Scientific, Technical, and Medical (STM) publishing is big business. It generates $19 billion in revenue per year, the majority of which is earned by a few powerful publishers that enjoy profit margins of up to 40 percent. Inflated subscriptions sold to academic libraries keep them moving ahead because the librarians feel they have no choice but to buy. These companies add little value to the actual publishing product but they are entrenched.
Many forces are now at work to change the status quo which has existed for more than 100 years.
The primitive publishing model employed by these publishers is actually a detriment to science. Research paid for by taxpayers is often restricted behind pay walls, major breakthroughs that could potentially save lives languish in articles whose publication is delayed for no reason. In some cases, published findings that have passed a traditional peer review process are subsequently found to be fraudulent.
Performed behind a smokescreen of anonymity, these publishers are the master puppeteers pulling the strings of scientific research to no one’s benefit but their own. The issue is that science publishing is not an esoteric academic silo with no impact on the world. Scientific findings ultimately affect every human being on the planet. Something has to change.
Until now, despite moving from paper to pixels, the publication of scientific research had not harnessed the full potential of the internet. Most journals still use a system that’s rooted in the pre-web era of print and its associated rhythms and rules. Although solving some of these problems requires a significant cultural shift in academia, many of them are solvable using existing technologies that are already standard in other industries and in the culture of the web at large.
America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the mainstream media and scientific journals are participating in what may be the most heinous and far-reaching medical cover up of our time.
The long running controversy over the role of vaccines in the steadily expanding autism epidemic – which the CDC says affects 1 in every 68 U.S. children – continues to bubble to the surface. With the recent publication of a study revealing African-American boys receiving their first MMR vaccine before 36 months of age are 3.4 times more likely to develop autism vs. after 36 months, and the confessions of William Thompson, a senior CDC scientist turned whistleblower, who revealedthat his own agency covered up the autism-vaccine link in African-American boys over at least the past decade, we may be witnessing the long suppressed emergence of the truth about vaccine-induced brain damage.
But powerful forces are at play here, and only hours ago, it was was revealed that the journal that published the highly concerning MMR/autism study — Translational Neurodegeneration — removed it suddenly from their website, with the following explanation:
“This article has been removed from the public domain because of serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions. The journal and publisher believe that its continued availability may not be in the public interest. Definitive editorial action will be pending further investigation.”
One would assume stories of this magnitude — with direct health implications to millions of U.S. children — would make national headlines, or that there would at least be critical responses and/or denials in major news outlets or by public and private health organizations whose responsibility it is to respond to these concerns and/or allegations. To the contrary, what we are witnessing is an eerie and highly conspicuous silence surrounding Thompson’s revelations, who has been called a “medical Edward Snowden,” in acknowledgment of how devastating and unrecoverable these charges are to the CDC’s credibility, and by implication, it’s entire ever-expanding one-size-fits-all immunization schedule.
The Hindustan Times reports a new use for women’s nail polish: as an indicator for the chemical rohypnol, commonly known as the “date rape drug.” The idea, said to be an invention of four students at North Carolina State University, is still in the development stage.
Interestingly though, the news does not appear to have made it into the common media outlets in North America. Perhaps they think that “date rape” is not a problem on this continent
The Drug
Flunitrazepam or rohypnol, CAS number 1622-62-4, and its close chemical relative alprazolam or xanax, CAS number 28981-97-7, are two of many compounds in the family of benzodiazepines. First developed over 50 years ago in Switzerland, both are psychotropic substances controlled under applicable laws in many western countries. Nevertheless, they appear to be readily available without much problem to people who intend to use them in despicable and illegal ways such as “date rape drugs.”
Of course, the drug’s relatively simple structures, shown below for flunitrazepam, would enable any skilled chemist to prepare it in short order. Presumably that’s what makes the drugs widely available on the black market. (Fig right. Chemical structure of flunitrazepam).
The Effect
The drugs cause strong amnesia and were used several decades ago in hospitals when deep sedation was needed and they are still widely used for the treatment of sleep and anxiety disorders.
Combined with alcohol their amnesic effect is even more pronounced. Unfortunately, that also makes them so liked by people with bad intentions.
The Idea
The idea of using finger nail polish laced with an indicator that specifically detects these drugs is certainly elegant. Practically speaking though, I doubt the idea will lead to fewer rapes. The problem, as I see it is kinetics. In order to see an effect (such as, for example, a change in color of the nail polish) specificity, sensitivity, and reactivity to these drugs is required. Even if the first two conditions can be met, the third one requires a fast reaction that would not be available with a solid film of nail polish.
The old-time daily “Silver Fix” of the London Metal Exchange is gone. Established in 1897 to facilitate the exchange of metal between buyers and sellers, it had received some bad press in recent years. Hues of undue manipulations surfaced, rightly or wrongly and the old-time system finally gave way to a new electronic system of matching supply and demand.
Time will tell if the new system is any better or not. If it is sound, the new method will be applied to other commodities as well.
You may wonder though, why is the price of silver so important?
Use of Silver
Historically the major silver use was mostly for jewelry and coinage. Artisans like silver smiths created bowls, baskets, chalices, cutlery and numerous other objects from silver. In medieval times many guilds were established throughout Europe (including the UK) that controlled standards of craftsmanship and material quality. Most such items were not made from pure metal but an alloy with copper containing 60-80{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} silver. They are preserved in museums, sought after by collectors and still are common heirlooms in the western world like the basket pictured below, made from 80{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} silver in Germany, approximately 100 years ago.
(Figure right. Silver basket with 800 hall-mark, probably early 20th century; photo by author).
In modern times silver has found many industrial uses. The metal and its alloys have a number of unique and desirable properties such as superior electrical conductivity. That is important for electronic devices like your TV or cell phone. Silver also has the highest optical reflectivity and is the metal behind the glass in your mirrors. During most of the 20th century, a large portion of silver went into photographic films, a use that has declined with modern electronic cameras. However there are many other industrial uses for this element; even stainless steel solder is silver-based as it readily binds with that material at a relatively low temperature.
Silver amalgam, a mixture of silver and mercury is the most widely used filler for dental cavities. When the components are freshly mixed they form a paste that is easy to work with. It hardens rapidly into hard and durable fillings. Dental amalgam has been a major use of silver metal for many decades; some records indicate its use well over a thousand years ago in China.
William Thompson, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) whistleblower, has yet to step into the light and make a full and definitive statement about the CDC concealing MMR-vaccine dangers.
Mothers of autistic children are now preparing a class-action suit against the CDC for covering up the MMR vaccine-autism connection. They will undoubtedly want Thompson as a witness.
He can talk now or talk later.
The public at large still has blind faith in “medical experts” and the truth of published studies.
Fraud at the CDC? A study that was intentionally distorted to give a pass to a toxic and highly dangerous vaccine? What? How could that be?
Well, here’s a medical expert. For 20 years, she had a front-row seat that very few doctors or researchers ever occupy. Thousands of medical studies arrived at her desk. She was a “queen of judgment.”
She is Dr. Marcia Angell. She was the editor of the most prestigious medical journal in the world, The New England Journal of Medicine.
On January 15, 2009, the NY Review of Books published Dr. Angell’s devastating assessment of medical literature:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” —(Marcia Angell, MD, “Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.)
The failed hypothesis of dangerous man-made global warming is already discredited not only by the so-called “pause” in the rise of global temperatures. But it is also untenable because the very concept of a global climate is bogus to begin with, according to respected analyst Dr Vincent Gray.
The Free Dictionary says:
“CLIMATE The meteorological conditions, including temperature, precipitation, and wind, that characteristically prevail in a particular region.”
Dictionary com says:
“the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, airpressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year,averaged over a series of years.”
The Oxford English dictionary has:
“The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.”
The common feature of all these definitions is that CLIMATE is essentially local and is confined to a particular region or area.
Experts from the ‘hard’ sciences are again revealing how climate ‘scientists’ have gotten it wrong about the role of carbon dioxide (CO2) in climate.
Dr Pierre R Latour, a renowned American Chemical Engineer, shows how four known mechanisms and three laws of nature prove why CO2 cools, not warms, our atmosphere. Moreover, it may be shown that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the supposed world authority deferred to by governments, lacks a rigorous mathematical description for their so-called ‘greenhouse gas theory.’
CO2 Affects Several Temperatures in Different Ways
Here we develop the physics, chemistry and biology to quantify the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) on Earth’s temperature. There are five mechanisms and three different temperatures involved.
Four show a small cooling effect, one warms surface and cools upper atmosphere with no net bulk effect. I am unaware of a rigorous mathematical description of the greenhouse gas theory that purports to do this and show a warming affect. After decades of research attempts, promoters cannot reduce greenhouse gas theory (GHGT) to mathematics of science and engineering.
Stefan-Boltzmann Law of Radiation
If non-radiating O2 is exchanged for absorbing/emitting CO2, the emissivity, e, of a planet to space must increase. While emissivity of CO2 is less that global emissivity, it is greater than the O2 it replaced by “fossil fuel” combustion. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law of Radiation is
I = σ e (T/100)4
If e increases with CO2 at constant I, T goes down. Therefore, CO2 causes global cooling.
This is true for all bodies of matter, no matter the composition, rotation speed or weather.
I = radiating intensity, irradiance, power of any radiating body, w/m2, of its spherical surface, measured by Earth satellite spectrophotometers to be about 239. It is only a transfer rate when surroundings do not radiate, at 0K. Outer space at 3.7K radiate with very low intensity.
T = temperature of radiating body, K, estimated for Earth to be 4.60C + 273.15 = 277.75
σ = Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law constant, 5.67
e = emissivity of radiating body, fraction 0 < e < 1. e varies with composition. Perfect radiator black body e = 1, radiates a given intensity at lowest possible temperature. Colorful Earth radiator e = 0.70827 emits given intensity at temperature higher than black body.
I = 5.67*0.70827(277.750/100)4 = 5.67*0.70827*59.51 = 5.67*42.152 = 239.0
If doubling CO2 from 400 to 800 ppmv increases emissivity 0.001 from 0.70827 to 0.70927, T would drop -0.098C from 4.600C to 4.502C.
I = 5.67*0.70927(277.652/100)4 = 5.67*0.70927*59.43 = 5.67*42.152 = 239.0
Conservation of Energy of Atmosphere
1st Law Thermodynamics: Input Rate = Output Rate + Accumulation rate. At steady-state, Accumulation Rate = 0 and this ordinary differential equation becomes an algebraic one.
Absorption of solar + absorption of thermals and evaporation from surface + absorption from surface radiation = radiation to space
79 + 97 + 23 = 199 w/m2
Since CO2 absorption spectrum overlaps solar spectrum tail a small amount at two wavelengths, the 79 value would increase a small amount with CO2; a cooling effect on surface neglected by greenhouse gas theory. Some climatologists say CO2 affects the rate of heat transfer from surface by thermals and evaporation, 17 + 80 = 97, but I shall neglect that controversial effect here. However, once quantified, this model structure can assess the effect on global temperatures. An additional 161 is transmitted through atmosphere from sun to surface, 1 is retained by surface. 160 is transferred from surface up: 40 is transmitted through atmosphere as radiation from surface directly to space, 97 is transferred to atmosphere by convection and evaporation and 23 is absorbed from surface radiation.
Scientists have discovered what seems like a new form of plant communication between a “vampire” plant and its prey.
As described in a study recently published in the journal Science, weed science expert Jim Westwood of Virginia Tech took a close look at how the parasitic plant called a dodder attacks his host.
Westwood specifically looked at how the dodder interacted with two host plants, Arabidopsis and tomatoes. It has long been known that dodders are “vampire-like” parasitic plants. Like a nightmare from an alien horror film, the dodder wraps itself around its host. It then uses a long probe to literally tap into its victim and drain their fluids.
Researchers had done previous work that found that when the dodder first sinks its “fang” into its victim, it also begins to transport RNA – a sort-of DNA translator – between it and its host.
Written by Ellen Nickmeyer & John Locher, (Big Story)
IVANPAH DRY LAKE, Calif. (AP) — Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.
Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one “streamer” every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version.
The investigators want the halt until the full extent of the deaths can be assessed. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.
The deaths are “alarming. It’s hard to say whether that’s the location or the technology,” said Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of the Audubon Society. “There needs to be some caution.”
The bird kills mark the latest instance in which the quest for clean energy sometimes has inadvertent environmental harm. Solar farms have been criticized for their impacts on desert tortoises, and wind farms have killed birds, including numerous raptors.
New data from the Hubble Space Telescope and computer simulations have revealed that the universe has much less ultraviolet light than previously thought.
One potential source of this missing light might be the mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the mass in the cosmos. But a simpler explanation could be that ultra violet light escapes from galaxies more easily than is currently thought, according to the new research.
This puzzle begins with hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, which makes up about 75 percent of known matter. High-energy ultraviolet light can convert electrically neutral hydrogen atoms into electrically charged ions. The two known sources for such ionizing rays are hor young stars and quasars, which are supermassive black holes more than a million times the mass of the sun that release extraordinarily large amounts of light as they rip apart stars and gobble matter.
Astronomers previously found that ionizing rays from hot young stars are nearly always absorbed by gas in their home galaxies. As such, they virtually never escape to affect intergalactic hydrogen.
However, when scientists performed supercomputer simulations of the amount of intergalactic hydrogen that should exist and compared their results with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope‘s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, they found the amount of light from known quasars is five times lower than what is needed to explain the amount of electrically neutral intergalactic hydrogen observed.
Brace yourself! The Asteroid-1950-DA has a 0.3{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} chance to hit Earth some 800 years from now in 2880. The good news, however, is that it’s more likely to miss the globe and keep wandering through the inter-galactic space.
Collision Damage
A collision could be a major calamity that would affect all life on Earth. Though the asteroid has a diameter of only 1 km (0.6 miles), its speed is what makes it so powerful. At a speed of 38 MILES/SECOND it’s going substantially faster than the fastest rifle bullet. Though its mass is unknown at this time, its potential collision with Earth would likely create an impact crater many miles across and tremendous global cooling as the result of the ensuing atmospheric dust if it were to hit land. If it were to land in an ocean it would certainly cause an enormous tsunami causing severe damage and loss of life all around the ocean’s shore.
Needless to say neither prospect would be desirable.
Past Evidence
There is plenty evidence of past collisions with asteroids and other inter-stellar objects on Earth. For example, the Earth was hit by a large-sized hunk some 70 million years ago, at the Cretaceous—Paleogene (K—Pg) boundary, also referred to as the “K-Pg extinction event.” It wiped out many species then on Earth including all non-avian dinosaurs.
On Earth craters from past meteorite and asteroid impacts are largely obscured by subsequent erosion. On other planets and our Moon their craters are still quite obvious millions of years later and some even to the naked eye. Because there is no water on the Moon, nor any atmosphere, there also is no erosion and the impact craters are as visible now as they were millions of years ago. So, let’s get back to the future.
The Future
If you plan to live for another 800+ years you may need to take precautions about the 1950-DA’s current trajectory, at least for your own longevity. However, if that is not a problem for you then consider living in the present and concentrate on surviving more current threats to your longevity.
My first involvement with the Acid Rain scare was indirect, but added to awareness of the limitations of data and understanding of atmospheric and ocean mechanisms.
It also heightened awareness of the political nature of environmental science. I knew the extents because of membership in the Canadian Committee on Climate Fluctuation and Man (CCCFM). It was part of the National Museum of Natural Sciences Project on Climate Change in Canada During the Past 20,000 years.
The committee was funded jointly by the National Museum of Natural Sciences and Environment Canada. It met yearly for several years, bringing together a wide range of specialists to focus on a region, time period, or area of study. Papers were published in Syllogeus, edited by Dr C.R.Harington of the Paleobiology Division. A review of them underlines how much the IPCC sidelined progress in climatology.
My election to Chair of the CCCFM likely caused its demise. In my acceptance speech I urged people not to rush to judgment on the recent anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis. I was unaware at the time of the involvement of Environment Canada (EC) in the promotion of the hypothesis and the work of the IPCC.
Wind and solar are parasitic power producers, unable to survive in a modern electricity grid without the back-up of stand-alone electricity generators such as hydro, coal, gas or nuclear. And like all parasites, they weaken their hosts, causing increased operating and transmission costs and reduced profits for all participants in the grid.
Without subsidies, few large wind/solar plants would be built; and without mandated targets, few would get connected to the grid.
Green zealots posing as energy engineers should be free to play with their green energy toys at their own expense, on their own properties, but the rest of us should not be saddled with their costs and unreliability.
We should stop promoting parasitic power producers. As a first step, all green energy subsidies and targets should be abolished.
Wind energy produces costly, intermittent, unpredictable electricity. But Government subsidies and mandates have encouraged a massive gamble on wind investments in Australia – over $7 billion has already been spent and another $30 billion is proposed. This expenditure is justified by the claim that by using wind energy there will be less carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere which will help to prevent dangerous global warming.
Incredibly, this claim is not supported by any credible cost-benefit analysis – a searching enquiry is well overdue. Here is a summary of things that should be included in the enquiry.
The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year. It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time.
In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK’s road regulations to provide appropriate guidelines.
The Department for Transport had originally pledged to let self-driving cars be trialled on public roads by the end of 2013.
Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed the details of the new plan at a research facility belonging to Mira, an automotive engineering firm based in the Midlands.
“Today’s announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society,” he said.
UK engineers, including a group at the University of Oxford, have been experimenting with driverless cars. But, concerns about legal and insurance issues have so far restricted the machines to private roads.
Other countries have, however, been swifter to provide access to public routes.
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC9) in Las Vegas. If you ever doubted scepticism towards man-made global warming as a growing social movement, well, you couldn’t after attending that conference with hundreds of enthusiastic doubters in attendance and some 6,000 watching online.
But I came away wondering about the culture that is developing around the movement, and whether it is truly one of enlightenment.
Most of us share enlightenment values. And skepticism is historically associated with the Enlightenment. But it should be skepticism of entrenched dogmas, not an automatic opposition to every new big idea. Indeed the enlightenment saw big ideas progress; ideas that once realized, dramatically improved the human condition.
Many sceptics apparently think that we have won the scientific argument, and that our next objective should be the dismantling of climate policies and climate research. But they are wrong. We have not won the scientific argument and we won’t, if we continue down the current path of suggesting that we can’t forecast weather or climate. This suggestion, that we can’t forecast, was often made at the conference and made again just last week by Jo Nova quoting Don Aitkin.
The history of science suggests that paradigms are never disproven, they are only ever replaced. Physicist and philosopher, the late Thomas S. Kuhn, also explained that competition within segments of the scientific community is the only historical process that ever actually results in the rejection of one previously accepted theory or in the adoption of another.
Death is the one certainty in life – a pioneering analysis of blood from one of the world’s oldest and healthiest women has given clues to why it happens.
Born in 1890, Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper was at one point the oldest woman in the world. She was also remarkable for her health, with crystal-clear cognition until she was close to death, and a blood circulatory system free of disease. When she died in 2005, she bequeathed her body to science, with the full support of her living relatives that any outcomes of scientific analysis – as well as her name – be made public.
What they found suggests, as we could perhaps expect, that our lifespan might ultimately be limited by the capacity for stem cells to keep replenishing tissues day in day out. Once the stem cells reach a state of exhaustion that imposes a limit on their own lifespan, they themselves gradually die out and steadily diminish the body’s capacity to keep regenerating vital tissues and cells, such as blood.
Two little cells
In van Andel-Schipper’s case, it seemed that in the twilight of her life, about two-thirds of the white blood cells remaining in her body at death originated from just two stem cells, implying that most or all of the blood stem cells she started life with had already burned out and died.
“Is there a limit to the number of stem cell divisions, and does that imply that there’s a limit to human life?” asks Henne Holstege of the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, who headed the research team. “Or can you get round that by replenishment with cells saved from earlier in your life?” she says.
Inflated subscriptions sold to academic libraries keep them moving ahead because the librarians feel they have no choice but to buy. These companies add little value to the actual publishing product but they are entrenched.
