curvy reigns!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/earlyshow/health/main3493928.shtml

New research finds an apparent, direct correlation between women's body fat and intelligence.

As CBS News correspondent Susan McGinnis reported on The Early Show Tuesday, the study shows women with fuller, "hourglass" figures seem to be smarter, and give birth to brighter children.

The research, published this week in the journal "Evolution and Human Behavior," indicates hips don't lie. In effect, says the study of some 16,000 women, the smaller your waist and bigger your hips, the smarter you are.

And, McGinnis points out, there's a formula: Divide waist circumference by hip circumference. The lower the result, the better.
...
The researchers say it has to do with omega-3 fatty acids, which gather around fuller hips and thighs, and are important for the growth of the brain during pregnancy. The curvier the hips, the higher the level of omega-3s.

It may also explain other studies that show men prefer women with a low waist-to-hip ratio.

Not only that but, according to the research, women with smaller waists and larger hips live longer!

violent video games are exemplary aggression teachers

http://www.iastate.edu/~nscentral/news/2007/nov/vvgteachers.shtml

AMES, Iowa -- Like other fathers and sons, Douglas Gentile and his father have spent many hours arguing about video games. What makes them different is that Douglas, an Iowa State University assistant professor of psychology, is one of the country's top researchers on the effects of media on children. His father, J. Ronald Gentile, is a leading researcher on effective teaching and a distinguished teaching professor emeritus of educational psychology at the University of Buffalo, State University of New York.

Through their discussions, they realized that video games use the same techniques that really great teachers use.

The Gentiles decided to test that hypothesis. Through a study of nearly 2,500 youths, they found that video games are indeed effective teaching tools. Students who played multiple violent video games actually learned through those games to produce greater hostile actions and aggressive behaviors over a span of six months.

Self-sabotage

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/uot-s112207.php

TORONTO, ON. – New research shows that how people view their abilities in the workplace impacts how they respond to success. Dr. Jason Plaks, a social psychologist at the University of Toronto and Kristin Stecher, a research scientist at the University of Washington, found that those who thought of their capabilities as fixed were more likely to become anxious and disoriented when faced with dramatic success, causing their subsequent performance to plummet, compared to those who thought of their abilities as changeable.

“People are driven to feel that they can predict and control their outcomes. So when their performance turns out to violate their predictions, this can be unnerving – even if the outcome is, objectively speaking, good news,” says Plaks. He points out that the notion that people often sacrifice their success in the name of greater certainty has some intuitive appeal but it has never been put to a rigorous test.

In one representative study, Plaks and Stecher used a questionnaire to classify participants into those who endorsed a fixed view of intelligence and those who endorsed a malleable view. Then participants took three versions of what was purported to be an intelligence test. After the first test, all participants were given a lesson on how to improve their score. After the second test, participants were randomly assigned to be told that their performance had improved, stayed constant, or declined. Among those who believed they had improved, those with the fixed view became more anxious and performed worse on the third test than those with the malleable view. However, among participants who believed that their performance had failed to improve, it was the malleable view participants who grew anxious and underperformed compared to their fixed view counterparts.

Since various studies have shown that people can improve their capabilities, including on IQ tests, I would have expected that, if taught valid ways of improving, most would improve. So I would think that people with a realistic view of themselves would be best off.

Memory Can Be Manipulated By Photos

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119213945.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2007) — The camera may not lie, but doctored photos do according to new research into digitally altered photos and how they influence our memories and attitudes toward public events.

When presented with digitally altered images depicting the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing and a 2003 anti-war protest in Rome, participants in a new study by American and Italian researchers recalled the events as being bigger and more violent than they really were, suggesting that viewing doctored photographs might affect people’s

Internet photo hoaxes are well known, but reputable media outlets such as the LA Times and USA Today recently published digitally altered photos, and subsequently issued retractions and apologies. When media use digitally doctored photographs, they may ultimately change the way we recall history, Loftus said.

“It shows the power of anyone to tamper with people’s recollection, and it gives the media another reason to regulate such doctoring, besides ethical reasons,” Loftus said.

It would be interesting to see if the difference in brain activity found when people "remember" false memories, as compared with real memories, apply here.

Even Very Low Levels Of Lead Cause Brain Damage In Children

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071120111526.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2007) — Even very small amounts of lead in children's blood -- amounts well below the current federal standard -- are associated with reduced IQ scores, finds a new, six-year Cornell study.

The study examined the effect of lead exposure on cognitive function in children whose blood-lead levels (BLLs) were below the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) standard of 10 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dl) -- about 100 parts per billion. The researchers compared children whose BLLs were between 0 and 5 mcg/dl with children in the 5-10 mcg/dl range.

"Even after taking into consideration family and environmental factors known to affect a child's cognitive performance, blood lead played a significant role in predicting nonverbal IQ scores," said Richard Canfield, a senior researcher in Cornell's Division of Nutritional Sciences and senior author of the study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.


"We found that the average IQ scores of children with BLLs of only 5 to 10 mcg/dl were about 5 points lower than the IQ scores of children with BLLs less than 5 mcg/dl. This indicates an adverse effect on children who have a BLL substantially below the CDC standard, suggesting the need for more stringent regulations," he said.

In the United States over the last several months, nearly 50 specific products, including millions of toys for young children, have been recalled due to excessive lead in the paint, plastics and metal. "Our findings emphasize the very real dangers associated with low-level exposures, to which lead in toys can contribute," Canfield said.
...
"Children living in poverty disproportionately suffer from elevated BLLs," said statistician and co-author Charles Henderson, a Cornell senior researcher in human development. He also noted that "even a small decline in an IQ score is likely to be reflected in aptitude test scores such as the SAT."

GEORGIA'S WATER CRISIS: THE POWER OF WATER

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2007/11/18/power1118.html

By Ken Foskett, Margaret Newkirk, Stacy Shelton
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/18/07

As the historic drought worsens and the tri-state water battle escalates, Georgia policymakers are all but ignoring the region's biggest water guzzler.

Electric utilities are the single largest users of the region's freshwater. A family of four can use three times more water to power their home than they use to drink, bathe and water their lawn.

In Georgia, electric utilities use 68 percent of all surface water, the single largest user in the state, according to 2000 data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest year available.

If everybody turned off their computers and cubicle lights when they go home at night, that alone would save a lot.

Out of uniform and on the street

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21678030/

updated 8:37 p.m. ET, Wed., Nov. 7, 2007
WASHINGTON - Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.
...
One vet's story
After being discharged from the military, Jason Kelley, 23, of Tomahawk, Wis., who served in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard, took a bus to Los Angeles looking for better job prospects and a new life.

Kelley said he couldn’t find a job because he didn’t have an apartment, and he couldn’t get an apartment because he didn’t have a job. He stayed in a $300-a-week motel until his money ran out, then moved into a shelter run by the group U.S. VETS in Inglewood, Calif. He’s since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.

“The only training I have is infantry training, and there’s not really a need for that in the civilian world,” Kelley said in a phone interview. He has enrolled in college and hopes to move out of the shelter soon.

We should treat these people better.

In Children And Adolescents, Low Self-esteem Increases Materialism

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071112133809.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2007) — One of the first studies to focus on materialism among children and its development reveals a strong connection between an increase in materialism during adolescence and a decline in self-esteem.

Indeed, Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) show that the relationship appears to more than just a correlation, but a causal relationship -- low self esteem causes increased materialism and raising self esteem decreases materialism.

What makes a hero

Yesterday was Veteran's Day.
My grandfather fought in WWI, got gassed, and was given 6 months to live. He died in 1970 at age 70.
My father fought in WWII. My mother was in the WACS in WWII.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21725468/

updated 2:54 p.m. ET, Mon., Nov. 12, 2007
“We often think of the gung-ho, John Wayne ‘Sands of Iwo Jima’ kind of hero driven to combat,” said researcher Brian Wansink of Cornell University. “But there’s a whole lot of these heroes that are much more along the lines of that Captain Miller character Tom Hanks played in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ — the reluctant high school English teacher.”

Unsurprisingly, veterans who had been awarded medals tended to rate themselves higher for qualities like leadership, adventurousness and adaptability. Results became more intriguing when researchers divided medal earners into two groups: those who enlisted (“eager heroes”) and those who were drafted (“reluctant heroes”). The reluctant heroes scored higher than any other group in selflessness and working well with others.

The study suggests that quiet heroes rely on a deep sense of duty and esprit de corps as opposed to derring-do. That sentiment was echoed by several of the medal-earning veterans interviewed separately for this story.

Weight vs. death

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/jaaj-sea110107.php

Study examines association between weight amount and cause of death
The association between weight and causes of death can vary considerably, with obesity associated with a significantly increased mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD), underweight associated with increased mortality from primarily non-cancer, non-CVD causes, and overweight associated with increased mortality from diabetes and kidney disease combined, but with reduced mortality from other non-cancer non-CVD causes of death, according to a study in the November 7 issue of JAMA.
...
“Some evidence suggests that modestly higher weights may improve survival in a number of circumstances, which may partly explain our findings regarding overweight. Overweight is not strongly associated with increased cancer or CVD risk, but may be associated with improved survival during recovery from adverse conditions, such as infections or medical procedures, and with improved prognosis for some diseases. Such findings may be due to greater nutritional reserves or higher lean body mass associated with overweight,” the authors write.

Extra weight may very well be helpful in some diseases for the stated reasons. But another aspect which has been commented on in previous similar studies, is that an undiagnosed disease, such as cancer, may cause weight loss. So we cannot tell from the statistics how much, if any, protection there may be from extra weight. I guess researchers don't have time to read the results of other studies.

which is higher?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21689083/
Dolphins save surfer from becoming shark’s bait

By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 9:57 a.m. ET, Thurs., Nov. 8, 2007
Surfer Todd Endris needed a miracle. The shark — a monster great white that came out of nowhere — had hit him three times, peeling the skin off his back and mauling his right leg to the bone.

That’s when a pod of bottlenose dolphins intervened, forming a protective ring around Endris, allowing him to get to shore, where quick first aid provided by a friend saved his life.

“Truly a miracle,” Endris told TODAY’s Natalie Morales on Thursday.
...
No one knows why dolphins protect humans, but stories of the marine mammals rescuing humans go back to ancient Greece, according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

A year ago in New Zealand, the group reports, four lifeguards were saved from sharks in the same way Endris was — by dolphins forming a protective ring.

It is hilarious when people claim we're so superior to other animals.

The reference to a "miracle" is interesting. If taken literally, would that mean that dolphins are actually angels?

Governor of parched Georgia to pray for rain

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21680340/

11:44 p.m. ET, Wed., Nov. 7, 2007
ATLANTA - What to do when the rain won’t come? If you’re Georgia Gov. Sonny
Perdue, you pray.

The governor will host a prayer service next week to ask for relief from the drought gripping the Southeast.

“The only solution is rain, and the only place we get that is from a higher power,” Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said on Wednesday.
...
Perdue has several times mentioned the need for prayer — along with water conservation — as the state’s drought crisis has worsened. Over the summer, he participated in day of prayer for agriculture at a gathering of the Georgia Farm Bureau in Macon, Ga.

Since it has been known for years that we needed to prepare for drought, and Perdue has been governor for almost 5 years, he should have had time to do something besides pray.

Shrinking ice means Greenland is rising fast

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12872-shrinking-ice-means-greenland-is-rising-fast.html

18:06 02 November 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Catherine
Brahic

Greenland appears to be floating upwards – its landmass is rising up to 4 centimetres each year, scientists reveal.

And the large country's new-found buoyancy is a symptom of Greenland's shrinking ice cap, they add.

Since the melting ice is causing the oceans to rise, it will be interesting to see the overall effect on Greenland.

If Greenland is rising, I wonder if that will mean a larger area, with higher global sea levels?

Infections, Bacteria 'Critical For Healthy Life

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071106194009.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2007) — Mothers around the world are armed with anti-bacterial gels, sprays and baby blankets, diligently protecting their children from nasty forms of bacteria. But recent research shows that society's anti-bacterial and anti-infection crusade makes children and adults more likely to develop asthma and allergies - and perhaps even mental illnesses.

Dr. Gerald Callahan, who studies bacteria and infectious diseases at Colorado State University, argues that all living things on earth must have infections to thrive, and society's challenge is to sort the good infections from the bad infections. People's love affair with anti-bacterial products is changing - and not necessarily for the better - how immune systems, gastrointestinal systems and even nervous systems develop and function.

difference between Iraq and Iran

Recently I heard Alan Jackson's beautiful song "Where were you when the world stopped turning (on that September day)?" Last weekend, it went thru my mind several times. Of course the line "I watch CNN, but I don't know if I can tell you the difference 'tween Iraq and Iran" brought to mind the obvious punny definitions. Then I got a brainstorm (maybe I had a transient stroke?).

Iran is what I did when someone threw Iraq at me.
- Patricia shannon

how many souls? - update

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21652326/

BANGALORE, India - Doctors began operating Tuesday on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs in an extensive surgery that they hope will leave the girl with a normal body, a hospital official said.

The girl named Lakshmi is joined to a “parasitic twin” that stopped developing in the mother’s womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus.

If the soul comes into being at the moment of conception, where is the soul of the absorbed twin? Would Christian fundamentalists regard this operation as abortion? If not, why not?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/world/main3493648.shtml?source=search_story

BANGALORE, India, Nov. 13, 2007
(CBS/AP) Nearly a week after surgeons removed the extra limbs from an Indian girl born with four arms and four legs, the bright-eyed 2-year-old made her first public appearance Tuesday after leaving the hospital's intensive care unit.

Swathed in blankets and lying on her father's lap, the girl, named Lakshmi, appeared before reporters without the extra limbs which had led some people in her rural village to revere her as an incarnation of the four-armed goddess she was named after.

Looking healthy and alert, Lakshmi had both of her legs in casts while her arms were free. After sitting for photographs, her parents quickly ushered her off the stage without speaking to reporters.

Lakshmi's doctors were encouraged by her progress and said she was responding well enough to treatment to leave the hospital's intensive care unit.

Everything seems to be working right -- cardiac, the nervous system, respiratory system, and her G.I. system, reports Dave Price of CBS' The Early Show.

"She is coping very well and she is stable," said chief surgeon Dr. Sharan Patil. "Lakshmi is safe at the moment."

Lakshmi had a 25 percent chance of not even surviving the surgery, reports Price.

The economic power -- and pitfalls -- of positive thinking

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-10/du-tep102907.php

Public release date: 29-Oct-2007
Contact: Laura Brinn
laura.brinn@duke.edu
919-660-2903
Duke University

DURHAM, N.C. – People who are optimistic are more likely than others to display prudent financial behaviors, according to new research from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

But too much optimism can be a problem: people who are extremely optimistic tend to have short planning horizons and act in ways that are generally not considered wise.

Optimism indeed relates to a large number of behaviors, they found. In small doses optimism can lead to wise decision making, but extreme optimists “display financial habits and behavior that are generally not considered prudent,” the authors wrote.

Puri and Robinson find that optimists:

Work longer hours;
Invest in individual stocks;
Save more money;
Are more likely to pay their credit card balances on time;
Believe their income will grow over the next five years;
Plan to retire later (or not at all);
Are more likely to remarry (if divorced).

In comparison, extreme optimists:

Work significantly fewer hours;
Hold a higher proportion of individual stocks in their portfolios, and are more likely to be day traders;
Save less money;
Are less likely to pay off their credit card balances on a regular basis;
Are more likely to smoke.

Lead poisons kids at lower levels than standard

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21586480/

Children with blood lead levels lower than the U.S. standard may still suffer lower IQs or other problems, a government advisory panel said Thursday as it urged doctors to be more alert to signs of lead poisoning.

Cause Of Great Dying 250 Million Years Ago

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025091047.htm

The greatest mass extinction in Earth's history also may have been one of the slowest, according to a study that casts further doubt on the extinction-by-meteor theory.

Creeping environmental stress fueled by volcanic eruptions and global warming was the likely cause of the Great Dying 250 million years ago, said USC doctoral student Catherine Powers.

So what caused the increased volcanic action? They never say. Could it have been triggered by a meteor? They never say one way or the other. Maybe plate tectonics?

Iron Fertilization Of Oceans

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070925162653.htm

ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2007) — Several times over the past century, scientists and environmental engineers have proposed spreading slurries of dissolved iron into the oceans in order to “fertilize” the waters and promote vast blooms of marine plants (phytoplankton). Phytoplankton consume carbon dioxide as they grow, and this growth can be stimulated in certain ocean basins by the addition of iron, a necessary micronutrient.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061004180713.htm

New 'Dead Zone' Study May Have Far-ranging Effects On Midwest Agriculture

ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2006) — A new scientific review of the Gulf of Mexico's "Dead Zone" could have far-ranging implications for farming over millions of acres of the Midwest and for fertilizer sales, according to an article scheduled for the Oct. 2 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, the ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

The Dead Zone is a vast expanse of water off the Gulf's northern shore that becomes depleted in oxygen from spring to early autumn each year.

C&EN senior editor Cheryl Hogue explains that oxygen depletion creates a biological dead zone, where fish and other marine creatures cannot survive. The Dead Zone has been growing in size since the 1980s. In recent years it has involved an area larger than the state of Connecticut.

Excessive amounts of plant nutrients - primarily nitrate fertilizer that runs off agricultural land into the Mississippi River - causes the zone by fostering blooms of phytoplankton that die and decay in a process that removes dissolved oxygen from the Gulf waters.

The first article talks about a conference on the topic of iron fertilization of the ocean, with one of the topis being "Consequence: What will be the intended and unintended impacts?"

Excess Female To Male Births In Canada Linked To Chronic Dioxin Exposure

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071022211704.htm

ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2007) — Almost 90 Canadian communities have experienced a shift in the normal 51:49 ratio of male to female births, so that more girls than boys are being born, according to two new studies.

James Argo, who headed the research, attributes this so-called "inverted sex ratio" of the residents in those communities to dioxin air pollutants from oil refineries, paper mills, metal smelters and other sources.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070409115759.htm

Male Births: Decline In The US And Japan

ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2007) — A study published in this week's online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives reports that during the past thirty years, the number of male births has decreased each year in the U.S. and Japan. In a review of all births in both countries, the University of Pittsburgh-led study found significantly fewer boys being born relative to girls in the U.S. and Japan, and that an increasing proportion of fetuses that die are male. They note that the decline in births is equivalent to 135,000 fewer white males in the U.S. and 127,000 fewer males in Japan over the past three decades and suggest that environmental factors are one explanation for these trends.

Take Care of Our Planet
copyright 2001 Patricia M. Shannon

Walking in the early sunlight, with the calling birds,
I see the trees against the newborn sky;
listening to the breeze, I hear God's voice
saying "Take care of this planet, don't make it die!"
We must

(chorus)

take care of our planet,
it's the only home we have;
it will give us what we need,
if we treat it repectfully.

He did not make the earth to be just a toy,
or an enemy with which we are at war;
remember that we were just an afterthought,
stewards and not owners are what we are.

Now some say the end is coming,
so we'll need the earth no more;
who are they to think they're privy to
what he said none of us can know?

(chorus)

He did not mean for us to be parasites,
always taking destruction to new heights,
killing off the species He so carefully planned,
in the interdependent web of life.

He said "Don't depend on some angels,
or a space ship from on high
to save you from your own folly,
if you do, you're sure to die."
So

(chorus)

Extinctions linked to hotter temperatures

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071024/ap_on_sc/mass_extinctions;_ylt=AuXIVpx_CowKyAdicYf0bPgPLBIF

Whenever the world's tropical seas warm several degrees, Earth has experienced mass extinctions over millions of years, according to a first-of-its-kind statistical study of fossil records.

And scientists fear it may be about to happen again — but in a matter of several decades, not tens of millions of years.

Four of the five major extinctions over 520 million years of Earth history have been linked to warmer tropical seas, something that indicates a warmer world overall, according to the new study published Wednesday.

"We found that over the fossil record as a whole, the higher the temperatures have been, the higher the extinctions have been," said University of York ecologist Peter Mayhew, the co-author of the peer-reviewed research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British journal.

Earth is on track to hit that same level of extinction-connected warming in about 100 years, unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed, according to top scientists.

A second study, to be presented at a scientific convention Sunday, links high carbon dioxide levels, the chief man-made gas responsible for global warming, to past extinctions.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071023/sc_afp/scienceclimatewarmingspeciesextinctionbiodiversity;_ylt=Assb4Kg.MTy7yAfuxpdgaosPLBIF

Each of five major eras of declining biodiversity -- including one in which 95 percent of the Earth's species disappeared -- correspond to cycles of severe warming over the 520-million-year period for which there are fossil records.

White House edits CDC climate testimony

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071024/ap_on_sc/global_warming_health;_ylt=A0WTcUxclR5HPH0AJSCs0NUE

The White House severely edited congressional testimony given Tuesday by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impact of climate change on health, removing specific scientific references to potential health risks, according to two sources familiar with the documents.
...
The deletions directed by the White House included details on how many people might be adversely affected because of increased warming and the scientific basis for some of the CDC's analysis on what kinds of diseases might be spread in a warmer climate and rising sea levels, according to one official who has seen the original version.
...
Boxer produced a CDC chart listing the broad range of health problems that could emerge from a significant temperature increase and sea level rise

They include fatalities from heat stress and heart failure, increased injuries and deaths from severe weather such as hurricanes; more respiratory problems from drought-driven air pollution; an increase in waterborne diseases including cholera, and increases vector-borne diseases including malaria and hantavirus; and mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress.

"These are the potential things you can expect," replied Gerberding when asked about the items listed. "... In some of these areas its not a question of if, it's a question of who, what, how and when."

Carbon dioxide in atmosphere increasing

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071023/ap_on_sc/carbon_increase;_ylt=AvQ_GTonnw2vXiE6aOWJe6kPLBIF

Just days after the Nobel prize was awarded for global warming work, an alarming new study finds that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected.

Carbon dioxide emissions were 35 percent higher in 2006 than in 1990, a much faster growth rate than anticipated, researchers led by Josep G. Canadell, of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Increased industrial use of fossil fuels coupled with a decline in the gas absorbed by the oceans and land were listed as causes of the increase.

"It turns out that global warming critics were right when they said that global climate models did not do a good job at predicting climate change," Robock commented. "But what has been wrong recently is that the climate is changing even faster than the models said. In fact, Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than any models predicted, and sea level is rising much faster than IPCC previously predicted."

Trenberth noted that carbon dioxide is not the whole story — methane emissions have declined, so total greenhouse gases are not increasing as much as carbon dioxide alone. Also, he added, other pollution plays a role by cooling.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071022/sc_afp/climatewarmingocean;_ylt=ApMnoQWCCbrrd_m96b.ms.0PLBIF

The world's oceans may be losing their ability to soak up extra carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, with the risk that this will help stoke global warming, two new studies say.

Absorption of atmospheric CO2 by the North Atlantic plunged by half between the mid-1990s and 2002-5, British researchers say in a paper published in the November issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Ute Schuster, who led the research with Professor Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences, admitted she was astonished by the data.

"Such large changes are a tremendous surprise. We expected that the uptake would change only slowly because of the ocean's great mass," Schuster was quoted by the university in a press release Monday as saying.

Research last year pointed to rising acidification of the oceans as a result of CO2 uptake, highlighting the risk of carbon saturation as well as a looming peril for biodiversity.

NASA Mum, But Airline Mishaps More Common

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/22/travel/main3390456.shtml

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.

NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since ending the interviews at the beginning of 2005 and shutting down the project completely more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge the results publicly.

Just last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers.

The Associated Press learned about the NASA results from one person familiar with the survey who spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss them.

A senior NASA official, associate administrator Thomas S. Luedtke, said revealing the findings could damage the public's confidence in airlines and affect airline profits. Luedtke acknowledged that the survey results "present a comprehensive picture of certain aspects of the U.S. commercial aviation industry."

Children of War

You can listen to Kemp Jones great song "Children of War" at

http://www.myspace.com/kempjones

He wrote it after seeing a news story that showed a child who said "We children don't need war, we need chocolate".

Allergies Linked To Lower Risk Of Brain Cancer

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071010082414.htm

People with a history of allergies and related diseases have nearly a third lower risk of developing a certain brain cancer than those without the condition.

Atopic diseases, which include asthma, eczema, hay fever, and other allergies, have been linked to a lower risk of glioma, a type of brain cancer that affects glial cells. This association has not been seen with meningioma, a tumor that develops in the membrane that covers the brain.

Air pollution shortening life expectancies

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071010131201.htm

Despite some success with air pollution, current levels — mainly nitrogen oxide, fine particles and ground-level ozone — are estimated to shorten average life expectancy in Western and Central European countries by almost a year and to threaten the healthy development of children.

And they still have a longer life expectancy than the U.S.

Why It Is Impossible For Some To 'Just Say No'

Drug abuse, crime and obesity are but a few of the problems our nation faces, but they all have one thing in common--people’s failure to control their behavior in the face of temptation. While the ability to control and restrain our impulses is one of the defining features of the human animal, its failure is one of the central problems of human society. So, why do we so often lack this crucial ability?

As human beings, we have limited resources to control ourselves, and all acts of control draw from this same source. Therefore, when using this resource in one domain, for example, keeping to a diet, we are more likely to run out of this resource in a different domain, like studying hard. Once these resources are exhausted, our ability to control ourselves is diminished. In this depleted state, the dieter is more likely to eat chocolate, the student to watch TV, and the politician to accept a bribe.

So that is why a person can be so in-ontrol in some areas, and not in others.

Humans Unknowing Midwives For Pregnant Moose

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009131952.htm
When it's time for moose to give birth in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, they head to where it is safest from predators -- namely closer to people, according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Published in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, the study says that moose avoid predation of their calves by grizzly bears by moving closer to roads and other infrastructure prior to giving birth.
...
Berger also cited similar examples where prey species tend to use humans as cover from predation, including vervet monkeys in Kenya and axis deer in Nepal that avoiding big cats by staying close to ranger stations.

"The study's results indicate that moose and other prey species find humans more benign and hence move to humans for safety whereas predators do not because we humans tend to be less kind to predators," Berger added.

Even Occasional Use Of Spray Cleaners May Cause Asthma In Adults

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071012080132.htm

Using household cleaning sprays and air fresheners as little as once a week can raise the risk of developing asthma in adults, say researchers in Europe. Such products have been associated with increased asthma rates in cleaning professionals, but a similar effect in nonprofessional users has never before been shown.

Feminism And Romance

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071015102856.htm

Contrary to popular opinion, feminism and romance are not incompatible and feminism may actually improve the quality of heterosexual relationships, according to Laurie Rudman and Julie Phelan, from Rutgers University in the US. Their study* also shows that unflattering feminist stereotypes, that tend to stigmatize feminists as unattractive and sexually unappealing, are unsupported.

Poor priorities

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/12/us.turkey/index.html

Turkey is outraged over a resolution passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, which declares that the deportation of nearly 2 million Armenians from the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 -- resulting in the deaths of 1.5 million people -- was "systematic" and "deliberate," amounting to "genocide."

With all the problems in the and other countries, why is the U.S. Congress spending time on something that happened almost 100 years ago?

Compassionate Conservatism at work

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/opinion/12krugman.html?ex=1349841600&en=e11eb7dfda52717d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/10/paul-krugman-sl.html

Two weeks ago, the Democratic response to President Bush’s weekly radio address was delivered by a 12-year-old, Graeme Frost. Graeme, who along with his sister received severe brain injuries in a 2004 car crash and continues to need physical therapy, is a beneficiary of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Mr. Bush has vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded that program to cover millions of children who would otherwise have been uninsured.

The parents have a combined income of about $45,000, and don’t receive health insurance from employers. When they looked into buying insurance on their own before the accident, they found that it would cost $1,200 a month — a prohibitive sum given their income. After the accident, when their children needed expensive care, they couldn’t get insurance at any price.

Fortunately, they received help from Maryland’s S-chip program. The state has relatively restrictive rules for eligibility: children must come from a family with an income under 200 percent of the poverty line. For families with four children that’s $55,220, so the Frosts clearly qualified.

Soon after the radio address, right-wing bloggers began insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they’re on scholarship), because they have a house in a neighborhood where some houses are now expensive (the Frosts bought their house for $55,000 in 1990 when the neighborhood was rundown and considered dangerous) and because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999).

The charge was led by Michelle Malkin, who according to Technorati has the most-trafficked right-wing blog on the Internet, and in addition to blogging has a nationally syndicated column, writes for National Review and is a frequent guest on Fox News.

The attack on Graeme’s family was also quickly picked up by Rush Limbaugh, who is so important a player in the right-wing universe that he has had multiple exclusive interviews with Vice President Dick Cheney.

And G.O.P. politicians were eager to join in the smear. The New York Times reported that Republicans in Congress “were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance” but had “backed off” as the case fell apart.

In fact, however, Republicans had already made their first move: an e-mail message from the office of Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, sent to reporters and obtained by the Web site Think Progress, repeated the smears against the Frosts and asked: “Could the Dems really have done that bad of a job vetting this family?”

And the attempt to spin the media worked, to some extent: despite reporting that has thoroughly debunked the smears, a CNN report yesterday suggested that the Democrats had made “a tactical error in holding up Graeme as their poster child,” and closely echoed the language of the e-mail from Mr. McConnell’s office.

All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate.

Children of War

http://neilyoung.com/

Click on "Living With War Doc"
which goes to the following page :
http://neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/index.html

Near the top of the left column, click on LWW Top 2,180 Songs - Listen Here

Ctrl+f and search for "kemp"
His "Top Ten Stories" is currently numbered 1156
Click on "Top Ten Stories"

This takes you to the MySpace blog of singer/songwriter Kemp Jones :
http://www.myspace.com/kempjones

All of his songs are good. I would say that "Children of War" is great, and deserves to become a classic. Kemp wrote it after seeing a documentary where a child in a war zone said "We children don't need war, we need chocolate".

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/05/business/main3333767.shtml

Job creation picked up in September but not enough to stop the unemployment rate from rising to 4.7 percent, the highest in just over a year.

The bump up in the unemployment rate from 4.6 percent in August came as hundreds of thousands of people streamed back into the labor market.

That illustrates a problem with the official "unemployment rate". Many of these people who "streamed back into the labor market" wanted jobs, but weren't included in the unemployment statistics.

limits of intuition - mosquitos

There are books out lauding intuition. But while intuition is a factor we should be aware of, it can also be misleading.

Eg., I expect that many people's intuition would tell them the same as mine - drought will decrease mosquitos, abundant rain will increase them. But not so.

I live in the Atlanta, Georgia metro area. A few years ago, one month in the spring it rained almost every day. At first I expected that would result in a heavy mosquito population. But the scientists foretold that we would have a lighter than usual mosquito problem, because the heavy rains would wash away the mosquitos, and that's what happened. And not just to mosquitos. I control fleas on my cats with a flea comb. With the combination of heavy rains one month washing away fleas and their eggs, followed by (?four) months of almost no rain, there was a period of more than a year where I did not find a single flea on any of my four cats! Unfortunately, the flea population seems to be back to normal.

Atlanta has been experiencing drought since last year. One would hope that it would have at least a positive side effect of fewer mosquitos. But alas, no.

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2007/09/19/westnile0919.html

into next month, public health experts said Tuesday.

Experts said the persistently dry weather, favored by these bugs that breed in stagnant water, may extend an already active peak season of West Nile.

"It may drag on a little bit into the fall, because there have not been significant rains," said Elmer Gray, a University of Georgia Extension Service public health specialist.

Heavy rains, he said, flush out the stagnant water in storm drains, ponds and bird baths.

The peak transmission period typically lasts from mid-August to mid-September, but Gray said he expects the peak to continue until as late as mid-October.

good links

On-going coverage of how the media misreports political news.

http://dailyhowler.com/

Paul Krugman's blog. Krugman is a columnist for the NY Times.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

http://economistsview.typepad.com/

Map of most of the world, showing tropical storm activity, with Dr. Jeff Master's commentary about what to expect next.

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/

On-line book of studies of authoritarian personalities, and how it relates to recent U.S. government doings

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/

great screen savers :

http://synthesoft.com/

Author of "Nickel and Dimed" and other books and commentary on the reality of life in the U.S. for many people

http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/

Cancer kills uninsured

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/17/eveningnews/main3270033.shtml

When Fannie Geiger's sore throat wouldn't heal last year, she had a feeling it was a sign of something serious. Fannie says learning the news was hard. She had stage four throat cancer, the most advanced. Even worse, her free county health insurance did not cover treatment. "I've worked all my life and now, when I need help, it didn't seem to be there,” she tells Like Fannie, an estimated 57,000 uninsured Americans are expected to be diagnosed with cancer this year, faced with the prospect that they will not get better because they cannot afford treatment.

By the time an uninsured cancer patient reaches the hospital, it's often by way of an emergency room where they cannot be denied care. As CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports, many times their cancer is so advanced, the cost of treatment can top $200,000 and the chances of survival are much lower. If Fannie’s cancer had been caught earlier, at stage one instead of stage four, the cost to treat her would have dropped by about $50,000.

Media Double Standard

Every day, the "mainstream" press gives us another long story about what is happening with the big donor to the Democrats who turned out to have been accused of fraud, and reminding us of which Democratic candidates received money form him.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20636963/

But they ignore the equivalent problems with big donors to the Republicans.
For details. see:

http://dailyhowler.com/dh090407.shtml

NEW YORK TIMES (8/12/07):
Indicted Fund-Raiser Resigns


AMES, Iowa, Aug. 11—A top fund-raiser for Mitt Romney who was indicted this week in Maryland over a $32 million fraud scheme has resigned from the campaign, a Romney spokesman said Saturday.A federal grand jury in Maryland unsealed a 23-count indictment of the fund-raiser, Alan B. Fabian, 43, on Thursday on charges of money laundering, mail fraud, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice. Mr. Fabian, who was one of 35 co-chairmen on Mr. Romney's national finance committee, ran up $32 million in fake purchases with his consulting company, Maximus Inc., based in Northern Virginia, and pocketed the money, according to the indictment.

This was the complete report! And where have been followup reports? Not to be seen.

National Debt

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/06/notebook/main3238787.shtml

for the first time in U.S. history last Friday, the national debt hit an all-time high of $9 trillion. To be exact, the total liabilities of the U.S. Government hit $9,005,648,561,262.70, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt at the Treasury Department.
Mr. Bush often boasts about his commitment to fiscal restraint, and trumpets his efforts to bring down the annual federal deficit from its all-time high of $413 billion in 2004. The Administration forecasts a deficit this year of $205 billion. The forecast from the Congressional Budget Office is lower still at $158 billion.
But Mr. Bush almost never mentions the national debt. On the day he took office, the debt stood at $5.727 trillion. That means it has increased by 57 percent on his watch. So far.
And it’s not just the size of the debt that’s historic. So too is the amount taxpayers must pay annually in interest payments on $9 trillion in borrowed funds. Last year, the interest on the debt exceeded $405 billion dollars. This year’s interest payments will be even greater.

Since there are about 300,000,000 (300 million) people in the U.S., per person that comes to about
$30,000 for the national debt
$ 683 for the expected deficit
$ 1350 for the interest last year

AMERICA LOSES Two-thirds of its Professional Songwriters

http://legislative.nashvillesongwriters.com/news.php?viewStory=76

> America has LOST TWO-THIRDS of its PROFESSIONAL SONGWRITERS over the past decade due to illegal downloading, piracy, radio deregulation and corporate mergers.
> Radio Deregulation has resulted in dramatically fewer spots on radio playlists. A few companies program the majority of country music reporting stations.
> Mergers and consolidations have resulted in fewer and fewer staff songwriter positions.

> MORE THAN 1 BILLION files are illegally downloaded EACH MONTH!
> Copyrights are the #1 BALANCE OF TRADE EXPORT item for the United States.
> When someone steals a song on the Internet it is not a victimless crime. Songwriters pay their rent, medical bills and children’s educational expenses with royalty income. That income has been dramatically impacted by illegal downloading, so many have reassessed their careers as songwriters. Songwriters are choosing other professions because they cannot earn a living- in great part due to illegal downloading.

We're not What We Say We Are

Some more on cheap grace:

copyright 1991 Patricia M. Shannon

We say that we're just below angels,
but we sit on our butts all day,
watching the boob tube and killing
our souls a little more each day.

We say we're the peak of creation,
master's of all we survey,
but we're killing our rivers and forests,
and expecting our children to pay.

(chorus)
When will we learn, will we ever learn
to be what we say we are?
Is it too much to expect us to try
to be what we say we are.

We say that we're rational creatures,
not animals, no not we;
but we think that the purpose of college
is to support the football team.

We say we're a Christian nation,
leaders of the free world we are;
but we're spending our money on weapons,
and allowing our children to starve.

(chorus)

why overeating?

Most people are aware that the U.S. has a weight problem. There is much discussion of why, and of course, the obligatory casting of blame on the overweight individuals. True, many people eat too much and exercise too little. Bu why now. Is it really due to some moral decline that we are more overweight than previous generations. I don't think so. And I don't say this out of self-interest, because I have kept my weight down pretty well. I am within the suggested guidelines for my height.
A society-wide change suggests changes in social conditions. have changed. And of course, some are obvious - sedentary jobs, cheap food is fattening, even a possibility that a virus causes some cases of obesity, lack of sufficient food before birth and in the early years causing the body to be more efficient at storing fat.

True, many people eat very large amounts of food. I assume they are eating because they are hungry. But why are they so hungry?

Some possibilities I haven't seen discussed:
I know from personal experience that stress can increase the appetite.
I also know from experience, and studies I have read, that lack of micronutrients (vitamins & minerals) can cause a craving for certain foods. I expect that part of the obesity epidemic is due to a deficiency of micronutrients in our food, causing a craving for enough food to provide the necessary nutrients.

high-tech visas

Business claims they really, really need to import large numbers of high-tech workers.
I can see their point. They're actually having to hire people over 50 as programmer/analysts. The horror of it. The next thing you know, they will be hiring new graduates, if there are any who are still willing to get a degree in IT nowadays. Just think, if they can't import workers from overseas, they might actually be forced to take effective steps to stop our habit of throwing away large numbers of our own people, who happen to have been born in deprived circumstances, but who have the potential to succeed.

Worship of country

Where did the silly idea come from that loving our country means worshipping it, being convinced that it is better in every way than every other country? Then the citizens of all other countries would have to either not love their own county, or would have to believe a lie. But then, maybe we are the ones who are deluded?

Of course, no country can be the best in every thing, any more than any person is the best at everything. Narcissists are not people to be admired. But to believe your country is better than all others in every respect appears to me to be a form of narcissism. If you don't think your loved ones are perfect, does that mean we don't love them. Of course not. If we have to believe someone is perfect in order to love them, that shows that we do not love them.

Where does this idea come from, anyway? It has several roots that I can discern.
One is the apparently genetic tendency to consider one's own group as better than others, and to regard other groups with suspicion and fear.

Another is that the belief that one is a member of a perfect nation boosts one's ego.

Another is that if our country is perfect, we don't have to spend our time and energy improving it, a motivation the opposite of love.

This tendency may be particularly strong in the U.S., which is mostly populated by voluntary immigrants, and their children. Many find life much better here than the place they came from. Also, if their expectations were not fulfilled as they expected, the fact that they sacrificed to come here can cause them to value their new country all the more, because the belief that they had made a great sacrifice for nothing is unbearable. (When groups who believe the world is going to end on a certain day, and it doesn't happen, some of the members of the group will believe in their leader or teachings even more strongly, if they have made large sacrifices because of their beliefs).

And the power elite indoctrinates us with this idea for their own benefit. If the we believe that our country is better than all others, it keeps us from rebelling and changing things.

Religious Doctors No More Likely To Care For Underserved Patients

An example of "Cheap Grace".
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070731085614.htm

Although most religious traditions call on the faithful to serve the poor, a large cross-sectional survey of U.S. physicians found that physicians who are more religious are slightly less likely to practice medicine among the under-served than physicians with no religious affiliation.

I'm posting a comment posted to the following article, since their archived articles don't include comments. This is understandable, because it would greatly increase the amount of storage space they would have to pay for, and many/most of the comments are at best worthless.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/17/earlyshow/health/main3177693.shtml

I actually have 2 medical insurance plans that I pay premiums for: United Healthcare (which is one of the biggest scams I''ve ever encountered on the planet) and Medicare. So far this year I have had 9 claims submitted to United Healthcare (UHC) for a total of just over $10 thousand. They have processed these claims 17 times so far and still aren''t finished with them. Of this ten thousand bucks, UHC has paid a whopping $267!I have had to call UHC''s customer service line 8 times, file a written appeal with their company and file a complaint with my state Insurance Commissioner over a $352 claim for a March emergency room visit that UHC has repeatedly agreed that they should pay in full but never has.Further, this health insurance company rejected all facility charges associated with my last two hospitalizations. They claim the bills were not submitted in time. I can''t speak for one hospital but I actually visited the the other and watched as they submitted the claim for processing- the second time of three submissions!I''ve had to give up my oxygen equipment because UHC wasn''t paying for it despite the fact I was told they would. Now I struggle day for day and desaturate at night and my body is deteriorating. I need a intrathecal pain pump but I know getting them to pay would be futile.Why is our health care so expensive? Ask united Healthcare. Posted by cbsreader4 at 05:58 PM : Aug 17, 2007

Cat Disease Linked To Flame Retardants In Furniture And To Pet Food

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070815122354.htm

"Science Daily — A mysterious epidemic of thyroid disease among pet cats in the United States may be linked to exposure to dust shed from flame retardants in household carpeting, furniture, fabrics and pet food, scientists are reporting in a new study. "

"Janice A. Dye, DVM, Ph.D., at the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and colleagues from there as well as Indiana University and the University of Georgia, report evidence linking the disease to exposure to environmental contaminants called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which the researchers found to be elevated in blood samples of hyperthyroid cats. Their findings were based on analysis of blood samples from 23 pet cats, 11 of which had the disease, termed feline hyperthyroidism (FH). PBDE levels in the hyperthyroid cats were three times as high as those in younger, non-hyperthyroid cats."

"The epidemic of hyperthyroidism in cats began almost 30 years ago, at the same time when PBDEs were introduced into household materials as a fire-prevention measure. Although the disease was first discovered in the U.S., it has since been diagnosed in Canada, Australia, Japan and many parts of Europe. Hyperthyroid disorders have also increased in humans--former President George H. W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush have the disorder, and even Millie, their Springer Spaniel, had contracted it."

media distortion

Remember to check out http://www.dailyhowler.com/ and mediamatters.org for daily updates on how our well-paid media is destorting the news on behalf of the special interests who fund them.

From yesterday's Daily Howler http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh081407.shtml
"On Sunday, the New York Times wrote a long editorial which told one part of a two-part story (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/13/07). U.S. health care isn’t nearly as good as its European counterpart, the editors said. But uh-oh! The editors forgot to tell Part 2 of this story. Omigod! Because of their single-payer systems, European nations are producing superior health outcomes—while spending massively less per-person than we do in the U.S.

They get better results—at half the cost! Somehow, the editors failed to mention that second fact—the fact which makes this story so stunning. And then, the letters came pouring in. And none of the people who wrote to the Times mentioned this striking fact either!"

who will protect us from the protectors?

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/08/09/rape_herself/index.html

This year's ugly irony award has got to go to the case of 20-year-old Airman Cassandra M. Hernandez, who now faces court-martial after refusing to testify against three men she accused of raping her. Hernandez told WRAL, a CBS affiliate in North Carolina, that she'd been gang-raped by three fellow airmen after a party on May 16, 2006, but chose not to testify after feeling pressured by the Air Force and meeting with one of the defense attorneys without her victim's advocate. In a letter (quoted by WRAL.com) addressed to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Hernandez explained that "under enormous stress and after consultation with the legal office, I made the decision not to testify ... the pressure of the judicial process was too much for me, and I felt like no one was looking out for my interests."

And what is Hernandez's reward for succumbing to intimidation -- I mean legal advice -- from the other side? The Air Force has charged her with committing "indecent acts" with the three men, as well as underage drinking. (As Feministing notes, the definition of indecent act according to military code seems slippery at best.) But that's not even the weirdest part: The three accused officers have been granted immunity in return for their testimony against her. If Hernandez is telling the truth, she's effectively being prosecuted for her own rape.

U.S. ranks just 42nd in life expectancy

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20228552/

Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.

For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.

Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.

A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Andorra, a tiny country in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain, had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years, according to the Census Bureau. It was followed by Japan, Maucau, San Marino and Singapore.

Researchers said several factors have contributed to the United States falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45 million Americans lack health insurance, while Canada and many European countries have universal health care, they say.

Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004. The U.S. rate was 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births. It was 13.7 for Black Americans, the same as Saudi Arabia.

Another reason for the U.S. drop in the ranking is that the Census Bureau now tracks life expectancy for a lot more countries — 222 in 2004 — than it did in the 1980s. However, that does not explain why so many countries entered the rankings with longer life expectancies than the United States.

Just 4 days ago, I told someone that the U.S. was about 23rd. Now I found out it may have gotten even worse. Because of the increase in the number of countries for which we now track life expectancy. So we might already have been far lower than we thought.

rich get richer, poor get poorer

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070807171936.htm

The rich really are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, a new University of Michigan study shows.

Over the last 20 years, the net worth of the top two percentile of American families nearly doubled, from $1,071,000 in 1984 to $2,100,500 in 2005. But the poorest quarter of American families lost ground over the same period, with their 2005 net worth below their 1984 net worth, measured in constant 2005 dollars.

The poorest ten percent of families actually had a negative net worth---more liabilities than assets. The poorest 5 percent of American households had a negative net worth of a little more than $1,000 in 1984, compared to nearly $9,000 in 2005.

don't give up

from the on-line book "The Authoritarians"
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/chapter7.pdf

If the people who are not social dominators and right-wing authoritarians want
to have those same rights in the future, they, you, had better do those same things too, now. You do have the right to remain silent, but you’ll do so at everyone’s peril. You can’t sit these elections out and say “Politics is dirty; I’ll not be part of it,” or
“Nothing can change the way things are done now.”The social dominators want you
to be disgusted with politics, they want you to feel hopeless, they want you out of their way. They want democracy to fail, they want your freedoms stricken, they want equality destroyed as a value, they want to control everything and everybody, they want it all. And they have an army of authoritarian followers marching with the
militancy of “that old-time religion” on a crusade that will make it happen, if you let
them.

no thinking allowed!

http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/chapter3.pdf

Hitler is reported to have said,“What good fortune for those in power
that people do not think.”

Bob Altemeyer's - The Authoritarians

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/

This is an on-line book about Bob Altemeyer's research on authoritarians. Over the years, I have seen references to this research, and it is exciting to have the book available.

OK, what’s this book about? It’s about what’s happened to the American government lately. It’s about the disastrous decisions that government has made. It’s about the corruption that rotted the Congress. It’s about how traditional conservatism has nearly been destroyed by authoritarianism. It’s about how the “Religious Right” teamed up with amoral authoritarian leaders to push its un-democratic agenda onto the country. It’s about the United States standing at the crossroads as the next federal election approaches.

Norcross Coffeehouse, Thurs. Aug. 9, 2007

Catacombs Coffeehouse is 8pm, the 2nd Thursday of each month at :
Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church,
5100 South Old Peachtree Rd.,
Norcross, GA 30092

http://www.mtcarmel-umc.org/catacombs.html

The following performers are scheduled :

08/09/07 Ron HippKnown for his rich baritone vocals and beautifully altered guitar tunings.

09/13/07 Bill KahlerWell-known folky rock singer.He even recorded a song for the Waffle House jukebox!
http://www.billkahler.com/

10/11/2007 Harmon Koetz and Harm's Way

11/8/2007
Act 1. Buck Buckley BandAmerican roots
musichttp://buckbuckleyband.com/bio.html
Act 2. Octave Atlanta's female acapella group, performing jazz, pop, and rock hits.

12/13/2007 Montana SkiesCreates a unique new sound, from finger-picking to flamenco, with the unusual pairing of cello and guitar.
http://www.montanaskiesmusic.com/

The Truth About Denial

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/

A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on.

...In January, nine leading corporations—including Alcoa, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, Du Pont and General Electric—called on Congress to "enact strong national legislation" to reduce greenhouse gases.

...every time the scientific case got stronger, "the American public yawned and bought bigger cars," Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey congressman and physicist, recently wrote in the journal Science;

...Groups that opposed greenhouse curbs ramped up. They "settled on the 'science isn't there' argument because they didn't believe they'd be able to convince the public to do nothing if climate change were real," says David Goldston, who served as Republican chief of staff for the House of Representatives science committee until 2006.

...They "settled on the 'science isn't there' argument because they didn't believe they'd be able to convince the public to do nothing if climate change were real," says David Goldston, who served as Republican chief of staff for the House of Representatives science committee until 2006.

...Look for the next round of debate to center on what Americans are willing to pay and do to stave off the worst of global warming. So far the answer seems to be, not much. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds less than half in favor of requiring high-mileage cars or energy-efficient appliances and buildings. No amount of white papers, reports and studies is likely to change that. If anything can, it will be the climate itself. This summer, Texas was hit by exactly the kind of downpours and flooding expected in a greenhouse world, and Las Vegas and other cities broiled in record triple-digit temperatures. Just last week the most accurate study to date concluded that the length of heat waves in Europe has doubled, and their frequency nearly tripled, in the past century. The frequency of Atlantic hurricanes has already doubled in the last century. Snowpack whose water is crucial to both cities and farms is diminishing. It's enough to make you wish that climate change were a hoax, rather than the reality it is.

Good article on the efforts of the oil industry to prevent action to combat global warming. People might call for other people to do something. But I fear that our spoiled citizens won't expend even modest efforts to do their part. People won't even spend a tiny bit of energy and time to turn off their cubicle lights when they go home.

Hostility Puts Men's Hearts at Risk

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20070803/hl_hsn/hostilityputsmensheartsatrisk;_ylt=AouLpYBWQZOaHVEvgNKOl8LVJRIF

Ten years of frequent hostility and depression may harm men's immune systems and put them at risk for heart disease, a U.S. study found.

These negative emotional states may also hike men's risks for related disorders such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, according to research in the August issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

The relationship between the psychological scores and C3 levels remained true even when the researchers looked for the possible effects of other risk factors. Smoking, age, race, alcohol use, body mass index and Agent Orange exposure had no influence on C3 levels.

What about women? Another example of the way studies of "people" often are studies of "men".

Dietary carbs linked to vision loss

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070731/hl_nm/dietary_carbs_linked_vision_loss_dc;_ylt=Ao72zSTIi1f7srZw4Wnu5wPVJRIF

The carbohydrates present in a diet can influence the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of vision loss in older adults, according to a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

India's tigers in crisis, less than half estimated

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070803/india_nm/india288022;_ylt=Arerw7ps4Zf1as6I3epSFI8PLBIF

India's tigers are facing their severest crisis with only between 1,300 and 1,500 left in the wild, less than half the population of endangered big cats previously estimated, conservationists said on Friday.

THE SMALL PRINT ISN'T ALWAYS BINDING

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/07/the-small-print.html

What is the penalty for a train or airline passenger who's late? Often $50 or more. What is the penalty for a company when a train or airplane is late? Nothing. How can that be fair? It's not. But this imbalance, and many others you can probably recite by heart, can be blamed in part on the proliferation of one-sided contractual relationships called "contracts of adhesion."

Every one of us finds ourselves in contracts of adhesion every day, with virtually every consumer product we buy. Contracts of adhesion are pacts between two entities that are not equal, a David and Goliath agreement, where Goliath offers the deal on take-it-or-leave-it terms. Nothing can be negotiated, so everything can be unfair. Buying a car? You have to sign a piece of paper that says you'll never sue the dealer. Won't sign the paper? You can't buy a car. And since all auto dealers require these one-sided terms, consumers don't really have a choice -- either abdicate your right to sue, or don’t drive.

In general, contracts in the United States are only valid when they are negotiated between two equal parties. That makes sense: Only people on equal footing can engage in fair, arm's-length negotiations.

Take-it-or-leave-it Consumer contracts don't fit this bill, however. They are almost always take-it-or-leave-it, non-negotiated contracts. When you purchase a cell phone, you agree to never join a class-action lawsuit against the cell phone provider. When you get a credit card, you agree that the terms and conditions for that card can change at any time. If you don't agree to these things, you can't get a cell phone or a credit card. That's just how it is. Take it or leave it. It's all on those pieces of paper you sign, or somewhere on the firm's Web site, in very, very small print.

To prevent abuses, courts have held repeatedly that contracts of adhesion fall into a special category. Despite what you might have heard, unfair provisions inserted into such contracts are not legally enforceable -– even if you signed the piece of paper. Such provisions are given the drastic legal term "unconscionable." A judge who finds a provision of a contract of adhesion to be unconscionable will void that provision.

There is a problem, however: Absent activist government intervention, everything is legal until someone sues. Long ago, companies noticed this and began pushing the boundaries on contracts of adhesion. As long as no one drags them to court, anything goes.

Point of View

These are the words to one of the songs I'll be singing at the Hungry Ear Coffeehouse, Sat., Aug. 4, 2007. See previous post for details


Point of View
copyright 2002 Patricia M. Shannon


There were two men from the same village,
the truest friends you've ever known.
They were blood-brothers when they were children,
and worked together when they were grown.


(chorus)
They were the best of friend, the best of friends,
brothers of the heart,
They were the best of friends, the best of friends,
nothing ever could tear them apart.

One day the Trickster bet the village,
he could get these friends into a fight;
"Oh, no," said the village,
"We know you can't be right."

(chorus)

Tricks made a coat of different colors,
walked between them so they could view;
"What a lovely red.", said one friend,
said the other : "No, it is blue."

They started shouting at each other
over which one saw it true,
Trickster turned around and showed them
"It's all in your point of view."

(chorus)
They were the best of friend, the best of friends,
brothers of the heart,
They were the best of friend, the best of friends,
they thought nothing could tear them apart.

the bess press money can buy

To get the latest in how the press is distorting the news, see

http://dailyhowler.com/

good Christians

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/26/world/main3099123.shtml

A dozen Christian men were convicted Thursday and sentenced to up to 14 years in jail for beating to death and beheading two Muslims to avenge the government executions of three Christians in Indonesia last year.

There are evil idiots of all races, nationalities, and religions.

foxes protecting our henhouse

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/26/national/main3099776.shtml

A federal judge Thursday ordered the government to pay more than $101 million in the case of four men who spent decades in prison for a 1965 murder they did not commit after the FBI withheld evidence of their innocence.

The judge called the government's defense that the FBI had no duty to get involved because it was a state case "absurd."

Better Sleep May Put Huntington's Disease Sufferers Back On Track

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070718002121.htm

Mice carrying the genetic mutation that causes Huntington's Disease (HD) showed marked improvements in alertness and their ability to learn after they were given drugs that put them to sleep.

According to the Cambridge neuroscientists conducting the research, HD mice have abnormal circadian rhythms; their daily sleeping and waking cycles are disrupted and irregular. Since sleep disruption contributes to problems with perception and learning in healthy people, the team wondered whether the circadian disruption and cognitive disturbances in HD mice were linked.

To test this, drugs were administered to regulate sleep patterns in the mice. The results, published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, show that both drugs caused a noticeable improvement in learning and Alprazolam also improved arousal. The study shows for the first time that treatments aimed at restoring normal sleep-wake activity could slow the cognitive decline that is such a devastating feature of the disease.

In Violent Neighborhoods, Adults Too Fearful To Intervene With Most Young Offenders

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070718001548.htm

A study of young, violent criminals in New York City found that they used fear and intimidation to keep adults from interfering with their criminal activities.

The results showed that adults in these high-crime neighborhoods faced a difficult situation in their relationships with young adults. The young offenders said they wanted the adults in their neighborhood to care more about them, and to provide more guidance and help. But those same young people also recognized that their own actions frightened adults away.

The best scenario would be for adults to try to intervene with children when they are still young and more willing to accept guidance from adults, she said.

While adults may be rightfully fearful of confronting violent youth in their neighborhoods, they can help in more subtle ways by being good role models, Wilkinson said.

These young people need to see adults who go to work and make a positive impact on society.

“We found that, in at least some situations, adults can influence the behaviors and thinking of teens and young men,” she said. “Despite their involvement in criminal activities, the youth in our study had aspirations for better lives free of the chaos of drugs and violence. We need to find ways to reach them when are younger.”

Elevated Leukaemia Rates Near Nuclear Facilities

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070718113939.htm

Leukaemia rates in children and young people are elevated near nuclear facilities, but no clear explanation exists to explain the rise, according to a research review published in the European Journal of Cancer Care.

They found that death rates for children up to the age of nine were elevated by between five and 24 per cent, depending on their proximity to nuclear facilities, and by two to 18 per cent in children and young people up to the age of 25.

Incidence rates were increased by 14 to 21 per cent in zero to nine year olds and seven to ten percent in zero to 25 year-olds.

environmentalism is selfish (good)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6900665.stm

The passionate negativity that one reads concerning protecting our environment confuses me. If I were to proceed with complete self-centered selfishness I would still WANT and expect; clean air, a rich and varied flora and fauna, space to live, water to drink, food enough to survive, and a sewage system that works..........this is what is at stake if we breed without limit and consume unchecked.Gretchen Scharnagl, Miami, FL USA

This comment is really great.

Sun variations not behind warming, study says

http://www.livescience.com/environment/060913_sun_warming.html

By Sara Goudarzi, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 13 September 2006 01:01 pm ET

Variation in the brightness of the Sun is not the major factor behind the unusual warming the Earth has experienced over the past few centuries, a new study suggests.

Researchers traced changes in our parent star's energy output back to the 17th century and found that solar cycles, peaking nearly every 11 years, did not play a significant role in contributing to global warming.

Earth's warming trend, which climate reconstructions show began in the 17th century, has accelerated in the last 100 years. Most studies reveal that this temperature rise could be attributed to the increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere.

In addition to man-made factors, natural inconsistencies in Earth's climate could also play a role in climate change. Additionally, some scientists have speculated that changes in the Sun's brightness affect temperatures on Earth.

About once every 11 years, changes in the Sun's magnetic field result in increases in the number and magnitude of sunspots and solar flares, which bombard Earth with charged particles.

During times of high activity, like in year 2000, the Sun shines about 0.07 percent brighter, researchers report in the September 14 issue of the journal Nature.

The researchers used a combination of data on solar brightness obtained by spacecrafts since 1978 and isotope data --collected from Earth's atmosphere and in ice sheets of Antarctic and Greenland--to recreate the Sun's influence on terrestrial temperatures over the past several centuries.

Although events such as sunspots have increased in the last 400 years, their effect only contributed a small amount to global warming, the results show.

"Our results imply that, over the past century, climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the Sun's brightness," said study co-author Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Republicans favorite things

I got this off the comments at
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/12/politics/main3050621.shtml#ccmm

Sung to “My Favorite Thing”s:

Two-timing Gingrich,
And page-blower Foley
The cream of the party,
Which claims to be holy,

Big paper bundles
Of cash for Cheney

These are a few of my fave GOPs.

Hookers for Vitter,
A black servant for Strom
A cop for Bob Allen
To go down upon.
Six spouses for Rudy and his current Ms.

This is what’s called family values a-miss.

When Ted Haggard,
Gets his massage,
When a lawyer’s shot,
The GOP will cover up all these things
As the nation just goooooooes to pot!

Posted by wadyaknow at 03:33 PM : Jul 12, 2007

Stressed-out types at risk for memory problems

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070612/hl_nm/memory_stress_dc;_ylt=AkkJW_sepAqDzuBLYLmY_Lw_cbYF

People who are often stressed out or depressed are far more likely to develop memory problems than those with sunnier dispositions, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a finding that sheds light on early predictors of Alzheimer's disease.

They said those who most often are anxious or depressed were 40 times more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment, a form of memory loss that is often a transitional stage between normal aging and dementia.

People with mild cognitive impairment have some trouble remembering things, but they do not have significant disability. Not all people with this problem develop Alzheimer's disease, a much more serious impairment, but about 10 to 15 percent do, according to the Alzheimer's Society.

More vitamin D can put more pep in seniors' steps

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070626/hl_nm/vitamin_d_dc;_ylt=Am4H3ILRgG9YaDME6puF_u0_cbYF

Declining physical performance among some Dutch seniors may not be a simple consequence of aging, it may actually be due to a vitamin D deficiency, results of a new study suggest.

Bills pile up when uninsured eligible for Medicare

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070711/hl_nm/medicare_costs_dc;_ylt=AmQOqofvd_do.JeGUMneTyc_cbYF

Americans who previously had no health insurance rack up some expensive medical bills once they are old enough to be covered by Medicare, researchers said

"The implication is that expanding (Medicare) coverage to uninsured near-elderly adults may not cost as much as previously thought,"

The American College of Physicians has endorsed the idea of allowing insured adults to purchase Medicare coverage before age 65.

I'm a perfect example. I'm saving up to pay for a cataract operation on one eye, which has been legally blind for more than a year. I can still see well enough to work and drive with the other eye, but I can see a deterioration in the vision of my good eye. I expect to put off having a cataract operation on my better eye until I am eligible for Medicare.

And of course, some problems are much more expensive when treatment is put off.

Mild Stress In The Womb May Worsen Risk Of Cerebral Palsy

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070711105828.htm

Chronic mild stress in pregnant mothers may increase the risk that their offspring will develop cerebral palsy--a group of neurological disorders marked by physical disability--according to new research in mice. The results may be the first to demonstrate such effects of stress on animals in the womb.

In the study, the scientists adjusted the normal cycle of light and dark that the pregnant mice were accustomed to for half of the mice, subjecting them to a mild level of stress. Then the researchers exposed the brains of the developing fetuses to injury. When the brains of the young mice were examined on birth, Gressens and his team found that the offspring born from stressed mothers showed brain lesions about twice as big as those in offspring of unstressed mothers.

Looking for life

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070709093900.htm

Stellar Tiramisu: Astronomers Find Hints of Distant Planetary Pollution

This article was different from what I expected.

This misunderstanding gave me an idea.

Reading a science magazine yesterday, a scientist suggested that when looking for life on other planets, we look not at chemistry, but for signs of intelligence. He obviously was referring to technologically advanced societies.
The reference to "planetary pollution" shown above gave me an idea.
When looking for "intelligent" life, we should be looking for pollution.

Best Males Have Less Successful Daughters

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070705095207.htm

Studies of red deer published recently in Nature suggest that the most successful males are more likely to produce less fertile daughters.

Male and female deer need different attributes to succeed. Genes which prove to be an advantage in fathers don't necessarily prove beneficial in daughters.

Males who win fights for females go on to produce daughters who have fewer offspring, whereas the daughters of less successful males demonstrate higher fertility.

The research helps explain why, despite natural selection, there can still be broad biological diversity between individuals in a population.

In humans, there is evidence that homosexual men are more likely to have female relatives with high fertility.

Of course, in human societies, another reason for the occurance of broad biological diversity is that we need a broad variety of people to fulfill different roles. Eg., I read a study some years ago that found that, in general, the best drivers were those of average intelligence.

Intelligent People Are More Patient In Financial Matters; Higher IQ Also Makes More Tolerant Of Risk

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070704144512.htm

Assuming someone gave you the choice of 100 euros today or 150 euros in a year's time. Which sum would you take? Scientists at the University of Bonn and the Institute for the Study of Labour (Institut zur Zukunft der Arbeit, IZA) asked 1000 adults in Germany this question. At the same time they measured the cognitive abilities of the participants, using two different methods. The result was that intelligent people prefer to wait for a higher return, rather than going for the money now. This is the first time that this relationship between intelligence and patience in financial matters has been shown. Furthermore, the willingness to run risks increases with higher intelligence.

Well, judging from such things as SAT and GRE scores, and others judgements, I'm pretty intelligence, but I don't consider myself very willing to run risks.

Reap What Your Ancestors Sowed

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070704144923.htm

Freeloaders can live on the fruits of the cooperation of others, but their selfishness can have long-term consequences, reports an evolutionary biologist from The University of Texas at Austin in a new study.

"There is a historical dimension to cooperation," says Dr. Sam Brown, the Human Frontier Science Foundation Fellow in the Section of Integrative Biology. "The act of a cooperator can continue to give benefits even after the cooperator is dead. Conversely, cheating will have consequences in the future."

Brown has developed a new model showing that cooperators and cheaters can co-exist in a dynamic boom and bust state in the presence of long-lasting resources, known as "durable goods."

Durable goods can outlast their producers, and then be passed on to future generations. They include things like antibiotics produced by populations of bacteria to kill off neighboring bacteria and public parks or buildings built by humans.

In the presence of a durable good, cheaters can increase in numbers with no immediate consequences. For example, cheaters could still enjoy the shelter of an ant nest or a building for some time even if it is not being maintained.

"But freeloaders can also increase so rapidly that in a generation's time the whole building collapses," says Brown.

"If you have social dilemmas [where there are cooperators and cheaters] mediated by these longstanding, durable entities like buildings, ant's nests, or biofilms in bacteria, then you introduce an instability," he says. "It's almost as if there is a pact with the devil, because you pay nothing now for your cheating, but you pay double tomorrow, because everyone's cheating and the costs come home to roost."

If you've been reading my blog, you know this is a factor that has been of concern to me. Maybe I have had an impact by putting forth ideas; that would be gratifying. But, to me, this is such an obvious idea, that I would expect more than one person to think of it on their own.

Common Environmental Chemicals In Diet Affect Fetal Ovarian Development

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070704144531.htm

Exposing a developing female sheep fetus to low doses of chemicals commonly
present in the environment can disturb the development of the ovary
Over recent decades there has been a dramatic increase in the production of
industrial and agricultural chemicals and heavy metals, and this has
coincided with widespread reports of breeding problems in wild animals.
Fertility also appears to be declining among humans and there has also been
a rise in reproductive defects observed in newborn babies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070706/india_nm/india283267;_ylt=AvxxpotYGbPe2uvhbwqLqKQPLBIF

Sexual problems could lead to rhinos' extinction

Low sperm counts and other reproductive problems are preventing pregnancy among Malaysia's endangered rhinos, a worrying trend that wildlife experts say could hasten the animals' extinction.

=

Altruistic Rats

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070703173345.htm

Cooperation in animals has long been a major focus in evolutionary biology. In particular, reciprocal altruism, where helpful acts are contingent upon the likelihood of getting help in return, is especially intriguing because it is open to cheaters. In a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, Claudia Rutte and Michael Taborsky demonstrate the first evidence for generalized reciprocal cooperation in non-humans. The authors show that rats who received help in the past were more likely to help another unknown partner.

So what I have said about humans holds for rats : The way you treat others helps create a world in which others treat you in the same way.