Stop the Canadian Oil Sand Madness Now Historically, surface mining has been used to extract tar sands and this method has produced at much CO2 as all the cars in Canada. The tailings, what are left when the bitumin has been extracted, are being stored in ponds. In the tailings pond, the sand, clay and water separate out. The water is sent back to the plant to be reused. Even so, the huge amounts of water needed threatens the world's third largest watershed. Mining is the oldest technique for removing the bitumin from oil sands. Between the ever increasing air pollution and the poisons and heavy metals built up in the tailing ponds that may now been seen from space, there has been a rise in certain cancers and syndromes since oil sand production ramped up in 2005.
SAFSF.ORG :. Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Funders This leopard's death is a familiar tragedy | John Barker The attack by a leopard on up to six forest rangers in Siliguri in the Sikkim region of north-east India was a tragic result for both the people and animal victims of the conflict occurring between humans and wildlife. In this case it was a male leopard, a species that sometimes adapts to moving into semi-urban areas, that became cornered – and as the photos in the press clearly show, the animal was fighting for his survival as only such a big cat can. The tragedy of its death occurred in a situation where the forest guards were clearly attempting to safely stop it in its tracks. Human-wildlife conflict issues in India – and particularly in the northern areas of the country – are one of the daily concerns for so many rural communities. Elephants coming to feed on crops or just moving through a farmer's fields can decimate a farmer's annual crop in a single night, and predators such as leopards and tigers take valuable livestock.
GMO Deregulation: An act of war By Barbara H. Peterson Farm Wars Scotts Miracle Gro has applied for and received complete deregulation for genetically engineered Kentucky Bluegrass from the USDA. Scotts “is Monsanto’s exclusive agent for the international marketing and distribution of consumer Roundup®.” The main ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate. How Scotts GE Kentucky Bluegrass achieved complete deregulation Scotts’ genetically engineered (GE) Kentucky Bluegrass will not be regulated as either a plant pest or noxious weed, and these are the ONLY two ways that GMOs can be regulated by the USDA. Plant pest strategy: The situation with the Kentucky bluegrass arises because genetically engineered crops are regulated under rules pertaining to plant pests.The rules are really meant for pathogens and parasites, not corn stalks. Noxious Weed strategy: It would seem that the ICTA and CFS knew of the problem long before deregulation became a reality. The GMO regulatory fiction Introduced Substantial Equivalence Conclusion
Monsanto and Gates Foundation Push GE Crops on Africa Skimming the Agricultural Development section of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation web site is a feel-good experience: African farmers smile in a bright slide show of images amid descriptions of the foundation's fight against poverty and hunger. But biosafety activists in South Africa are calling a program funded by the Gates Foundation a "Trojan horse" to open the door for private agribusiness and genetically engineered (GE) seeds, including a drought-resistant corn that Monsanto hopes to have approved in the United States and abroad. The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) program was launched in 2008 with a $47 million grant from mega-rich philanthropists Warrant Buffet and Bill Gates. The Gates Foundation claims that biotechnology, GE crops and Western agricultural methods are needed to feed the world's growing population and programs like WEMA will help end poverty and hunger in the developing world.
McLuhan Meets the Net By Larry Press Communications of the ACM, Vol 38, No 7, July, 1995, pp 15-20 In 1964, Marshall McLuhan published Understanding Media, a classic discussion of media and their effects on society and the individual. Understanding Media helped transform the 52-year old McLuhan from a somewhat obscure English professor at the University of Toronto, to an academic and media star, and industrial consultant. In recognition of the book's importance, it has been reissued by MIT Press with an introduction by Lewis Lapham of Harper's Magazine [10]. McLuhan understood that computers were a communication medium, but did not discuss them in Understanding Media or subsequently, although he lived until 1980 (footnote 1). What would McLuhan have thought of the Net? Media -- Extensions of Man (subtitle) McLuhan defines media in the subtitle of the book -- "The Extensions of Man." The medium is the message. (7) This is the title of Chapter 1. We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us (footnote 3)
McLuhan Galaxy 16 Tips for Being Productive When Working from Home I work from home. My friends think I am the luckiest. I have all the time in the world. I don’t need to commute everyday. My work’s easy. I wish all of that was true. Despite the benefits of working from home, it is no less challenging than an office job. Scheduling 1. 2. 3. 4. Handling Distractions 5. 6. 7. 8. Monitoring 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. Health, Fun & Life 14. 15. 16. Popular search terms for this article: being productive at work, tips for being productive, how to be productive at home, productive while working home, being productive at home, tips on being productive, working from home tips productivity, productive being, working from home routine, tips for being productive at work
Humans, Version 3.0 Credit: Flickr user Suvcon Where are we humans going, as a species? If science fiction is any guide, we will genetically evolve like in X-Men, become genetically engineered as in Gattaca, or become cybernetically enhanced like General Grievous in Star Wars. All of these may well be part of the story of our future, but I’m not holding my breath. The first of these—natural selection—is impracticably slow, and there’s a plausible case to be made that natural selection has all but stopped acting on us. Genetic engineering could engender marked changes in us, but it requires a scientific bridge between genotypes—an organism’s genetic blueprints—and phenotypes, which are the organisms themselves and their suite of abilities. And machine-enhancement is part of our world even today, manifesting in the smartphones and desktop computers most of us rely on each day. Simply put, none of these scenarios are plausible for the immediate future. But how do I know this is feasible? And culture’s trick?
A Map for the Programmable World At the beginning of the year, Duke professor David Goldstein offered what he described as a "confident but uncomfortable prediction" that by 2020, if advances in genetics continue as he expects, they are "bound to substantially increase interest in embryonic and other screening programmes." About a month later, a new company, Counsyl, launched a first-of-its-kind direct-to-consumer testing service aimed at telling couples, based on screening each member of a couple for recessive mutations that could put potential offspring at risk for certain hereditary diseases, offering an early signal of Goldstein's forecast, as well as a not so subtle reminder that, as I've heard some colleagues say, sometimes the future gets here faster than we expect. As the New York Times notes, though the tests aren't terribly robust, and only screens for diseases, and, for that matter, is still in its infancy, the company is already the subject of some criticism. But some experts foresee new issues.
Putting heads together When it comes to intelligence, the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts. A new study co-authored by MIT researchers documents the existence of collective intelligence among groups of people who cooperate well, showing that such intelligence extends beyond the cognitive abilities of the groups’ individual members, and that the tendency to cooperate effectively is linked to the number of women in a group. Many social scientists have long contended that the ability of individuals to fare well on diverse cognitive tasks demonstrates the existence of a measurable level of intelligence in each person. “We did not know if groups would show a general cognitive ability across tasks,” said Thomas W. That effectiveness, the researchers believe, stems from how well the group works together. When ‘groupthink’ is good Moreover, the researchers found that the performances of groups were not primarily due to the individual abilities of the group members. How universal is it?
Does Language Influence Culture? Commercialization of traditional medicines A white Rosy Periwinkle Bioprospecting is the process of discovery and commercialization of new products based on biological resources. Bioprospecting often draws on indigenous knowledge about uses and characteristics of plants and animals.[1] In this way, bioprospecting includes biopiracy, the exploitative appropriation of indigenous forms of knowledge by commercial actors, as well as the search for previously unknown compounds in organisms that have never been used in traditional medicine.[2] Biopiracy[edit] Famous cases[edit] The Maya ICBG controversy[edit] The Maya ICBG bioprospecting controversy took place in 1999-2000, when the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group led by Ethnobiologist Dr. The Maya ICBG case was among the first to draw attention to the problems of distinguishing between benign forms of bioprospecting and unethical biopiracy, and to the difficulties of securing community participation and prior informed consent for would-be bioprospectors.[7] The neem tree[edit]
Biofields Energetically, we are composed of seven fields of energy, or biofields, each with a specific, vibratory frequency radiating from and around the physical body. Their radiation is called, aura, expressing externally what we are internally. Their colors are red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, indigo and violet, like the colors of a rainbow. Each of them emits a more or less clear and vibrant color, depending on the influence of Spirit upon our behaviors, words and thoughts, our way of eating, drinking, exercising and resting, but also upon a good, rhythmic and generous oxygenation to keep our human "terrain" clean. Their purity and perfect synchronization express Light on Earth. For this we need to be physically centered, able to breathe correctly, to relax easily, yet to be mentally alert; aware of the present moment, able to respond to our human duties with sincerity, courage and love.