Being Informed

4candles

Well-Known Member
#91
Gundersen: Concern an even larger calamity is coming at Fukushima — Guardian: Workers passing out within minutes of arriving at plant; Alcohol abuse a problem, men working with ‘the shakes’; Insiders say they’re suffering health problems(AUDIO)



The Guardian, Oct. 15, 2013: [...] men working inside the plant are suffering from plummeting morale, health problems and anxiety about the future, according to insiders [...] the cleanup is entering its most precarious stage since the meltdown in March 2011. [...] complaints from hoteliers and inn-keepers about drink-fuelled fights. [...] A 42-year-old contract worker, who asked not be named, confirmed that alcohol abuse had become a problem among workers. “Lots of men I know drink heavily in the evening and come to work with the shakes the next day. I know of several who worked with hangovers during the summer and collapsed” [...] Another worker [...] said he had seen hungover colleagues collapse with heatstroke just minutes after beginning work. [...] “I’m very worried about the labour shortage. If they don’t do something about it soon, the employment system at Fukushima Daiichi will collapse first, not the plant” [said a former Tepco employee of 14 years] [...] as concern grows over Tepco [...] starting next month with the removal of 1,300 spent fuel assemblies from the top of reactor No 4 – the unfolding human crisis is being largely ignored. [...]

WBKM, Oct. 13, 2013 – Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Chief Engineer (at 0:45 in): They’ve had a series of calamities. When you get a series of small calamities that usually implies that there’s a larger calamity on the horizon. [...]

Full broadcast here(Check in below link for audio link)


Link:
 

4candles

Well-Known Member
#92
Genetically Modified Babies

By Rady Ananda
Global Research, October 15, 2013


In October 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration will hold a two-day public meeting to discuss genetic modification within the human egg, which changes will be passed on generationally. The United Kingdom is also moving to allow GM babies.

Human gene therapy has been ongoing since 1990, but most of that involved non-heritable genes, called somatic (non-sex cell) gene therapy. Somatic modifications only affect the individual and are not passed on, and so do not affect the human genome.

The game changed with the successful birth of at least 30 genetically modified babies by 2001. Half of the babies engineered from one clinic developed defects, so the FDA stepped in and asserted jurisdiction over “the use of human cells that receive genetic material by means other than the union of gamete nuclei” (sperm and egg nuclei).

Now the FDA is considering going forward with “oocyte modification” which involves genetic material from a second woman, whereby offspring will carry the DNA from three parents. These kinds of genetic changes (“germline modification”) alter the human genome.

With ooplasmic transfer, the technique injects healthy mitochondrial DNA from a donor into the egg of an infertile woman. Mitochondrial DNA floats outside a cell’s nucleus which contains the regular DNA, and is only inherited from the mother.

This is the first such meeting ever to be held in public by the FDA, reports Biopolitical Times (BPT), speculating that the meeting will likely include discussing a mitochondrial replacement technique developed by Shoukhrat Mitalipov at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU).

Notes the BPT, “mitochondrial replacement is a form of inheritable genetic modification.” This type of gene therapy is the source of much controversy, because it permanently changes the human genome and risks unforeseeable changes in growth and development, and aging.

As late as 2008, all germline modification therapies and enhancements were banned in 83% of the 30 nations making up the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), including the US and UK, reports the Center for Genetics and Society (CGS).

In June of this year, the United Kingdom reversed its long-standing policy against germline modification, and decided to go ahead with three-parent babies. Regulations on the procedure are now being drafted and Members of Parliament are expected to vote on the issue in 2014.

Continue reading...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/geneti...=rss&utm_campaign=genetically-modified-babies

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Similar if not more advanced programmes are being carried out in China -
Google ... 'China Is Engineering Genius Babies + BGI Shenzhen'



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4candles

Well-Known Member
#93
Smart Shelves Will Identify Grocery Shoppers, Deliver Custom Advertisements


According to an interview with the Wall Street Journal, snack company Mondelez International will introduce so-called “smart shelves” into grocery stores starting in 2015. The shelves, which will be concentrated at the checkout line, will use a variety of tools to identify a shopper’s sex and age. The machine will then use that info to choose an ad custom tailored for the shopper’s demographic.

The shelves should also be able to track individual engagement, and monitor how long each ad is watched. Weight sensors under the product holders will let the machine know when a customer has picked up an item, or is considering a purchase. Custom coupons can be displayed, in order to boost conversion rates.

It’s not quite the future advertising scenario we envisioned, but it certainly lays the groundwork for highly personalized, targeted video ads. If this tech is combined with wearable devices using, say, Bluetooth LE, the program wouldn’t even have to guess a shopper’s demographic. In fact, it would likely know their name and exactly what kind of candy they enjoy.

Some of the tech behind the shelves includes Microsoft’s Kinect for Windows gesture recognition. The data crunching will be done by Mondelez’s engineers, perhaps using SAP AG’s Hana software. Mondelez says that the shelves will only use aggregate data, and will not store any photos or videos of customers (for use in a potential facial recognition database). Ideally the shelves will not only help sell snacks at the checkout line, but also help Mondelez optimize their product placement and customer understanding throughout the store.


Continue Reading....

http://technologyadvice.com/smart-s...s-deliver-custom-advertisements/#.Ul8UwdeO71U
 

4candles

Well-Known Member
#94
Scientists discover new type of deadly botox, won’t release DNA sequence


Researchers from the California Department of Health found an eighth type of botulinum toxin, called toxin H. The deadly substance causes botulism and paralysis. Its DNA sequence is being withheld until an antidote is discovered.


Scientists are keeping quiet about a new type of botox, which could kill adults in microscopic doses. Scientists claim they’ve discovered the deadliest substance on Earth in a scary new type of Botox.

Researchers from the California Department of Health are refusing to release the DNA sequence of the new botulinum toxin because there is no known antidote — the first time a sequence has been withheld from public records over safety concerns, according to New Scientist.

If published, the DNA sequence would pose “an immediate and unusually serious risk to society,” said Stanford University’s David Relman, who provided commentary for the report published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

It would take a microscopic injection of just 2 billionths of a gram — or inhaling 13 billionths of a gram — of the new Botox to kill an adult. Victims would contract botulism and eventually die of paralysis.


Lead study author Stephen Arnon and colleagues discovered the new substance — the 8th known botulinum toxin, called toxin H — in the feces of a child who had botulism.

Only the first two types of Botox — A and B — are used in cosmetic procedures.


Today, botulism patients are treated with antibodies, but in Arnon’s study, antibodies didn’t save mice that had been infected with toxin H.

Researchers worked with the U.S. Army’s infectious diseases laboratory, Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep the new toxin’s sequence in safe hands, according to New Scientist.

[email protected]



http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/scientists-discover-deadliest-botox-article-1.1486502
 

4candles

Well-Known Member
#95
Game changer: Swiss banks ditch secrecy

Published time: October 16, 2013 13:51





Switzerland, the world’s largest offshore wealth center, worth an estimated $2.2 trillion in assets, has signed an agreement to share financial information with nearly 60 other countries, which could completely change the country’s financial landscape.

The country has made a giant leap towards banking transparency after it signed a convention with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) agreeing to exchange data with 60 member countries.


Switzerland already has bilateral tax collection agreements with the UK and Austria, but the move to chip away another layer of the country's infamous banking secrecy was prompted by international pressure from the US, Germany, and France,


The tax agreement, called the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance on Tax Matters came into force in 2010, and includes all G20 states, and most European states. The convention requires participants to pool tax collection information, and includes automatic exchanges, in some cases.

Under the convention, the Swiss government can call on large private banks like UBS AG, Julius Baer, and Credit Suisse Group AG to turn over confidential information to international tax watchdogs.


The crackdown on the tight-lipped policy could cost the Swiss business, as the new policy may be a turn-off for foreign banks. At the beginning of 2012, 145 foreign banks had offices in Switzerland, and as of May 2013, 16 had left, according to data from the Association of Foreign Banks in Switzerland.

Between 2008 and 2012, foreign bank assets decreased by $921 billion, as tax evasion eroded and clients withdrew money.

The chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association, Patrick Odier, has long been outspoken against the automatic exchange of client information, and doesn’t see it becoming a norm in the banking industry. Other politicians in favor of the changes, say the banks simply need to reinvent themselves.

“The signing of the convention confirms Switzerland’s commitment to the global fight against tax fraud,” Stefan Fluckiger, the Swiss ambassador to the OECD, said in a statement adding his country has been complying with international tax standards since 2009.

The Swiss Federal Council approved the convention on October 9, the first unilateral agreement for the nation that signals the state is prepared to play a larger role in upholding international tax rules.


Until recently, the Alpine tax haven refused steps towards banking transparency, and over the summer, the Swiss parliament struggled to pass a bill to change the banking legacy., but finally agreed to comply with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a bilateral client information swap with the US.


Almost all bankers in Switzerland have grown up with bank secrecy, which was written into Swiss law in 1934 after French authorities arrested, and confiscated a client list from two Swiss bankers in Paris in 1932.


Continue Reading....


http://rt.com/business/game-changer-swiss-banking-secrecy-254/



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4candles

Well-Known Member
#96
'Bionic Man' Walks, Breathes With Artificial Parts (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

By BARBARA ORTUTAY 10/11/13 03:03 PM ET EDT



NEW YORK -- NEW YORK (AP) — Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, after all. We have the technology.

The term "bionic man" was the stuff of science fiction in the 1970s, when a popular TV show called "The Six Million Dollar Man" chronicled the adventures of Steve Austin, a former astronaut whose body was rebuilt using artificial parts after he nearly died.

Now, a team of engineers has assembled a robot using artificial organs, limbs and other body parts that comes tantalizingly close to a true "bionic man." For real, this time.

The artificial "man" is the subject of a Smithsonian Channel documentary that airs Sunday, Oct. 20 at 9 p.m. Called "The Incredible Bionic Man," it chronicles engineers' attempt to assemble a functioning body using artificial parts that range from a working kidney and circulation system to cochlear and retina implants.

The parts hail from 17 manufacturers around the world. This is the first time they've been assembled together, says Richard Walker, managing director of Shadow Robot Co. and the lead roboticist on the project.

"(It's) an attempt to showcase just how far medical science has gotten," he says.

The robot making appearances in the U.S. for the first time this week. Having crossed the Atlantic tucked inside two metal trunks — and after a brief holdup in customs — the bionic man will strut his stuff at the New York Comic Con festival on Friday.

Walker says the robot has about 60 to 70 percent of the function of a human. It stands six-and-a-half feet tall and can step, sit and stand with the help of a Rex walking machine that's used by people who've lost the ability to walk due to a spinal injury. It also has a functioning heart that, using an electronic pump, beats and circulates artificial blood, which carries oxygen just like human blood. An artificial, implantable kidney, meanwhile, replaces the function of a modern-day dialysis unit.


Continue Reading...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...6166.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news&ir=Weird News
 

4candles

Well-Known Member
#97
Study finds weather changes fuel violent behaviour






Researchers in the United States say they have established a link between changes in the weather and spikes in violence around the world.


A paper published in the journal Science reviewed 60 studies from around the world, all finding a close relationship between climate events such as monsoons and heatwaves and the incidence of violence.

Solomon Hsiang is the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of public policy at the University of California.

He says two papers - produced by an Australian researcher - found that extreme temperature events can lead to leadership changes and changes in governing institutions.

"[Another] study was looking at domestic violence behaviour in Brisbane, and it was demonstrating that based on hotter days, there was a higher rate of domestic violence calls into the local police department," Professor Hsiang said.

Researchers found there was a measurable increase in domestic violence in India during recent droughts and a spike in assaults, rapes and murders during heatwaves in the US.

Professor Hsiang says outbreaks of larger conflicts also seen to coincide with significant shifts in weather patterns.

"We examined shifts in the El Nino southern oscillation, which is an important determinate of the Australian climate," he said.

"What we found in that study was that when you shift from the cooler and wetter La Nina state to the hotter and drier El Nino state, the average rate of civil conflicts throughout the tropics doubled."

The authors of the report say they are not sure exactly how changes in weather make people more aggressive and say other factors such as economic disadvantage also play a role.

"When we examine different types of conflict, it seems very likely that different mechanisms are at play," Professor Hsiang said.

"For example when we look at domestic violence in Brisbane, [it is] likely that some of that could be related to a sort of physiological mechanism, something that changes on how we perceive other individuals when we're exposed to high temperatures.

"The reason we say that is because there's actually many studies in actual laboratories, where we put some people into a hot room and some people into a cool room and we observe that their behaviour changes."

With the world on track for a two degrees rise in temperatures because of climate change, Professor Hsiang expects an increase in domestic and personal crimes and larger group conflicts.

"Our estimates suggest that if we continue along this sort of business as usual trajectories, we should expect throughout most of the inhabited world, rates of interpersonal violence increase on the scale of 8-16 per cent, and for inter group conflict increase on the scale of 30-50 per cent."


Link:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-05/research-shows--weather-causes-violent-behaviour/4866302



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4candles

Well-Known Member
#98
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Collapse of the Industrial Civilization - Interview with Michael Ruppert.

Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JHeEqtQEE


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Last Hours.

Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRGVTK-AAvw


About:

"Last Hours" is the first in a series of short films that explore the perils of climate change and the solutions to avert climate disaster. Each subsequent film will highlight fact-based challenges facing the human race, and offer solutions to ameliorate these crises. The initial short film series will culminate in a feature film to be presented prior to COP21, the 2015 UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris.

An asset for the climate change movement, "Last Hours" will be disseminated globally to awaken modern culture worldwide about the various dangers associated with climate change.

"Last Hours" describes a science-based climate scenario where a tipping point to runaway climate change is triggered by massive releases of frozen methane. Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has already started to percolate into the open seas and atmosphere from methane hydrate deposits beneath melting arctic ice, from the warming northern-hemisphere tundra, and from worldwide continental-shelf undersea methane clathrate pools.

Burning fossil fuels release carbon that, principally through greenhouse effect, heat the atmosphere and the seas. This is happening most rapidly at the polar extremes, and this heating has already begun the process of releasing methane. If we do not begin to significantly curtail the use of carbon-based fossil fuels, this freed methane threatens to radically accelerate the speed of global warming, potentially producing a disaster beyond the ability of the human species to adapt.

This first video is designed to awaken people to the fact that the earth has experienced five major extinctions in the deep geologic past -- times when more than half of all life on earth vanished -- and that we are now entering a sixth extinction. Industrial civilization with its production of greenhouse gases has the ability to trigger a mass extinction; in the extreme, it could threaten not just human civilization, but the very existence of human life on this planet.

The world community and global citizens urgently need to chart a path forward that greatly reduces green house gas emissions. To take action and follow the pathway to solutions to the climate crisis, you can explore this website and you can also sign-up for future updates. Thank you.

"Last Hours" is presented and narrated by Thom Hartmann and directed by Leila Conners. Executive Producers are George DiCaprio and Earl Katz. Last Hours is produced by Mathew Schmid of Tree Media Foundation, and was written by Thom Hartmann, Sam Sacks, and Leila Conners. Music is composed and performed by Francesco Lupica.


Source: Youtube



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