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New report confirms Arctic melt accelerating
FILE - In this July 19, 2007 file photo an iceberg is seen off Ammassalik Island in Eastern Greenland. A new assessment of climate change in the Arctic shows the ice in the region is melting faster than previously thought and sharply raises projections of global sea level rise this century. (AP Photo/John McConnico, File)
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Arctic ice is melting faster than expected and could raise the average global sea level by as much as five feet this century, an authoritative new report suggests.
The study by the international Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, or AMAP, is one of the most comprehensive updates on climate change in the Arctic, and builds on a similar assessment in 2005.
The full report will be delivered to foreign ministers of the eight Arctic nations next week, but an executive summary including the key findings was obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday.
It says that Arctic temperatures in the past six years were the highest since measurements began in 1880, and that feedback mechanisms believed to accelerate warming in the climate system have now started kicking in.
One mechanism involves the ocean absorbing more heat when it’s not covered by ice, which reflects the sun’s energy. That effect has been anticipated by scientists “but clear evidence for it has only been observed in the Arctic in the past five years,” AMAP said.
The report also shatters some of the forecasts made in 2007 by the U.N.’s expert panel on climate change.
The cover of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, for example, is shrinking faster than Read more…
Alex Jones Exposes Bin Laden Death Hoax (Video)
Leahy Bill Passes Senate –Criminalization of Natural Food & Supplements
A once dormant bill to criminalize natural food and supplement producers is back in action. Attaching a prison sentence of up to 10 years is pretty serious for a possible ambiguous crime of adulteration and misbranding. Senator Patrick Leahy introduced this bill last year as S.3767, The Food Safety Accountability Act. Although amended, it is still too vague and ultimately considered a bad bill, even by the folks who effected its amendment.
Before we could report on the bill’s resurrection, it passed the Senate. In summary, it “Amends the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to impose an additional fine and/or a prison term of up to 10 years for knowingly violating prohibitions of such Act against adulteration or misbranding of any food, drug, device, tobacco product, or cosmetic, or against the introduction in interstate commerce of unsafe dietary supplements, with conscious or reckless disregard of a risk of death or serious bodily injury.” See how wide open that is?
On a side note, the senator is also unpopular for introducing an Internet censorship bill at the same time. S.3084 called “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act” (COICA), it would blacklist and terminate certain websites if passed into law. Read more…
Global Press Freedom at Lowest Level in More Than Decade
Photo: Reuters
Journalists and activists participate in a rally calling for press freedom in central Ankara, Turkey, March 19, 2011 (file photo)
Freedom House, a U.S.-based group that monitors human rights around the world says the number of people with access to free and independent media has declined to its lowest level in more than a decade. In its newly released annual survey, the group says several key countries saw significant declines last year and that only one-in-six people live in countries with a press designated as free.
In this year’s annual index of global media freedom of 196 countries and territories, Freedom House says it rated 68 as “free” and the remaining two thirds as “partly free” or “not free.”
Freedom House Senior Editor Karin Karlekar says this is roughly an even breakdown, but a closer look reveals a different picture. “If you look at the population statistics, they are much bleaker, only Read more…
Sony suffers second data breach with theft of 25m more user details
Sony has suffered a second enormous data breach with nearly 25m customers’ details from its SOE network stolen. Photograph: Nick Rowe/Getty Images
The crisis at Sony deepened on Tuesday as it admitted that an extra 25 million customers who played games on its Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) PC games network have had their personal details stolen – and that they were taken before the theft of 77 million peoples’ details on the PlayStation Network (PSN).
The electronics giant said the names, addresses, emails, birth dates, phone numbers and other information from PC games customers were stolen from its servers as well as an “outdated database” from 2007 which contained details of around 23,400 people outside the US. That includes 10,700 direct debit records for customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, Sony said.
The dataset was stolen on 16 and 17 April, before the PSN break-in, which occurred from 17 to 19 April. Sony said that it had not previously thought that the data was copied by the hackers who broke into its systems.
A Sony spokeswoman in Tokyo admitted that the company was unable to predict where or how or when the next attack would come. “They are hackers. We don’t know where they’re going to attack next,” Read more…
Deadliest tornado days in U.S. history
PRATT CITY, Ala., May 1 (Reuters) – Federal officials vowed urgent support on Sunday for a region devastated by the deadliest U.S. natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina, even as they acknowledged recovery would not be quick or easy.
President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to show an effective response to the storms and twisters that killed about 350 people last week in seven southern states, reduced neighborhoods to rubble and caused damage expected to run into billions of dollars.
Obama visited Alabama on Friday and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate, toured damage on Sunday.
“I don’t think words can fairly express the level of devastation here. I am not articulate enough,” Napolitano said after seeing how killer storm winds had torn through Pratt City, Alabama.
Later in Smithville, Mississippi, Napolitano said the visit had offered an acute sense of urgency about the need to help Read more…
Texas Drought worst since 1895
The drought in Texas, during March, was the worst since 1895.
That is about the time my parents were born 120 years ago.
I never thought it could be worse than the drought of the 1950s, but it is. Drive out into grazing country where mesquite aren’t too thick and all you can see is dry, cracked soil with an occasional fire ant or a gopher mound in the sandier soil.
Comparing the current drought with the seven-year drought in the 1950s, old-timers say the current drought sapped the soil of moisture faster than it did in the 1950s.
It just stopped raining last July, and pasture after pasture was hit by wildfires.
Right now, there is no potential to produce hay, harvest wheat or plant cotton or grain sorghum this May. Unless there is a week of rain fairly soon there is no hope for agriculture this year.
The Texas Ag Extension Service says that, despite a few recent showers in some areas, the cotton growing in Texas and Oklahoma is still in a drought. Any crop planted in southern Texas earlier in the year that got up out of the ground is now being sand blasted by hot, dry winds.
Wildfires have burned at least 1.5 million acres in the state since Jan. 1.
In addition to grazing losses, ranchers are facing rangeland stock water tanks that are dry or nearly dry. Streams are not flowing and lakes and big tanks are turning to deep mud.
Future of forensic science: New laser beam that analyses a single hair can reveal what you had for breakfast
A new laser can tell scientists what you ate for breakfast – just by looking at one of your hairs.
The beam gives unprecedented sensitivity to chemical analysis and allows researchers to create an hour-by-hour picture of what an individual has eaten.
They can even tell where a person has been by examining the chemicals which are in their hair.
Scroll down for video
Breakthrough: A laser beam that ‘hole punches’ a single strand of hair has given scientists unprecedented sensitivity to chemical analysisPrevious techniques had burned hair samples but the new method breaks them down instead and Read more…
Scientists Seek More Accurate Cargo Scanners
Scientists in North Carolina are pursuing new cargo scanning technology capable of more accurately identifying nuclear- and radiological-weapon ingredients by making use of newly discovered atomic “fingerprints,” Duke University said on Thursday (see GSN, April 28).
The High Intensity Gamma-Ray Source generates beams that interact in specific ways with radioactive materials including uranium and plutonium. Such interactions might someday be used to identify weapon-grade uranium and other dangerous atomic materials amid benign radiation sources, Duke University nuclear physicist Mohammad Ahmed said in a press release. Ahmed’s team is examining the distinct patterns in which the atomic nuclei of different materials emit neutrons when exposed to the beam. Read more…
The Strange World of NSA Mind Control
SARTRE, Contributing Writer
“The National Security Agency (NSA) is a combat support agency within the Department of Defense (DOD) established by presidential directive in 1952. NSA has two separate missions: signals intelligence and communications security. For signals intelligence, NSA manages all U.S. signal collection and processing and produces signals intelligence in accordance with DOD and DCI priorities. For communications security, NSA provides leadership, products, and services to U.S. agencies that need to protect their information and communication systems from foreign exploitation. NSA is headed by a three-star flag officer, who reports to the Secretary of Defense. About 80 percent of the NSA workforce is civilian.”
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