Anomalies And Alternative Science - World-of-Newave.info World-of-Newave.info http://www.world-of-newave.info/ 2008-07-25T11:44:40Z Latest news and articles about Anomalies And Alternative Science Copyright (c)2004-2008.§/Newave SARL. All rights reserved. {COMPUTERS > ROBOTICS} - Dear Diary: Girls love Robots In 2006, CMU researches began thinking about how to use robot building as a way of boosting technological fluency in middle school girls. They hoped to improve the "dismally low number" of women in computer science and engineering fields by offering a more motivating alternative to traditional education. The result was Robot Diaries, a series of workshops where girls built robots (photos of another workshop). A huge amount of feedback and analysis was collected during the workshops, to learn what worked and what didn't. The participants spent almost as much time keeping activity logs, being interviewed, debriefed, surveyed, and observed as they did building robots. The end result was a program and curriculum researchers believe engages the girls, while at the same time changing the attitudes of their parents, which tends to force girls into stereotypical roles. To read more about how the programs worked, what they tried, and what worked, check out the verbosely named paper, "Robot Diaries Interim Project Report: Development of a Technology Program for Middle School Girls" (PDF format). Like to try it at your school? CMU has made the curriculum for the one-day workshop available online. This research was done by the CMU Robotic Institute's CREATE Lab. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/computers/robotics/dear-diary-girls-love-robots-20080798312.htm 2008-07-09T16:51:41Z 2008-07-09T16:51:41Z Robots.Net http://robots.net/article/2587.html Dear Diary: Girls love Robots {new window}   Robots.Net - In 2006, CMU researches began thinking about how to use robot building as a way of boosting technological fluency in middle school girls. They hoped to improve the "dismally low number" of women in computer science and engineering fields by offering a more motivating alternative to traditional education. The result was Robot Diaries, a series of workshops where girls built robots (photos of another workshop). A huge amount of feedback and analysis was collected during the workshops, to learn what worked and what didn't. The participants spent almost as much time keeping activity logs, being interviewed, debriefed, surveyed, and observed as they did building robots. The end result was a program and curriculum researchers believe engages the girls, while at the same time changing the attitudes of their parents, which tends to force girls into stereotypical roles. To read more about how the programs worked, what they tried, and what worked, check out the verbosely named paper, "Robot Diaries Interim Project Report: Development of a Technology Program for Middle School Girls" (PDF format). Like to try it at your school? CMU has made the curriculum for the one-day workshop available online. This research was done by the CMU Robotic Institute's CREATE Lab.
Published: July 9, 2008, 4:51 pm - Indexed: July 10, 2008, 10:38 am - Page Size: 7KB
Category: Computers > Robotics

]]> {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Confusing National Journal and CQ , NRO's Geraghty falsely claimed Obama campaign ad cited "the same study" Obama has criticized In a July 8 post, National Review Online blogger Jim Geraghty wrote of a new ad by Sen. Barack Obama: "[T]he narrator continues, '[Sen. John] McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil. He's voted with [President] Bush 95 percent of the time,' and at the bottom of the screen, we see the source, 'Congressional Quarterly 2007 Voting Study.' This is the same study that called Obama the most liberal lawmaker in the Senate. By citing this study, the Obama campaign seems to be dropping their objections to that characterization, or of CQ's calculation methods." But Geraghty's assertion that the Obama campaign cited "the same study" that it previously criticized is false, and his claim that "the Obama campaign seems to be dropping their objections" to the ratings that said Obama is "the most liberal lawmaker in the Senate" is baseless. Indeed, Obama was "the most liberal lawmaker" according to the National Journal's 2007 Vote Ratings, not according to CQ, which measured how often senators voted with their party rather than assessing "liberal" or "conservative" votes and found that "[t]en Democrats had higher scores" on the "party unity" measure in 2007 than Obama, as PolitiFact.com has noted. Moreover, PolitiFact reported that "National Journal relies largely on the judgment of its editors and reporters," whereas "CQ takes a more empirical approach." PolitiFact quoted CQ national editor John Cranford saying of his group's study, "We don't try to establish a litmus test or ideological label. ... What we're looking for is something that more closely represents how members might characterize their vote, such as how often they vote with the president." From PolitiFact.com: In CQ's calculation of party unity, which measures how often members vote with their party on bills where the parties split, Obama got a 97 percent rating last year. Ten Democrats had higher scores. On votes where Bush indicated his position, CQ found Obama supported the Republican president 40 percent of the time in 2007. That 40 percent rating put Obama in the middle of the pack for Democrats. In 2006, Obama voted with Bush 49 percent of the time. [...] National Journal relies largely on the judgment of its editors and reporters. They choose votes that they believe show ideological distinctions (they chose to include 99 of the 442 Senate votes last year) and they decide which side in the vote is liberal and which is conservative. Then they compute how often senators and House members vote each way. "We're trying to pick votes where some ideological differences are displayed and show how members of Congress line up relative to one another," said Charles Green, editor of the magazine. CQ takes a more empirical approach and calculates how often members vote with their party or the president. "We don't try to establish a litmus test or ideological label," said John Cranford, CQ's national editor. "What we're looking for is something that more closely represents how members might characterize their vote, such as how often they vote with the president." During a February 11 Politico/WJLA-TV interview, Obama responded to a question by Politico editor-in-chief John F. Harris about the National Journal's 2007 vote ratings, saying, "[A]n example of why I was rated the most liberal was because I wanted an office of public integrity that stood outside of the Senate, and outside of Congress, to make sure that you've got an impartial eye on ethics problems inside of Congress. Now, I didn't know that it was a liberal or Democratic issue. I thought that was a good government issue that a lot of Republicans would like to see." Indeed, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, the National Journal based its rankings not on all votes cast by senators in 2007, but on "99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale." In addition to the vote Obama cited in the Politico interview, among the votes he cast that contributed to National Journal's "most liberal senator" label were those to implement the 9-11 Commission's homeland security recommendations, provide more children with health insurance, expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, and maintain a federal minimum wage. By contrast, a study by political science professors Keith Poole and Jeff Lewis that used every non-unanimous vote cast in the Senate in 2007 to determine relative ideology placed Obama in a tie for the ranking of 10th most liberal senator. Geraghty is presumably aware of the National Journal study, having written on February 19: "John McCain can point out that Barack Obama has been rated the most liberal lawmaker in the U.S. Senate by National Journal." From Geraghty's July 8 National Review Online post: The Obama campaign deploys the "he supports new development on existing leases" dodge. As the Wall Street Journal noted, this proposal would work swell if every acre of every lease held the same amount of oil and gas. Unfortunately, oil isn't found in every acre; only one of three wells results in a discovery of oil that can be recovered economically. In deeper water, it's one of five. As the Journal noted, "All this involves huge risks, capital investment -- and time." Anyway -- in Obama's ad, the narrator continues, "McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil. He's voted with Bush 95 percent of the time," and at the bottom of the screen, we see the source, "Congressional Quarterly 2007 Voting Study." This is the same study that called Obama the most liberal lawmaker in the Senate. By citing this study, the Obama campaign seems to be dropping their objections to that characterization, or of CQ's calculation methods. The rest of the ad is generic pledges: "Barack Obama will make energy independence an urgent priority. Raise mileage standards. Fast track technology for alternative fuels. A $1000 tax cut to help families as we break the grip of foreign oil. A real plan and new energy." http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/confusing-national-journal-and-cq-nro-s-geraghty-20080772812.htm 2008-07-09T01:13:56Z 2008-07-09T01:13:56Z Mediamatters.Org http://mediamatters.org/items/200807080008 Confusing National Journal and CQ , NRO's Geraghty falsely claimed Obama campaign ad cited "the same study" Obama has criticized {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - In a July 8 post, National Review Online blogger Jim Geraghty wrote of a new ad by Sen. Barack Obama: "[T]he narrator continues, '[Sen. John] McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil. He's voted with [President] Bush 95 percent of the time,' and at the bottom of the screen, we see the source, 'Congressional Quarterly 2007 Voting Study.' This is the same study that called Obama the most liberal lawmaker in the Senate. By citing this study, the Obama campaign seems to be dropping their objections to that characterization, or of CQ's calculation methods." But Geraghty's assertion that the Obama campaign cited "the same study" that it previously criticized is false, and his claim that "the Obama campaign seems to be dropping their objections" to the ratings that said Obama is "the most liberal lawmaker in the Senate" is baseless. Indeed, Obama was "the most liberal lawmaker" according to the National Journal's 2007 Vote Ratings, not according to CQ, which measured how often senators voted with their party rather than assessing "liberal" or "conservative" votes and found that "[t]en Democrats had higher scores" on the "party unity" measure in 2007 than Obama, as PolitiFact.com has noted. Moreover, PolitiFact reported that "National Journal relies largely on the judgment of its editors and reporters," whereas "CQ takes a more empirical approach." PolitiFact quoted CQ national editor John Cranford saying of his group's study, "We don't try to establish a litmus test or ideological label. ... What we're looking for is something that more closely represents how members might characterize their vote, such as how often they vote with the president." From PolitiFact.com: In CQ's calculation of party unity, which measures how often members vote with their party on bills where the parties split, Obama got a 97 percent rating last year. Ten Democrats had higher scores. On votes where Bush indicated his position, CQ found Obama supported the Republican president 40 percent of the time in 2007. That 40 percent rating put Obama in the middle of the pack for Democrats. In 2006, Obama voted with Bush 49 percent of the time. [...] National Journal relies largely on the judgment of its editors and reporters. They choose votes that they believe show ideological distinctions (they chose to include 99 of the 442 Senate votes last year) and they decide which side in the vote is liberal and which is conservative. Then they compute how often senators and House members vote each way. "We're trying to pick votes where some ideological differences are displayed and show how members of Congress line up relative to one another," said Charles Green, editor of the magazine. CQ takes a more empirical approach and calculates how often members vote with their party or the president. "We don't try to establish a litmus test or ideological label," said John Cranford, CQ's national editor. "What we're looking for is something that more closely represents how members might characterize their vote, such as how often they vote with the president." During a February 11 Politico/WJLA-TV interview, Obama responded to a question by Politico editor-in-chief John F. Harris about the National Journal's 2007 vote ratings, saying, "[A]n example of why I was rated the most liberal was because I wanted an office of public integrity that stood outside of the Senate, and outside of Congress, to make sure that you've got an impartial eye on ethics problems inside of Congress. Now, I didn't know that it was a liberal or Democratic issue. I thought that was a good government issue that a lot of Republicans would like to see." Indeed, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, the National Journal based its rankings not on all votes cast by senators in 2007, but on "99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale." In addition to the vote Obama cited in the Politico interview, among the votes he cast that contributed to National Journal's "most liberal senator" label were those to implement the 9-11 Commission's homeland security recommendations, provide more children with health insurance, expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, and maintain a federal minimum wage. By contrast, a study by political science professors Keith Poole and Jeff Lewis that used every non-unanimous vote cast in the Senate in 2007 to determine relative ideology placed Obama in a tie for the ranking of 10th most liberal senator. Geraghty is presumably aware of the National Journal study, having written on February 19: "John McCain can point out that Barack Obama has been rated the most liberal lawmaker in the U.S. Senate by National Journal." From Geraghty's July 8 National Review Online post: The Obama campaign deploys the "he supports new development on existing leases" dodge. As the Wall Street Journal noted, this proposal would work swell if every acre of every lease held the same amount of oil and gas. Unfortunately, oil isn't found in every acre; only one of three wells results in a discovery of oil that can be recovered economically. In deeper water, it's one of five. As the Journal noted, "All this involves huge risks, capital investment -- and time." Anyway -- in Obama's ad, the narrator continues, "McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil. He's voted with Bush 95 percent of the time," and at the bottom of the screen, we see the source, "Congressional Quarterly 2007 Voting Study." This is the same study that called Obama the most liberal lawmaker in the Senate. By citing this study, the Obama campaign seems to be dropping their objections to that characterization, or of CQ's calculation methods. The rest of the ad is generic pledges: "Barack Obama will make energy independence an urgent priority. Raise mileage standards. Fast track technology for alternative fuels. A $1000 tax cut to help families as we break the grip of foreign oil. A real plan and new energy."
Media Matters - Confusing National Journal and CQ , NRO's Geraghty falsely claimed Obama campaign ad cited "the same study" Obama has criticized {...} National Review Online blogger Jim Geraghty wrote that a new ad for Sen. Barack Obama cites as a source the " 'Congressional Quarterly 2007 Voting Study.' This is the same study that called Obama the most liberal lawmaker in the Senate. By citing this study, the Obama campaign seems to be dropping their objections to that characterization, or of CQ's calculation methods." In fact, Obama was "the most liberal lawmaker" according to the National Journal's 2007 Vote Ratings, not according to CQ , which measured how often senators voted with their party rather than assessing "liberal" or "conservative" votes and found that "[t]en Democrats had higher scores" on the "party unity" measure in 2007 than Obama, as PolitiFact.com has noted. {...}
Published: July 9, 2008, 1:13 am - Indexed: July 10, 2008, 10:31 am - Page Size: 23KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> {SUBCULTURES > NEWS AND MEDIA} - How English Is Evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand The targeted offenses: if you are stolen, call the police at once. please omnivorously put the waste in garbage can. deformed man lavatory. For the past 18 months, teams of language police have been scouring Beijing on a mission to wipe out all such traces of bad English signage before the Olympics come to town in August. They're the type of goofy transgressions that we in the English homelands love to poke fun at, devoting entire Web sites to so-called Chinglish. (By the way, that last phrase means "handicapped bathroom.") But what if these sentences aren't really bad English? What if they are evidence that the English language is happily leading an alternative lifestyle without us? Thanks to globalization, the Allied victories in World War II, and American leadership in science and technology, English has become so successful across the world that it's escaping the boundaries of what we think it should be. In part, this is because there are fewer of us: By 2020, native speakers will make up only 15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language. Already, most conversations in English are between nonnative speakers who use it as a lingua franca. In China, this sort of free-form adoption of English is helped along by a shortage of native English-speaking teachers, who are hard to keep happy in rural areas for long stretches of time. An estimated 300 million Chinese — roughly equivalent to the total US population — read and write English but don't get enough quality spoken practice. The likely consequence of all this? In the future, more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese. It's not merely that English will be salted with Chinese vocabulary for local cuisine, bon mots, and curses or that speakers will peel off words from local dialects. The Chinese and other Asians already pronounce English differently — in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. For example, in various parts of the region they tend not to turn vowels in unstressed syllables into neutral vowels. Instead of "har-muh-nee," it's "har-moh-nee." And the sounds that begin words like this and thing are often enunciated as the letters f, v, t, or d. In Singaporean English (known as Singlish), think is pronounced "tink," and theories is "tee-oh-rees." English will become more like Chinese in other ways, too. Some grammatical appendages unique to English (such as adding do or did to questions) will drop away, and our practice of not turning certain nouns into plurals will be ignored. Expect to be asked: "How many informations can your flash drive hold?" In Mandarin, Cantonese, and other tongues, sentences don't require subjects, which leads to phrases like this: "Our goalie not here yet, so give chance, can or not?" One noted feature of Singlish is the use of words like ah, lah, or wah at the end of a sentence to indicate a question or get a listener to agree with you. They're each pronounced with tone — the linguistic feature that gives spoken Mandarin its musical quality — adding a specific pitch to words to alter their meaning. (If you say "xin" with an even tone, it means "heart"; with a descending tone it means "honest.") According to linguists, such words may introduce tone into other Asian-English hybrids. Given the number of people involved, Chinglish is destined to take on a life of its own. Advertisers will play with it, as they already do in Taiwan. It will be celebrated as a form of cultural identity, as the Hong Kong Museum of Art did in a Chinglish exhibition last year. It will be used widely online and in movies, music, games, and books, as it is in Singapore. Someday, it may even be taught in schools. Ultimately, it's not that speakers will slide along a continuum, with "proper" language at one end and local English dialects on the other, as in countries where creoles are spoken. Nor will Chinglish replace native languages, as creoles sometimes do. It's that Chinglish will be just as proper as any other English on the planet. And it's possible Chinglish will be more efficient than our version, doing away with word endings and the articles a, an, and the. After all, if you can figure out "Environmental sanitation needs your conserve," maybe conservation isn't so necessary. Any language is constantly evolving, so it's not surprising that English, transplanted to new soil, is bearing unusual fruit. Nor is it unique that a language, spread so far from its homelands, would begin to fracture. The obvious comparison is to Latin, which broke into mutually distinct languages over hundreds of years — French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian. A less familiar example is Arabic: The speakers of its myriad dialects are connected through the written language of the Koran and, more recently, through the homogenized Arabic of Al Jazeera. But what's happening to English may be its own thing: It's mingling with so many more local languages than Latin ever did, that it's on a path toward a global tongue — what's coming to be known as Panglish. Soon, when Americans travel abroad, one of the languages they'll have to learn may be their own. Michael Erard (author@umthebook.com) wrote about the spread of the Chinese language in issue 14.04. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/subcultures/geeks-and-nerds/news-and-media/how-english-is-evolving-into-a-language-we-may-not-2008075935.htm 2008-07-05T05:00:00Z 2008-07-05T05:00:00Z Wired.Com http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-07/st_essay How English Is Evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand {new window}   Www.Wired.Com - The targeted offenses: if you are stolen, call the police at once. please omnivorously put the waste in garbage can. deformed man lavatory. For the past 18 months, teams of language police have been scouring Beijing on a mission to wipe out all such traces of bad English signage before the Olympics come to town in August. They're the type of goofy transgressions that we in the English homelands love to poke fun at, devoting entire Web sites to so-called Chinglish. (By the way, that last phrase means "handicapped bathroom.") But what if these sentences aren't really bad English? What if they are evidence that the English language is happily leading an alternative lifestyle without us? Thanks to globalization, the Allied victories in World War II, and American leadership in science and technology, English has become so successful across the world that it's escaping the boundaries of what we think it should be. In part, this is because there are fewer of us: By 2020, native speakers will make up only 15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language. Already, most conversations in English are between nonnative speakers who use it as a lingua franca. In China, this sort of free-form adoption of English is helped along by a shortage of native English-speaking teachers, who are hard to keep happy in rural areas for long stretches of time. An estimated 300 million Chinese — roughly equivalent to the total US population — read and write English but don't get enough quality spoken practice. The likely consequence of all this? In the future, more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese. It's not merely that English will be salted with Chinese vocabulary for local cuisine, bon mots, and curses or that speakers will peel off words from local dialects. The Chinese and other Asians already pronounce English differently — in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. For example, in various parts of the region they tend not to turn vowels in unstressed syllables into neutral vowels. Instead of "har-muh-nee," it's "har-moh-nee." And the sounds that begin words like this and thing are often enunciated as the letters f, v, t, or d. In Singaporean English (known as Singlish), think is pronounced "tink," and theories is "tee-oh-rees." English will become more like Chinese in other ways, too. Some grammatical appendages unique to English (such as adding do or did to questions) will drop away, and our practice of not turning certain nouns into plurals will be ignored. Expect to be asked: "How many informations can your flash drive hold?" In Mandarin, Cantonese, and other tongues, sentences don't require subjects, which leads to phrases like this: "Our goalie not here yet, so give chance, can or not?" One noted feature of Singlish is the use of words like ah, lah, or wah at the end of a sentence to indicate a question or get a listener to agree with you. They're each pronounced with tone — the linguistic feature that gives spoken Mandarin its musical quality — adding a specific pitch to words to alter their meaning. (If you say "xin" with an even tone, it means "heart"; with a descending tone it means "honest.") According to linguists, such words may introduce tone into other Asian-English hybrids. Given the number of people involved, Chinglish is destined to take on a life of its own. Advertisers will play with it, as they already do in Taiwan. It will be celebrated as a form of cultural identity, as the Hong Kong Museum of Art did in a Chinglish exhibition last year. It will be used widely online and in movies, music, games, and books, as it is in Singapore. Someday, it may even be taught in schools. Ultimately, it's not that speakers will slide along a continuum, with "proper" language at one end and local English dialects on the other, as in countries where creoles are spoken. Nor will Chinglish replace native languages, as creoles sometimes do. It's that Chinglish will be just as proper as any other English on the planet. And it's possible Chinglish will be more efficient than our version, doing away with word endings and the articles a, an, and the. After all, if you can figure out "Environmental sanitation needs your conserve," maybe conservation isn't so necessary. Any language is constantly evolving, so it's not surprising that English, transplanted to new soil, is bearing unusual fruit. Nor is it unique that a language, spread so far from its homelands, would begin to fracture. The obvious comparison is to Latin, which broke into mutually distinct languages over hundreds of years — French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian. A less familiar example is Arabic: The speakers of its myriad dialects are connected through the written language of the Koran and, more recently, through the homogenized Arabic of Al Jazeera. But what's happening to English may be its own thing: It's mingling with so many more local languages than Latin ever did, that it's on a path toward a global tongue — what's coming to be known as Panglish. Soon, when Americans travel abroad, one of the languages they'll have to learn may be their own. Michael Erard (author@umthebook.com) wrote about the spread of the Chinese language in issue 14.04.
Get in-depth tech news coverage from Wired and read about how it is shaping culture, education, entertainment, communications and technology. {...}
Published: July 5, 2008, 5:00 am - Indexed: July 5, 2008, 10:29 am - Page Size: 49KB
Category: Society > Subcultures > Geeks and Nerds > News and Media

]]> {NORTH AMERICA > REAL ESTATE} - PRICES GOING TO DROP MORE (san mateo) $30000 Today, Carol Migden’s Moratorium Senate Resolution SRC 87 passed the Senate Ag Committee and will now move on to be heard by the full senate. The Resolution passed 4-0. Read Coverage Here Basically, this Resolution would halt the spraying until further testing is done. My thought is that it might buy us a little more time to ensure that whatever testing is done is not being done by CDFA’s allies. I know everyone will be really glad to read this good news. Goodness knows, we need some, and we thank Carol Migden for her strong efforts to protect the innocent people of California from this aerial assault on our families. UPDATE: MORE GOOD NEWS! Twist ties halted in Sonoma County. Read All About It Here 6 comments Tuesday 17 Jun 2008 | admin | LBAM Spray Bay Area | | Link to This Kenwood Press - Wins the Award for the Most Horrible LBAM Article To Date Sunday 15 Jun 2008 | LBAM Spray Bay Area Are you sitting down? I hope you have a good, firm chair to sit in before you read what is undoubtedly the worst, most offensive article any news source has yet published on the LBAM public health crisis. The honor of infamy goes to reporter Sarah Campbell of the Kenwood Press, and I warn you, reading the following news piece may cause your blood pressure to skyrocket dangerously high. Here is the jaw-dropping Kenwood Press article In addition to regurgitating the CDFA’s tired propaganda regarding the ‘threat’ of the light brown apple moth, Campbell gets wonderfully cute, summing up deadly chemicals being poured on human beings like this, “So, if you sense something’s a little different in the air this summer, don’t worry, it’s just the love.” I would like this misguided reporter to have to stand up and read this article to the DeLay family, the Wilcox family, the Lynbergs, the Nagels and the hundreds of other Central Coast families who fell so terribly ill after being forced to inhale carcinogenic pesticides by the CDFA in 2007. I would like her to play it up for big laughs as Mrs. Wilcox turns quietly aside to give her little baby another dose of corticosteroids to keep him breathing. And, I would like you, my valued readers, to join me in letting this news writer know what you think of her coverage after you’ve read the above piece. Lies are one thing. They are easy to call ‘evil’ once you know what you’re hearing. But levity…in the face of 7 million people being force-fed deadly pesticides….I hardly know how to respond. But I did try, and here is the letter I’ve just sent off to Ms. Campbell: Dear Ms. Campbell, I am writing in regards to your article on the subject of the light brown apple moth featured in this month’s edition of the Kenwood Press. I am running the web’s most active blog on this subject, and feel compelled to write to you personally, having read your coverage of this issue. What you have done, Ms. Campbell, either due to a lack of information and research or for other reasons I can’t conceive of, is to tell the people of Sonoma County that if something is different in the air this summer, it’s love. In point of fact, if something is different in the air this summer it is toxic chemicals which will cause devastating harm to humans, wildlife, the watershed and soil. To begin with, the substance the CDFA intends to spray is a registered pesticide, not an alternative to a pesticide as you have stated in your article. The 2 forms of Checkmate sprayed on the people of the Central Coast in 2007 are registered with the EPA as pesticides. The aerial pesticide consists of 3 extremely dangerous components: 1) the carcinogenic, mutagenic, endocrine disrupting ‘inert’ ingredients, 2) the synthetic insect pheromone mimics which a growing body of evidence suggests causes alarming sexual aggression in large mammals including human beings and 3) the plastic microcapsules, more than half of which will be smaller than the American Lung Association’s designation of PM10 - a size of particulate matter which lodges deep in the human lung from which it cannot be expelled and causes disease and death. My blog is frequented by many members of the hundreds and hundreds of families who were sickened by the 2007 spraying. One man’s baby went into cardiac arrest, his eyes rolled back into his head and he was rushed to an emergency hospital while having respiratory failure. This formerly-healthy baby is now being kept breathing by means of corticosteroids. Local school attendance in the Monterey/Santa Cruz area was cut in half during the spraying due to illness. Many of my women readers experienced bizarre reproductive health effects including menopausal women over the age of 65 recommencing menstruation. Dogs, cats, rabbits and honeybees died. The local people woke up to a world devoid of bird song after the enforced aerial spraying and over 600 sea birds washed up dead on the beaches. Imagine, no bird song. Some regions have seen no hummingbirds since the spraying last fall in their gardens. My readers and their friends and family were victims of an illegal and unconstitutional aerial assault. Some of them are still sick with respiratory problems, 10 months later. One by one, UC scientists and independent physicians (not employed by the USDA or CDFA) have stepped forward to explain that exposure to the aerial spray will cause catastrophic damage to infants, children, expectant mothers, elders and any resident who is in poor health. The CDFA is planning to chronically expose 7 million people to a registered pesticide encapsulated in PM10 particulate matter. This will be happening 8 hours a night, up to 5 nights a month, 9 months out of the year for 5-10 years. And, because the pesticide is designed to break down over a 30-90 day period each time it is sprayed, the air and our bodies will never be free of it. We will be eating, drinking and breathing this toxic, carcinogenic pollution for the next decade. I’m hoping that at this point, you are starting to see how inappropriate your remarks about love being in the air seem to me and to anyone who is having their life turned upside down by this aerial assault on the public health. In regards to the twist ties, again, your article strives to portray these materials as safe and necessary. In point of fact, over 30% of the chemicals in the twist ties are being kept a secret from the public, so there is no way for you or anyone else in Sonoma to know what you are being exposed to. What we know do know about the twist ties is this: 1) 33.48% of the ingredients in the twist ties are secret. They do not have to be disclosed to the public because of laws which protect trade secrets rather than public health. 2) The product is being listed as harmful if absorbed through skin and dangerous to the eyes. People exposed to the product are instructed to contact a poison control center and go to a doctor. 3) You are supposed to bring the container for the toxic twist ties with you to the doctor. You will not have the container if you are poisoned by LBAM twist ties. 4) Because 33.48% of the ingredients on the twist ties are secret, your doctor will have no idea what you were poisoned by. 5) The Material Safety Data Sheet created by the manufacturer says that this poison must not be applied to water or areas where water surface is present. In other words, you must not put it near creeks, ponds, coasts, reservoirs, rivers, or any other type of watershed. The sheet says do not contaminate water when disposing of this product. From this, we understand that Isomate-LBAM PLUS twist ties contaminate water. 6) This is an unregistered product that has been approved for use in California only. It has not gone through the normal battery of tests required of registered products. The region which CDFA intends to blanket with these toxic materials not only includes schools and parks, but also thousands of people. Children will be surrounded by these dangerous poisons and will undoubtedly be touching them as they play in and around trees and bushes. Pets and wildlife are also going to be at risk of chemical damage from these twist ties. These are not harmless products, as you have portrayed them, and I cannot understate the disservice you have done to your community by falsely informing people of the safety of registered pesticides and toxic substances. As for the light brown apple moth, your article is strangely silent on the fact that this moth has done and is expected to do zero damage to California’s agriculture and environment. You are totally incorrect in stating that California has no natural predators of this harmless bug. Birds, bats and bugs eat the light brown apple moth…I hope you will agree with me that Sonoma County has a tremendous amount of birds, bats and bugs. But, if we kill them off with pesticides we will be removing the very predators that do keep leafrollers in a good balance. As was discovered by a team of scientists who visited New Zealand to research the LBAM, so long as organophosphate pesticides aren’t being used and killing off the birds, bats and bugs, LBAM is no problem. Even CDFA admits it has done zero damage in California, despite the fact that it has been here from as little as 7 and as many as 50 years. I urge you, Ms. Campbell, to do further research on this issue which is without question the most egregious California has faced in modern times. Do you really support a government that subjects its citizens to aerial spraying of pesticide on human beings without their consent? Do you really want to live in a country where this can happen? 31 cities have now passed strong resolutions vehemently opposing the bombardment of their communities with aerial pesticides. Mayors, senators, representatives, major media, independent medical experts and UC scientists are demanding that these misguided agencies uphold the California Constitution which protects our right to safety. We cannot be safe when we are being chronically exposed to deadly chemicals. CDFA has now been found guilty by 2 superior courts of violating the California Environmental Quality Act in declaring their completely unfounded emergency. It was this phony declaration that enabled them to spray our neighbors on the Central Coast who then fell horribly ill. CDFA has been found guilty…they are lawbreakers, not people you should trust. To put it bluntly, they are liars. Why would they lie to us? CDFA stands to receive billions of dollars in federal funding over the next decade if they are not stopped from spraying us. In order to keep the money coming in, they are totally willing to spray me, my family, you, your family, with carcinogenic pesticide. What you have done, Ms. Campbell, is to reprint their totally unscientific hogwash about the ‘threat’ of this negligible bug that needs to be reclassified as a harmless insect. At best, the LBAM issue is a trade issue, as you will quickly discover with a bit of research. At worst, this is the most blatant human experiment to be undertaken by our government in its total history. I am writing to you out of horrified concern, having read what you have just written for our community to read. I implore you to run corrections at the least of the misstatements you have authored regarding the chemicals being an alternative to pesticides, being safe, and the LBAM having no predators here. I urge you to correct the gross misstatement that Oakland, Marin, San Francisco and other cities have ‘elected’ to be aerially sprayed. To the contrary, all of the local governments are demanding that the spraying be halted, but are being told the pesticide will be enforced on them. We have been told ‘there is no vote’. We are being told we have no choice. I urge you correct what you wrote. And, I am praying you will do more than this. I am praying you will sit down with your editors and start truly researching what is happening here, and that you will print a truthful article in next month’s Kenwood Press. When you are in the media, you are responsible for printing the facts…all of the facts. How will you feel if, when the twist ties go up, your neighborhood falls ill, children are being rushed to the ER, and you’ve got people asking you why you made light of what is, in fact, a terribly dangerous substance? How will the Kenwood Press staff feel when the planes start flying over the Bay Area and the vast population begins to fall ill, as happened on the Central Coast last year, and you have to face that you have covered this issue with a tongue-in-cheek reference to ‘love being in the air’? Unfortunately, it is death that’s in the air for our most vulnerable and precious populations…children, mothers, elders, the infirm. Nothing to laugh about, I am sure you will agree, once you start learning more about this matter. I do understand, CDFA has employed some first-class liars. Their statements seem so plausible if you don’t understand how they operate. Anyone can be duped if they don’t take the time to find out what is actually going on here in California. But, I am so hoping that this letter will be the start of your own research. What is happening is going to affect you and everyone you care for who lives here, Ms. Campbell. Allow me to suggest that you visit the following sites to read articles and watch video documentation of the truth about the most severe public health crisis our state has ever faced. Here is a YouTube page featuring numerous interviews both with families who were sickened by the 2007 spraying and with scientists: http://youtube.com/user/eon3 These are the most active websites regarding this issue: http://www.lbamspray.com http://www.dontspraycalifornia.org http://www.stopthespray.org http://www.cassonline.org http://www.veganreader.com http://www.dontspray.com Over the past months, my family has been devoting all of our free time to trying to educate our communities about what happened to Central Coast families in 2007. I have spoken with countless, honest individuals who were sickened by CDFA’s illegal spraying. I don’t want this to happen to our Bay Area, and am so hoping that when you learn more about this, you will feel the need that we do to work to protect our families from this unnecessary, unconstitutional violation of our basic human rights. Sincerely, & etc. I think you’ll agree with me that the Central Coast families and the Bay Area families who are set to be sprayed have already got enough to deal with without being snickered at by totally uninformed and unworthy news people. Can this woman have done more than 5 minutes of research on this subject prior to firing up Microsoft Word? I hope you will take a moment to set her straight and let her know this is no joking matter: Contact: Sarah Campbell sarah@kenwoodpress.com 5 comments Sunday 15 Jun 2008 | admin | LBAM Spray Bay Area | | Link to This East Bay Community Town Hall Meeting Sunday 15 Jun 2008 | LBAM Spray Bay Area EAST BAY COMMUNITY TOWN HALL TO STOP THE SPRAY Monday, June 23, 2008 7:00 pm -9:00 pm Location: Lakeside Park Garden Center at Lake Merritt 666 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, CA. 94610 Directions: http://www.oaklandnet.com/parks/rental_facilities/gardencenter_directions.asp Sponsored by Stop the Spray- East Bay and Pesticide Watch Learn about the latest legal and legislative strategies to protect our communities from the spraying program for Light Brown Apple Moth. Hear the most up-to-date science and health information. Get involved! Speakers will include: John Russo - Oakland City Attorney ~ providing the most current information on legal strategies to stop the spray in the Bay Area Douglas MacLean, Communications Director, Assemblyman Sandré Swanson ~ reporting on legislative strategies to stop the spray Daniel Harder, Ph.D., Executive Director, Arboretum, UC Santa Cruz, ~ providing scientific evidence the moth is not a threat Lawrence Rose, MD, MPH, former senior Public Medical Officer for Cal-OSHA and part of the UCSF Occupational/Environmental Medicine Department ~ discussing toxicity of the spray and health effects 0 comments Sunday 15 Jun 2008 | admin | LBAM Spray Bay Area | | Link to This Moth Nights http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/prices-going-to-drop-more-san-mateo-30000-20080668631.htm 2008-06-19T09:30:00Z 2008-06-19T09:30:00Z Sfbay.Craigslist.Org http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/rfs/725029832.html PRICES GOING TO DROP MORE (san mateo) $30000 {new window}   Sfbay.Craigslist.Org - Today, Carol Migden’s Moratorium Senate Resolution SRC 87 passed the Senate Ag Committee and will now move on to be heard by the full senate. The Resolution passed 4-0. Read Coverage Here Basically, this Resolution would halt the spraying until further testing is done. My thought is that it might buy us a little more time to ensure that whatever testing is done is not being done by CDFA’s allies. I know everyone will be really glad to read this good news. Goodness knows, we need some, and we thank Carol Migden for her strong efforts to protect the innocent people of California from this aerial assault on our families. UPDATE: MORE GOOD NEWS! Twist ties halted in Sonoma County. Read All About It Here 6 comments Tuesday 17 Jun 2008 | admin | LBAM Spray Bay Area | | Link to This Kenwood Press - Wins the Award for the Most Horrible LBAM Article To Date Sunday 15 Jun 2008 | LBAM Spray Bay Area Are you sitting down? I hope you have a good, firm chair to sit in before you read what is undoubtedly the worst, most offensive article any news source has yet published on the LBAM public health crisis. The honor of infamy goes to reporter Sarah Campbell of the Kenwood Press, and I warn you, reading the following news piece may cause your blood pressure to skyrocket dangerously high. Here is the jaw-dropping Kenwood Press article In addition to regurgitating the CDFA’s tired propaganda regarding the ‘threat’ of the light brown apple moth, Campbell gets wonderfully cute, summing up deadly chemicals being poured on human beings like this, “So, if you sense something’s a little different in the air this summer, don’t worry, it’s just the love.” I would like this misguided reporter to have to stand up and read this article to the DeLay family, the Wilcox family, the Lynbergs, the Nagels and the hundreds of other Central Coast families who fell so terribly ill after being forced to inhale carcinogenic pesticides by the CDFA in 2007. I would like her to play it up for big laughs as Mrs. Wilcox turns quietly aside to give her little baby another dose of corticosteroids to keep him breathing. And, I would like you, my valued readers, to join me in letting this news writer know what you think of her coverage after you’ve read the above piece. Lies are one thing. They are easy to call ‘evil’ once you know what you’re hearing. But levity…in the face of 7 million people being force-fed deadly pesticides….I hardly know how to respond. But I did try, and here is the letter I’ve just sent off to Ms. Campbell: Dear Ms. Campbell, I am writing in regards to your article on the subject of the light brown apple moth featured in this month’s edition of the Kenwood Press. I am running the web’s most active blog on this subject, and feel compelled to write to you personally, having read your coverage of this issue. What you have done, Ms. Campbell, either due to a lack of information and research or for other reasons I can’t conceive of, is to tell the people of Sonoma County that if something is different in the air this summer, it’s love. In point of fact, if something is different in the air this summer it is toxic chemicals which will cause devastating harm to humans, wildlife, the watershed and soil. To begin with, the substance the CDFA intends to spray is a registered pesticide, not an alternative to a pesticide as you have stated in your article. The 2 forms of Checkmate sprayed on the people of the Central Coast in 2007 are registered with the EPA as pesticides. The aerial pesticide consists of 3 extremely dangerous components: 1) the carcinogenic, mutagenic, endocrine disrupting ‘inert’ ingredients, 2) the synthetic insect pheromone mimics which a growing body of evidence suggests causes alarming sexual aggression in large mammals including human beings and 3) the plastic microcapsules, more than half of which will be smaller than the American Lung Association’s designation of PM10 - a size of particulate matter which lodges deep in the human lung from which it cannot be expelled and causes disease and death. My blog is frequented by many members of the hundreds and hundreds of families who were sickened by the 2007 spraying. One man’s baby went into cardiac arrest, his eyes rolled back into his head and he was rushed to an emergency hospital while having respiratory failure. This formerly-healthy baby is now being kept breathing by means of corticosteroids. Local school attendance in the Monterey/Santa Cruz area was cut in half during the spraying due to illness. Many of my women readers experienced bizarre reproductive health effects including menopausal women over the age of 65 recommencing menstruation. Dogs, cats, rabbits and honeybees died. The local people woke up to a world devoid of bird song after the enforced aerial spraying and over 600 sea birds washed up dead on the beaches. Imagine, no bird song. Some regions have seen no hummingbirds since the spraying last fall in their gardens. My readers and their friends and family were victims of an illegal and unconstitutional aerial assault. Some of them are still sick with respiratory problems, 10 months later. One by one, UC scientists and independent physicians (not employed by the USDA or CDFA) have stepped forward to explain that exposure to the aerial spray will cause catastrophic damage to infants, children, expectant mothers, elders and any resident who is in poor health. The CDFA is planning to chronically expose 7 million people to a registered pesticide encapsulated in PM10 particulate matter. This will be happening 8 hours a night, up to 5 nights a month, 9 months out of the year for 5-10 years. And, because the pesticide is designed to break down over a 30-90 day period each time it is sprayed, the air and our bodies will never be free of it. We will be eating, drinking and breathing this toxic, carcinogenic pollution for the next decade. I’m hoping that at this point, you are starting to see how inappropriate your remarks about love being in the air seem to me and to anyone who is having their life turned upside down by this aerial assault on the public health. In regards to the twist ties, again, your article strives to portray these materials as safe and necessary. In point of fact, over 30% of the chemicals in the twist ties are being kept a secret from the public, so there is no way for you or anyone else in Sonoma to know what you are being exposed to. What we know do know about the twist ties is this: 1) 33.48% of the ingredients in the twist ties are secret. They do not have to be disclosed to the public because of laws which protect trade secrets rather than public health. 2) The product is being listed as harmful if absorbed through skin and dangerous to the eyes. People exposed to the product are instructed to contact a poison control center and go to a doctor. 3) You are supposed to bring the container for the toxic twist ties with you to the doctor. You will not have the container if you are poisoned by LBAM twist ties. 4) Because 33.48% of the ingredients on the twist ties are secret, your doctor will have no idea what you were poisoned by. 5) The Material Safety Data Sheet created by the manufacturer says that this poison must not be applied to water or areas where water surface is present. In other words, you must not put it near creeks, ponds, coasts, reservoirs, rivers, or any other type of watershed. The sheet says do not contaminate water when disposing of this product. From this, we understand that Isomate-LBAM PLUS twist ties contaminate water. 6) This is an unregistered product that has been approved for use in California only. It has not gone through the normal battery of tests required of registered products. The region which CDFA intends to blanket with these toxic materials not only includes schools and parks, but also thousands of people. Children will be surrounded by these dangerous poisons and will undoubtedly be touching them as they play in and around trees and bushes. Pets and wildlife are also going to be at risk of chemical damage from these twist ties. These are not harmless products, as you have portrayed them, and I cannot understate the disservice you have done to your community by falsely informing people of the safety of registered pesticides and toxic substances. As for the light brown apple moth, your article is strangely silent on the fact that this moth has done and is expected to do zero damage to California’s agriculture and environment. You are totally incorrect in stating that California has no natural predators of this harmless bug. Birds, bats and bugs eat the light brown apple moth…I hope you will agree with me that Sonoma County has a tremendous amount of birds, bats and bugs. But, if we kill them off with pesticides we will be removing the very predators that do keep leafrollers in a good balance. As was discovered by a team of scientists who visited New Zealand to research the LBAM, so long as organophosphate pesticides aren’t being used and killing off the birds, bats and bugs, LBAM is no problem. Even CDFA admits it has done zero damage in California, despite the fact that it has been here from as little as 7 and as many as 50 years. I urge you, Ms. Campbell, to do further research on this issue which is without question the most egregious California has faced in modern times. Do you really support a government that subjects its citizens to aerial spraying of pesticide on human beings without their consent? Do you really want to live in a country where this can happen? 31 cities have now passed strong resolutions vehemently opposing the bombardment of their communities with aerial pesticides. Mayors, senators, representatives, major media, independent medical experts and UC scientists are demanding that these misguided agencies uphold the California Constitution which protects our right to safety. We cannot be safe when we are being chronically exposed to deadly chemicals. CDFA has now been found guilty by 2 superior courts of violating the California Environmental Quality Act in declaring their completely unfounded emergency. It was this phony declaration that enabled them to spray our neighbors on the Central Coast who then fell horribly ill. CDFA has been found guilty…they are lawbreakers, not people you should trust. To put it bluntly, they are liars. Why would they lie to us? CDFA stands to receive billions of dollars in federal funding over the next decade if they are not stopped from spraying us. In order to keep the money coming in, they are totally willing to spray me, my family, you, your family, with carcinogenic pesticide. What you have done, Ms. Campbell, is to reprint their totally unscientific hogwash about the ‘threat’ of this negligible bug that needs to be reclassified as a harmless insect. At best, the LBAM issue is a trade issue, as you will quickly discover with a bit of research. At worst, this is the most blatant human experiment to be undertaken by our government in its total history. I am writing to you out of horrified concern, having read what you have just written for our community to read. I implore you to run corrections at the least of the misstatements you have authored regarding the chemicals being an alternative to pesticides, being safe, and the LBAM having no predators here. I urge you to correct the gross misstatement that Oakland, Marin, San Francisco and other cities have ‘elected’ to be aerially sprayed. To the contrary, all of the local governments are demanding that the spraying be halted, but are being told the pesticide will be enforced on them. We have been told ‘there is no vote’. We are being told we have no choice. I urge you correct what you wrote. And, I am praying you will do more than this. I am praying you will sit down with your editors and start truly researching what is happening here, and that you will print a truthful article in next month’s Kenwood Press. When you are in the media, you are responsible for printing the facts…all of the facts. How will you feel if, when the twist ties go up, your neighborhood falls ill, children are being rushed to the ER, and you’ve got people asking you why you made light of what is, in fact, a terribly dangerous substance? How will the Kenwood Press staff feel when the planes start flying over the Bay Area and the vast population begins to fall ill, as happened on the Central Coast last year, and you have to face that you have covered this issue with a tongue-in-cheek reference to ‘love being in the air’? Unfortunately, it is death that’s in the air for our most vulnerable and precious populations…children, mothers, elders, the infirm. Nothing to laugh about, I am sure you will agree, once you start learning more about this matter. I do understand, CDFA has employed some first-class liars. Their statements seem so plausible if you don’t understand how they operate. Anyone can be duped if they don’t take the time to find out what is actually going on here in California. But, I am so hoping that this letter will be the start of your own research. What is happening is going to affect you and everyone you care for who lives here, Ms. Campbell. Allow me to suggest that you visit the following sites to read articles and watch video documentation of the truth about the most severe public health crisis our state has ever faced. Here is a YouTube page featuring numerous interviews both with families who were sickened by the 2007 spraying and with scientists: http://youtube.com/user/eon3 These are the most active websites regarding this issue: http://www.lbamspray.com http://www.dontspraycalifornia.org http://www.stopthespray.org http://www.cassonline.org http://www.veganreader.com http://www.dontspray.com Over the past months, my family has been devoting all of our free time to trying to educate our communities about what happened to Central Coast families in 2007. I have spoken with countless, honest individuals who were sickened by CDFA’s illegal spraying. I don’t want this to happen to our Bay Area, and am so hoping that when you learn more about this, you will feel the need that we do to work to protect our families from this unnecessary, unconstitutional violation of our basic human rights. Sincerely, & etc. I think you’ll agree with me that the Central Coast families and the Bay Area families who are set to be sprayed have already got enough to deal with without being snickered at by totally uninformed and unworthy news people. Can this woman have done more than 5 minutes of research on this subject prior to firing up Microsoft Word? I hope you will take a moment to set her straight and let her know this is no joking matter: Contact: Sarah Campbell sarah@kenwoodpress.com 5 comments Sunday 15 Jun 2008 | admin | LBAM Spray Bay Area | | Link to This East Bay Community Town Hall Meeting Sunday 15 Jun 2008 | LBAM Spray Bay Area EAST BAY COMMUNITY TOWN HALL TO STOP THE SPRAY Monday, June 23, 2008 7:00 pm -9:00 pm Location: Lakeside Park Garden Center at Lake Merritt 666 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, CA. 94610 Directions: http://www.oaklandnet.com/parks/rental_facilities/gardencenter_directions.asp Sponsored by Stop the Spray- East Bay and Pesticide Watch Learn about the latest legal and legislative strategies to protect our communities from the spraying program for Light Brown Apple Moth. Hear the most up-to-date science and health information. Get involved! Speakers will include: John Russo - Oakland City Attorney ~ providing the most current information on legal strategies to stop the spray in the Bay Area Douglas MacLean, Communications Director, Assemblyman Sandré Swanson ~ reporting on legislative strategies to stop the spray Daniel Harder, Ph.D., Executive Director, Arboretum, UC Santa Cruz, ~ providing scientific evidence the moth is not a threat Lawrence Rose, MD, MPH, former senior Public Medical Officer for Cal-OSHA and part of the UCSF Occupational/Environmental Medicine Department ~ discussing toxicity of the spray and health effects 0 comments Sunday 15 Jun 2008 | admin | LBAM Spray Bay Area | | Link to This Moth Nights
PRICES GOING TO DROP MORE {...}
Published: June 19, 2008, 9:30 am - Indexed: June 19, 2008, 10:39 am - Page Size: 20KB
Category: Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate

]]> {EUROPE > NEWS AND MEDIA} - Boots accused over quack medicines Science & environment: Leading scientific expert on alternative therapies accuses chemist of misleading public over remedies http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/news-and-media/boots-accused-over-quack-medicines-2008057531.htm 2008-05-23T23:51:26Z 2008-05-23T23:51:26Z Guardian.Co.Uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/24/controversiesinscience.guardianhayfestival?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront Boots accused over quack medicines {new window}   Www.Guardian.Co.Uk - Science & environment: Leading scientific expert on alternative therapies accuses chemist of misleading public over remedies
Boots accused of selling quack medicines | Science | The Guardian {...} Leading scientific expert on alternative therapies accuses chemist of misleading public over homeopathic remedies {...}
Published: May 23, 2008, 11:51 pm - Indexed: May 24, 2008, 5:49 pm - Page Size: 62KB
Category: Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > News and Media

]]> {SUBCULTURES > NEWS AND MEDIA} - Creationism 'Education' Still Widespread A survey of 900 high school teachers has found that 1 in 8 still teach creationism as a "valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species." Did we mention that these are science teachers? http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/subcultures/geeks-and-nerds/news-and-media/creationism-education-still-widespread-2008054875.htm 2008-05-20T13:33:00Z 2008-05-20T13:33:00Z Blog.Wired.Com http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/one-in-eight-hi.html Creationism 'Education' Still Widespread {new window}   Blog.Wired.Com - A survey of 900 high school teachers has found that 1 in 8 still teach creationism as a "valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species." Did we mention that these are science teachers?
Many High School Biology Teachers Still Teach Creationism | Wired Science from Wired.com {...} One in eight U.S. high school teachers presents creationism as a valid alternative to evolution, says a poll published in the Public Library of Science Biology. Of more than 900 {...}
Published: May 20, 2008, 1:33 pm - Indexed: May 24, 2008, 10:53 am - Page Size: 501KB
Category: Society > Subcultures > Geeks and Nerds > News and Media

]]> {LITERATURE > RSS FEEDS} - Eleventh Pushes Science Fact The executive producers of CBS' upcoming SF drama Eleventh Hour said the series is based in real science as it deals with issues such as cloning, genetic manipulation and new technology. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/arts/literature/genres/science-fiction/rss-feeds/eleventh-pushes-science-fact-20080733432.htm 2008-07-22T06:00:00Z 2008-07-22T06:00:00Z Scifi.Com http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=1&id=57958 Eleventh Pushes Science Fact {new window}   Www.Scifi.Com - The executive producers of CBS' upcoming SF drama Eleventh Hour said the series is based in real science as it deals with issues such as cloning, genetic manipulation and new technology.
Published: July 22, 2008, 6:00 am - Indexed: July 23, 2008, 12:04 am - Page Size: 43KB
Category: Arts > Literature > Genres > Science Fiction > RSS Feeds

]]> {LITERATURE > CYBERPUNK} - Science fiction from George Dyson George Dyson, one of my all-time-favorite science writers, has written a short science fiction story for Edge. Bruce Sterling describes it thusly: "Amazingly, this piece reads almost exactly like I would have imagined it. Try to imagine Hugo Gernsback writing "Ralph 124C41+" only Hugo used to live in a treehouse, is a comprehensive scholar of extinct technologies, and has an IQ high enough to boil mercury." Google was inverting the von Neumann matrix?by coaxing the matrix into inverting itself. Von Neumann's "Numerical Inverting of Matrices of High Order," published (with Herman Goldstine) in 1947, confirmed his ambition to build a machine that could invert matrices of non-trivial size. A 1950 postscript, "Matrix Inversion by a Monte Carlo Method," describes how a statistical, random-walk procedure credited to von Neumann and Stan Ulam "can be used to invert a class of n-th order matrices with only n2 arithmetic operations in addition to the scanning and discriminating required to play the solitaire game." The aggregate of all our searches for unpredictable (but meaningful) strings of bits, is, in effect, a Monte Carlo process for inverting the matrix that constitutes the World Wide Web. Ed developed a rapport with the machines that escaped those who had never felt the warmth of a vacuum tube or the texture of a core memory plane. Within three months he was not only troubleshooting the misbehavior of individual data centers, but examining how the archipelago of data centers cooperated?and competed?on a global scale. Link (via Beyond the Beyond)... http://articles.world-of-newave.info/arts/literature/genres/cyberpunk/science-fiction-from-george-dyson-20080768123.htm 2008-07-18T09:02:08Z 2008-07-18T09:02:08Z Boingboing.Net http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/18/science-fiction-from.html Science fiction from George Dyson {new window}   Www.Boingboing.Net - George Dyson, one of my all-time-favorite science writers, has written a short science fiction story for Edge. Bruce Sterling describes it thusly: "Amazingly, this piece reads almost exactly like I would have imagined it. Try to imagine Hugo Gernsback writing "Ralph 124C41+" only Hugo used to live in a treehouse, is a comprehensive scholar of extinct technologies, and has an IQ high enough to boil mercury." Google was inverting the von Neumann matrix?by coaxing the matrix into inverting itself. Von Neumann's "Numerical Inverting of Matrices of High Order," published (with Herman Goldstine) in 1947, confirmed his ambition to build a machine that could invert matrices of non-trivial size. A 1950 postscript, "Matrix Inversion by a Monte Carlo Method," describes how a statistical, random-walk procedure credited to von Neumann and Stan Ulam "can be used to invert a class of n-th order matrices with only n2 arithmetic operations in addition to the scanning and discriminating required to play the solitaire game." The aggregate of all our searches for unpredictable (but meaningful) strings of bits, is, in effect, a Monte Carlo process for inverting the matrix that constitutes the World Wide Web. Ed developed a rapport with the machines that escaped those who had never felt the warmth of a vacuum tube or the texture of a core memory plane. Within three months he was not only troubleshooting the misbehavior of individual data centers, but examining how the archipelago of data centers cooperated?and competed?on a global scale. Link (via Beyond the Beyond)...
Science fiction from George Dyson - Boing Boing {...}
Published: July 18, 2008, 9:02 am - Indexed: July 19, 2008, 12:05 am - Page Size: 33KB
Category: Arts > Literature > Genres > Cyberpunk

]]> {LITERATURE > CYBERPUNK} - Science of becoming Batman E. Paul Zehr has a book coming out in October called Becoming Batman: The Possibility of A Superhero, about the physical and mental training one would need to become a superhero without any supernatural powers. Zehr, a professor of kinesiology and neuroscience at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, is also a karate expert. Over at Scientific American, JR Minkel interviews Zehr about how one might train as the Dark Knight. From SciAm: What's most plausible about portrayals of Batman's skills? You could train somebody to be a tremendous athlete and to have a significant martial arts background, and also to use some of the gear that he has, which requires a lot of physical prowess. Most of what you see there is feasible to the extent that somebody could be trained to that extreme. We're seeing that kind of thing in less than a month in the Olympics. What's less realistic? A great example is in the movies where Batman is fighting multiple opponents and all of a sudden he's taking on 10 people. If you just estimate how fast somebody could punch and kick, and how many times you could hit one person in a second, you wind up with numbers like five or six. This doesn't mean you could fight four or five people. But it's also hard for four or five people to simultaneously attack somebody, because they get in each other's way. More realistic is a couple of attackers. Batman and science (Scientific American), Pre-order Becoming Batman (Amazon)... http://articles.world-of-newave.info/arts/literature/genres/cyberpunk/science-of-becoming-batman-20080750315.htm 2008-07-15T20:30:00Z 2008-07-15T20:30:00Z Boingboing.Net http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/15/science-of-becoming.html Science of becoming Batman {new window}   Www.Boingboing.Net - E. Paul Zehr has a book coming out in October called Becoming Batman: The Possibility of A Superhero, about the physical and mental training one would need to become a superhero without any supernatural powers. Zehr, a professor of kinesiology and neuroscience at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, is also a karate expert. Over at Scientific American, JR Minkel interviews Zehr about how one might train as the Dark Knight. From SciAm: What's most plausible about portrayals of Batman's skills? You could train somebody to be a tremendous athlete and to have a significant martial arts background, and also to use some of the gear that he has, which requires a lot of physical prowess. Most of what you see there is feasible to the extent that somebody could be trained to that extreme. We're seeing that kind of thing in less than a month in the Olympics. What's less realistic? A great example is in the movies where Batman is fighting multiple opponents and all of a sudden he's taking on 10 people. If you just estimate how fast somebody could punch and kick, and how many times you could hit one person in a second, you wind up with numbers like five or six. This doesn't mean you could fight four or five people. But it's also hard for four or five people to simultaneously attack somebody, because they get in each other's way. More realistic is a couple of attackers. Batman and science (Scientific American), Pre-order Becoming Batman (Amazon)...
Science of becoming Batman - Boing Boing {...}
Published: July 15, 2008, 8:30 pm - Indexed: July 16, 2008, 5:56 pm - Page Size: 52KB
Category: Arts > Literature > Genres > Cyberpunk

]]> {EUROPE > MUSEUMS} - London's Science Museum Brings Us The Science Of Survival 'The Science of Survival', on now at the Science Museum, London, got us thinking about our planet's dwindling resources - and how much we will have left in 2050. http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/arts-and-entertainment/museums/london-s-science-museum-brings-us-the-science-of-20080712611.htm 2008-07-14T01:00:00Z 2008-07-14T01:00:00Z 24hourmuseum.Org.Uk http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/exh_gfx_en/ART59349.html London's Science Museum Brings Us The Science Of Survival {new window}   Www.24hourmuseum.Org.Uk - 'The Science of Survival', on now at the Science Museum, London, got us thinking about our planet's dwindling resources - and how much we will have left in 2050.
London's Science Museum Brings Us The Science Of Survival - 24 Hour Museum - official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage {...} 24 Hour Museum is the UK's official guide to over 3,000 museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage attractions. 24 Hour Museum offers daily arts news, exhibition reviews, listings and in-depth online trails, as well as having a comprehensive, fully searchable, database of over 3,000 cultural institutions. {...}
Published: July 14, 2008, 1:00 am - Indexed: July 15, 2008, 10:20 am - Page Size: 47KB
Category: Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > Arts and Entertainment > Museums

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