Monday, 17 May 2010 07:58 'The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced 78 grants of US$100,000 each in the latest round of Grand Challenges Explorations. Grants include the development of a low-cost cell phone microscope to diagnose malaria, study of the strategic placement of insect-eating plants to reduce insect-borne diseases, and investigation of nanoparticles to release vaccines when they come in contact with human sweat. The grants support research across 18 countries and six continents.' Read more: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Working on Sweat-Triggered Vaccines Monday, 17 May 2010 07:04 'Scottish computer hacker Gary McKinnon is set to avoid extradition and be tried in Britain, the Scottish Sunday Express can reveal. The 43-year-old’s family expects confirmation from the new Government within days that the decision to send Gary to the USA has been overturned. Mr McKinnon, who has Asperger’s syndrome, has been accused of causing widespread damage by hacking into Pentagon and Nasa computers in 2001 and 2002. American officials have insisted the “cyber terrorist” should be extradited to the US where he could face up to 60 years in prison.' Monday, 17 May 2010 06:52 'The British animal welfare organization Animal Aid secretly planted cameras inside a slaughterhouse operated by Tom Lang, whose facility had been certified for the "humane slaughter" of organic animals by the Soil Association. The organization chose Lang's slaughterhouse precisely because it is certified to the highest standard available in the United Kingdom. Forty hours of secret footage uncovered tightly packed animals being driven up to the facility, where they were chased into the factory by men beating them with sticks. Inside the facility, the animals are beaten once more to be herded into place. In one case, a man is seen punching, kicking and kneeing a pig, then striking it with a steel stunning tong at least 20 times, as the animal screams.' Read more: Think Eating 'Organic' Meat is Okay? Think Again Monday, 17 May 2010 06:43 'Psychiatrists have been working on the fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and, in it, they hope to add a whole slew of new psychiatric disorders. Unfortunately, many of these disorders are merely differences in personality and behavior among people. The new edition may include "disorders" like "oppositional defiant disorder", which includes people who have a pattern of "negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures." Some of the "symptoms" of this disorder including losing one's temper, annoying people and being "touchy".' Read more: Now Independent Thinkers are Considered Diseased by Psychiatry Monday, 17 May 2010 06:39 'How is it that Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan did not know?” he wondered. “Chase and then JP Morgan Chase held Madoff’s account there, and he put all of the money into a single account. There was up to $17- to $20 billion in that account. They made a fortune off of him. Somehow or other, they never took into account that he wasn’t receiving or sending any money to brokers. Somehow, Chase and Morgan never noticed that money wasn’t coming into this huge account from stocks and other investments. If he had been trading securities and trading options, he would have to have been sending money to brokers and they would have had to have been sending money to him. It is unbelievable.” Velvel said that it is also difficult to understand why there was no external custodian in place for those accounts and the disgraced financier was allowed to act as his own custodian. He said that the big firms which sent business to Madoff, and in turn were making a fortune from feeding clients to him, received the de facto equivalent of bribes.' Read more: Financial Fraud. How It Works. The Truth behind the Madoff Investment Scandal Monday, 17 May 2010 06:33 'Sometimes, and not often enough, insights, understandings and new ideas just pop into your mind, unbidden. How? I have no idea but as the brain apparently operates somewhere on the quantum level, figuring out how it happens I suspect is and always will be impossible. Somehow, watching television interferes with this process, specifically the bit (or is it bits?) of the brain that can distinguish between fantasy and reality.' Read more: Alice in Videoland: Looking Through a Rectangular TV Window into an Alternative Universe Monday, 17 May 2010 06:21 'The White House allowed BP to hide its video feed of a gushing oil pipe in the Gulf of Mexico from the public for three weeks, all the while that same video played live in the White House Situation Room, ABC reports. This startling revelation comes just as Obama prepares to get really angry in public about the spill – just in time to cover up his administration’s collusion with BP to hide the true extent of the massive disaster in the Gulf.' Monday, 17 May 2010 06:00 'After several hours of intense negotiations, the trilateral meeting between Iran, Brazil and Turkey ends with Tehran agreeing to ship its domestic low-enriched uranium to Turkey. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Monday that the Tehran government has agreed to a draft proposal whereby Iran will send some 1200 kg of its 3.5 percent enriched uranium over to Turkey in exchange for a total of 120 kg 20 percent, Press TV reported.' Read more: Iran Agrees to Ship Low Enriched Uranium to Turkey
Monday 17 May 2010
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