Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, July 30, 2012.
OND is a regular
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 near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Funky Chicken by Rufus Thomas
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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Top News |
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Working Class Men's Wages Have Plummeted Over the Past 40 Years
By Kevin Drum
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Dylan Matthews says a bit more today about something I mentioned briefly a couple of weeks ago: among men, wages haven't just stagnated over the past few decades. They've plummeted:
As you can see on the black line in the above graph, median earnings for men in 2009 were lower than they were in the early 1970s. And it gets worse. The decline shown above is actually too mild, because it doesn’t take into account the massive exodus from the workforce of men since that period. Between 1960 and 2009, the share of men working fulltime fell from 83 percent to 66 percent, and the share not making formal wages tripled from 6 percent to 18 percent. When you take all men, not just those working fulltime, into account, the slight decline in the above graph becomes a plummet of 28 percent in median real wages from 1969 to 2009.
. . . And that's for high school grads, not dropouts. (And the picture changes only modestly if you add health benefits to the wage picture.) These are men who basically played by the rules, got their diploma, and then went into the workforce. Or tried to, anyway. But they're finding it far harder to find steady, full-time work than their fathers did, and when they do they earn dramatically less than their fathers did. So I'll repeat what I said the last time I wrote about this: if you want to understand why marriage has declined among the working and lower middle classes, you have to understand what's happened to male wages. It's not the whole answer, but there's simply no way that it's not a big factor.
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Europe looks to open up Greenland for natural resources extraction
By Fiona Harvey
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Oil and gas have been the focus of exploitation so far – but the EU sees just as much potential in a massive opening up of mining operations across the world's biggest island, according to Antonio Tajani, the European commission's vice-president and one of the most powerful politicians in the union. He called the move "raw material diplomacy".
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The potential gold rush is being welcomed by some in Greenland, but has raised fears of environmental damage, pollution and despoliation across the Arctic that could destroy one of the world's last wildernesses.
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But Europe may face competition. China is already ahead; one of the most advanced metals mining projects in Greenland is nominally owned by London Mining, a UK company, but most of the finance and direction comes from China. Other countries are also eyeing the prize – although Greenland's historical ties are mainly with Europe, it is geographically close to the US and Canada.
Tajani's aggressive push into the Arctic puts him on a potential collision course with Greenpeace, the global environmental pressure group. Greenpeace recently opened up a new campaign focusing on the threats to the Arctic – one of the last places on earth where the industrial revolution and exploitation of natural resources have yet to penetrate. As part of the campaign they closed 74 UK Shell petrol stations in protest at the company's moves to drill for oil in the Arctic.
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Samsung Product Chief Takes Issue With Apple "Owning" the Rectangle
By Jason Mick
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The small legion of lawyers from Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930) and Apple, Inc. (AAPL) will today be waging war as their high-profile trial begins in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, Calif. Both companies have submitted their briefs. The jury has been selected. Everything is in place for a dynamic legal war as each company seeks to convince a jury that the other is "stealing" its technology.
. . .
In some cases, for most of us in the industry, it’s defying common sense. We’re all scratching our heads and saying, “How is this possible that we’re actually having an industry-level debate and trying to stifle competition?” Consumers want rectangles and we’re fighting over whether you can deliver a product in the shape of a rectangle.
Logically, as an engineering and manufacturing company, it makes more sense to focus on the things that are really relevant and we think are truly intellectual property. They are truly unique, and have come intrinsically out of the investments we made in R&D. A rectangle did not come out of R&D investment that we’ve made. Some of our products happen to be in the shape of a rectangle, but I wouldn’t consider that to be an art or a science that we’ve created.
. . .
Mr. Packingham is optimistic that one day Apple will see the light and stop patenting obvious/already-existing features -- like rectangles, slide to unlock, or making graphics disappear. He also hopes Apple will eventually move to licensing its valid intellectual property like Microsoft.
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International |
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UBS to sue Nasdaq over Facebook flotation
By Jill Treanor
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The Swiss bank UBS lost SFr349m (£240m) on the flotation of Facebook and is suing the US hi-tech stock market Nasdaq for "gross mishandling" of the share sale.
The loss, which drove the UBS investment banking arm to a SF130m loss, was caused when UBS entered too many orders for Facebook shares into the Nasdaq system which crashed under the weight of the record-breaking flotation, or initial public offering (IPO), and was unable to process the orders.
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UBS, which has a new management team following the alleged unauthorised trading by Kweku Adoboli who faces a fraud trial in September, disappointed the market with its second quarter pre-tax profits of SFr951m. It has the first bank to reveal the international investigation into attempts to manipulate Libor but, unlike Barclays, has not been fined for any wrongdoings but said again that it was cooperating with the authorities.
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US sanctions hit Iran oil exports, extend to banks in Iraq and China
By Lizzy Tomei
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US President Barack Obama announced new sanctions today against Iran's oil export sector, as well as sanctions against banks in China and Iraq said to be doing business with Iran, AFP reported.
The sanctions were described in an executive order from the president, submitted in advance of congressional votes on further sanctions against Iran's financial, energy and shipping industries, Reuters and Politico reported. The order also came on the heels of criticism from Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney that the Obama administration has not done enough to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons, according to Reuters.
The sanctions target foreign banks that handle transactions for Iranian oil and from the National Iranian Oil Company or Naftiran Intertrade Company, according to Reuters. The executive order also named China's Bank of Kunlun and Iraq's Elaf Islamic Bank specifically for providing services to Iranian banks.
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Volunteers v corporates at the Olympics
By Mark Easton
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Profits from the marketplace pay for the Games, of course. Global business and sport are as necessary to each other as rowers in a coxless pair. But in the short walk from Stratford station to the Olympic Park, it is the people who have given up their time for nothing who leave the greatest impression.
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Every one of the volunteers I met seemed sincere in simply wanting visitors to have a wonderful experience. There was little in it for them other than the joy of making London 2012 a success. (Unless you count a souvenir purple and orange uniform.)
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The International Olympic Committee defines Olympism as "a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles".
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That, perhaps, explains why salespeople wander among the crowds with signs that simply say "BEER" or "WATER" rather than the trade-name of the product granted sole rights in the Olympic Park.
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Software tycoon reboots Korean politics
By Steven Borowiec
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It isn't often that an anti-virus software engineer has the charisma to command an entire country's attention and paralyze its politics, but that's pretty much what Ahn Cheol-soo is managing to do these days in South Korea.
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South Korea's politics remain polarized between conservative and liberal camps. In his book and public appearances, Ahn has opted to remain ideologically unaligned, placing himself under neither label, instead referring to his approach as one of simple common sense.
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Ahn would likely be matched up against Park Geun-hye, the country's premier old guard, establishment politician. Park draws most of her support from the parents and grandparents of those hoping Ahn will run, and planning to vote for him if he does.
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Ever the shrewd politician, Park is aware of her perceived limitations and isn't hesitating to aim straight for them. To adjust her image as someone who has overstayed her welcome on the national stage, Park has adopted aspirational slogans that one might normally not associate with an icon of conservatism. She is campaigning under the mantras, "Park Geun-hye is changing things" and "A country where my dream can come true."
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Medicaid Turns Out To Be a Pretty Popular Program
By Kevin Drum |
The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll is out, and it contains a couple of interesting tidbits. The first is that the Supreme Court's Obamacare ruling apparently had a substantial effect on public opinion. In the previous 18 months, support for keeping or expanding the law had been comfortably higher than support for repealing law, by roughly 50%-40%. But in July, after the ruling, support for the law dropped dramatically, now slightly trailing repeal by 46%-45%.
But the finding on the right surprised me more. More than half the respondents said that Medicaid was important to them or their family. That suggests a much higher level of support for Medicaid than I would have expected. And this isn't just among the poor, either. The importance of Medicaid is obviously higher among those with lower incomes, but even among those with incomes over $90,000, a full 36% say Medicaid is important to them or their family.1
As you'd expect, this means that support for expanding Medicaid is pretty strong too: 67% of respondents support Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid. That includes even 39% of Republicans.
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SEC seeks new powers to regulate municipal securities markets
By Kevin G. Hall
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The Securities and Exchange Commission asked Congress for new powers Tuesday to bring the nearly $4 trillion municipal securities market under greater federal regulation and force better disclosure for ordinary investors.
After extensive review and public hearings, the SEC issued a 165-page report that called for significant steps to place under greater scrutiny a massive, loosely regulated portion of the financial markets, one that still attracts investment from everyday Americans.
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At the start of this year, there were more than a million different municipal bonds outstanding, valued at more than $3.7 trillion, according to the SEC. Retail investors hold about 75 percent of those, the agency said.
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The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, an industry self-regulator created by Congress that gets oversight from the SEC, confirmed this week that it’s studying how the benchmark index is set. The board acknowledges that there’s little transparency in the process, and the issue takes on new importance after the so-called Libor scandal, in which British bank Barclays recently acknowledged that it had been manipulating the setting of an interest rate that’s used in U.S. car, student and home loans.
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Sebelius to answer health reform questions
By (UPI)
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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will answer questions online about the Affordable Healthcare Act, officials said.
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The Affordable Care Act is making several additions for preventive care free -- requiring no co-payment or deductible -- for women, health officials said. For example, currently insured adult women will receive an annual well-woman preventive care visit to obtain recommended preventive services, and additional visits if women and their healthcare providers determine they are necessary, the White House said in a statement.
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Sebelius and Jobin will answer questions live online at 1:30 p.m. EDT at www.healthcare.gov/live. The public can also submit questions on Facebook at www.facebook.com/healthcaregov or on Twitter using the hashtag #womenshealth.
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General Mills sued for Nature Valley health claims
By Alexander Besant
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General Mills' Nature Valley products are in question after two California mothers file a lawsuit claiming false advertising.
The women claim that despite being touted on the box as "100% natural," Nature Valley granola bars are actually full of processed ingredients.
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“I’ve figured out now that something can say it’s 100 percent natural on the outside and not be 100 percent natural,” said Amy McKendrick, one of the mothers involved in the lawsuit, reported the New York Times.
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There are currently no federal requirements when labelling a food "natural," unlike "organic," which requires government oversight and testing.
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RIAA's Leaked Letter Admits SOPA was "Ineffective", Plots Six-Strikes
By Jason Mick
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I. RIAA Realized SOPA was Ineffective
That's the Recording Industry Association of America's take on the fortunately deceased "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) (H.R. 3261) and the U.S. Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) (S.968). In other words, even one of the world's most notoriously belligerent and aggressive copyright wachdogs thought that SOPA was ineffective.
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Of course the RIAA never intended for the public to glimpse that statement or others in a letter from RIAA Deputy General Counsel Victoria Sheckler to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). But thanks to TorrentFreak and its associates, the letter -- dated April 2012 -- has leaked onto the web for all to see.
Much of the letter chronicles the slow death of SOPA due to "viral" grassroots campaign. The letter expresses concerns regarding "anti-SOPA sentiment in “netizens” being used by opponents to oppose other copyright protection measures."
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California gay marriage ban nears US Supreme Court
By (BBC)
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Opponents of gay marriage in the state of California have asked the US Supreme Court to uphold a ban on same-sex weddings that was ruled unconstitutional by an appeal court.
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The Obama administration has also asked the Supreme Court to review a number of legal challenges to a federal law known as the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government from recognising same-sex marriages.
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On Tuesday, a judge in the state of Connecticut ruled in favour of six married gay couples and one widower who sued after they were denied access to federal benefits.
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An opinion poll released by the Pew Research Center on Tuesday also showed the gap in public support for gay marriage widening along party lines.
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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:
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Stax was a gritty soul label, originally located in Memphis, Tennessee. It was founded by Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton who used the first two letters of their last names to form the name. It featured funk and a hard core rhythm & blues sound. Some of the artists who graced the label were Booker T. & The M.G.’s, Sam & Dave, Johnnie Taylor, Albert King, The Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, The Dramatics, Carla Thomas, and Rufus Thomas.
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His career with Stax can be divided into two parts. His 1963-1964 singles received extensive radio airplay, and many appeared on the Billboard Magazine pop and rhythm & blues charts. His 1963 album, Walking The Dog, was one of the most successful of his career. Then for five years, the commercial success just about came to a halt. During 1969, he recorded the album, May I Have Your Ticket Please, which Stax did not even release.
He was in his early 50s when he began his comeback. “Do The Funky Chicken,” both the album and the single, remain the most memorable of his career. He was backed by members of The Bar-kays. . .
The title track was his setting to music a dance that had begun in Chicago. It became the highlight of his stage act until the end of his life. It basically is a dance that is set to rhythms, resulting in a style of rhythm & blues that would become popular during the 1970s.
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Atmospheric CO2 Drove Climate Change During Longest Interglacial
By (ScienceDaily)
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Known as the marine isotope stage 11 (MIS 11), the interglacial period centered around 400,000 years ago was the longest and possibly the warmest interglacial in the past 0.5 million years. Because the orbital configurations, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, climate, and faunal characteristics during MIS 11 closely resemble those of the past 5,000 years, paleoclimatologists use MIS 11 as a geological analogue of the present and the near future.
. . . The authors find that atmospheric CO2 concentration was indeed the primary driver of both terrestrial and marine climate: Sea surface temperature and the isotopic makeup of carbon in terrestrial and marine reservoirs responded "instantaneously" (i.e., within 1,000 years) to changes in atmospheric CO2 content.
They further report that MIS 11 had warm and cool phases that can be detected from sea surface temperature records alone. During the relatively cold phases, sea surface and air temperatures behave coherently and respond to atmospheric CO2 faster. However, during warmer intervals, ocean surface and air temperatures behave more independently of each other and atmospheric CO2. The authors suggest that over the course of the next century, air and sea surface temperatures are likely to change in ways that will be difficult to predict.
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America's 'Most Polluted' Lake Finally Comes Clean
By David Chanatry
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Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, N.Y., has often been called the most polluted lake in America. It was hammered by a one-two punch: raw and partially treated sewage from the city and its suburbs, and a century's worth of industrial dumping. But now the final stage in a $1 billion cleanup is about to begin.
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The lake's remarkable turnaround is still not fully appreciated by many local residents. It has come after a decades-long fight using federal environmental laws and the courts to force remedial action. Sam Sage of the Atlantic States Legal Foundation says there was no political will to take on a costly cleanup of both raw sewage and toxic waste dumped mostly by the company Allied Chemical.
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Honeywell, a successor to Allied Chemical, has already cleaned factory sites and built an underground barrier wall to keep contaminated groundwater from seeping into the lake. Still, the project will leave 85 percent of the lake bottom untouched.
Sid Hill, a leader of the Onondaga Nation, calls the cleanup project an expensive Band-Aid. He says the cleanup is not enough for a site that has important historic and cultural significance to his people.
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The most important clean-energy vote this year is in Michigan
By David Roberts
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Probably the most important energy-related vote this November is happening in the swing state of Michigan, where voters will decide whether to substantially boost the state’s renewable energy standard (RES). It’s a big deal for all sorts of reasons, many of which extend beyond the state itself. So let’s walk through the background.
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Earlier this month, a coalition of local business and environmental groups called Michigan Energy, Michigan Jobs submitted 530,000 signatures (the state requires 322,000) to put a new proposal on the ballot that would expand the renewable energy standard. The new target would be 25 percent clean energy by 2025. The proposal is widely popular among small businesses and state energy experts.
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The more Michigan develops its local renewable resources, the more electricity generation becomes a boon, an economic growth engine, rather than merely a cost. Energy money stays in the state and circulates in local communities (Michigan already has a substantial wind and solar supply chain [PDF]) rather than being transferred to out-of-state fossil-fuel companies. Michigan wins: more economic activity, more jobs, more pollution-free energy, more pride.
None of that sounds good to the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the state’s big utilities. They have united behind a front group called Clean Affordable Renewable Energy for Michigan (CARE) that is battling to defeat the proposal. CARE has raised more than twice the money of clean-energy proponents and begun bombarding Michigan voters with $5.2 million worth of advertising pushing bogus scare stories about the high costs of clean energy.
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Science and Health |
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Coral Reef Thriving in Sediment-Laden Waters
By (ScienceDaily)
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Rapid rates of coral reef growth have been identified in sediment-laden marine environments, conditions previously believed to be detrimental to reef growth. A new study has established that Middle Reef -- part of Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef -- has grown more rapidly than many other reefs in areas with lower levels of sediment stress.
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Middle Reef is located just 4 km off the mainland coast near Townsville, Australia, on the inner Great Barrier Reef shelf. Unlike the clear waters in which most reefs grow, Middle Reef grows in water that is persistently 'muddy'. The sediment comes from waves churning up the muddy sea floor and from seasonal river flood plumes. The Queensland coast has changed significantly since European settlement, with natural vegetation cleared for agricultural use increasing sediment runoff. High levels of sediment result in poor water quality, which is believed to have a detrimental effect on marine biodiversity.
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"Our research calls for a rethink on some of the classic models of reef growth. At a time when these delicate and unique ecosystems are under threat from climate change and ocean acidification, a view endorsed in a recent consensus statement from many of the World's coral reef scientists, it is more important than ever that we understand how, when and where reefs can grow and thrive."
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Fake health food: How to spot it and what to eat instead
By Jane Mountain
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Fat free! Now with whole grains! Only 100 calories! Zero grams trans fat! All-natural!
Fake health foods are the carnival barkers of the grocery store, shouting at you from every aisle, promising longevity, beauty, and true happiness, if only you’ll buy them. Fake health food is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a vicar in a tutu. . .
Many fake health foods are manufactured (there’s that word again) with GMO corn and soy products. That means they’re the product of industrial-scale farming, which utilizes mass quantities of pesticides, not to mention synthetic nitrogen fertilizers that end up in waterways and feed the Gulf Dead Zone.
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If you really want a naughty snack, I say go for the gusto and eat real junk food. Chances are you’ll eat a lot less, because you won’t be able to fool yourself into thinking it’s healthy. I would choose real potato chips (potatoes, vegetable oil, sea salt) over a bag of faux-healthy Baked Cheetos (which have more than 20 ingredients, including our mysterious friends Artificial Flavor and Artificial Color) every single time.
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And instead of vitamin-enriched water, just drink water. Seriously. If you’re reading this blog, chances are you have the best drink available straight from your tap. (Some of you might not, and for that I am truly sorry. But doesn’t it piss you off that those of us who do don’t appreciate it?)
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Technology |
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Engineers Unveil First Casimir Chip That Exploits The Vacuum Energy
By The Physics arXiv Blog
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One of the strangest effects to arise from the quantum nature of the universe is the Casimir force. This pushes two parallel conducting plates together when they are just a few dozen nanometres apart.
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But there is a problem: Casimir force experiments are extremely hard to do. One headache is that nobody has perfected the technology to position different objects accurately with a nanometre scale gap. Another is that microscopic objects tend to warp and bend; any corrugations on a flat surface can dramatically change the amount of Casimir force between them and even its direction. That makes experimental results hard to interpret.
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The device solves a number of problems. First, because both silicon beams are made in the same lithographic step, unwanted distortions are not a significant problem. And the positioning is easier to control too since the beams and actuator are all part of the same device and so need far less calibrating and alignment. Finally, there are the measurements themselves which are more straightforward to do on a single chip than in previous experiments.
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The great promise of all this is that other shapes should be possible to manufacture too. "This scheme opens the possibility of tailoring the Casimir force using lithographically defined components of non-conventional shapes," say Zou and co.
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How Power Outages in India May One Day Be Avoided
By Kevin Bullis
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Some 600 million people in India have been left without power after parts of the country's massive electricity grid collapsed Tuesday. While the cause isn't yet clear, the outage isn't surprising. India's grid has long been strained, with demand often exceeding supply by hundreds of megawatts, forcing regular rolling blackouts in some areas.
A big part of the solution is obvious: more power plants, more power lines, and an increased supply of coal and other fossil fuels—in India, many power plants don't operate at full capacity because they can't get enough fuel. But another part could be technology that's already starting to catch on in many parts of the developing world: microgrids.
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Microgrids are an extension of on-site generators, or dedicated power supplies, sometimes called captive generation. But they have several advantages over the simple backup diesel generators that are keeping many essential services in India going right now. They use a variety of resources for power, not just diesel generators, which makes them more reliable. So they can keep running, at least in a limited way, even if supplies of diesel fuel get cut off.
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FCC Tells Verizon It Can’t Force You To Pay $20 For Tethering Anymore
By Mario Aguilar
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The FCC and Verizon put an ongoing dispute to rest today when the carrier agreed to allow is customers to use tethering apps with its data plans. You're damn right! Until now, Verizon worked with Google to block tethering apps from being downloaded to Android devices from Google Play. The company instead demanded that customers who wanted to tether pay a $20 per month fee—including users who had a capped data plans. Turns out this isn't just asinine, it violates an FCC regulation. |
Olympic Track and Field Doesn’t Use Starting Pistols Because the Speed of Sound Is Too Slow
By Kyle Wagner
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Did you know the reason that Olympic track and field doesn't use starting pistols anymore is that the runners farthest from the gun were posting demonstrably slower start times. Even with the help of digital speakers. This is crazy.
For a long time, the sound of the gun was pumped in from behind each runner at the same time it fired, but runners would still wait for the sound of the actual gun . . .
Four tenths of a second is a massive amount of time in a sprint. . .
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Cultural |
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NYC pushes breastfeeding over formula
By (UPI)
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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's latest initiative promotes breastfeeding over infant formula, officials said.
While new mothers who favor bottle feeding will still be able to do so, beginning Sept. 3 nurses in New York City will have to sign out the baby formula in hospitals participating in the initiative, the International Science Times reported.
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The International Science Times said the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends babies be breastfed for the first six months for protection against illnesses and allergies. The report said formula fed babies are at a higher risk for diabetes and ear infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has concluded.
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Japan: Revolutionizing the art of masturbation
By Iva Roze Skoch
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Simply put, Tenga has cornered the global market on male masturbation, along the way shattering conventional wisdom that men are perfectly content to do it without artificial help.
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Today, Tenga customers can choose from a popular line of disposable masturbation products with colorful names like Tenga Onacups, Deep Throat Cup, Soft Tube Cup and Double Hole Cup, among others.
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There are now several companies, like Groomin for example, now targeting a growing industry that tops 200 billion yen ($2.5 billion) a year, according to Tokyo Reporter.
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But Tenga is already targeting other lucrative markets, especially China.
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If there is anything like the ideal customer for Tenga, he must live in a nation of 600 million men, where there are not enough women to go around.
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Whatever happened to kids' chemistry sets?
By Alex Hudson
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Portable chemistry sets were first used in the 18th Century but it took more than 100 years before they became popular with children, partly prompted by a desire to recreate the coloured puffs of smoke used by conjurors.
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There were toxic ingredients in pesticides, as well as chemicals now used in bombs or considered likely to increase the risk of cancer. And most parents will not need to be told of the dangers of the sodium cyanide found in the interwar kits or the uranium dust present in the "nuclear" kits of the 1950s.
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Chemistry sets started a sales decline in the late 1970s, both Al-Gailani and Cook note. By the 1980s they had lost their mainstream appeal. But is it really a case of health and safety gone mad?
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Today's chemistry kits have a different emphasis. Some of the bigger sellers recently have included one capable of making edible creations tied to film franchises and a perfume kit aimed at girls.
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The Olympic triumph of Saudi Arabian women
By Eman Al Nafjan
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Saudis did not seem to mind until this year when at the last minute and after much resistance, the Saudi Olympic Committee relented and allowed women to join its delegation. The committee had resisted on conservative grounds and also because it's not an easy task to find Saudi women athletes.
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The only way Saudi women can gain access to sports facilities locally and the once-in-a-blue-moon women's tournament is through expensive private institutes and health clubs – and even these elite organisations get their share of criticism and social and governmental disapproval whenever the media covers their activities.
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After all this controversy and craziness, Saudis were suddenly blindsided by the emergence of a half-Saudi, half-Filipino 19-year-old Olympic swimmer, Jasmine Alkhaldi. Surprisingly, since her existence went viral in Saudi, the majority seems to be not only in support of her but also protective.
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Why the change of heart on women's participation when it comes to Alkhaldi? It's hard to say. It could be that the ultraconservatives were burnt out opposing Attar and Shahrkhani by the time Alkhaldi came on the scene. Or it might be because she is not officially representing Saudi Arabia and the ultraconservative interpretation of Islam that the government adheres to. Or it could be the fact that she is a real Olympic contender with a good chance of winning the gold medal, unlike Attar and Shahrkhani who were included at the last minute under the "universality" clause.
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |