Illegal Contraband, Raw Milk! Farmers Arrested.

By Alice Wessendorf 

Raw milk is illegal to sell in most states in the USA.

Advocates of raw cow’s milk drink it because they believe it is superior to pasteurized milk and that it provides numerous health benefits.

But people are actually being arrested for selling it. Is this really to protect the consumer or is it a conspiracy to protect the profits of the dairy industry?

Source: http://www.healthiertalk.com/illegal-contraband-raw-milk-farmers-arrested ; September 5, 2010.

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How to Remake Life

By Katherine Bourzac   

With a precise motion, Li Ma, a technician at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, MD, pipettes a cherry-red solution of bacterial cells into a vial that contains a clear solution of fragile DNA loops. These loops, the largest pieces of DNA ever assembled in the lab, are each capable of controlling all the ordinary functions of a cell. But the DNA didn't originate in any bacteria: instead, scientists pieced it together from bottled chemicals. The process they recently developed for doing this is the first to yield synthetic cells that are capable of surviving. Some of the bacterial cells that Ma is working with will fuse together in the solution, engulfing the synthetic genome and then replicating and living under its control.

Conventional genetic engineering is a lengthy process in which genes are altered one by one, often over successive generations of organisms. That makes radically changing a genome a daunting proposition. But the newly developed techniques allow researchers to edit genomes on a computer, subtracting or adding genes by literally cutting and pasting them in a file. It's more like word processing than the traditional lab work involved in culturing and screening generations of organisms. The researchers can then perform the genetic equivalent of printing out the file, at which point they're able to transplant the result--a new genome--into existing cells. These steps dramatically speed up the engineering process; it might take just weeks to complete experiments that previously would have taken months or years.

Source:  http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25964/?a=f ; September/October 2010.

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Should we rely on natural gas in earthquake zones?

By Mathew E. Kahn 


Environmentalists have mixed feelings about natural gas. It is a fossil fuel but its greenhouse gas emissions are 50% lower than coal and this is why California's electric utilities are relatively "green". But, this horrible explosion in PGE's territory in the outskirts of San Francisco has everyone here wondering whether this is a fluke or a sign of something bigger?

My concern relates to earthquake caused depreciation of the natural gas lines. My family uses natural gas to heat our home and to cook. Do small earthquakes (that occur a lot) weaken the natural gas infrastructure network?

As discussed here, to avoid terrorism risk -- the utilities are not eager to share information with the public concerning whether our homes are close to major natural gas lines. This asymmetric information is not useful. In a well functioning housing market, people are alerted if they live in an earthquake zone or near toxic waste sites and the price of real estate adjusts to reflect compensation for this "bad news".

Now, here is my question. As small earthquakes rock California --- does this accelerate the depreciation of the natural gas infrastructure? For each piece of the natural gas pipe network, I would like to know;

1. When was it built?

2. When was it last inspected?

3. How do the gas providers choose what pieces to inspect?

4. When earthquakes take place, do the utilities invest more effort to determine whether the network is still secure?

5. From an engineering perspective, what "fail-safe" investments can the utility make to minimize the probability of a disaster? Do they have the right incentives to do so? Can they pass such costs on to customers? Does fear of ex-post liability in lawsuits provide sufficient incentive or is there a moral hazard effect because firms such as PGE have insurance?

If I'm right with my hunch that earthquake zones make reliance on natural gas more risky, then maybe this will nudge solar further and stimulate new interest in a second generation of "electric homes"?

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Green-Economics/2010/0914/Should-we-rely-on-natural-gas-in-earthquake-zones ; September 14, 2010.

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China Explores a Frontier 2 Miles Deep

By William J. Broad 

When three Chinese scientists plunged to the bottom of the South China Sea in a tiny submarine early this summer, they did more than simply plant their nation’s flag on the dark seabed. The men, who descended more than two miles in a craft the size of a small truck, also signaled Beijing’s intention to take the lead in exploring remote and inaccessible parts of the ocean floor, which are rich in oil, minerals and other resources that the Chinese would like to mine. And many of those resources happen to lie in areas where China has clashed repeatedly with its neighbors over territorial claims.

After the flag planting, which was done in secret but recorded in a video, Beijing quickly turned the feat of technology into a show of bravado.

“It is a great achievement,” Liu Feng, director of the dives, was quoted as saying by China Daily, an English-language newspaper, which telegraphs government positions to the outside world.

The global seabed is littered with what experts say is trillions of dollars’ worth of mineral nodules as well as many objects of intelligence value: undersea cables carrying diplomatic communications, lost nuclear arms, sunken submarines and hundreds of warheads left over from missile tests.

While a single small craft cannot reel in all these treasures, it does put China in an excellent position to go after them.

“They’re in it for a penny and a pound,” said Don Walsh, a pioneer of deep-ocean diving who recently visited the submersible and its makers in China. “It’s a very deliberate program.”

The small craft that made the trip — named Jiaolong, after a mythical sea dragon — was unveiled publicly late last month after eight years of secretive development. It is designed to go deeper than any other in the world, giving China access to 99.8 percent of the ocean floor.

Technically, it is a submersible. These craft differ from submarines in their small size, their need for a mother ship on the surface, and their ability to dive extraordinarily far despite the darkness and the crushing pressures. The world has only a few.

Jiaolong is meant to go as deep as 7,000 meters, or 4.35 miles, edging out the current global leader. Japan’s Shinkai 6500 can go as deep as 6,500 meters, outperforming craft“all over the world,” according to its makers. Russia, France and the United States lag further behind in the game of going deep.

American experts familiar with the Chinese undersea program say it is unusual in that Beijing has little experience in the daunting field. As a result, China is moving cautiously. Jiaolong’s sea trials began quietly last year and are to continue until 2012, its dives going deeper in increments.

“They’re being very cautious,” Dr. Walsh said. “They respect what they don’t know and are working hard to learn.”

In an interview, Dr. Walsh said that the Chinese were especially interested in avoiding the embarrassment of a disaster that ends with the aquanauts’ entrapment or death. “If I’m the new kid on the block,” he said, “I’m going to make sure that I’ve got bragging rights.”

Still, China is already waving flags. The move resembles how Russian scientists, in the summer of 2007, plunged through the ice pack at the North Pole and planted their flag on the bottom of the ocean. Upon surfacing, the explorers declared that the feat had strengthened Moscow’s claims to nearly half the Arctic seabed.

Wang Weizhong, a Chinese vice minister of science and technology, said that the Jiaolong’s sea trials “marked a milestone” for China and global exploration. The recent successes of the craft, he said in late August at a news conference in Beijing, “laid a solid foundation for its practical application in resource surveys and scientific research.”

But at least one senior Chinese expert questioned what he called “the current propaganda.” The expert, Weicheng Cui, a professor at the China Ship Scientific Research Center, which is building the submersible, said Thursday in an e-mail that the craft’s sea trials had steered clear of contested islands “to avoid any diplomatic issues.”

The flurry of publicity over the flag planting, he said, “is not so helpful for us to complete the project.”

China’s splash in the arcane world of submersibles comes after years of singling out major industries and technologies for rapid development. China is rushing to make supercomputers and jumbo jets. With expanding political ambitions and territorial claims in neighboring seas, it has paid special attention to oceanography and building a blue-water navy, one that operates in the deep waters of open oceans.

The United States once held the submersible lead. In 1960, it sent Dr. Walsh, then a Navy officer, to the ocean’s deepest spot, seven miles down. But over the decades, it lost its edge to France, Russia and, most recently, Japan.

China began its push in 2002. A few Westerners became aware of the guarded effort when China ordered from Russia the forging of a spherical hull about seven feet wide.

At the heart of any submersible lies the hollow sphere where the aquanauts work. It houses a pilot and two observers, who can peer out of tiny portholes. Typically, a dive into the abyss is an all-day affair, requiring hours to and from the bottom.

American experts said China went on a global shopping spree to gather sophisticated gear for its submersible. From the United States, it bought advanced lights, cameras and manipulator arms. Dr. Cui estimated that 40 percent of the craft’s equipment came from abroad.

China also turned to the United States for tutoring. In 2005, five Chinese trainee pilots and one scientist participated in eight dives on Alvin, the oldest and most famous of the world’s deep-diving craft, which is run by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod. China “bought time on Alvin to gain experience,” according to the Deep Submergence Science Committee, a group that advises the federal government and universities on ocean exploration.

Though Alvin can go down only 4,500 meters, or 2.8 miles, it has made thousands of dives and discoveries, and is widely seen among experts as highly productive and well run.

One of the Chinese trainees was Ye Cong, now a pilot on Jiaolong during its sea trials.

Last year’s tests went as deep as 1,000 meters (about a half mile), and this summer’s as deep as 3,759 meters. Next year Jiaolong is to dive to 5,000 meters and in 2012 reach its maximum depth.

Dr. Walsh said the flag issue prompted more awkwardness than swagger among those who are building and testing the new submersible.

“We had a laugh about it,” he recalled of his China visit. “I said, ‘Oh, you’re copying the Russians,’ and they kind of giggled. These guys are pretty apolitical and pretty well insulated” from Beijing. “They’re just contractors doing their job.”

Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/science/12deepsea.html?_r=1&hp : September 11, 2010 : 

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By Tamara Lush

From the dusty rock mounds lining the streets to a National Palace that looks like it's vomiting concrete from its core, rubble is one of the most visible reminders of Haiti's devastating earthquake.

Rubble is everywhere in this capital city: cracked slabs, busted-up cinder blocks, half-destroyed buildings that still spill bricks and pulverized concrete onto the sidewalks. Some places look as though they have been flipped upside down, or are sinking to the ground, or listing precariously to one side.

By some estimates, the quake left about 33 million cubic yards of debris in Port-au-Prince — more than seven times the amount of concrete used to build the Hoover Dam. So far, only about 2 percent has been cleared, which means the city looks pretty much as it did a month after the Jan. 12 quake.

Government officials and outside aid groups say rubble removal is the priority before Haiti can rebuild. But the reasons why so little has been cleared are complex. And frustrating.

Heavy equipment has to be shipped in by sea. Dump trucks have difficulty navigating narrow and mountainous dirt roads. An abysmal records system makes it hard for the government to determine who owns a dilapidated property. And there are few sites on which to dump the rubble, which often contains human remains.

Also, no single person in the Haitian government has been declared in charge of the rubble, prompting foreign nongovernmental organizations to take on the task themselves. The groups are often forced to fight for a small pool of available money and contracts — which in turn means the work is done piecemeal, with little coordination.

Projects funded by USAID and the U.S. Department of Defense have spent more than $98.5 million to remove 1.2 million cubic yards of rubble.

"There's not a master plan," Eric Overvest, country director for the U.N. Development Program, said with a sigh. "After the earthquake, the first priority was clearing the roads. That was the easiest part."

Overvest said the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission — created after the earthquake to coordinate billions of dollars in aid — has approved a $17 million plan to clear rubble from six neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. The neighborhoods have not yet been selected, however, and it's unclear when debris will be removed from other areas.

Leslie Voltaire, a Haitian architect, urban planner and presidential candidate, says his country needs a "rubble czar."

"Everybody is passing the blame on why things haven't happened yet," he said. "There should be one person in charge. Resettlement has not even begun yet, and it can't until the city has been cleared."

Voltaire maintains that there are enough crushers, dump trucks and other heavy equipment for the job; others say that more machinery is needed. But everyone agrees that recovery will take decades — and the slower the rubble removal, the longer the recovery.

Most Haitians are simply living with the rubble, working and walking around it. After a while, the gray heaps and cockeyed buildings just blend into the tattered background of the city.

"It will take many, many years to fix," Overvest acknowledged. "We can't just go with wheelbarrows to remove it."

But that's exactly what some Haitians are doing: using shovels and wheelbarrows to clear properties — a Sisyphean task if there ever was one.

"Personally, I don't think Port-au-Prince will ever be cleared," said 47-year-old Yvon Clerisier, an artist working a temporary job clearing rubble with a rusty shovel for a private homeowner. He wore torn jeans, a sweaty T-shirt and sandals, and was covered in a fine dust.

Clerisier was one of a dozen men working in temperatures higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius). The property owner, Gregory Antoine, said he paid the crew $1,200 for three weeks of work.

"People want to work," Antoine said. "If you get a good organization to put people to work and give them direction, things will get done. But right now, nothing is getting done."

It's not for lack of trying. The nonprofit organization CHF International spent about $5 million of USAID money on heavy machinery and paying Haitians to remove rubble from specific sites.

Dan Strode was the rubble-removal operations manager for CHF for three months; some dubbed him "the rubble guy" because of his enthusiasm for the job.

"Rubble isn't sexy," the Californian said. "And clearing it is not as simple as people think."

Strode's big worry: that debris won't be cleared fast enough and that the piles of rocks and garbage and dirt will be overtaken by tropical growth.

"If we don't clear it, what we will leave behind is something that is worse than before," he said. "If you come back in a year, and the rubble hasn't been cleared, it will be grown over, subject to landslides and unstable."

Strode, who coordinated the removal of nearly 290,000 cubic yards of material in three months, said a major obstacle to demolishing buildings has been the lack of property records, which either were destroyed in the quake or never existed at all.

Without an owner's consent, it is difficult to remove debris, he said. Another problem: Strode often received approval to demolish a building such as a hospital or a school — even when nearby homes were at risk.

"You cannot wantonly go in and demolish," he said. "There's a liability issue."

Strode is no longer doing rubble removal. The grant money ran out, and has not yet been renewed.

Another hurdle: dumping the debris.

While many private landowners and others are dumping the rubble in the streets, canals or countryside, there's only one place in all of Haiti where NGOs using U.S. money can take contaminated rubble: an approved and environmentally surveyed site.

"Not all rubble is the same," said Michael Zamba, the spokesman for the Pan American DevelopmentFoundation. "There's a lot of contaminated rubble with human remains in it. It can't go in a standard landfill."

Zamba points out that before the earthquake, Haiti was the least-developed country in the Western Hemisphere — so it's not that surprising recovery is slow.

"Haiti is a really expensive place to work: You have to ship in gas, vehicles, people," he said. "But you clean up the rubble in a neighborhood, and it transforms it. Life comes back."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake_rubble;_ylt=AsU5VEnD011K2wuiaTuob.Ss0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNxbmhndHBoBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwOTExL2NiX2hhaXRpX2VhcnRocXVha2VfcnViYmxlBGNjb2RlA3JhbmRvbQRjcG9zAzEwBHBvcwM3BHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDanVzdDJwZXJjZW50 : September 11, 2010

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The cashless society

By Jeff Taylor



According to the Telegraph there is the distinct possibility that the ‘cashless society’ may be just around the corner. In the report, Steve Perry of Visa Europe argues that card payments are cheaper than cash. What our Steve hasn’t hoisted in is that cards ARE cash. Or maybe he has but does not want us to realise the concept. The main reason for a noteless and coinless society he says is that electronic is cheaper. 


In the same way that coloured beads, split sticks and ‘ Wampum’ were used as immediate vehicles for transferring value, printed notes and coins do the same but so do credit and debit cards.


But here’s the crux of the matter. Beads, sticks, Wampum, notes and coins were physically held by the owner. The contents of a debit or credit card account are held and controlled by a third party on the ‘owners’ behalf. And that third party will have to account for the movement of that value to a government for tax (and other) purposes.


Getting rid of notes and coins is not getting rid of ‘cash’. It is getting rid of one type of cash, the type of cash that ensures anonymity. Because all transactions by debit and credit card will be monitored and analysed by computers linked to whoever.


Great you say. No more unaccountable payments to dodgy plumbers. No more prostitution that relies so much on notes and coins. No more drug pushers on street corners. No more tax evasion. ‘If you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear’ from the computer snoopers.


“Ah! But Mrs Smith, we notice you’ve purchased more that the health recommendations allow for chocolate éclairs. You’ve also smoked over 20 cigarettes a day and had three MacDonalds fatty burgers this week. I also see that your husband has a penchant for the local newsagent ‘top-shelf’ products and that your son has bought a book that is on our ‘suspect list’. Also, looking at your overall spend, we see a discrepancy with your tax return.So you can understand why we are doubling your personal taxes, freezing your assets and raiding your house. After all if you’ve nothing to hide …….. .”


Sound a bit over the top? Alarmist? Of course that wouldn’t happen here? Well, governemnt and local authorities have a history of misusing laws and information to their own ends. All that data exists for card payments already. Supermarkets and card issuers (banks) use it for marketing purposes. With all payments electronically based do you really think we can keep the government’s grubby paws off of the data? There is also already talk of imposing a ‘Tobin tax’ on financial services transactions. A society where only electronic transactions took place would be a temptation no government could resist. And the new tax would only take the cost of transactions back to about the level of when we used notes and coins so what’s the problem?


Every aspect of our lives bar-coded and reduced to digits that any busy-body can scrutinise. A nation (if not a world) of digitised consumers and taxpayers.


1984 is breathing fire down our necks, cash in the form of notes and coins may actually be the last refuge of our real individual freedom. But only for the poor of course.


There will be many people who will want to evade this system. Those who are wealthy and don’t want their children’s inheritance taxed out of existence for example. The rich will accumulate other means of transfer such as rare metals. They after all won’t be allowed to get caught in the tax trap. A whole parallel system, a new form of ‘cash’ could evolve for them. For the rest of us I see a lot more bartering and direct swapping of goods and services returning to society as we try to eke out our living.


Source: http://www.economicvoice.com/the-cashless-society/5005449#axzz0cWSDOStT : January 12th, 2010


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Roarrrr your head off for tigers

"Earlier this week we were asked to toot our horns for rhinos. Today we are encouraged to roar for tigers. Tomorrow, will we be tweeting for birds?

"To save the world's remaining wild tigers, WWF is not asking people to stand-up and be heard--but asking them for a roar of support," the conservation organization said in a news release today.

                                                                                   NGS stock photo by Michael Nichols

"With tigers in the wild numbering fewer than 3,200, WWF has launched a first-time campaign where web users can literally roar their support for tigers," said the charity, which is based in Switzerland but is deeply engaged with conservation in tiger range countries.

A few days ago WWF South Africa said September would be a month of support for rhinos, which are currently being poached in the country for their horns at the rate of about 20 per month. September 22 is to be Make a Noise for Rhino Day, when supporters of the pachyderm everywhere are asked to blow their vuvuzelas or other musical instruments--or toot their car horns--to express opposition to rhino poaching. It's a kind of blowing a global raspberry against the poachers. (Blow your horn for rhinos.)

The Tiger Roar Campaign, www.panda.org/roar, is an online application where the public can add their own roars in many different ways, whether solo or in a group of friends, family, or with their colleagues, WWF said.

NGS stock photo by Michael Nichols. If you want tigers to remain in the wild, WWF wants you to roar your support for ther big cvats.

"Users can upload pictures of themselves getting all "roary," shoot video of their roars, and upload them to YouTube or Vimeo, and then link them in. For a simpler approach, users can even text message their roars.

"Once uploaded, participants can then search through other entries and vote for their favorite roars, including casting their votes for the funniest or most frightening roars from around the world.

"Everyone who submits a roar will be counted in a special WWF petition to be presented to heads of government, including prime ministers, from the 13 tiger range countries that are attending the Tiger Summit, scheduled for November in St. Petersburg, Russia," WWF said.

"This is a crucial meeting that will determine the fate of wild tigers, and we need everyone's help to get world leaders to the meeting," said Michael Baltzer, head of WWF's tiger programme.

"To encourage these powerful people to make the right decisions, and keep to their stated goal of transforming tiger conservation and doubling the number of wild tigers by 2022, we need you to stand up and roar--any which way you can."

The Tiger Roar Campaign is part of WWF's Year of the Tiger campaign, which runs through February 2011.

WWF launched the TX2 campaign early this year, which seeks to double the number of wild tigers by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022.

A first-time tiger conservation declaration from the 13 countries that still have wild tiger populations was prepared in Bali, Indonesia in July this year, and is due to be signed before the close of Year of the Tiger at the Tiger Summit, WWF added.

"The Declaration seeks to create a tiger recovery program that is global in scope while also promoting transboundary cooperation amongst the 13 tiger range countries."

"WWF also will display some of the best roars at the Summit to create awareness of the plight of wild tigers among world leaders and their delegations.

Source: "Posted by David Braun from media materials submitted by WWF." : http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2010/09/roarrrr-your-head-off-for-tige.html?source=link_tw09032010c : September 2, 2010


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