of X-rays and documents tightly to their chest.

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Black Holes On A Desktop

From The Economist:

Sound may offer a better way than light to test Stephen Hawking’s prediction that black holes emit radiation.

WHEN the Large Hadron Collider, a giant particle accelerator near Geneva, was switched on last September, the press was full of scare stories about the risk of it producing a tiny black hole that would, despite its minuscule size, quickly swallow the Earth. In fact, the first test runs could never have made such an object. And, just over a week later, the LHC broke and has not yet been repaired. But it is true that one of the things its operators would like to create, if and when they get it going again, are miniature versions of those fabled astronomical objects whose intense gravity means no light can escape them.

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One In 25 Deaths Worldwide Attributable To Alcohol

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 27, 2009) — Research from Canada's own Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) featured in this week's edition of the Lancet shows that worldwide, 1 in 25 deaths are directly attributable to alcohol consumption. This rise since 2000 is mainly due to increases in the number of women drinking.

CAMH's Dr Jürgen Rehm and his colleagues found that alcohol-attributable disorders are among the most disabling disease categories within the global burden of disease, especially for men. And in contrast to other traditional risk factors for disease, the burden attributable to alcohol lies more with younger people than with the older population.

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