Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, May 27, 2014.
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: Pompeii by Bastille
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
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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Big Oil Won't Let the Developing World Kick the Habit
By Michael Klare
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As in the case of cigarette sales, the stepped-up delivery of fossil fuels to developing countries is doubly harmful. Their targeting by Big Tobacco has produced a sharp rise in smoking-related illnesses among the poor in places where health systems are particularly ill equipped for those in need. "If current trends continue," the WHO reported in 2011, "by 2030 tobacco will kill more than 8 million people worldwide each year, with 80 percent of these premature deaths among people living in low- and middle-income countries." In a similar fashion, an increase in carbon sales to such nations will help produce more intense storms and longer, more devastating droughts in places that are least prepared to withstand or cope with climate change's perils.
In the end, all these efforts to boost fossil fuel sales in Asia and other developing areas will have one unmistakable result: a sharp rise in global carbon emissions, with most of the growth in non-OECD countries. According to the EIA, between 2010 and 2040 world carbon dioxide emissions from energy use—the main source of greenhouse gases—will rise by 46 percent, from 31.2 billion metric tons to 45.5 billion. Little of this increase will officially be generated by the planet's wealthiest countries, where energy demand is stagnant and tougher rules on carbon emissions are being put in place. Instead, almost all of the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere—94 percent of it—will be sloughed off on the developing world, even if a significant part of those emissions will come from the combustion of US fossil fuel exports.
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Everyone will share in the pain from such warming-induced catastrophes. But people in developing lands—especially the poorest among them—will suffer more, because the societies they live in are least prepared to cope with severe catastrophes. "Climate-related hazards exacerbate other [socioeconomic] stressors, often with negative outcomes for livelihoods, especially for people living in poverty," the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change observed in its most recent assessment of what global warming will mean for planet Earth. "Climate-related hazards affect poor people's lives directly, through impacts on livelihoods, reduction in crop yields, or destruction of homes, and indirectly through, for example, increased food prices and food insecurity."
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Above all, Big Energy is insuring that one small ray of good news when it comes to climate change—the contracting use of coal, oil, and gas across the developed world—will prove meaningless. The economic incentive to sell fossil fuels to developing countries is undeniably powerful. The need for increased energy in developing countries is no less indisputable. In the long run, the only way to meet these needs without endangering our global future would be through a mammoth drive to expand renewable energy options there, not by shoving carbon products down their throats. Rex Tillerson and his cohorts will continue to claim that they are performing a "humanitarian" service with their new "tobacco" strategy. Instead, they are actually perpetuating the fossil fuel era and helping to create a future humanitarian catastrophe of apocalyptic dimensions.
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Palestinians 'to unveil unity government'
By (Al Jazeera)
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is to unveil a unity government by Thursday, ending seven years of rival administrations in the West Bank and Gaza, an official has said.
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The Palestine Liberation Organisation, which is dominated by Fatah, signed a surprise reconciliation deal with Hamas on April 23, giving the two sides five weeks to draw up an "independent government" of technocrats headed by Abbas.
Agreement on a unity government would pave the way for long-delayed presidential and parliamentary elections.
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But the European Union and the United States have refused to have any dealings with the movement until it renounces violence and recognises Israel and past peace deals.
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Pluto Bids To Get Back Planetary Status
By Ken Croswell and Steve Mirsky
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Poor little Pluto. In 2006, astronomers ganged up on it and voted to strip it of its planethood—but other astronomers signed a petition saying they'd ignore that vote.
Now Pluto itself seems to be fighting back. Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we’ve learned that Pluto has at least five moons—pretty impressive for something that's supposedly not a planet.
. . .
Other astronomers have now analyzed methane in Pluto's air. Yup, Pluto has an atmosphere—again, pretty impressive for something that's supposedly not a planet . . .
We'll find out its exact diameter in July, 2015, when NASA's first spacecraft to Pluto zips by. It'll take lots of pictures, probably find more moons, and hopefully tell us whether Pluto is indeed the king of the underworld—I mean, of the solar system beyond Neptune.
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Thousands of US troops to stay in Afghanistan
By (Al Jazeera)
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US President Barack Obama has announced a pullout plan for Afghanistan that will leave 9,800 troops in the country after 2014, overriding previous plans of a complete withdrawal by the end of the year.
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"We have to recognise that Afghanistan will not be a perfect place and it is not America's responsibility to make it one," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden.
He credited American forces, which were first deployed by President George W Bush within a month of the September 11, 2001, attacks, with striking significant blows against al-Qaeda's leadership, eliminating Osama bin Laden and preventing Afghanistan from being used as a base for strikes against the US.
While Karzai has declined to sign a bilateral agreement, US officials said they were confident that either of the candidates seeking to replace him would give his approval.
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By the end of 2016, the US presence would be cut to a normal embassy presence and will staff a security office in the capital, as has been done in Iraq, a senior government official told reporters earlier on Tuesday.
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International |
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Rio Tinto and Chinalco sign $20bn Guinea iron ore deal
By (BBC)
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Rio Tinto, Chinalco and the International Finance Corporation have signed a deal to develop Guinea's iron ore deposits.
The Simandou project, which has been delayed for years, would be the biggest iron ore and infrastructure project developed in Africa, the firms said.
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"Today is an important milestone in the development of this world-class iron ore resource for the benefit of all shareholders and the people of Guinea," said Sam Walsh, chief executive of Rio Tinto.
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Rio was first awarded concessions to Simandou almost 10 years ago, but was forced to give up those in the northern part of the range of hills in 2008. These were then given to BSG Resources, a company controlled by Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz.
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Indigenous activists clash with Brazil police
By (Al Jazeera)
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Indigenous protesters in traditional dress squared against Brazilian police mounted on horses in the country's capital, just outside a new football stadium that will host World Cup matches this year.
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The activists were demonstrating against legislation that threatens to shrink the size of some reserves for indigenous groups, the Associated Press news agency reported.
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Recent protests have been far smaller than those seen last year, when a total of 1 million people took to the streets across Brazil on a single night.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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The VA whistleblower speaks out
By Xeni Jardin
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The Veterans Administration worker who leaked damning information about the federal agency has a name: Sam Foote. He is an internist, and for 19 years was a VA outpatient clinic director.
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My decision to become a whistle-blower after 24 years as a physician in a Veterans Affairs hospital was, at first, an easy one. I knew about patients who were dying while waiting for appointments on the V.A.’s secret schedules, and I couldn’t stay silent.
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Dr. Foote retired from the VA's Phoenix, Arizona medical center in December 2013. He continued to contact lawmakers, but he also contacted a reporter at the Arizona Republic, and a series of articles about deaths, suffering, and financial waste caused by mismanagement followed. |
California Lawmakers Vote To Require Condom Use In Porn Films
By Alan Greenblatt
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The California Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday that would require condom use in pornographic films shot in the state.
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The bill received 41 votes in favor, the minimum needed. "Abstaining from voting were several Assembly members from the Los Angeles area, where the porn industry is a significant force," The Sacramento Bee reports.
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"It's not private activity; it's commercial activity," Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, told the Los Angeles Times. "I don't know why people who work in that industry shouldn't be afforded the same protections as people who work on a construction site, or on a regular movie set."
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A year after the Los Angeles County requirement was approved, local porn permit applications had plummeted 95 percent.
A study released by the Milken Institute in February found that California has lost more than 16,000 jobs in its mainstream film industry over the past decade, as other states have aggressively used tax breaks to attract productions.
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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:
. . .
I find myself reassuring him that it's all right to be proud of doing well but that, it seems, just isn't his style. "Reading interviews with other people, I see them say: 'All I want is for our band to be massive', but it was never an ambition of ours to be in a band that's this big. That's so far from how my mind works that I find it puzzling. There's nothing wrong with being ambitious, but we're not."The more Smith talks about his role as reluctant pop star, the more the claustrophobic tone of Bastille's saturnine pop makes sense. One of the band's early promotional photos depicts Smith alone on some wasteland – Wimbledon Common, he explains – looking like he'd prefer to be anywhere else. When asked to describe what was going on in that photo, he pulls a face. "I just didn't want us to be in our photos or videos," he explains. "Not in an east London 'Ooh let's be anonymous' way, just because there were things I was uncomfortable with. So I'd try to push back."
He just looked a bit cold. "I was violently ill with glandular fever."
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The band have, indeed, done relatively little press. Their success has been building since the independent release of their first single Flaws/Icarus in 2011, and it was established on the live circuit, on the airwaves, and online. The word-of-mouth success was driven by their freely downloadable mixtape releases containing covers, remixes and original songs. "Someone recently said to us: 'The mixtapes were very clever, was that the label's idea?' Actually the label were completely against it; we were stealing and sampling illegally left, right and centre. The label said: 'We want nothing to do with this.' When it came to hosting the mixtapes, I had to register the website myself."
. . .
Some people, I say, do think that Bastille are boring, although these are also the sort of people who use phrases like "music for people who don't like music".
"Well," he declares, "that's fucking bullshit. I don't think we're boring at all." Remembering his unofficial status as pop's most reasonable frontman, he adds: "Though I'm going to say that, aren't I?"
. . .
Actually, iTunes suggests that Bastille fans also enjoy the music of Alt-J, Gabrielle Aplin, Bombay Bicycle Club, the Maccabees and Charlie from Busted, which isn't a mile off what one might expect, though Bastille's music is the most interesting of the lot. While any of the bands who filled Bastille-shaped holes in charts gone by – Keane, for instance – followed a tune-heavy path of least resistance, there's an enjoyably dark edge to Bastille, which begins to make sense when Smith admits that as a teen he was obsessed with Darren Aronofosky's film Requiem for a Dream. Bastille's most recent video featured corpses lipsynching to Corona's Rhythm of the Night; another hit was titled after unfortunate Twin Peaks character Laura Palmer.
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Vines choke a forest's ability to capture carbon
By (ScienceDaily)
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Tropical forests are a sometimes-underappreciated asset in the battle against climate change. They cover seven percent of land surface yet hold more than 30 percent of Earth's terrestrial carbon. As abandoned agricultural land in the tropics is taken over by forests, scientists expect these new forests to mop up industrial quantities of atmospheric carbon. New research by Smithsonian scientists shows increasingly abundant vines could hamper this potential and may even cause tropical forests to lose carbon.
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Arid conditions in gaps are similar to recently reforested areas. "The ability of lianas to rapidly invade open areas and young forests may dramatically reduce tropical tree regeneration -- and nearly all of the aboveground carbon is stored in trees," said Schnitzer. Lianas have been shown to consistently hinder the recruitment of small trees, and limit the growth, fecundity and survival of established trees.
"Scientists have assumed that the battle for carbon is a zero-sum game, in which the loss of carbon from one plant is balanced by the gain of carbon by another. This assumption, however, is now being challenged because lianas prevent trees from accumulating vast amounts of carbon, but lianas cannot compensate in terms of carbon accumulation," said Schnitzer. "If lianas continue to increase in tropical forests, they will reduce the capacity for tropical forests to uptake carbon, which will accelerate the rate of increase of atmospheric carbon worldwide."
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China to scrap millions of cars to ease pollution
By Jennifer Duggan
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The Chinese government has announced plans to take up to 6 million vehicles that don’t meet emission standards off the roads by the end of the year, in a bid to reduce the country’s air pollution problems.
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A number of Chinese cities have started restricting vehicle licenses as a way of reducing car use. The city of Hangzhou recently restricted the number of new car licenses it issues and will only issue new plates via an auction and lottery. The cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Guiyang and Tianjin also limit the number of new vehicles registered each year.
According to the plan issued by the State Council, the government will also reduce coal consumption and introduce more green technologies. Xu Shaoshi was quoted in state media saying that a report will be published monthly on how regions are carrying out energy reductions.
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Americans care deeply about 'global warming' – but not 'climate change'
By Suzanne Goldenberg
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Barack Obama, scientists and campaigners have all looked at how to engage Americans more powerfully on the environment. Now researchers have come up with one critical piece of advice: do say "global warming", don't say "climate change".
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George W Bush swapped the term climate change for global warming in 2002, on the advice of the Republican political consultant, Frank Luntz.
In a secret memo before the mid-term elections, Luntz warned Republicans – and Bush in particular – were singularly weak on the environment. He advised a strategy of disputing climate science, and of avoiding the term "global warming' because of its highly negative connotations.
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“The use of the term climate change appears to actually reduce issue engagement by Democrats, Independents, liberals, and moderates, as well as a variety of subgroups within American society, including men, women, minorities, different generations, and across political and partisan lines,” the researchers said.
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Forget saving the planet, driving an electric car will save your life
By Todd Woody
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The failure to persuade a sizable percentage of Americans that climate change poses a clear and present danger is one of the great failures in marketing and the subject of considerable debate among scientists, academics and politicians. But there is one argument for taking action against global warming that has resonated: health.
. . . A study released this week by the Environmental Defense Fund and the California chapter of the American Lung Association analyzed the impact of California’s cap-and-trade emissions program – which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 – as well as the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), which mandates a 10 percent reduction in the carbon intensity of transportation fuels by 2020.
“By 2025, the health benefits of the LCFS and [cap-and-trade] will save $8.3 billion in pollution-related health costs such as avoided hospital visits and lost work days,” the report states. “In addition, these policies will prevent 38,000 asthma attacks as well as 600 heart attacks, 880 premature deaths, and almost 75,000 lost work days – all caused by air pollution.”
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Reuse recognised: how an old ideal is finally making it to the big time
By Leo Benedictus
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Featherstone is development manager of the London Re-Use Network. This year, in case you hadn’t heard, he shot up 67 places to 29th in the “Hot 100”, the list of the biggest cheeses in waste management according to Resource magazine. Even so, 29th looks like scant acknowledgement of the fact that, by linking many different charities who collect, repair and sell unwanted items, and connecting them to a single disposal Hotline number (and website), the LRN has shown for the first time how reuse can create jobs (44 so far in the LRN), reduce waste, and really, seriously work.
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Even when a repair is needed, it is often simple. Replacing the switch on the door, that’s a common one, or even just cleaning out the rubber seal. (They get mouldy after months without hot washes or biological powder.) Indeed it is Featherstone’s dream that Re-Work might soon form a partnership with a manufacturer, through which they would exchange what their engineers learn about appliances in the real world for the sponsorship of another engineer. What was once a few guys tinkering with a few machines in scattered sheds is now a professional outfit that sends out around 80 mended appliances each week. It could easily, they believe, be more.
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Cleverer laws would help. Companies could be required by law to design more carefully so that parts can be easily reused. They could get licensing fees when their components are reused in new machines, giving them economic motivation to design components worth recovering. There might also be ways to encourage more leasing of products all round, which is inherently less wasteful. “We were talking to BAM construction about a road they had built in the Netherlands,” says Thomas by way of example. “They were paid when the road was in use. If it broke, or if it got pot-holes and they had to repair it, they lost their income. So the incentive was there for them to make a road that would last.”
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Science and Health |
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Intermediaries increase corruption
By (ScienceDaily)
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An experimental study in which the Universidad Carlos III (UC3M) took part analysed the interaction between public officials and citizens and found that the presence of intermediaries significantly increases corruption.
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This might happen, among other reasons, because responsibility for actions is diluted. Even in countries with high rates of corruption, individuals normally have an ethic which makes them reluctant to participate in this sort of immoral action. However, note the researchers, in different contexts, it has been found that the existence of intermediaries reduces the feeling of guilt caused by bad actions. "Even in the case of intermediaries that are completely passive, negative feelings associated with corruption are reduced, which contributes towards more corruption," they note.
The results of the study might be useful for designing policies related to the use of intermediaries in the supply of goods and public services. "Should the figure of the intermediary even be prohibited in these contexts? It is necessary to carefully examine the advantages and disadvantages of such a measure, because there are still many things to clarify in this respect," said Drugov. For example, it would also be necessary to analyze the benefits that the use of honest intermediaries brings to the system.
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Fibromyalgia: Maligned, Misunderstood and (Finally) Treatable
By Bret Stetka
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Skepticism around fibromyalgia stemmed in part from an elusive organic explanation. Symptoms appeared to arise out of nowhere, which didn't make any sense to empirically minded physicians. But over the past two decades, research has brought clinicians closer to deciphering this mysterious pain state, once thought muscular in nature, now known to be neurologic. Based on this recent work a new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association by chronic pain expert Dr. Daniel Clauw brings us up to speed on the understanding, diagnosis and management of fibromyalgia circa 2014. And the outlook for patients is rosier than you might expect given the condition’s perplexing reputation.
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Neuroimaging studies support the theory that fibromyalgia-afflicted brains exhibit enhanced sensory response to benign stimuli. But what leads to this centralized pain state? Fibromyalgia’s strong familial association suggests that genetics plays a major role. Also any number of environmental influences can trigger fibromyalgia including infection, physical pain and psychological trauma. Deployment to war is still considered a major risk factor. And it seems there can be a significant psychological or behavioral component to the condition. Fibromyalgia patients are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder that in many cases, Clauw speculates, might result from common triggers. Regardless of the inciting factor, altered levels and activity of neurotransmitters that facilitate pain transmission may ultimately lead to the symptoms of fibromyalgia. These central disturbances are also likely at the root of the non-pain symptoms of fibromyalgia, as the same neurotransmitters are involved in sleep, memory and mood.
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Better still for fibromyalgia sufferers is that it’s now relatively treatable. Several neurotransmitter-modulating drugs and drug classes appear to be effective, including some pain medications and antidepressants. Among these, three treatments are now FDA-approved. Possibly more effective, according to the current evidence, are exercise, cognitive-behavioral therapy — a form of psychotherapy based in altering negative thoughts and behaviors — and simply patient education. Clauw stresses that while medications can help alleviate symptoms, patients rarely see significant symptom improvement without also adopting self-management approaches like stress reduction, quality sleep and exercise.
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Ant colonies create highly complex information networks
By Brooks Hays
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Their intelligence lies not in the ants' strategy for finding food but in the colony's efficiency in honing in on a food source and leveraging its workforce toward a specific goal -- bringing the food back to home base.
When a single ant finds a piece of food, it heads back to the center of the ant colony, releasing a pheromone scent to mark the route. Because the pheromones quickly dissipate, the growing barrage of ants still look a bit chaotic as they track down the recently discovered morsel. But as more and more ants find the food, the line of ants from home to food and back becomes straighter and more efficient.
The study also found that as ants get older they get better at foraging, having acquired more information about their surroundings than younger colony members.
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"I'd go so far as to say that the learning strategy involved in that, is more accurate and complex than a Google search," Kurths told The Independent. "These insects are, without doubt, more efficient than Google in processing information about their surroundings."
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Bizarre Soviet-Era Theory About New State of Matter Is Actually Right
By Sarah Zhang
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Here's your dose of mind-bending physics for the day. In 1970, a young Soviet physicist named Vitaly Efimov proposed a trio of ultracold particles could arrange themselves in an "infinite nesting-doll configuration." Scientists have now published compelling evidence that this state of matter, once dismissed by physicists, totally does exist.
Like most of us, physicists themselves were perplexed when they first heard of what is called now called the Efimov state. But Efimov's math has held up in the four and a half decades since, and technological advances have even allowed physicists to achieve the Efimov state in a lab.
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The nesting-doll feature — called discrete scale invariance — arose from a symmetry in the equation describing the forces between three particles. If the particles satisfied the equation when spaced a certain distance apart, then the same particles spaced 22.7 times farther apart were also a solution. This number, called a "scaling factor," emerged from the mathematics as inexplicably as pi, the ratio between a circle's circumference and diameter.
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The Efimov state may still be obscure sounding, but it reveals a law for how molecules in the universe interact, a law that allows for, in Wolochover's words, "a geometric progression of evermore-enormous trios of particles, spanning in a theoretically infinite sequence from the quantum scale to (if the particles were cold enough) the size of the universe and beyond."
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Technology |
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Trust your doctor, not Wikipedia, say scientists
By Pippa Stephens
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Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, contains errors in nine out of 10 of its health entries, and should be treated with caution, a study has said.
Scientists in the US compared entries about conditions such as heart disease, lung cancer, depression and diabetes with peer-reviewed medical research.
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Lead author Dr Robert Hasty, of the Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine in North Carolina, said: "While Wikipedia is a convenient tool for conducting research, from a public health standpoint patients should not use it as a primary resource because those articles do not go through the same peer-review process as medical journals."
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Stevie Benton, at Wikimedia UK, said there were a "number of initiatives" in place to help improve the articles, "especially in relation to health and medicine".
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Tunisia’s rubbish selfie trend
By (BBC)
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More than 12,000 people have "liked" a new Facebook page, "Selfi Poubella", set up on 16 May, and scores have sent in pictures of themselves on rubbish-strewn streets.
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The Facebook page calls on people to "show the leaders of Tunisia the true face of our streets". Besbes says: "This is the selfie that we should be doing, the selfie that shocks." He believes the environment is not getting the attention it deserves in Tunisia.
The government has promised to tackle the problem of rubbish on the streets and has even announced a special task force to tackle it.
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Cultural |
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Pakistan woman stoned by family outside Lahore court
By (BBC)
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A Pakistani woman has been killed by her relatives outside Lahore High Court for marrying against their wishes.
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Her father handed himself in, but police say her brothers and former fiancee, who also took part in the attack, were still free.
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As she arrived at the court building for a hearing, police said about a dozen family members pulled her aside and began to attack her and her husband, who managed to escape.
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The BBC's Shumaila Jaffery says marriage against the wishes of relatives is culturally unacceptable in some parts of Pakistan.
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Sudanese woman facing death for apostasy gives birth
By (BBC)
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Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag married a Christian man and was sentenced to hang for apostasy earlier this month after refusing to renounce Christianity.
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Ms Ibrahim was raised as an Orthodox Christian, her mother's religion, because her father, a Muslim, was reportedly absent during her childhood.
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Lawyer Elshareef Ali said his 27-year-old client had given birth to a baby girl in the early hours of Tuesday morning in a hospital wing at the prison.
She also has her 20-month-old son with her as he has been held with her in prison since late February, he said.
Ms Ibrahim's legal team lodged an appeal on 22 May as Mr Ali says the verdict contravenes the constitution's enshrining of freedom of faith . . .
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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. |