Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Monday, October 04, 2010.
OND is a community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
The OND concept was borne under the keen keyboard of Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Suavecito by Malo
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Racial predatory loans fueled U.S. housing crisis: study
By Nick Carey
Predatory lending aimed at racially segregated minority neighborhoods led to mass foreclosures that fueled the U.S. housing crisis, according to a new study published in the American Sociological Review.
. . .
The financial institutions likely to be found in minority areas tended to be predatory -- pawn shops, payday lenders and check cashing services that "charge high fees and usurious rates of interest," they said in the study.
. . .
The U.S. economy is still struggling with the effects of its longest recession since the 1930s, which was triggered in large part by the housing crisis, which was in part triggered by the crash of the subprime loan market.
. . .
Even African-Americans with similar credit profiles and down-payment ratios to white borrowers were more likely to receive subprime loans, according to the study. |
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No 'adjustments' needed on war fronts: Obama
By (AFP)
US President Barack Obama has told lawmakers that no current changes were needed to his Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy, as US forces escalate operations against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
. . .
"As the Congress continues its deliberations on the way ahead in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I want to continue to underscore our nation's interests in the successful implementation of this policy."
. . .
The NATO-led strategy is designed to push Talilban insurgents out of major towns in the south and east while building up Afghan government security forces so that American troops can start withdrawing by July 2011.
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Obama released his report amid fresh evidence of an escalation of US activity in the lawless region between Pakistan and Afghanistan |
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Study shows Israelis and Palestinians both retaliate
By Maggie Fox
An unusual attempt to quantify the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians shows that both act in retaliation for violent attacks, researchers reported on Monday.
They said their findings defy the perception that Palestinians attack randomly and demonstrate that both sides damage their own interests with acts of violence.
. . .
"We were a little frustrated by the amount of indoctrination and prejudice that are in the discussion around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Johannes Haushofer of the University of Zurich, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.
. . .
"This implied that the conflict was one-sided, with Palestinians attacking Israel, and the Israeli army merely responding to this aggression. Our findings suggest that the situation is more balanced than that." |
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Courts may be key as 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' repeal stalls
By Nancy A. Youssef and William Douglas
With Congress stalled on whether to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," some proponents of eliminating the long-standing prohibition on gays and lesbians in the military now believe their best hope lies with an increasingly supportive court system.
. . .
"Working through Congress and the administration hasn't worked. It has failed. The president has done nothing but talk," said Dan Woods, the lawyer who brought the case on behalf of the Log Cabin Republicans. "The courts have to take over because Congress and the president have failed to act."
. . .
"The statute is in place until there is finality," said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which over the past 17 years has represented more than 10,000 soldiers, sailors and Marines faced with military expulsion because of accusations of homosexuality. "Appeals will mean they will likely be tied up in the courts for years. All eyes are on the Senate where they should be."
Still, an injunction by Phillips and an appeal by the Obama administration might quickly bring the issue to the Supreme Court, which up to now hasn't taken a direct role in the "don't ask, don't tell" debate. Last year, the court declined to hear a case, Pietrangelo v. Gates, brought by Sarvis' organization against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on behalf of James E. Pietrangelo II, a former Army captain discharged from the military for being gay. |
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Tidal wave of outside money swamping 2010 elections
By David Lightman
Half a billion dollars from independent groups with strong but unofficial connections to Republicans and Democrats is flooding into congressional campaigns across the country this year, according to a study released Monday.
The Center for Public Integrity found that Republican-allied groups are likely to outspend their Democratic-oriented rivals by 3 to 2, and maybe even by 2 to 1. The center is a respected nonprofit, nonpartisan source of investigative journalism devoted to making institutional power transparent and accountable.
. . .
"What this amounts to, say veteran money and politics watchers, is a virtual Wild West, with fewer rules and more cash than ever," says the study, written by center analyst Peter Stone. Each party's allies now can cite "10 or so deep-pocketed independent groups with plans to spend $10 million-plus helping Senate and House candidates by running expensive ads and/or conducting get-out-the-vote efforts."
. . .
The key reason is January's 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case. It removed curbs on independent expenditures by corporations and unions, freeing them to spend without limit from their own treasuries on campaign ads and advocacy efforts so long as they're not coordinated with candidate campaigns. |
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No Pressure: the fall-out from Richard Curtis's explosive climate film
By Adam Vaughan
. . .
Whatever you think about No Pressure, the Richard Curtis short film for the 10:10 climate campaign published last Thursday before its withdrawal by the campaign group less than 24 hours later, one thing is undeniable: it has generated a high pressure torrent of comment across guardian.co.uk, Twitter, the blogosphere and the press.
First, a recap in case you missed it. The film, intended as a tongue-in-cheek spoof of hectoring greens, shows schoolkids, office workers, football manager David Ginola and actor Gillian Anderson being blown up for not signing up to cut their carbon emissions (hit Wikipedia for more detail). 10:10 has since apologised to anyone who was offended by the film - saying that it "missed the mark".
Plenty of people on our comment threads and Twitter thought the pantomime gore in the film was hilarious. And the film's shock value has certainly exposed 10:10 to a massive amount of global press coverage . . .
Lot of people hated it though. There was the predictable slating from climate sceptics of course . . .
But it also elicited a furious reaction from some environmentalists. |
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The cost of an empire
By Patrick Winn
If you spin a globe and randomly point to a country, there’s a one-in-five chance the U.S. military runs a piece of the nation underneath your finger.
The U.S. Defense Department has real estate in 46 countries and American territories, adding up to a whopping 837 overseas locations. It manages roughly 1,300 square miles, a combined area considerably larger than Rhode Island. Throw in bases within the territories and 50 states and you’ve got Ohio.
. . .
How much does overseeing this sprawling foreign footprint really cost? The exact cost of managing troops, bases, fleets and materiel overseas is difficult to determine. The think tank Foreign Policy in Focus estimates at least $250 billion.
But that doesn’t factor in the political price. Though protected by American might, even Japan and the Philippines have questioned U.S. troops’ presence there as a slight to their sovereignty. Lesser allies like Ecuador and Uzbekistan have even evicted U.S. bases in recent years. |
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Africa democratic rights advances reversed, says report
By (BBC)
Africa is developing economically but some democratic advances have been reversed, an annual index suggests.
The Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance ranks 53 African countries according to 88 indicators, ranging from corruption to education.
Mauritius is at the top of the list while Somalia is at the bottom.
The index suggests that across Africa, economic and health gains are being undermined by declines in political rights, security and the rule of law. |
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Cheap Nuclear Reactors Are Russia's Ace
By Carol Matlack and Yuriy Humber
Russia, one of the world's biggest oil and gas exporters, aims to become a global leader in nuclear power, too. State-owned nuclear group Rosatom now has 15 reactors under construction worldwide, more than any other international supplier (table, bottom of story). Five of the 15 are outside Russia, and more are coming soon.
. . .
Emerging-market countries are ordering most of the new reactors nowadays, as projects in developed countries are slowed by political opposition. Rosatom is ready to compete on price: According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, construction of a 1,000-zmegawatt plant in Russia costs an average $2.9 billion, exclusive of financing. That's 20 percent to 50 percent less than plants built by Western rivals.
The Russians have overhauled their nuclear technology since the Chernobyl fiasco. "The power reactors they are offering the world are the same basic design everyone else is offering," says Mark Hibbs, a Berlin-based senior associate in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Outside experts judge it to be safe." Nonetheless, he adds, "In some nuclear markets, decision makers both commercially and politically still are a little nervous about this." |
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FBI officially confirms 6 more Russian names in U.S. banking fraud
By (RIA Novosti)
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has officially informed the Russian Consulate General on the detainment of six more Russians involved a large-scale banking fraud, a Russian vice consul said.
The Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said last Friday that a total of 25 Russians have been charged in a large-scale banking fraud case in the United States.
. . .
The Russians are believed to have been involved in a global cyber crime scheme that resulted in over $3 million being stolen from U.S. bank accounts. Charges brought against them include conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering and passport fraud. |
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U.S. and EU settle food fight in anti-counterfeit pact
By Doug Palmer
The United States and European Union have reached a compromise over the use of prestigious geographical food names like Champagne and Parma, clearing one of the last obstacles to an international pact to battle the growing trade in counterfeit goods.
"We found the solution even on that toughest of issues," a U.S. trade official told Reuters, referring to a deal struck over the weekend in Tokyo on the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement between nearly 40 countries.
. . .
One of the last issues resolved in talks stemmed from a long-running battle between the United States and the EU over the right to use European place names, like Champagne, Parma or Roquefort, for some of the world's most popular foods and beverages.
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"Here you have a group of countries representing a very substantial part of global trade saying we are not willing to look the other way from this challenge. We're going to confront it head on with stronger laws, stronger cooperation and stronger enforcement actions," the U.S. official said.
China, the source of much of world's counterfeit goods production, was not a party to the talks. |
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Afghan civil leaders slam Karzai's peace council
By Patrick Markey
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's High Peace Council, which aims to broker talks with the Taliban, is flawed by the violent past of some of its members and does not properly represent Afghan society, civic leaders said on Monday.
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Missing are representatives from civil society, the business community, development and medical experts, right groups, the senior ranks of the opposition and women's activists.
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"Some of the people of the list have more experience in war than in peace making," Suraya Parleeka, director of the All Afghan Women Union, an umbrella group of women's organizations.
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Despite resentment of foreign troops, there are still many Afghans who fear the conditions that might be imposed by hardline insurgent groups, and worry about the durability of deals with commanders who have reneged on past agreements. |
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Vatican official criticises Nobel win for IVF pioneer
By (BBC)
A Vatican official has said the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Medicine to British IVF pioneer Robert Edwards is "completely out of order".
. . .
Mr Carrasco, the Vatican's spokesman on bio-ethics, said in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) had been "a new and important chapter in the field of human reproduction".
But he said the Nobel prize committee's choice of Prof Edwards had been "completely out of order" as without his treatment, there would be no market for human eggs "and there would not be a large number of freezers filled with embryos in the world", he told Italy's Ansa news agency. |
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EU takes on Chinese currency
By Antoaneta Becker
The European Union is riding in the middle of an escalating currency spat between China and the United States, perceived by many in Beijing as a smokescreen for Washington's efforts to sap China's growth and contain its rise.
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Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the "Eurogroup" gathering of euro-area finance ministers, said last month that the Chinese yuan currency was still undervalued against the euro and that Europe had to press harder for this to change.
. . .
In China, the world's leading export powerhouse, the escalation of the currency row is seen as a signal that a long-standing US strategy to contain China's rise is now gaining momentum. Beijing suspects the US is keen on implementing a Plaza Accord scenario that back in the mid-1980s forced the Japanese yen to jump almost 60% in a year, undermining Japanese growth and resulting in a two-decade property slump and stagnation for Asia's once most vibrant economy. |
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UN warns of global refugee crisis
By (Al Jazeera)
Conflicts are leading to new era of near permanent refugee populations, the head of the United Nation's refugee agency said. Yet rich countries are only willing to take a fraction of those driven forced to flee by drawn-out warfare – especially when it comes to refugees from Afghanistan or Somalia.
"As a result of never-ending conflicts, we are witnessing the creation of a number of quasi-permanent, global refugee populations," Antonio Guterres said in a speech to the UNHCR's governing executive committee on Monday.
Afghan refugees are spread across some 69 countries, he noted. Peace remains a distant hope in Somalia. Only 61 Somalis were able to return home last year. |
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Americans Sour on Trade
By SARA MURRAY And DOUGLAS BELKIN
The American public, already skeptical of free trade, is becoming increasingly hostile to it.
. . .
Even Americans most likely to be winners from trade—upper-income, well-educated professionals, whose jobs are less likely to go overseas and whose industries are often buoyed by demand from international markets—are increasingly skeptical.
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Worries about side effects of trade and outsourcing seem one of the few issues on which Americans of different classes, occupations and political persuasions agree. The vote in the House last week to arm the administration with more levers to pressure China to let its currency rise, and thus restrain its export machine, was bipartisan: 249 Democrats and 99 Republicans voted for it. |
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Audit Calls for Improved Nuclear-Plant Security
By (wsj.com)
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should be given better access to criminal databases and foreign-travel histories to try to keep terrorists from getting jobs inside U.S. nuclear-power plants, federal auditors said in a report Monday.
The commission's inspector general, at the behest of Sen. Charles Schumer, began the review after a suspected al Qaeda member, Sharif Mobley, was found to have worked in a New Jersey nuclear-power plant for six years.
. . .
Mr. Schumer discussed the audit and security issues during a series of news conferences near nuclear plants in New York on Monday. He said the recommendations must be acted upon within 30 days.
The NRC generally agreed with the findings and is working on the recommendations. There was no immediate comment from the commission. |
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U.S. sues AmEx, Visa, MasterCard, latter two settle
By Maria Aspan and Diane Bartz
The U.S. Justice Department sued American Express Co, Visa Inc and MasterCard Inc on Monday, accusing them of violating antitrust laws and citing rules that prevented merchants from encouraging consumers to use cheaper credit cards.
Simultaneously, the Justice Department settled with Visa and MasterCard, which agreed to allow merchants to offer discounts to consumers who use less expensive types of credit or debit cards. The companies said the settlement, subject to court approval, did not involve any payment.
The lawsuit has the potential to cut into a significant source of profits for American Express and threatens to reshape the competitive landscape of the card processing business. |
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New Jersey Governor Christie on the political rise
By Jon Hurdle
. . .
At local town-hall meetings in New Jersey, including one in Old Bridge before 250 people, Christie gets standing ovations and generates chatter that he might be a future U.S. presidential contender.
Christie is pushing a lean-government, low-tax agenda that includes erasing a record $11 billion budget deficit and limiting annual increases in the state's high property taxes.
. . .
"He has all the qualities that allow him to bridge the gap between the Tea Party and the mainstream Republicans," said Julian Zelizer, a political science professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, referring to Christie's fiscal credentials.
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"He has not sought out consensus, and if you go forward without seeking consensus, that leads to a contentious relationship," Democratic Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan said. |
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Oil Spending Soars in 2010 Race
By Kate Sheppard
Following the Deepwater Horizon disaster, oil and gas interests have flooded campaign contributions to congressional candidates. It's not surprising, as the spill invigorated new debate about the safety of offshore drilling, the cost of reliance on fossil fuels, and the future of the oil and gas industry. The next Congress will likely have a lot to say about energy policy, and oil and gas interests are making sure they play a role in determining the make-up of the 112th Congress.
. . .
In just this election cycle, ten House candidates have hauled in north of six figures from the industry. In the lead is Oklahoma Democrat Dan Boren at $183,850, but 16 of the top 20 recipients are Republicans. . . |
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Man faces $30,000 in fines for growing too many vegetables in his yard
By Mark Frauenfelder
Ted Balaker of Reason.TV pointed me to this 80-second video about a Georgia man who "faces up to $30,000 in fines and legal fees for the 'crime' of planting too many organic vegetables in his garden."
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US Supreme Court term opens with new judge Elena Kagan
By (BBC)
The US Supreme Court has opened its latest term with new Justice Elena Kagan one of three women on the bench.
Ms Kagan will sit out some 24 cases, out of about 52 on the calendar, in which she participated in her previous job as solicitor general.
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This is the first time the nine-judge panel has included three women at once. |
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
Malo is one of the most successful and enduring Latin rock bands in the world. . . Their biggest hit, "Suavecito," reached number 18 on the Billboard charts in April of 1972. . .
. . . Three or four years into the career of The Malibus, a guitarist was brought in by the name of Jorge Santana, the brother of the already famous Carlos Santana. In 1970, The Malibus changed their name to Malo and things started happening. By 1971, they were signed to Warner Brothers Records and recorded their first album, which was simply entitled "Malo" (BS-2584). Arcelio co-wrote four of the six songs, including their classics "Nena" and "Cafe." Released in 1972, "Malo" also included "Suavecito," which had evolved from a song they had written and been doing in clubs called "My Love." One of the band members at the time, Richard Bean, wrote a new lyric which gave birth to a major hit record. Malo members Pablo Tellez and Abel Zarate also got credit for the composition. "Suavecito" led to world tours and laid the groundwork for their career of three decades so far. . .
Back to what's happening:
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Good news from Italy: the Kitegen is in motion
By Ugo Bardi
. . .
The Kitegen is a very innovative technology based on the idea of capturing the abundant energy of high altitude winds. It uses a kite that is launched from a ground based structure that contains all the machinery and control systems. The kite is expected to fly at altitudes up to 2000 meters and to provide energy by pulling on a set of cables that act on a power generator.
The promise of the kitegen is remarkable; preliminary calculations indicate an EROEI better than anything that can be obtained by traditional wind or solar technologies. However, one thing is paper, another is the reality of putting together a machine that had never been built before. It is an incredible challenge that Massimo Ippolito has taken onto himself and that he is succeeding in overcoming; step by step.
The challenges facing new technologies are not just technical. The main problems are with bureaucracy and with the general attitude of a society which is becoming more and more hostile to innovation. This attitude has forced Kitegen Research to abandon the initial plans of building the first prototype near the town of Berzano, not far from Torino, in Italy. A small group of local residents has been extremely active in harassing the project; to the point that, eventually, the company had to choose another site. . . |
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India says is now third highest carbon emitter
By Gopal Sharma
India's environment minister said on Monday the country could not have high economic growth and a rapid rise in carbon emissions now that the nation was the number three emitter after China and the United States.
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Indian per-capita emissions are still low but demand for energy is rising as the middle-class buys more cars, TVs and better housing. Much of that energy comes from coal oil and gas, the main sources for planet-warming carbon dioxide.
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"We will unilaterally, voluntarily, move on a low-carbon growth path. We can't have 8-9 percent GDP growth and high-carbon growth," Ramesh told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in the Nepalese capital. |
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Population four times more important than climate change on water shortage
By (treehugger.com)
We're well aware of the fact that humans have a significant impact on water supplies -- from groundwater pumping to altering the course and flow of the world's rivers, we are no small player in how much fresh water exists on the planet. However, would we ever have guessed that we were four times more significant than climate change on water supplies? . . .
. . .
Environmental Research Web reports that according to the study, about 2 percent of the world's population experienced water shortages in 1900, but it shot up to 9 percent in 1960 and skyrocketed to 35 percent in 2005. The water shortages fall in line with our population rise -- but it also seems to fall in line with our heightened consumption of goods and services on a global level. |
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Lessons from the climate fight: it’s the Senate, stupid
By David Roberts
In the latest New Yorker, Ryan Lizza's got a fantastic blow-by-blow account of the climate bill's demise in the Senate. Definitely read the whole thing.
. . .
The fashionably cynical take is to say that the effort to secure comprehensive climate legislation in 2010 was always doomed, a spectacular waste of time, money, and political capital better spent building local and state-level support. On this view, green leaders should be fired for terminal naïveté.
To me this gets it backwards, though. It's not so much that the green movement must be incompetent because it failed to sway the Senate, it's that the Senate must be dysfunctional to remain paralyzed in response to a fairly extraordinary, broad-based effort. . .
. . .
The Senate is dysfunctional and corrupt. I know I keep harping on this, but that's because other people keep harping on the green movement and cap-and-trade and John Kerry and Obama. When liberals turn on each other because of failure in the Senate, the Senate wins. The Senate is not the real world! It's a corrupt, unrepresentative, archaic institution run according to perverse rules, populated with incurious, egotistical, ignorant, wealthy old white men. Nothing good or decent survives there. That's not a problem for good and decent things, it's a problem for the Senate! |
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Discovery of a Cell That Suppresses the Immune System
By (ScienceDaily)
Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston have identified a new type of cell in mice that dampens the immune system and protects the animal's own cells from immune system attack.
This "suppressor" cell reduces the production of harmful antibodies that can drive lupus and other autoimmune diseases in which the immune system mistakenly turns on otherwise healthy organs and tissues.
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Now the discovery will be used to explore therapies that might control the hyperactive immune system in lupus. "These CD8+ T suppressor cells represent a potential new lever for lowering the strength of the immune response in autoimmune diseases such as lupus," Dr. Cantor said.
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Lead author Hye-Jung Kim and colleagues made the discovery as they were winding up unrelated LRI-funded work into the role in autoimmunity of a protein found inside immune cells called osteopontin. |
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Mimicking Other's Language Style Shows a Happy Relationship, Study Suggests
By (ScienceDaily)
People match each other's language styles more during happier periods of their relationship than at other times, according to new research from psychologists at The University of Texas at Austin.
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"When two people start a conversation, they usually begin talking alike within a matter of seconds," says James Pennebaker, psychology professor and co-author of the study. "This also happens when people read a book or watch a movie. As soon as the credits roll, they find themselves talking like the author or the central characters."
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The researchers extended their work by analyzing the written language of famous authors. For example, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung wrote to each other almost weekly over a seven-year period as their careers were developing. Using style-matching statistics, Ireland and Pennebaker were able to chart the two men's tempestuous relationship from their early days of joint admiration to their final days of mutual contempt by counting the ways they used pronouns, prepositions and other words, such as the, you, a and as, that have little meaning outside the context of the sentence.
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Ireland and Pennebaker are investigating whether LSM during everyday conversation can be used to predict the beginning and end of romantic relationships. Style matching has the potential to quickly and easily reveal whether any given pair of people -- ranging from business rivals to romantic partners -- are psychologically on the same page and what this means for their future together. |
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Is Science a Job or a Calling?
By Mike
You might have, by now, seen that obnoxious article by Scott Kern bemoaning the sorry state of the cancer research facility at which he works. Apparently, the building is nearly empty on weekends, so people aren't working hard enough, and thereby killing cancer patients. . .
This is why you keep professional philosophers around--the good ones cut right to the heart of the matter. Kern wants all researchers to have their research as their number one priority (even as he spends his weekends checking up on his colleagues, as opposed to curing cancer. Just saying). One problem with the 'pedal faster' school is that it's unprofessional. That lack of professionalism leads to poor time (and resource) management.
. . .
Many people have jobs that 'matter', not just cancer researchers (An aside: Kern's narcissism is breathtaking). Rather than using their brains, their talents, their energies for personal enrichment, they have decided to do something that makes a difference. But they do their job and then get on with the rest of their lives. They view what they do as a job--an important one that they're proud to do--but not as a calling that consumes them. Yet the important work in all of these areas--including Kern's well-funded cancer center--still gets done. |
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Gorging study shows with fat, location matters
By Maggie Fox
Researchers who persuaded slender volunteers to gorge themselves on sweets to gain weight said on Monday they have overturned the common wisdom that adults cannot grow new fat cells.
As they gained weight, the volunteers added new fat cells on their thighs, while fat cells on their bellies expanded, Michael Jensen of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and colleagues found.
. . .
Understanding why this happens on one part of the body and not another may explain why gaining weight in the lower part of the body does not appear to carry as many health risks as gaining belly fat, Jensen said. |
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When moms get flu shots, babies reap benefits
By Cynthia Osterman
Newborn babies whose mothers got a flu shot while pregnant are less likely to get the flu or to be admitted to the hospital with a respiratory illness in the first six months of life, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
. . .
In the flu season following the child's birth, babies whose mother had been vaccinated were 41 percent less likely to have a lab-confirmed flu infection and 39 percent less likely to be hospitalized for a flu-like illness.
They also found babies whose mothers had been vaccinated had higher levels of flu antibodies at birth and at 2 to 3 months of age compared with babies whose mothers did not get a flu shot. |
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Fifteen-Year-Old Boy is First Child to Receive Permanent Artificial Heart
By Tiffany Kaiser
A 15-year-old boy from Italy is now the first child patient ever to receive a permanently implanted artificial heart. The boy, who remains unnamed for now, has been dealing with an illness called Duchenne syndrome, which causes rapid muscle degeneration. He was close to death and confined to a bed with no ability to walk, and was still ineligible to be added to a waiting list for a heart transplant.
This is when Dr. Antonio Amodeo, a pediatric cardiac surgeon, decided to perform a heart transplant on the boy. But unlike previous artificial heart transplant's, this would not just be a temporary fix. This operation would serve as a permanent solution in hopes of giving the boy a "normal life." The procedure was also unlike any other artificial heart operation because this was the first time it was performed on a child.
. . .
The boy is expected to be in intensive care for two more weeks, and with his new artificial heart permanently implanted, he has gained another 20-25 years of life. |
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Seeing sick people fires up your immune system
By David Pescovitz
New research suggests that even just looking at people who are sick kicks out immune system into action. University of British Columbia scientists showed a series of images of people holding guns or photos of obviously sick folks. After the slide show, the researchers measured the levels of interlukin-6, a protein secreted by white blood cells to stimulate the immune response to trauma. |
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Eliminating Bias in Hospital Visitation: Room for Improvement
By Carol Levine
Last April President Obama issued a memorandum requesting that the Secretary of Health and Human Services issue new rules to ensure that hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid respect the rights of patients to designate visitors and surrogate decision-makers. The case of Janice Langbehn, prevented from seeing her dying partner, Lisa Pond, in a Miami hospital, even though they had been partners for 18 years and Langbehn was Pond’s health care proxy, was just one of many instances of long-time partners being denied access in hospitals and emergency departments that led to the memo.
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Advocacy organizations representing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals generally welcome the proposed rule but outline several areas of concern. Their constituents are among those most directly affected by this rule and the most harmed by its absence. Michael Adams, executive director of SAGE (Services & Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Elders), commented in collaboration with the National Coalition for LGBT Health and other organizations. The comment (personal communication) attributes the disparate treatment of LGBT patients and their families to, among other factors, "the way in which so many LGBT people create and sustain family which . . . is through bonds of affection and affinity rather than blood or legal status." They consider their close relationships as "immediate family."
. . .
Regardless of whether hospitals have official policies or not, staff sometimes play the "immediate family" card when they disapprove of the patient’s and visitor’s relationship. Some of the difficulties stem from the inconsistent way that states define and/or recognize (or don’t) same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, and civil unions, not to mention health care proxies. As a result, the way a patient and partner are treated in a hospital may depend on a particular staff member’s personal views, not on hospital policy or state law and certainly not on well-defined federal standards. |
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Wii-type games linked to sprains
By (BBC)
Interactive electronic games such as the Nintendo Wii are producing their own brand of player injuries, doctors report.
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The phenomenon of gaming console injuries is not a new one - but is traditionally concentrated on overuse of fingers and hands during marathon button-pushing sessions.
However, the arrival of the Nintendo Wii in 2006 heralded a new type of gaming, in which the handheld remote could be swung to mimic the movements of a particular sport. |
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Heat-Harvesting Nanomaterials
By Katherine Bourzac
Engineers have long dreamed of harvesting waste heat from a microchip or car engine and turning it into usable electricity. But thermoelectric materials, which convert heat into electricity, have never been efficient enough to move beyond a few niche applications.
. . .
A good thermoelectric material conducts electricity very well but conducts heat poorly. But most naturally occurring materials that conduct electricity well also conduct heat well. So researchers in the Caltech group, led by chemistry professor James Heath, have tried to make nanoscale designs that sever the relationship between thermal and electrical conductivity in abundant materials such as silicon.
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Now the Caltech researchers have come up with a new nanoscale design for thermoelectric materials. They believe their design works by a different mechanism--instead of diverting the phonons, it slows them down considerably. The researchers have demonstrated the nanomesh design in thin films of silicon riddled with a regular array of nanoscale pores. Compared to an unpatterned silicon film, the nanomesh conducts 10 times less heat. These results are described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. |
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See the Future with a Search
By Tom Simonite
A startup called Recorded Future has developed a tool that scrapes real-time data from the Internet to find hints of what will happen in the future. The company's search tool spits out results on a timeline that stretches into the future as well as the past.
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The 18-month-old company gained attention earlier this year after receiving money from the venture capital arms of both Google and the CIA. Now the company has offered a glimpse of how its technology works.
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A search for information about drug company Merck, for example, generates a timeline showing not only recent news on earnings but also when various drug trials registered with the website clinicaltrials.gov will end in coming years. Another search revealed when various news outlets predict that Facebook will make its initial public offering. |
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Verizon Wireless to pay refunds for billing errors
By Sinead Carew
Verizon Wireless in a statement Sunday said it will pay millions of dollars in refunds to 15 million cell phone customers who were erroneously charged for data sessions or Internet use.
Verizon did not disclose how much exactly it would have to pay but said 15 million customers would receive credits or refund checks that in most cases would range from $2 to $6 but would go beyond this in some cases, on their October or November bills.
Former customers will get refund checks while existing customers will get credits. |
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Judges are resigned to jurors researching their trials online
By Amelia Hill
Judges are "giving up" trying to stop juries using Google, Facebook and Twitter to access potentially false and prejudicial information about defendants, Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, has warned.
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"This is a serious point and we struggled with it, in criminal justice, for years trying to protect juries from what they might read about a case on the internet, material they weren't supposed to know about while they were trying it," Macdonald said.
"In essence, we're finally giving up and just concluding that you have to expect juries to try cases fairly and they're told to do that so I think this is a serious issue around privacy, because policing the internet is really, I think, an unmanageable task. |
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CCTV website alarms civil liberty campaigners
By Matthew Taylor
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Internet Eyes says it offers up to £1,000 to online subscribers who can spot crimes as they happen and click an alert button to notify the business owner.
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Every viewer is allowed five alerts each month to prevent abuse of the system. More than 13,000 people have indicated their interest and more are expected to join once it has launched. The cameras are based in stores across the UK, but the rewards are open to anyone from the EU.
However, civil liberties campaigners say the idea encourages people to spy on each other. They urged anyone affected "to contact us with a view to legal action". |
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By Jesus Diaz
Another car accident caused by a GPS in 24 hours. In this case, the device guided two men into a rural road that ended abruptly, causing the car to drop into an artificial lake, killing one of them.
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Apparently, the rural road was dark at night, and the man didn't have time to brake when he discovered that the road ended just in front of them. |
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Laptop "Hot Spots" May Cause Harm to Skin
By Tracie McDaniel
Scientists in Switzerland are calling it the "Toasted Skin Syndrome," and the condition occurs when skin is exposed to heat from a laptop computer for long periods of time. An article published Monday in the journal Pediatrics documents a case of a 12-year-old boy who had "mottled" skin on his left thigh after playing computer games every day, hours at a time for several months.
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The researchers involved in the study, Dr. Andreas W. Arnold and Dr. Peter H. Itin at the University Hospital Basel in Switzerland, described the area on the boy "toasted" by the laptop as discolored, sponge-patterned skin, according to CBC News and the article in Pediatrics.
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The researchers also noted that the problem can be caused by prolonged use of heating pads which can darken the skin permanently. They recommend that anyone working with a laptop for prolonged periods of time use a heat barrier. |
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Commonwealth Games: are opening ceremonies worth it?
By Leo Benedictus
Seldom has an opening ceremony mattered so much. After all the shameful tales of dengue fever and squalid bedrooms, Delhi finally got its chance on Sunday to show the world (or at least the Commonwealth) that India can organise things properly. And it did not disappoint.
Seven thousand performers piped and pranced in national dress around the Nehru Stadium. Drums were banged, fireworks flashed and, most importantly of all, nothing went wrong. It was a cathartic moment, which showed what opening ceremonies are for: not to display the host nation's character (these things are all the same), but to test its competence.
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It is a rare moment, such as at the Beijing Olympics, when the host succeeds in truly dazzling. On that occasion, after China spent around £70m, 2,008 impeccably synchronised Fou drummers left the rest of the world in little doubt that China, if it wished, could eat them for breakfast. It later turned out that organisers had faked the television pictures of its firework display, crushed the dreams of a little girl whose teeth were deemed too crooked, and ordered "cheer squads" to fill venues, but the point had been made. |
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Variety Spices Up Americans' Sex Lives, Survey Says
By Amanda Gardner
Americans are engaging in a wide range of sexual activities, including oral sex, anal sex, and partnered masturbation in addition to vaginal sex, according to the largest and latest survey of sexual behavior and sexual health in the United States.
The survey also found that adolescents are much more responsible than they're made out to be, with some 70 percent to 80 percent reporting condom use during their last sexual encounter.
"We found an enormous diversity in the sexual repertoires of U.S. adults. They rarely engage in just one sex act when they have sex," Debra Herbenick, a research scientist and lecturer in the department of applied health science at Indiana University in Bloomington, said at a press briefing held Thursday. "Vaginal intercourse is still the most common sexual act but many sexual events do not involve intercourse. What it means to have sex can vary greatly from one person to the next." |
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Inside Hezbollah: rapture, resistance and revolution
By Matt Beynon Rees
In his groundbreaking book, Thanassis Cambanis has all the politics — he’s excellent in explaining how Hezbollah turned apparent defeat in its 2006 war with Israel into de facto control of Lebanon within three years. But he goes beyond the typical Hezbollah tome to give you the feel of war, writing of gunfire that came from "so close that it felt like someone ripping a sheaf of paper in my ear while tickling the inside of my gut with a feather" and the "incongruously whimsical" high-pitched raspberry that is the sound of a rocket in flight. He adds revealing insights into the lives of normally secretive Hezbollah fighters.
The essence of Hezbollah’s success, as Cambanis sees it, is its ability to carve out clear answers to the vital national questions. That’s a big advantage for Hezbollah over the cloudy mass of Lebanon’s vicious sectarian parties. (One Hezbollah voter tells Cambanis his choice was based on the fact that he was "sick of all these other assholes.")
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It’s a common journalistic problem — the source who demands you make nice if she’s to continue feeding you access. In the case of a terror organization, the issue is only exacerbated, and no doubt many foreign journalists have over the years been shy of calling a Hezbollah spade a spade. That has, perhaps, lead to something of a deficit in true understanding of the group, which both adds to its mystique and leaves Westerners guessing — sometimes disastrously — about its intentions.
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Cambanis finds U.S. diplomats just as clueless. "A trio of diplomats briefed me on aid, military cooperation and politics. I hoped they were lying to me, because their assessments were so out of kilter with reality." |
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Salt and vinegar powder solves fish and chip conundrum
By Steven Morris
The vexed question of how and when to put salt and vinegar on fish and chips has troubled enthusiasts from the prime minister down. John Major decreed while he was in No 10 that the best way is to put the salt on last so the vinegar does not wash it away.
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Malt Salt has been invented by an American company, J&D's, but maybe coming to a chip shop near you soon. Costing about £2.80 for a union flag decorated pot, it is made by blending sea salt and malt vinegar and, the blurb claims, stops your fish and chips getting as "cold and soggy as a Seattle winter".
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"Some people do like their chips soggy and others prefer them crispy. It's all down to the individual. It would be great to be able to offer people a choice when they're having vinegar on their food. |
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Parents adopting more open attitude to alcohol, drugs and sex
By Amelia Hill
British parents are increasingly relaxed about their children drinking alcohol from as young as 10 years old, taking drugs and having sex, according to research released today .
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"Sex, alcohol and even drugs are no longer no-go areas for children as far as parents are concerned," said Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent. "The old-fashioned parent is fast becoming a cultural minority as mums and dads do their best to give their kids the freedoms they did not have. Families have become surprisingly open-minded about allowing their children to experiment and find their own way in life.
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Parents were also liberal about homosexuality, with two-thirds saying they would have no problem if their child was gay. |
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