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Eighty million years without sex

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:02:04 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Asexual organisms are usually short-lived

The mystery of how an animal has survived for 80 million years without sex has been solved by UK scientists.

A Cambridge team says the creature owes its existence to a genetic quirk that offers some recompense for its prolonged celibacy.

Many asexual organisms have died out because they cannot adapt to changes in the natural world.

But an evolutionary trick allows this pond-dweller to survive when conditions change, researchers report in Science.

There could be some benefit to millions of years without sex after all

Dr Alan Tunnacliffe, University of Cambridge

The animal is a tiny invertebrate known as a bdelloid rotifer. It lives in freshwater pools. If deprived of water, it survives in a desiccated state until water becomes available again.

The secret to this novel survival mechanism lies in a twist of asexual reproduction, whereby the animal is able to make two separate proteins from two different copies of a key gene.

Tags: biology, genetics, sex, science

World's oldest wall painting unearthed in Syria

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:47:43 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: French archaeologists have discovered an 11,000-year-old wall painting underground in northern Syria which they believe is the oldest in the world.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

A view of a painting uncovered at Djade al-Mughara Neolihic site, northeast of the Syrian city of Aleppo, in this September 2007 handout photo. The painting was discovered by a team of French archaeologists, who described the painting as the oldest in the world. (Handout/Reuters)

Tags: archaeology, syria, art, rock art, prehistory

Armenian Genocide: Traumatic issues in Turkey's past

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:11:18 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: An interesting article on the Armenian question and the "Turkish Psyche". From NYT.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Turkey began as a nation just 84 years ago, assembled from the remains of the Ottoman Empire. Western powers were poised to divide it. The Treaty of Sèvres spelled that out in 1920. It was never ratified, but the intent remains deeply embedded on the minds of Turks, many of whom fear a repeat of that trauma.

To protect against encroaching powers, and to accomplish the Herculean task of forging a new state, Turkey’s founders, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, set ethnic and religious textures aside to create a new identity — the Turkish citizen.

The identity was needed to become something new but eclipsed the region’s cultural richness.

That identity was built on a painful foundation. Beyond the Armenian genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenians in eastern Turkey were killed, there were mass deportations of Greeks and executions of Islamic leaders and Kurdish nationalists.

“The Turkish state and society both have traumatic pasts, and it’s not easy to face them,” said Ferhat Kentel, a sociologist

Tags: turkey, armenian genocide, history, ottoman empire, national identity, official ideology

Ethics Rebellion in Psychology

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:31:36 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

The votes on a resolution — by the psychology faculties at Earlham, Guilford and Smith Colleges — are an unusually public effort by departments to criticize collectively a key decision by their national association. A number of other departments are considering similar moves.

Good for Earlham, Guilford, and Smith.

Clip Source: insidehighered.com

While leaders of the American Psychological Association say that they have been unequivocal in their stance against torture, for several years some in the field have argued that policies were not strong enough. The policy was strengthened in August, but it left open the possibility that some psychologists could help interrogation teams with their work, even in situations outside the United States where U.S. authorities detain many prisoners without the due process rights that someone would receive in a prison in the country.

This month, three psychology departments have gone on record saying that the association did not go far enough — and that they consider it a violation of professional ethics to help the U.S. with interrogations in any prison outside the country where due process rights are not enforced.

Tags: psychology, torture, academia

Can watching movies improve your mental health?

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:58:05 GMT

clipped by: Nefer

Clip Source: www.associatedcontent.com

Cinematherapy: Can Watching Movies Improve Your Mental Health?

Cinematherapy is the practice of watching movies to improve mental health. Though, motion pictures have been around for several decades, it is only recently that the mental health benefits of movie-watching have begun to show promise. Movies often have the uncanny ability to temporarily deliver our minds to a place where we can express a wide range of emotions in a way that connects us with the main characters or movie theme without the concreteness of our own life dilemmas.

Clip Source: www.associatedcontent.com

A few hours of laughter with one of your favorite comedies can help to get you through the work week or ease your own worries. Sad movies often bring up feelings that we have left dormant, giving these feelings a chance for release. The therapeutic benefits of watching movies might even save you a trip to the doctor when your stress levels decrease.

Tags: film, mood, depression, sad, help

Knights Templar win heresy reprieve after 700 years

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:59:17 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years.

A reproduction of the minutes of trials against the Templars, "'Processus Contra Templarios -- Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars"' is a massive work and much more than a book -- with a 5,900 euros ($8,333) price tag.

"This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the entire project," said Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican's Secret Archives.

"Nothing before this offered scholars original documents of the trials of the Templars," she told Reuters in a telephone interview ahead of the official presentation of the work on October 25.

Tags: knights templar, history, vatican, inquisition

This oughta drive the righties crazy.

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:39:32 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Inspired by debbyski's comments.

Clip Source: www.iht.com

Tags: al gore, nobel, peace

Coulter: We Want Jews To Be "Perfected"

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:04:48 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.cbsnews.com

The conservative commentator said this week that the nation would be better off if all Americans were Christian and that she wants "Jews to be perfected, as they say."

"Christian ... so we should be Christian?" Deutsch interrupted. "It would be better if we were all Christian?"

Coulter answered "Yes" once, and after being asked the same question again by an obviously surprised Deutsch, answered "Yes" a second time.

DEUTSCH: ... we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or ...

COULTER: Yeah.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Well, it's a lot easier. It's kind of a fast track.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes.

"We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say," Coulter said later in the show. "That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express."

Tags: religion, christian, jews, america, talk show, bigot

Gore and UN Panel win peace prize

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:08:15 GMT

clipped by: TheCatWhisperer
clipper's remarks: Good for him and the IPCC.

Its getting hard for the deniers to get any leverage when every sane person out there has come to terms with the "Inconvenient Truth" that is climate change.

Clip Source: www.iht.com

OSLO,: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Al Gore, the former American vice president, and to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work to alert the world to the threat of global warming.

Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, "is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted," the Nobel citation said.

The United Nations committee, a network of 2,000 scientists, has produced two decades of scientific reports that have "created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming," the citation said.

Gore, who was traveling in San Francisco, said in a statement that he was deeply honored to receive the prize. "This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Tags: gore, climate change, nobel, peace prize

How Does It Feel To Die?

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:21:43 GMT

clipped by: knslyr

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

If the flow of freshly oxygenated blood to the brain is stopped, through whatever mechanism, people tend to have about 10 seconds before losing consciousness. They may take many more minutes to die, though, with the exact mode of death affecting the subtleties of the final experience. If you can take the grisly details, read on for a brief guide to the many and varied ways death can suddenly strike.

Drowning

Heart attack

Bleeding to death

Fire

Decapitation

Electrocution

Fall from a height

Hanging

Lethal injection

It takes your breath away

Tags: new scientist, death, dying

The Lowest of the Low

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:19:26 GMT

clipped by: zasel
clipper's remarks: Every time I believe the right-wing nutters have reached their bottom when it comes to smear tactics, I find myself being shocked back into reality. Now we have Rush Limbaugh, Michellle Malkin, Mark Styne and Senator Mitch McConnell attacking a 12-year-old boy whose family made use of the schip program to help pay for the medical needs he and his sister incurred in a serious automobile accident. They accuse this child of lying for political reasons. This is the same kind of thing Limbaugh and his cronies did to Michael J. Fox when he campaigned for stem cell research, when Limbaugh claimed Mr. Fox was faking his symptoms in order to gain sympathy. Do these people have no feelings whatsoever? To smear a sick child for their own even sicker political purposes is beneath contempt.

Clip Source: www.salon.com

Right-wing bullies pick on children

The right wing has been smearing 12-year-old Graeme Frost, who lauded the State Children's Health Insurance Program vetoed by President Bush last week. Graeme and his sister used the program after they were in an SUV accident -- his sister suffered a lasting brain injury -- and now wingnuts have decided his family should never have been eligible. His parents earn roughly $50,000 a year, but apparently own a commercial property as well as a modest home, and Graeme and his sister attend private schools (Graeme on scholarship, his sister with state support due to her disability). The right-wing blogosphere is depicting the Frosts as privileged lefties sponging off taxpayers.

Rush Limbaugh, clearly back on the pain meds, is comparing Graeme to the so-called phony soldiers who oppose the Iraq war. "They send the kid out to lie," Limbaugh claimed.

Big bad Mark Steyn said Graeme is fair game because he's being used by Democrats

Tags: schip, medicine, healthcare, wingnuts, political, dirty