Panel: US can maintain nuclear arms without tests

… A study by the National Academy of Sciences has found that the U.S. can maintain its nuclear arsenal without resuming the testing program it suspended nearly 20 years ago, addressing a key issue in the debate over ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The study also found that monitoring networks would likely detect even relatively small nuclear blasts in most parts of the world, apparently countering concerns that other nations could cheat on the agreement without getting caught.

President Barack Obama’s has repeatedly called for Senate ratification of the treaty, most recently in a speech at the nuclear security summit in Seoul. The president has made arms control and nonproliferation central to his foreign policy and has pledged to work for a world free of nuclear weapons. The Associated Press reported in February that the administration is looking at plans to reduce the number of U.S.-deployed nuclear weapons by up to 80 percent.

Some Senate Republicans, though, have raised doubts that the aging U.S. arsenal could be counted on to work without periodic testing and have expressed concern that other countries might overtake the U.S. through clandestine nuclear tests.

The study, conducted by a 14-member panel made up mostly of technical experts, focuses on technical issues and does not take a position on ratification of the treaty, which President Bill Clinton signed in 1996 but the Senate rejected three years later.

“Technically, we think we can maintain the stockpile without nuclear testing,” Linton Brooks, former administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration under President George W. Bush, said in an interview Friday. “Technically, we believe that we can detect nuclear testing by others at any level under which the military balance would be affected.”

The unclassified version of the Academy of Sciences study released Friday found that advances in computer simulations of nuclear blasts have made scientists and specialists at U.S. nuclear labs increasingly less reliant on testing to maintain the arsenal.

“Provided that sufficient resources and a national commitment to stockpile stewardship are in place, the committee judges that the United States has the technical capabilities to maintain a safe, secure and reliable stockpile of nuclear weapons into the foreseeable future without nuclear-explosion testing,” the study’s authors wrote….

AP TOP NEWS | MARCH 30, 2012
… Read more

Wouldn’t it be great if all nukes everywhere in the world were sabotaged by aliens so they would no longer work? I can’t think of anything horrible resulting from a dud nuke… Unless we need to fire them all at an incoming asteroid or fend off an evil alien attack…

Kwok brothers arrested in Hong Kong on bribery charges

Two billionaire brothers who run one of Asia’s biggest property companies have been arrested on suspicion of bribery. Thomas and Raymond Kwok are joint chairmen and managing directors of Sun Hung Kai Properties in Hong Kong. The Independent Commission Against Corruption said a former senior government official was also taken into custody on corruption charges.

Last week, one of the company’s executive directors was arrested over suspected bribery. Thomas Chan Kui-yuen was responsible for land acquisitions and project planning. After his arrest, Sun Hung Kai said it had set up a special committee to look into the investigation by the anti-corruption body. The company’s board has said these latest arrests will not affect the company’s business operations and the brothers will remain in their current positions.

Sun Hung Kai is Hong Kong’s biggest property developer by market value. The company has made the Kwok family one of the richest in the city, which a net worth of $15.4bn £9.7bn.

via BBC News – Kwok brothers arrested in Hong Kong on bribery charges.

Alicia Silverstone ‘Premasticates’ Her Son’s Food: What Are The Risks?

… Alicia Silverstone both puzzled and seriously grossed many of us out with the news that she “premasticates” her son Bear Blu’s food.

In a video posted on her site, the actress and notorious vegan-ess explained that she feeds her 10-month-old small bits of pre-chewed food — “from my mouth to his.”

… Saliva, as Science Daily points out, is 98 percent water, but plays a crucial role in making food moist and easily swallowable.

And it turns out, Silverstone isn’t alone in her pre-chewing habits.
According to a letter in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, premastication of solid foods by nursing mothers is “commonplace among diverse cultures around the world” — particularly in resource-strapped areas where clean water and baby formula are not always available.

… a study published in the journal Maternal & Child Nutrition suggests that, until recent times, pre-chewing played a “crucial role” in supporting infant health. That same paper posits that its abandonment, particularly in poor communities, “has placed children at increased risk of inadequate nutrition and decreased ability to confront infections associated with the introduction of complementary foods.”
Here in the U.S.?

Well, premastication may be more popular than people think: According to a Centers for Disease Control report, approximately 14 percent of the caregivers here report engaging in the behavior.

But while pre-chewing may have some benefits by helping infants get nutrients they need, the possible health risks of premastication are also well-documented.

That same CDC report states that premastication has been identified as a possible route of HIV transmission through blood in saliva, as well as other pathogens. It cites studies looking at the possible transmission of hepatitis B and herpes.

A study in Pediatrics detailed three cases of HIV transmission in the U.S. possibly linked to premastication.
And the Orlando Sentinel reported on an Iowa-based insurance company, Delta Dental, that said in a press release that pre-chewing can pass along dental disease.

The bottom line? Pre-mastication may have some documented health benefits, but opponents say it’s not without health risks, so it’s probably best to speak with your health care provider before you have an urge to chew … and spew.

Via huffingtonPost

Poland charges former intelligence chief over secret CIA prison site

… Poland has pressed the first charges in an investigation into a secret CIA prison on its territory, according to reports.

The Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper says former intelligence chief Zbigniew Siemiatkowski has been charged with exceeding his powers, depriving prisoners of war of their freedom and allowing corporal punishment in an investigation that began in 2008.

“I cannot comment because all the proceedings are a state secret. I can neither negate nor confirm,” said Siemiatkowski, who was head of Poland’s Intelligence Agency between 2002 and 2004 when it joined the US-led war on terrorism. The charges make Poland the first country to incriminate an official over CIA sites operated during Washington’s fight against terror.

Prosecutors are investigating whether Poland’s leaders illegally allowed the CIA to run a site and whether terrorism suspects were tortured there a decade ago.

Former CIA officials said the prison operated from December 2002 until autumn of 2003, and that prisoners were subjected to harsh interrogations. The Council of Europe and the United Nations have also said they have evidence the site existed.

However, Polish officials in power at the time deny there was ever such a site.

Two Guantánamo Bay prisoners, Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri and alleged al-Qaida facilitator Abu Zubaydah, have been given victim status in the investigation after claiming they were held in Poland and subjected to harsh treatment.

The investigation was recently taken from prosecutors in Warsaw and given to investigators in Krakow, but officials have not explained the reason behind the move. …

GUARDIAN.CO.UK | MARCH 28, 2012
http://pulse.me/s/7uCtm

Is It Snowing Microbes on Enceladus?

Enceladus Jets Dramatic plumes spray water ice from many locations near the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. More than 30 individual jets of different sizes can be seen in this image captured during a flyby from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Nov. 21, 2009.NASA/Cassini Imaging Science Team

Aside from ancient Mars, the moons of Saturn might be one of the best places to look for life outside this planet. The methane lakes of Titanare promising places, but so are the spewing plumes of ice on Enceladus – and the latter would be an easy one to check, as it turns out. The Cassini orbiter just flew through them, and Cassini scientists want to go back and take a longer look.

Cassini has been examining Enceladus‘ ghostly, icy plumes for several years now, tasting the water, ice and organic material flying out of them. (Organic meaning carbon-based compounds, not necessarily living material.) The plumes are also piping hot, at least in distant solar system terms – about -120 degrees F, which equates to lots of thermal energy. And perhaps the most tantalizing part? The icy particles are salty, possessing the same salinity as Earth’s oceans.

Enceladus might have a vast interior sea, and it also has an energy source in the form of massive tidal forces courtesy of its planet. Saturn’s wrenching gravitational pull flexes Enceladus’ interior, generating heat. Heat and salty water sounds a lot like environments on Earth – like subterranean microbe communities in places like Yellowstone, or perhaps the thriving ecosystems that exist in hydrothermal vents in the absence of sunlight. Could Enceladus host any such life forms?

It would be fairly simple to find out, according to Carolyn Porco, a renowned Cassini scientist and leader of the spacecraft’s imaging science team. All you’d need to do is fly by and take a whiff.

“It sounds crazy, but it could be snowing microbes on the surface of this little world,” she says in an interview with NASA’s science news portal. “It’s the most promising place I know of for an astrobiology search. We don’t even need to go scratching around on the surface. We can fly through the plume and sample it. Or we can land on the surface, look up and stick our tongues out. And voilà…we have what we came for.”

Simply flying through the plume would be easier than designing aninterplanetary boat, at least…

http://pulse.me/s/7tUpQ

JetBlue pilot charged with interfering with flight crew

A JetBlue pilot has been charged with interfering with a flight crew after his midair behavioral meltdown led to an emergency landing.

The federal criminal complaint reveals details of the incident in which Clayton Osbon, 49, displayed what passengers and fellow crew members described as erratic, bizarre and disturbing behavior.

Osbon has been suspended pending an investigation and is receiving medical treatment, the airline said Wednesday.

If convicted, Osbon would face a maximum 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The U.S. Attorney’s office has 30 days to present the matter to a grand jury for indictment.

Read the criminal complaint

…

via JetBlue pilot charged with interfering with flight crew – CNN.com.

No mention in the complaint about him being drugged or on meds that he forgot to take or anything else that would explain this strange behavior.

Skin cancer drug hopes raised by study

A new treatment for advanced skin cancer almost doubles survival times, according to an international study.

Doctors say 132 patients in the US and Australia who were given the drug vemurafenib gained several extra months of life.

Research in the New England Journal of Medicine found those in the study lived an average of 16 months, compared with nine months on conventional treatment.

Vemurafenib (Zelboraf) has been approved for use in Europe.

The treatment is one of two drugs for late-stage melanoma, approved on fast-track in the US last year, which offer hope for patients with advanced melanoma.

Before that, there had been no new drugs for the cancer for more than a decade.

Vemurafenib is suitable for about half of patients with advanced melanoma as it targets tumours that express a certain gene mutation.

Dr Antoni Ribas, a professor of haematology/oncology and a researcher at the Jonsson Cancer Center at the University of California-Los Angeles, said: “This study shows that Zelboraf changes the natural history of this disease. This data is beyond what I would have expected.

“We’re seeing a significant number of patients with durable responses to the drug, and that the whole group of treated patients is living longer.

“These results tell us that this drug is having a very big impact, and this changes the way we treat metastatic melanoma.”

According to the European Medicines Agency, the drug has been recommended for approval in Europe, pending final authorisation by the European Commission. …

via BBC News – Skin cancer drug hopes raised by study.

Lawmaker wearing hoodie removed from House floor

A congressman was removed from the House floor Wednesday after giving a speech about Trayvon Martin while wearing a hoodie.

Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Illinois, told House members, “racial profiling has to stop.”

Rush, a former Black Panther who was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, then took off his suit jacket, pulled a gray hoodie on over his head and put on sunglasses.

“Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum,” he said.

The congressman spoke during the morning session, when members are allowed to address any issue. He applauded young people across the country who are wearing hoodies to make a statement about Martin, the teen who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt when he was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida.

As soon as Rush removed his jacket and put the hood on his head, Rep. Greg Harper, R-Mississippi, who was presiding over the House floor, began to gavel Rush down, saying he was out of order.

Rush ignored him, and with the hoodie still pulled over his head, continued to speak, citing the Bible.

Harper continued to bang the gavel. “The gentleman will suspend. The member is no longer recognized,” he said. “The chair must remind members that clause 5 of rule 17 prohibits the wearing of hats in the chamber when the House is in session.”

A floor clerk approached Rush as he finished his remarks and led him away from the podium.

Afterward, Rush told CNN he was wearing a tie, suggesting he was appropriately dressed for the House floor. He said the purpose of putting on the hoodie was to send a message to young people, “to stand their ground, stand up and don’t stand down.”

As for violating the House rule on wearing hats, Rush pointed to his hooded shirt and argued, “this is not a hat, this is a hoodie.”

“I don’t mind being out of order if it means standing up for truth and justice,” Rush said.

He said the public debate over Martin’s death was a continuation of the movement in which he participated during the 1960′s. “This is just another part of the struggle. I’ve never left those days. Those days are deep down in my soul.” …

via Lawmaker wearing hoodie removed from House floor – CNN.com.

101-year-old grandmother sets paragliding record

Mary Allen Hardison, a 101-year-old grandmother from Ogden, Utah, has officially been recognized as the “Oldest Female to Paraglide Tandem” — an achievement described Tuesday by Guinness World Records as a “celebration of the official start of spring and life rejuvenated.”

Hardison took up paragliding “on a whim,” as she did not want to be outdone by her 75-year-old son, Allen, who had recently pursued the sport as a hobby. “I didn’t want him to do something that I couldn’t do,” Hardison said. She chose to have her record-breaking accomplishment be part of her 101st birthday celebration, which was last September.

The trip was a tandem one, with paragliding instructor Kevin Hintze guiding the journey. …

MARCH 20, 2012
http://pulse.me/s/7cnZV

Can you reliably choose a dream to have before sleep?

Some people can wake up at exactly a time they choose before going to sleep. I’m wondering if anyone out there can reliably choose a dream they will have before going to sleep. If you can and this is something you learned how to do, how did you do it? I’d like to master this skill. It takes me a long time currently to finally have a particular dream I’m aiming for. Leave a comment if you have any tips.