Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, June 03, 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: Indian Summer by Chris Whitley
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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STUDY: US Reporters Use More Weasel Words in Covering Climate Change
By Chris Mooney
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By comparing the preponderance of words that suggest scientific uncertainty about climate change in two US newspapers, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, with the concentration in two Spanish ones, El País and El Mundo. The study, by Adriana Bailey and two colleagues at the University of Colorado-Boulder, is just out in the journal Environmental Communication. It finds a considerably greater concentration of such uncertainty-evoking words in the US papers in their 2001 and 2007 coverage of two newly released reports from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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And there was one more finding of note. The researchers specifically categorized the uncertainty-laden terms by tone, so that more neutral words, like "estimate," were separated out from clearly negative ones, words that forcefully suggested that the science of climate change is dubious. Take, for instance, this 2001 Wall Street Journal commentary: "We don't know whether temperatures will continue to rise," it reads at one point. The underlined words here were both scored as epistemic markers, but the bolded word was scored as a negative one. In the New York Times and in El Mundo, the proportion of negative markers increased over time from 2001 to 2007, a change that the authors note suggests "a real shift towards more negative language rather than a simple increase in overall hedging." In general, US papers also had more negative markers overall than Spanish papers did.
Recent research suggests that through the very language they use to express the certainty of their conclusions—confusing terms such as "likely" and "very likely"—climate scientists, themselves, sow doubt in the minds of the public about their findings. The new study, then, in effect finds a double whammy: US journalists then go on to amplify that sense of uncertainty through their own use of hedging language.
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Secret Clinical Trial Data to Go Public
By (Scientific American)
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Europe has recently taken the lead in adopting measures to ensure openness of data collected throughout drug trials. In early April the European Parliament voted to require that clinical trial results be published within a year of completion, whether or not the data are positive—a regulation that mirrors a similar effort being developed by the European Medicines Agency, an organization roughly equivalent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (Physician and transparency advocate Ben Goldacre has pointed out that the vote is only a first step because it does not make public the data for already approved drugs.)
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Fortunately, there are other ways to ensure that drug data get shared. The FDA should carefully consider a collaboration with the kind of independent institution that is already up and running at Yale University. In 2011 Yale's Open Data Access (YODA) Project reached an agreement with medical device maker Medtronic to act as an intermediary for releasing all data on clinical trials of a controversial bone-growth protein whose safety had been questioned. In an effort to defend its reputation, the company gave up any right to decide who would get the information. YODA then commissioned two systematic reviews of the protein, which conveyed mixed results that were then published. Following Medtronic's example, Johnson & Johnson pledged in January to make all its clinical trial data available for perusal by outsiders through YODA. Such early signs of successes might serve as the basis for devising a national system that replicates a YODA-like model for all U.S. drug trials, perhaps backed up by FDA-enforced penalties for companies that refuse to comply.
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The most important reason for moving ahead has nothing to do with costs. An open data system—perhaps one like Yale's, backed with some regulatory clout—is the only way that physicians can weigh available evidence to make informed, timely decisions about what to tell their patients.
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Those cheap Chinese solar panels have a dirty little secret
By Jim Meyer
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You want to save the world, but you still want to power that iPad, right? And you want to do it all on a budget? China’s got your back then, right? That’s the place, after all, where they’re cranking out the cut-rate solar panels. Well, not so right, according to a new study by Northwestern University and the U.S. Department of Energy.
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Assuming that a solar panel is made of silicon—by far the most common solar panel material—and is installed in sunny southern Europe, a solar panel made in China would take about 20 to 30 percent longer to produce enough energy to cancel out the energy used to make it. The carbon footprint is about twice as high.
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“It takes a lot of energy to extract and process solar-grade silicon, and in China, that energy tends to come from dirtier and less efficient energy sources than it does in Europe,” said Argonne scientist and co-author Seth Darling.
So if you’re setting up your solar panels in Southern Europe, using Chinese solar panels doubles your carbon footprint over home-grown solar. And while the life cycle analysis factors in shipping the raw materials to the factories, it doesn’t take into account the green cost of shipping the panels halfway around the world. That ain’t cheap! |
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International |
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Canadian scientists accuse govt of using junk science to prop up pipeline
By Cory Doctorow
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Dave Ng sez, "The Canadian government is poised to once again abhor evidence-based decision making. 300 scientists have looked over the Joint Review Panel Report that is being used to push forward the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project have concluded that it 'has so many systemic errors and omissions, we can only consider it a failure.'"
What are these flaws you ask? Well, the core problems have been outlined in a press release . . .
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2. The JRP reached conclusions contradicting the government's own scientific evidence, including risks to large whales and other marine species.
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5. The JRP relied on information from the proponent, without external evaluation.
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Israel decries US support for Palestinians
By (Al Jazeera)
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Israel's prime minister has said that he is "deeply troubled" by the United States' decision to maintain relations with the new Palestinian unity government, urging Washington to tell the Palestinian president that his alliance with Hamas is unacceptable.
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The US and the EU have said they will maintain ties to the new government - and continue sending financial aid on the condition that it renounces violence and recognises Israel’s right to exist, AP reported.
Abbas says the new Cabinet is committed to these principles. It is made up of apolitical technocrats who have no ties to Hamas, while the armed group, which remains sworn to Israel's destruction, has agreed to support the government.
Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said on Tuesday that the government was committed to all agreements previously reached with Israel and would continue the president's "programmes of peace," aimed at establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
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Abdul Fattah al-Sisi declared Egypt's new president
By (BBC)
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Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has urged Egyptians to work to restore stability after being declared the winner of last week's presidential election.
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Liberal and secular activists, including the 6 April youth movement which was prominent in the 2011 revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak, also shunned the poll in protest at the curtailing of civil rights.
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He now faces a wide array of challenges, including fixing the economy, easing poverty and preventing further political crises.
Mr Sisi has also promised to restore security in a country where attacks by Islamist militants have left hundreds of security personnel dead over the past 11 months.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Pa. Coal Area Worries Emission Rules Will Cost Economy Jobs
By Reid Frazier
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All right, as we just heard, there is concern these new rules may hit coal communities hard. And let's spend some time in coal country now to listen to the reaction. Greene County, Pennsylvania, is in the southwest corner of the Keystone state - south of Pittsburgh, hugging the West Virginia border. One out of every five jobs there is linked to coal, but it's really part of the culture for everyone. Reid Frazier has this report, introducing us to the people of Greene County.
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SETTIE: Polluting the atmosphere, I can understand. But, you know, you're going to cost a lot of people a lot of jobs, not only the coal mining jobs, all the other jobs that are affiliated with it. It's a sad situation, but, you know, as the saying goes, fight city hall.
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FRAZIER: One possible option for some is the booming natural gas industry. That industry is relatively new. Coal has been providing for families here for decades. Autumn Laskody runs a beauty parlor in Waynesburg. She said many of her clients have husbands who work in the mines. If they lose their jobs, businesses like hers will suffer.
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FRAZIER: As she colored a woman's hair, she worried her community will be asked to bear the brunt of the global climate problem. For NPR News, I'm Reid Frazier in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.
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Alexander Shulgin, 'Godfather of ecstasy', dies aged 88
By Michelle Roberts
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The chemist who reinvented the popular party drug ecstasy has died at the age of 88 from liver cancer.
Alexander Shulgin earned his nickname, the Godfather of ecstasy, after honing a way to make the drug - and testing it out on himself to check it had worked.
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Zeff used small doses of the substance in his practice as an aid to talk therapy, and introduced it to hundreds of psychologists across the nation.
Clubbers have been known to use ecstasy so they can dance for hours. In some cases, people have died from taking ecstasy.
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Prof David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and a former government adviser, said fewer young people might have died from recreational drug toxicity if society had "listened and learned from Shulgin rather than tried to suppress his knowledge and ideas".
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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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Born in Houston, moved to Dallas, moved to Connecticut, moved to Mexico when his parents split up, moved to Vermont . . . The list goes on until Whitley found himself in Belgium in the early ’80s, “before long hair became popular again,” playing dobro and “new-wave electro-pop.”
“I felt very insecure and like I didn’t fit in, so finally gave up. Mostly out of frustration and desperation. I started playing slide guitar again for the first time in four years and wrote Phone Call From Leavenworth with no chorus and no beats-per-minute,” he says, referring to one of the uneasy, moody blues songs on Living with the Law.
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When Whitley puts that strange, primitive guitar sound together with his literate lyrics it also has a purity about it. His lyrics flick out images and an acute visual sense which he attributes to both his parents being visual artists. The sound appealed to film-maker Ridley Scott (Bladerunner, Alien) who heard a rough demo of Big Sky Country and included it on the soundtrack of his most recent film, Thelma and Louise.
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"I guess I shouldn’t care too much about it, but maybe doing all this you do end up giving away a piece of yourself. I don’t know if there is anyone in music I have much in common with . . .
"I just don’t know about all this . . . "
After a career of highs and lows, and consistent critical acclaim if never matched by CD sales, Chris Whitley died of lung cancer in November 2005. He was 45.
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Modern ocean acidification is outpacing ancient upheaval: Rate may be ten times faster
By (ScienceDaily)
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Scientists have long suspected that ocean acidification caused the crisis -- similar to today, as humanmade CO2 combines with seawater to change its chemistry. Now, for the first time, scientists have quantified the extent of surface acidification from those ancient days, and the news is not good: the oceans are on track to acidify at least as much as they did then, only at a much faster rate.
In a study published in the latest issue of Paleoceanography, the scientists estimate that ocean acidity increased by about 100 percent in a few thousand years or more, and stayed that way for the next 70,000 years. In this radically changed environment, some creatures died out while others adapted and evolved. The study is the first to use the chemical composition of fossils to reconstruct surface ocean acidity at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a period of intense warming on land and throughout the oceans due to high CO2.
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In the last 150 years or so, the pH of the oceans has dropped substantially, from 8.2 to 8.1--equivalent to a 25 percent increase in acidity. By the end of the century, ocean pH is projected to fall another 0.3 pH units, to 7.8. While the researchers found a comparable pH drop during the PETM--0.3 units--the shift happened over a few thousand years.
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The study confirms that the acidified conditions lasted for 70,000 years or more, consistent with previous model-based estimates. "It didn't bounce back right away," said Timothy Bralower, a researcher at Penn State who was not involved in the study. "It took tens of thousands of years to recover."
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China to limit carbon emissions for first time
By Adam Vaughan and Tania Branigan
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China, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, will limit its total emissions for the first time by the end of this decade, according to a top government advisor.
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But the new cap will be the first time that the country, which has been plagued by pollution problems in large part due to the burning of carbon-intensive coal, has promised to limit absolute emissions. Officials have not yet put a figure on what level the cap will be.
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The move is likely to be welcomed by Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN climate secretariat, who oversees long-running efforts to reach an international deal on climate change. The Copenhagen meeting, but countries have agreed to reach a new deal next year at a blockbuster summit in Paris. The UN climate negotiations resume on Wednesday in Bonn.
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“In the last 24 hours we’ve had two major announcements from China and the US which send a powerful signal to other world leaders ahead of crucial climate talks later this year. The Chinese government has already set out ambitious plans to cut the country’s reliance on coal – an additional cap on CO2 suggests the country’s leaders are serious about tackling their emission problem," he said.
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World not moving fast enough on renewable energy, says IEA
By Fiona Harvey
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About $1.6 trillion is invested annually in the global energy supply, but while that represents a doubling of investment since the turn of the century, the amount needs to rise to $2 trillion if the world is to limit global warming to no more than 2C of temperature rises, the energy thinktank said.
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But President Obama’s decision this week to try to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power generation in the US was welcomed by Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA and one of the world’s foremost experts on energy, as “very encouraging”.
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Separately on Tuesday, renewable energy non-profit REN21 reported growth of more than 8% in renewable energy generation capacity in the past year. The group said developing countries were forging ahead, with 95 poor nations putting in place policies to stimulate renewable energy investment, up from just 15 such countries in 2005.
The European Environment Agency also said on Tuesday that the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions had declined to the lowest level recorded, putting Europe on track to meet its international commitments on emissions cuts.
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Why Obama’s carbon regs will help kids of color breathe easier
By Brentin Mock
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President Obama hit on carbon pollution impacts on black and Latino kids within the first couple minutes of his talk with reporters yesterday, in a press call hosted by the American Lung Association. “The health issues that we’re talking about hit some communities particularly hard,” he said. “African-American children are twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma, four times as likely to die from asthma. Latinos are 30 percent more likely to be hospitalized for asthma. So these proposed standards will help us meet that challenge head on.”
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Some environmental-justice groups appear to have enough confidence in the administration’s new regs that they are even willing to take a new look at proposals they rejected in the past. Again, taking it back to ‘09, many EJ advocates couldn’t ride with cap-and-trade because it appeared to be about a whole bunch of corporate execs making money off of pollution with little benefits to the communities. Under the new regs, states can use cap-and-trade for compliance. However, some EJ leaders are taking the Obama administration’s local-health-effects focus as a signal that they can drop their guards a little.
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But it ain’t all sweet. The flexibility EPA has afforded states in crafting their own carbon-reduction plans could spell little relief for some of these communities. States can opt to focus on energy-efficiency schemes as a way of meeting EPA standards, which EJ advocates fear would leave the dirtiest coal plants standing, still emitting carbon and soot, still worsening asthma. Even cap-and-trade could leave dumped-on communities still dumped-on if the intentional policy framework White-Newsome referenced isn’t adopted.
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Science and Health |
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Koalas hug trees to lose heat
By Victoria Gill
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In a study published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, scientists used thermal cameras to reveal that, in hotter weather, the animals moved to the lower, cooler parts of the trees.
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This is part of a wider research project investigating the effect of climate on land-dwelling animals in Australia, a country which experienced an extreme heat wave earlier this year.
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Another researcher who has used thermal cameras in his ecological research - Dr Justin Welbergen from James Cook University - says thermal images show exactly how animals can exploit these cooler microclimates in trees.
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Hugging trees, Dr Kearney said, helps the koalas to avoid similar water loss - enabling them to "dump heat" into the tree and to avoid panting.
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Whales Saved by Ship Speed Limits
By Mark Schrope and Nature magazine
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Speed limits on ships have been of some help in saving the North Atlantic right whales from being killed in collisions, suggest studies by the US government and independent researchers — and environmental groups are suing to expand the areas where protection measures are in force.
North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) are among the most endangered of all marine mammals: despite a recent population uptick, only about 450 remain. Ships are the biggest known killers of right whales, and reduced speeds have been reliably linked to a decrease in collisions and deaths. So in 2008 the US government introduced speed-limit zones known as seasonal management areas (SMAs). Historical data show that whale numbers are concentrated in particular areas of the US East Coast at certain times, such as calving season. At those times, ship traffic in SMAs around major ports and feeding, calving and nursing grounds must not travel faster than 18.5 kilometers per hour.
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Notification efforts have included letters sent from the NOAA enforcement office to ship operators; monthly reports on the speed of vessels; and direct radio contact with ships. However, not surprisingly, the most effective boost came from citations and fines for exceeding speed requirements.
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Technology |
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A Learning Secret: Don’t Take Notes with a Laptop
By Cindi May
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“More is better.” From the number of gigs in a cellular data plan to the horsepower in a pickup truck, this mantra is ubiquitous in American culture. When it comes to college students, the belief that more is better may underlie their widely-held view that laptops in the classroom enhance their academic performance. Laptops do in fact allow students to do more, like engage in online activities and demonstrations, collaborate more easily on papers and projects, access information from the internet, and take more notes. Indeed, because students can type significantly faster than they can write, those who use laptops in the classroom tend to take more notes than those who write out their notes by hand. Moreover, when students take notes using laptops they tend to take notes verbatim, writing down every last word uttered by their professor.
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If the source of the advantage for longhand notes derives from the conceptual processes they evoke, perhaps instructing laptop users to draft summative rather than verbatim notes will boost performance. Mueller and Oppenheimer explored this idea by warning laptop note takers against the tendency to transcribe information without thinking, and explicitly instructed them to think about the information and type notes in their own words. Despite these instructions, students using laptops showed the same level of verbatim content and were no better in synthesizing material than students who received no such warning. It is possible these direct instructions to improve the quality of laptop notes failed because it is so easy to rely on less demanding, mindless processes when typing.
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Technology offers innovative tools that are shaping educational experiences for students, often in positive and dynamic ways. The research by Mueller and Oppenheimer serves as a reminder, however, that even when technology allows us to do more in less time, it does not always foster learning. Learning involves more than the receipt and the regurgitation of information. If we want students to synthesize material, draw inferences, see new connections, evaluate evidence, and apply concepts in novel situations, we need to encourage the deep, effortful cognitive processes that underlie these abilities. When it comes to taking notes, students need fewer gigs, more brain power.
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YouTube accused of trying to strong-arm indie labels into poor deals
By Mark Sweney
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A threat to remove Adele and the Arctic Monkeys from YouTube should be investigated by the European Commission, according to the independent record labels they are signed to.
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Three large music companies dominate the industry – Universal, Warner Music and Sony Music, known as the majors. In an attempt the match their clout in negotiations with digital media giants such as YouTube, the remaining independent labels negotiate collectively, but often complain that they struggle for the best commercial terms.
They say YouTube is trying to cut out Merlin, the body that represents them in rights deals, and is instead making direct approaches to individual independent labels with a "non-negotiable" contract for its proposed streaming service.
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John Enser, partner at law firm Olswang, said: "Music services offered by big tech companies, not just in terms of YouTube but also iTunes, have often offered 'take it or leave it' terms to indie labels.
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Scientists Built a Robot That Lets You Feel Virtual Breasts
By Ashley Feinberg
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More specifically, Japanese researchers have developed a robot hand that uses haptic technology to simulate softness on individual fingertips. Other than acting as a stand-in lady friend for lonely scientists, the device has the potential to give medical students more hands-on practice (so to speak) with breast exams.
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To simulate softness, the sheet of gel is stretched by two tiny rollers with a gap between them, so that a strip of gel is suspended in the air. Your finger rests on this strip. By using a motor and a set of gears to move the rollers, the tension on the strip of gel can be increased or decreased. Increasing the tension (pulling the strip tighter) makes it feel harder under your finger, while decreasing the tension (letting the strip get looser) makes it feel softer . . .
With a haptic device, the potential for replicable shapes is nearly endless. So whereas you'd need to have dozens of different silicon models with lumps in different places for students to practice breast exams, a single, haptic hand could do it all.
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FBI cracks down on laser attacks on aircraft
By (BBC)
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The FBI has said it will expand a reward programme offering $10,000 (£6,000) for information leading to arrests over "lasing" incidents.
Laser pointers directed at helicopter and airplane pilots can temporarily blind those piloting the aircraft.
The FBI says it has seen a sharp increase in such incidents since they began tracking them in 2005.
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As part of the FBI's push there will be public service announcements about the programme during film previews in a theatre chain in the Mid-West.
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Cultural |
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Study examines political contributions made by physicians
By (ScienceDaily)
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The percentage of physicians making campaign contributions in federal elections increased to 9.4 percent in 2012 from 2.6 percent in 1991, and during that time physician contributors shifted away from Republicans toward Democrats, especially in specialties dominated by women or those that are traditionally lower paying such as pediatrics, according to a new study by Adam Bonica, Ph.D., of Stanford University, California, and colleagues.
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"Between 1991 and 2012, the political alignment of physicians in the United States changed dramatically. A profession once firmly allied with Republicans is now shifting toward the Democrats. Indeed, the variables driving this change -- sex, employment type and specialty -- are likely to continue to be active forces and to drive further changes."
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"The authors are careful not to extrapolate much beyond their findings. Their data show a recent shift toward the Democrats in the traditional physician support of Republicans, and they believe that this shift is likely to continue," Relman writes.
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How Punjab's missing thousands are being forgotten
By (BBC)
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Thirty years on from the Indian army's raid on the Golden Temple in June 1984, the relatives of those who were "disappeared" in the years after the attack feel their cause has been abandoned, reports the BBC's Jastinder Khera from Amritsar.
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"Those in India who talk about forgetting the abuses and moving on are normally those who were not directly affected," says co-director and co-founder of Ensaaf, Jaskaran Kaur.
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Jagtar Singh, a veteran former journalist who has written a book about the insurgency, says that many in Punjab have moved on and simply do not want to remember a very traumatic period in the state's history.
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Her husband Surjit Singh went missing in 1992 when two policemen took him away just after dawn, saying they needed him to give them directions. She never saw him again, but his name appeared in a list of people whose bodies had been illegally cremated which came to light in 2006.
"We need justice. When they were little, my children used to ask me where their father had gone. Now these little ones ask me where their grandfather is."
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Sharing a running victory: is winning the only acceptable outcome?
By Ceri Rees
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I was only nine years old in 1981, when the first ever London Marathon resulted in a tie between American Dick Beardsley and Norwegian Inge Simonsen. They crossed the finish line together in 2 hours, 11 minutes, 48 seconds. Not quite holding hands – but the image has stayed with me.
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Morgan Donnelly, a former British fell-running champion, got away on the inclines, and disappeared from sight. On the long descent along Newlands Valley, I made up the ground and we were back matching strides. Two kilometres from the end, as I caught him, I asked him if he wanted to finish together. He hesitated and I wasn't sure what to do, but 400 metres later, we were still together and it became clear. After three and a half hours of sweating, striding, skipping and falling across sun-draped landscapes, we held our hands aloft. I must admit, part of me was slightly apprehensive about whether this was really a good idea.
It shouldn't be a big deal, should it? But I wondered why this wasn't a more common occurrence. The slightly empty feeling or anti-climax that sometimes accompanies the attainment of a goal was gone. When you are young and you win a race, your body is pulsing with adrenaline and a sense of pride that comes with testing your resilience in the proving ground of competition. As you get older, though, something starts to mellow. It's not resolve, and I don't think it is even competitive instinct. I think you simply develop an appreciation for the common goal or the group aspect.
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For the competitor, is sport really all about connecting with others? Sometimes I want to travel back in time and remind my former self that being good at something, or even the best, is often just a by-product of doing something you love. Competition, as I was reminded at Keswick, is about so much more than finishing first. The communal or group aspect, although an implicit part of so many races, is often ignored.
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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. |