More UnAmerican Activities

House Bill Cuts Health Funds, Raising Odds of U.S. Shutdown - NYTimes.com:

House Republican leaders — bowing to the demands of their conservative wing — will put to a vote on Friday a stopgap spending measure that would strip all funding from President Obama’s signature health care law, increasing the likelihood that the government will shut down in two weeks...

Crazy In NC: UNC-TV Edition

Progressive group aims to oust Orson Scott Card from new position at UNC - Salon.com:

A “silly thought experiment” has made “Ender’s Game” author and homophobe Orson Scott Card very unpopular in his new position as a board member of the University of North Carolina public television, reports The Huffington Post.

Responding to a column Card wrote in May, in which he compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler, Progress North Carolina Action has launched an online petition for Card’s removal from the two-year term advisory role:...

No Science For The Right

Fearing Witchcraft, House Republicans Pull Proposal For National Science Laureate:

Thanks to the efforts of global warming deniers, House leadership has quietly pulled a bill that would have created an honorary, unpaid position of “American Science Laureate,” saving the nation’s schoolchildren from the specter of encountering dangerous pro-science messages. Science magazine explains that the bill was expected to pass easily until Larry Hart of the American Conservative Union complained that an official Science Laureate would allow President Obama to appoint some wild-eyed freak in a lab coat...

Suitcase Nukes Not Real

Experts close the lid on 'suitcase nukes' - USATODAY.com:

...Nuclear bombs cleverly concealed in suitcases don't exist in real life. Even so, they have long been a popular Hollywood plot point...

Big Pharma Loses One

Supreme Court says human genes cannot be patented - CBS News:

The Supreme Court says companies cannot patent human genes, a decision that could profoundly affect the medical and biotechnology industries.

In a unanimous decision, the court struck down patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc. on two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer...

More GOPer Biology

Another Republican in hot water for claiming ‘very low’ pregnancy rate from rape | Toronto Star:

...Trent Franks, an Arizona congressman, made the comments at a House of Representatives committee meeting that was exploring a measure that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks without exception.

“The incidents of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low,” Franks, who authored the bill, said as he argued against a Democratic amendment to the legislation that would allow exceptions for rape and incest...

Brain Power

Helicopter takes to the skies with the power of human thought:

...Lead author of the study Professor Bin He, from the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering, said: "Our study shows that for the first time, humans are able to control the flight of flying robots using just their thoughts, sensed from noninvasive brain waves."

The noninvasive technique used was electroencephalography (EEG), which recorded the electrical activity of the subjects' brain through a cap fitted with 64 electrodes...

Ok. When I can I start mind-typing?

Spook Central

NSA data center front and center in debate over liberty, security and privacy | Fox News:

...The NSA says the Utah Data Center is a facility for the intelligence community that will have a major focus on cyber security. The agency will neither confirm nor deny specifics. Some published reports suggest it could hold 5 zettabytes of data. (Just one zettabyte is the equivalent of about 62 billion stacked iPhones 5's-- that stretches past the moon...

New, Better Imaging

How a New Imaging System Could Boost Self-Driving Cars - Popular Mechanics

With a new imaging technique, Duke University researchers may have brought us one step closer to affordable self-driving cars, cheaper and more accurate airport scanners, and improved medical imaging...

No Flu Shot Firing

Nurses Fired for Refusing Flu Shot - Yahoo! News

An Indiana hospital has fired eight employees, including at least three veteran nurses, after they refused mandatory flu shots, stirring up controversy over which should come first: employee rights or patient safety. The hospital imposed mandatory vaccines, responding to rising concerns about the spread of influenza...

Normally, I'd be railing about unfair termination, but in this case, I'm having trouble revving up much sympathy.

Absolute Zero Not-- Again

Quantum Gas Temperature Drops Below Absolute Zero | Wired Science | Wired.com

Physicists have created a quantum gas capable of reaching temperatures below absolute zero, paving the way for future quantum inventions...

Here's the latest--

So it gets hotter as it gets colder but stays colder, and a perpetual motion machine capable of at least 100% combustion efficiency is possible. Oh, and the comments here are also quite, er, cool. Update: here.

Pot Hits High

Pot Legalization Support At Record High, Poll Finds

National support for legalizing marijuana is at a record high, according to a poll sponsored by the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project.

Fifty-eight percent of voters said the use of marijuana should be made legal, while 39 percent said it should be illegal, the poll, conducted by the Democratic firm PPP, found...

Science And The GOP

The cause of the conservative turn against science | Mano Singham

Pat Robertson Explodes My Head

Go to the link for an astonishing video of Robertson.



Pat Robertson Admits Dinosaurs, Earth Older Than 6,000 Years | Crooks and Liars

...“If you fight science, you’re going to lose your children, and I believe in telling it the way it was.

Excuse me for a second while I pick my jaw off the ground. Maybe because I never traveled in evangelical circles, I had honestly never heard the whole "the Earth is 6,000 years old and Jesus rode on dinosaurs" notion until about 20 years ago, and then suddenly I heard it everywhere. It was difficult to understand how so many people could deny the vast array of evidence in front of them like a badge of honor. The whole Creation Museum outside Louisville, Kentucky, was promoted by Robertson's CBN network when it opened was predicated on this very notion.

It's an amazing thing to hear Pat Robertson actually advising a follower to not fight science.

Evil Apple: Ban Edition

The Company That Stole Smalltalk flexes its evil muscles by calling for a ban on Samsung products, rather like your neighborhood crack dealer asking the cops to put all the other dealers out of business. Apple's evil anti-innovation and anti-competition practices will continue until you the consumer quit buying their tainted products. Apple calls for ban on Samsung Galaxy smartphones | Fox News

Sally Ride, Gender Rights Pioneer, Dies

Sally Ride, Trailblazing Astronaut, Dies at 61 - NYTimes.com

...But there were still rough spots. Before the first shuttle flight, Dr. Ride — chosen in part because she was known for keeping her cool under stress — politely endured reporters’ asking whether spaceflight would affect her reproductive organs, whether she planned to have children, whether she would wear a bra or makeup in space, whether she cried on the job, how she would handle menstruation in space. The CBS News reporter Diane Sawyer asked her to demonstrate a newly installed privacy curtain around the shuttle’s toilet. On “The Tonight Show,” Johnny Carson joked that the shuttle flight would be delayed because Dr. Ride had to find a purse to match her shoes...

Drone Worries In US

Protect privacy from drones at home, lawmakers say | DAWN.COM

Before thousands of civilian drones begin flying in US skies, Congress should take steps to protect the public’s privacy and prevent terrorists from hacking or jamming signals that control the aircraft, lawmakers said Thursday... 

The Left Hand Of Darwin

Why did Neanderthals have such humongous right arms? - CSMonitor.com

Sununu Wrong On NASA Charge

Sununu’s Out-of-this-World Outsourcing Claim - Yahoo! News

John Sununu claimed President Obama “outsourced a major portion of the U.S. space program to the Russians.” But it was President Bush who set NASA on a path eight years ago to retire the Space Shuttle and rely on the Russians for space travel.

“[Bush] Administration policy is to retire the shuttle in 2010 and purchase crew transport from Russia,” as then-NASA Administrator Michael Griffin once explained...

Gov Spying On Self

F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics - NYTimes.com

A wide-ranging surveillance operation by the Food and Drug Administration against a group of its own scientists used an enemies list of sorts as it secretly captured thousands of e-mails that the disgruntled scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists and even President Obama, previously undisclosed records show...