It's a Small World - Pandas

Mother of dead pregnant woman blasts EMTs

I certainly hope there is more to the store that makes it less revolting. If so, I will update this.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34526126/ns/us_news-life/

updated 4:13 p.m. ET, Tues., Dec . 22, 2009

NEW YORK - Two emergency medical technicians accused of refusing to help a dying pregnant woman are "inhuman," her mother said Tuesday. A lawyer for the EMTs argued his clients are being vilified in a rush to judgment.

----- (skipping)

But lawyer Douglas Rosenthal said the facts will show that Jason Green and Melissa Jackson acted "appropriately" at the Au Bon Pain outlet in Brooklyn on Dec. 9.

The two were at the eatery when Eutisha Rennix, an employee, collapsed. Witnesses have said the EMTs told workers to call 911, then left when they were asked to help the 25-year-old woman.

Rennix died at a hospital shortly afterward, her baby too premature to survive.

----- (skipping)

Fire Department spokesman Steve Ritea said that all FDNY members "take an oath to assist others whenever they're in need of emergency medical care. It's their sworn duty."

----- (skipping)

Umbilical Cord Could Be New Source of Plentiful Stem Cells

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091217102258.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 18, 2009) — Stem cells that could one day provide therapeutic options for muscle and bone disorders can be easily harvested from the tissue of the umbilical cord, just as the blood that goes through it provides precursor cells to treat some blood disorders, said University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers in the online version of the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/cp-iit092809.php

Public release date: 1-Oct-2009
Contact: Cathleen Genova
Cell Press
It's in the bank: Human cord blood reprogrammed into embryonic-like stem cells

Human umbilical cord blood cells may be far more versatile than previous research has indicated. Two independent studies, published by Cell Press in the October 2nd issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, report that they have successfully reprogrammed human umbilical cord blood cells into cells with properties similar to human embryonic stem cells. The results are significant as they identify cord blood as a convenient source for generating cells with a theoretically limitless potential.

The FBI is investigating a hacker attack on Citigroup Inc.

If this is true, or even if it is not, it immediately raises the question - Is the FBI investigating the hacking of e-mails and breakins of climate researchers? If not, why not?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34523855/ns/technology_and_science-security/

updated 2 hours, 11 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The FBI is investigating a hacker attack on Citigroup Inc. that led to the theft of tens of millions of dollars, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The bank strenuously denied the report.

Citing anonymous government officials, the Journal reported that the hackers were connected to a Russian cyber gang. Two other computer systems, at least one of connected to a U.S. government agency, were also attacked.

----- (skipping)

Break-Ins Climate Research Centers Show Desperation Of Global Warming Deniers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-graves/climategate-is-watergate_b_383579.html


Richard Graves
Blogger/Online Campaigner, Global Campaign for Climate Action
Posted: December 8, 2009 12:07 AM

Some environmental leaders have been working to minimize the scandal of ClimateGate, by focusing on the fact the hacked email archive of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit has nothing, besides a few cherry-picked quotes taken out of context, that casts a shadow of a doubt upon validity of modern climate science. They are wrong. ClimateGate is a huge scandal, probably bigger than they even imagine.

The real scandal is not the email archive, or even how it was acquired, sorted, and uploaded to a Russian server, but rather the emerging evidence of a coordinated international campaign to target and harass climate scientists, break and enter into government climate labs, and misrepresent climate science through a sophisticated media infrastructure on the eve of the international climate talks.

One leaked archive could have been the result of an aggrieved staff member or rogue hacker, out to grind a political axe or wreak revenge upon a colleague. However, the University of Victoria was targeted in a similar attack, when two people disguised as network computer technicians attempted to penetrate the security of the facility and access the data servers of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis. When challenged by an employee, the two individuals fled the scene. The network penetration effort was confirmed by University spokespeople in the National Post and was reported by Kevin Grandia of DeSmogBlog.

"This is disturbing news and it shows that there is an organized criminal campaign that is going to great lengths to infiltrate secure facilities and steal private data," said Jim Hoggan, author of the new book Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. "We don't know who is behind these criminal acts, but we hope they will eventually be unmasked by police."

This campaign has been proved to be international in scope, with criminal acts of breaking and entering probable in both the UK and Canada, as well as coordinated with the sophisticated communications infrastructure founded and built by former tobacco lobbyists that were hired by fossil fuel interests, such as ExxonMobil, to cast doubt on the links between the sale and use of fossil fuels and the changing of the world's climate. This infrastructure was detailed by within Hoggan's book, as well as documented in extensive detail by projects like Exxonsecrets.org.

----- (skipping)

http://www.foxnewsradio.com/2009/12/06/break-ins-at-another-climate-research-center-show-desparation-of-global-warming-deniers/#axzz0aSqygMRm

6 December 2009
The Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling And Analysis at the University of Victoria has been broken into, another in a series of security breaches in an attempt to discredit climate science.

----- (skipping)

If so, the question remains, who will get to the bottom of ClimateGate? This could be a scandal bigger than anybody has imagined.


http://scienceblips.dailyradar.com/story/watergate-redux-break-ins-reported-at-another-top/

18 days ago (12/3/2009)
Two weeks ago, thousands of illegally hacked emails from a British climate research center were dumped on a Russian webserver, timed to influence the politics of of the international climate negotiations commencing next week in Copenhagen, Denmark.

----- (skipping)

It's a Small World - Phillipines

Warming Climate Chills Sonoran Desert's Spring Flowers

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091216144145.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2009) — Global warming is giving a boost to Sonoran Desert plants that have an edge during cold weather, according to new research.

Although the overall numbers of winter annuals have declined since 1982, species that germinate and grow better at low temperatures are becoming more common.

"It's an unexpected result -- that global warming has led to an increase in cold-adapted species," said lead author Sarah Kimball, a research associate at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "Because the winter rains are arriving later, they are occurring under colder temperatures."

Climate change is shifting the winter storm track so the Sonoran Desert's winter rains now generally begin in late November or early December, rather than during the balmy days of late October.

Therefore seeds that require winter rains must sprout during the cooler days of December.

----- (skipping)

"Even though overall the winter growing season is getting warmer, what's important in this system is that the growing season is initiated at a later date under colder temperatures," Kimball said. "This demonstrates that the response of organisms to climate change can be unexpected."

Fewer Migratory Birds in Dutch Woods Due to Climate Change

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091220174725.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2009) — All insect-eating migratory birds who winter in Africa and breed in the Dutch woods have decreased in numbers since 1984.

----- (skipping)

This decline is dramatic for certain species: nightingales have declined by 37 percent, wood warblers by 73 percent and Ictarine warblers by 85 percent.

Due to climate change, spring is starting earlier and earlier in the year. On average, trees are in leaf two weeks earlier than 25 years ago, and the caterpillars who eat the young leaves are also appearing two weeks earlier. The eggs of many birds hatch at the moment when there are lots of caterpillars in the woods so that their young have enough to eat.

The researchers already knew that two of the woodland bird species have not been able to adapt their breeding periods sufficiently to the warming climate. Great tits and pied flycatchers now breed too late for the caterpillar peak.

----- (skipping)

In Northern Europe, where spring has hardly shifted, the woodland birds are not declining in numbers. The resident birds in Dutch woods do not show a decline either. In addition, biologists do not see any decline in the Africa migrants who breed in our marshes.

Taking all of this together, the researchers conclude that the decline is not only the result of changing circumstances in Africa. In their view, the decline is mainly due to long-distance migrants not having adapted their migration sufficiently to the earlier appearance of the caterpillars.

----- (skipping)

Daily Pot Smoking May Hasten Onset of Psychosis

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091220144936.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2009) — Progression to daily marijuana use in adolescence may hasten the onset of symptoms leading up to psychosis, an Emory University study finds. The study was published in the November issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

The researchers analyzed data from 109 hospitalized patients who were experiencing their first psychotic episode. The results showed that patients who had a history of using marijuana, or cannabis, and increased to daily pot smoking experienced both psychotic and pre-psychotic symptoms at earlier ages.

----- (skipping)

Marijuana is the most abused illicit substance among people with schizophrenia, the most extreme form of psychosis, and previous research has shown that smoking pot is likely a risk factor for the disease.

----- (skipping)

Your Christmas Tree Has Seven Times More DNA Than You Do!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091215171514.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2009) — Take a close look at your Christmas tree -- it has seven times more genetic material (DNA) than you do! Why this is so is still largely unknown, but now the DNA of the spruce is going to be mapped by Swedish researchers from Umeå Plant Science Center (a collaboration between the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Umeå University), the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), and the Karolinska Institute (KI), with the aid of a SEK 75 million grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

----- (skipping)

Apparently conifers managed as early as 300 million years ago to create an extremely successful genetic make-up that has allowed them to dominate the globe, but what does it look like? All conifers have twelve chromosomes, but they are extremely large: a cell from a spruce or pine has seven times as much DNA as a human cell does. Why do conifers have so much DNA? Does it have to do with their having thrived for millions of years on earth, and do they really have more genes than you and I, or are their genes simply more 'diluted'? This is not known, but their enormous amount of DNA has entailed that scientists have not dared to tackle a mapping of the complete genome of coniferous trees.

----- (skipping)

Global Warming Likely to Be Amplified by Slow Changes to Earth Systems, Geologists Say

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091220143921.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2009) — The kinds of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide taking place today could have a significantly larger effect on global temperatures than previously thought, according to a new study led by Yale University geologists.

Their findings appear December 20 in the advanced online edition of Nature Geoscience.

The team demonstrated that only a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) was associated with a period of substantial warming in the mid- and early-Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago, when temperatures were approximately 3 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today.

----- (skipping)

To do this, the team focused on the most recent episode of sustained global warmth with geography similar to today's. Their reconstructed CO2 concentrations for the past five million years was used to estimate Earth-system climate sensitivity for a fully equilibrated state of the planet, and found that a relatively small rise in CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming 4.5 million years ago. They also found that the global temperature was 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than today while CO2 levels were only between about 365 and 415 parts per million (ppm) -- similar to today's concentration of about 386 ppm.

"This work and other ancient climate reconstructions reveal that Earth's climate is more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than is discussed in policy circles," Pagani said. "Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held CO2 concentrations at the current level."

Must be Santa

Bob Dylan

Aspirin, Tylenol May Decrease Effectiveness of Vaccines

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091201152648.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 2, 2009) — With flu season in full swing and the threat of H1N1 looming, demand for vaccines is at an all-time high. Although those vaccines are expected to be effective, University of Missouri researchers have found further evidence that some over-the-counter drugs, such as aspirin and Tylenol, that inhibit certain enzymes could impact the effectiveness of vaccines.

"If you're taking aspirin regularly, which many people do for cardiovascular treatment, or acetaminophen (Tylenol) for pain and fever and get a flu shot, there is a good chance that you won't have a good antibody response," said Charles Brown, associate professor of veterinary pathobiology

in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine. "These drugs block the enzyme COX-1, which works in tissues throughout the body. We have found that if you block COX-1, you might be decreasing the amount of antibodies your body is producing, and you need high amounts of antibodies to be protected."

----- (skipping)

========================================

I don't find this surprising. Some years ago, when I was taking time-release aspirin before I went to bed, for back pain, I started gettomg sick a lot. Then I read that aspirin depresses the immune system, and stopped taking it. I stopped getting sic so often.

Big Freeze Plunged Europe Into Ice Age in Months

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091130112421.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2009) — In the film The Day After Tomorrow, the world enters the icy grip of a new glacial period within the space of just a few weeks. Now new research shows that this scenario may not be so far from the truth after all.

William Patterson, from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, and his colleagues have shown that switching off the North Atlantic circulation can force the Northern hemisphere into a mini 'ice age' in a matter of months. Previous work has indicated that this process would take tens of years.

Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by a mini ice-age, known by scientists as the Younger Dryas, and nicknamed the 'Big Freeze', which lasted around 1300 years. Geological evidence shows that the Big Freeze was brought about by a sudden influx of freshwater, when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks and poured into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. This vast pulse, a greater volume than all of North America's Great Lakes combined, diluted the North Atlantic conveyor belt and brought it to a halt.

Without the warming influence of this ocean circulation temperatures across the Northern hemisphere plummeted, ice sheets grew and human civilisation fell apart.

Previous evidence from Greenland ice cores has indicated that this sudden change in climate occurred over the space of a decade or so. Now new data shows that the change was amazingly abrupt, taking place over the course of a few months, or a year or two at most.

----- (skipping)

Looking ahead to the future Patterson says there is no reason why a 'Big Freeze' shouldn't happen again. "If the Greenland ice sheet melted suddenly it would be catastrophic," he says.

----- (skipping)


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34242705/ns/technology_and_science-science/

This kind of scenario would not discount evidence pointing toward global warming — after all, it leans on the Greenland ice sheet melting.

"We could say that global warming could lead to a dramatic cooling," Patterson told LiveScience. "This should serve as a further warning rather than a pass."

"People assume that we're political, that we're either pro-global-warming or anti-global-warming, when it's really neither," Patterson added. "Our goal is just to understand climate."

===================================================

At this point, I am not very optimistic that we humans will act wisely enough to avoid very bad results from global warming, but I certainly hope it is gradual enough to at least avoid stopping the North Atlantic conveyor belt. The article referenced below gives hope for that.

And if it does, that means that the heat from more southern areas would no longer be transferred from more southern areas to more northern areas, so those southern areas would become even hotter than otherwise.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091127134037.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 4, 2009) — The Gulf Stream system is known for its impact on Europe's mild climate. For quite some time oceanographers and climate scientists worry that its strength could decline due to the climate change. Unexpected help could come from the ocean currents south of Africa: researchers of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) and the University of Cape Town have discovered that the Agulhas Current transports more saline waters into the Atlantic. These could potentially contribute to stabilize the Gulf Stream system. The study will appear on 26 November in the scientific journals Nature.

----- (skipping)

Undocumented Volcano Contributed to Extremely Cold Decade from 1810-1819

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091205105844.htm

Undocumented Volcano Contributed to Extremely Cold Decade from 1810-1819

ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2009) — South Dakota State University researchers and their colleagues elsewhere in America and in France have found compelling evidence of a previously undocumented large volcanic eruption that occurred exactly 200 years ago, in 1809. The discovery helps explain the record cold decade from 1810-1819.

----- (skipping)

Cole-Dai said climate records show that not only were 1816 -- the so-called "year without a summer" -- and the following years very cold, the entire decade of 1810-1819 is probably the coldest for at least the past 500 years.

Scientists have long been aware that the massive and violent eruption in 1815 of an Indonesian volcano called Tambora, which killed more than 88,000 people in Indonesia, had caused the worldwide cold weather in 1816 and after. Volcanic eruptions have a cooling effect on the planet because they release sulfur gases into the atmosphere that form sulfuric acid aerosols that block sunlight. But the cold temperatures in the early part of the decade, before that eruption, suggest Tambora alone could not have caused the climatic changes of the decade.

"Our new evidence is that the volcanic sulfuric acid came down at the opposite poles at precisely the same time, and this means that the sulfate is from a single, large eruption of a volcano in 1809," Cole-Dai said. "The Tambora eruption and the undocumented 1809 eruption are together responsible for the unusually cold decade."

----- (skipping)

See also:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121377379&sc=fb&cc=fp

Diesel Truck Engine Made With Barely Measurable Emissions

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091207095514.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2009) — Just three months after the Euro 5 Norm for exhaust emissions went into force for all new car models, researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have demonstrated an engine that is already close to meeting the more stringent Euro 6 emissions standard. A research team headed by Prof. Georg Wachtmeister from the Chair of Internal Combustion Engines has succeeded in reducing the pollutants in exhaust emissions to barely measurable levels.

----- (skipping)

The Euro 6 Norm, scheduled to come into force by 2014, is a tough standard by any measure. The directive stipulates emission levels that are barely measurable. A diesel engine, for instance, may emit a mere 5 milligrams of soot particles and 80 milligrams of nitrogen oxides per kilometer.

----- (skipping)

==========================================

Good news, although it doesn't sound like it reduces CO2.

Genny Nelson served up dignity at the Sisters of the Road Cafe for 30 years

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/12/genny_nelson_served_up_dignity.html

PORTLAND NEWS
By John Foyston, The Oregonian
December 10, 2009, 9:45PM

Genny Nelson is not a big or imposing woman, but she has stared down a drunk brandishing a chair and talked a distraught kitchen staffer into putting down the chef's knife he was clutching at Sisters of the Road Cafe.

When you sense the granitic commitment to ideals that underlies her shyness, you can envision her breaking up two guys going at each other with a broken wine bottle and a hay hook, and standing up to a man about to bust a chair over his buddy's head.

Nelson, 57, will retire Saturday from Sisters of the Road in Old Town after three decades of helping replace the taint of charity with dignity. She affirmed the nonprofit's commitment to nonviolence and the "gentle personalism" of the Catholic Workers movement.

Her retirement celebration Saturday afternoon at Sisters of the Road will happen exactly 30 years after the cafe's opening celebration, a month after Nelson and co-founder Sandy Gooch opened its doors Nov. 7, 1979.

----- (skipping)

Sisters was, and is, a place where you can use your food stamps for a meal -- Sisters and Nelson helped make that a federal law. It's a place where, if you lack the buck and a quarter for a meal -- the price hasn't changed in 30 years -- you can work 15 minutes to pay for your lunch or half an hour to earn enough to treat a pal to lunch, and imagine how lordly that bit of generosity might feel to a man who perhaps owns little other than his good name.

"What makes Sisters so special is that how we do what we do is the most important thing," said Monica Beemer, executive director of Sisters of the Road since 2005. "That's Genny's legacy: It's about building relationships and community and challenging the violence within ourselves and society; it's about seeing each other every day and sharing stories.

"Genny's done a great job of institutionalizing that, because nonviolence informs everything we do, and she reminds us to stand up for nonviolence not just when it's easy to do so, but when it's hard."

----- (skipping)

Nelson, who's been diabetic since she was 8, is retiring because she's running out of steam. "This is still the best place in the world to work, but you have to have energy and I just don't have it anymore."

----- (skipping)

Social Scientists Build Case for 'Survival of the Kindest'

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091208155309.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 9, 2009) — Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.

In contrast to "every man for himself" interpretations of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of "Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life," and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.

They call it "survival of the kindest."

"Because of our very vulnerable offspring, the fundamental task for human survival and gene replication is to take care of others," said Keltner, co-director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. "Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate. As Darwin long ago surmised, sympathy is our strongest instinct."

----- (skipping)

"I've found that parents who start consciously cultivating gratitude and generosity in their children quickly see how much happier and more resilient their children become," said Carter, author of "Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents" which will be in bookstores in February 2010. "What is often surprising to parents is how much happier they themselves also become."

----- (skipping)

One Tin Soldier

Jobs Crisis Fact Sheet

I have excerpted facts I think of particular interest. Please click on the link to see more.

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/jobs_crisis_fact_sheet/#When:16:52:19Z

By Anna Turner,
December 4, 2009

(Note that all numbers are current as of December 4, 2009. States numbers are current as of November 20, 2009.)

The jobs crisis

* Number unemployed: 15.4 million (up from 7.5 million in December 2007)
* Portion of unemployed who have been jobless more than six months: 38.3%
* Total jobs lost during the recession: 8.0 million
* Jobs lost in November, 2009: 11,000
* Jobs needed to return to pre-recession unemployment rate: 10.9 million
* Number of jobseekers per job opening: 6.3
* Unemployment rate: 10.0%
* Underemployment rate: 17.2%; Share of workers un- or underemployed: more than 1 in 6
* Under- and unemployed, marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers: 26.9 million

Hardships and the safety net

* Americans with no health insurance in 2008: 46.3 million
* Drop in children covered through parents’ employers, 2000 to 2007: 3.4 million
* Annual Social Security benefit for average retiree: $13,922; Share of older Americans receiving all their income from Social Security: more than 1 out of 4
* Number of children in poverty in 2008: 14.1 million (over one-third)
* Drop in real median income from 2007 to 2008: 3.6% (largest one-year drop since 1967)
* Growth rate of nominal, hourly wages of production workers over the last three months: 1.7%
* Additional people covered by Medicaid/SCHIP in 2008: 3 million


American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

* Average weekly unemployment benefit in October (including additional $25 per week from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act): $334
* Number of additional people each week receiving unemployment compensation because of ARRA in October: 3.9 million
* Average monthly cost of COBRA with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act subsidy: $370; Without American Recovery and Reinvestment Act subsidy: $1,057
* Jobs lost since February 2008: 2.7 million ; Jobs likely lost since February 2008 without passage of ARRA: 4.0 to 4.5 million