Monday News Bucket

9 Comments

1. 

   Knoxville Progressive on June 12, 2006 at 9:08 am

   Bach from the beach (Myrtle Beach, SC, where Dr. Mrs. K.P. attended a veterinary regional meeting) edition:

   A new explanation for forming super-Earth sized planets suggests that they are more likely to be found orbiting red dwarf stars – the most abundant type of star – than gas-giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn.

   A bipartisan group of western governors formally acknowledged that greenhouse gases are rising and said their states need to take action to reduce global warming while meeting growing energy demand, but the call is short on specifics.

   Archaeologists working on India’s south-west coast believe they may have solved the mystery of the location of a major port which was key to trade between India and the Roman Empire – Muziris.

   Life on Earth may well have flourished on Earth 3.43 billion years ago in an environment not too different to the warm little pond that Darwin imagined: a quiet shallow marine environment sandwiched in time between two active volcanic periods. In the June 8 edition of the journal Nature, Australian Centre for Astrobiology doctoral student Abigail Allwood reveals her discovery of a ten kilometer section of an ancient microbial reef system.

   Doctors are drawing attention to an emerging environmental worry — pollution of lakes and rivers by drugs flushed down toilets.

   Thai fishermen have promised to stop catching the endangered giant Mekong catfish to mark the 60th anniversary of their king’s accession to the throne.  The critically endangered giant catfish are up to 10 feet long and can weigh over 600 pounds.

   You may not have known it, but Earth has had a “second moon” for the last seven years.  Asteroid 2003 YN107 is looping around our planet once a year. Measuring only 20 meters across, the asteroid is too small to see with the unaided eye – but it is there.  For now.  Its orbit is about to change, however, carrying it away from the earth for the next 60 years, after which time it will return to our neighborhood in space.

   While U.S. politicians debate how best to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the border, huge holes plague America’s system for counting and inspecting toxic waste migrating north from Mexico.  Don’t tell Osama.

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     Egarwaen on June 12, 2006 at 4:21 pm

     The Muziris stuff is fascinating. I now vaguely remember reading about Roman trade with the far east when reading history and being vaguely puzzled by it. Especially interesting is how the trade route apparently lasted long past the “fall” of the Roman empire!

2. 

   Knoxville Progressive on June 12, 2006 at 9:09 am

   I need more coffee, obviously.

   • 

     CabinGirl on June 12, 2006 at 9:12 am

     You and me both.  Thanks for putting this up…I’m running a bit behind schedule this am.  

     I’ll be back with some news for you shortly.

     • 

       Steven D on June 12, 2006 at 9:20 am

       Caught you on Cspan.  

       • 

         CabinGirl on June 12, 2006 at 9:35 am

         Cool!  I think you and Chris did a great job on the FP over the weekend.

3. 

   CabinGirl on June 12, 2006 at 9:32 am

   are moving forward with private funding to sidestep the federal regulations: LA Times

   …Earlier this spring, and on the same block near the Columbia University campus, another privately funded laboratory opened. It will work with Harvard University on its newly announced plans to conduct stem cell experiments with human embryos and donor eggs.

   Independent of the federal funding that normally fuels biomedical advances, these two new labs hope to spur research on effective treatments for Lou Gehrig’s disease — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — and diabetes by developing human stem cells tailored to each disease…

   …Last month, human stem cell cloning experiments resumed at UC San Francisco, where researchers have raised $16 million from private donors. At the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, researchers quietly set up a private facility a year ago for experiments with stem cells from human embryos.

   These projects add to mounting evidence that the Bush administration’s efforts to limit stem cell research — intended to uphold the sanctity of the human embryo — have spawned a growing archipelago of privately funded stem cell labs.

   Good.

4. 

   ask on June 12, 2006 at 11:03 am

   Nepal’s Parliament strips king of veto power

   Nepal’s Parliament has stripped King Gyanendra of his veto power over the legislature, the latest measure to curtail his authority after he was forced to give up absolute rule, officials said Sunday.
   The new law, endorsed by legislators late Saturday, scraps the king’s right to reject bills and laws passed by Parliament, according to a Parliament notice published Sunday.
   (snip)
    The move is the latest in a string of laws enacted by Parliament to dramatically cut Gyanendra’s powers and turn him into a figurehead leader. Weeks of protests against his dictatorial rule forced the king to reinstate Parliament and relinquish direct control over the government in April.
   “We are now free to criticize the king and the royal family members in Parliament,” said Laxmi Shakya, a lawmaker from the Communist Party of Nepal.

5. 

   dada on June 12, 2006 at 12:36 pm

   Well Tonto, our work here is finished…

   Mission Accomplished?

   The doors may be closing shortly on the nine-year-old Project for a New American Century, the neoconservative think tank headed by William Kristol , former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle and now editor of the Weekly Standard, which is must reading for neocon cogitators and agitators.

   The PNAC was short on staff — having perhaps a half-dozen employees — but very long on heavy hitters. The founders included Richard B. Cheney ,Donald H. Rumsfeld ,Paul D. Wolfowitz ,Jeb Bush ,I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby ,William J. Bennett, Zalmay Khalilzad and Quayle.
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   PNAC and its supporters dominated the Bush administration’s foreign policy apparatus and championed a policy to get rid of Saddam Hussein long before Sept. 11, 2001.
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   There had been debate about PNAC’s future, but the feeling, a source said, was of “goal accomplished” and it looks to be heading toward closing. Former executive director Gary J. Schmitt , who had been executive director of President Ronald Reagan ‘s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, left recently for a post at the American Enterprise Institute. (Not a big move. Actually, only five floors up from PNAC.) Still, seems like a short century.

   And along overdue farewell it is…

   From WaPo