a simple board…nearly all one needs

Posted by digger666 on 11 June 2014

Source: airows, via organized-clutter

#NotGoingtoBrazil Is the Latest Rallying Cry of the World Cup

Posted by digger666 on 11 June 2014

via #NotGoingtoBrazil Is the Latest Rallying Cry of the World Cup – PolicyMic.

By Eileen Shim June 10, 2014

#NotGoingtoBrazil Is the Latest Rallying Cry of the World Cup Image Credit: AP

The news: The upcoming FIFA World Cup in Brazil has been courting controversy for months. Now, merely days before kickoff, protesters are using a Twitter hashtag to voice their discontent.

Over the weekend, #NotGoingtoBrazil and #NoVoyABrasilPorque became populist hotbeds of anger and frustration at the Brazilian government. While these hashtags are certainly reminiscent of #SochiProblems, the tweets are less focused on unfinished hotels and toilet troubles and more on the underlying political and infrastructural problems that have plagued this World Cup.

Why is this happening? Brazilians have been sporadically protesting the World Cup for the past year, though the movement has been picking up steam again in the lead-up to the event. Tens of thousands have protested against the government for various issues from indigenous land rights to drug and gang violence, forced evictions and allegations of police brutality. Union groups of teachers, bus drivers, subway workers and police officers have all gone on strike at various points, resulting in mass chaos.

Even Brazil’s biggest soccer icons, Pelé and Ronaldo, have criticized the mismanagement of public funds and how much the government has sunk into the World Cup. “It’s clear that politically speaking, the money spent to build the stadiums was a lot, and in some cases was more than it should have been,” Pelé reportedly said at a talk in Mexico City in May. “Some of this money could have been invested in schools, in hospitals … Brazil needs it. That’s clear.”

Image Credit: Getty

But it’s not just directed at Brazil either. While most people have attacked the Brazilian government’s handling of the World Cup, a fair share of the Twitter criticism has also been directed at FIFA, the international soccer organization behind the event.

FIFA has recently been hit with allegations of bribery in connection to Qatar’s winning bid to host the World Cup in 2022. According to leaked documents published by the U.K.’s Sunday Times, Qatari slush funds were used to pay around $5 million to FIFA executives. These revelations have not only hurt Qatar’s image, but also the institution of world soccer itself. Try as they might, FIFA officials will have a hard time cleaning up the stench of corruption by kickoff this weekend.

Picture of the Week: Munk’s Devil Ray BY CHAU TU

Posted by digger666 on 11 June 2014

via Picture of the Week: Munk’s Devil Ray.

JUN. 09, 2014

A Munk’s devil ray in Cabo Pulmo, Mexico. Photo by Octavio Aburto / iLCP

The Munk’s devil ray, pictured above, got the nickname “tortilla” from the fishermen in the Gulf of California where the species lives, says Octavio Aburto, an assistant professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who took the photo.

One reason for the moniker, he says, is because this species is smaller than the three other devil ray species also found in the Gulf, averaging about three feet in wingspan compared with two or three times that size for its brethren. And secondly, the sound of the ray smacking its belly onto the ocean surface after jumping into the air is reminiscent of the slapping of tortilla dough between a chef’s palms.

All 9 species of devil rays leap out of the water, but no one yet knows why, says Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara, a marine ecologist who was the first to describe the Munk’s devil ray while he was earning a Ph.D at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the early 1980s. But as far as scientists can tell, the Munk’s devil ray is the only species that engages in “spectacular, frequently repeated jumping while in large-to-humongous groups,” he says, although it’s not yet clear if there’s a pattern to their leaping.

Aburto has seen the rays jump as high as 10 feet in the air—and the noise they make upon crashing back to the surface is spectacular. “It’s like raining in the middle of the ocean,” says Aburto, who is also a member of the International League of Conservation Photographers.

Group of Munk’s devil rays seen from above in Cabo Pulmo, Mexico. Photo by Octavio Aburto / iLCP

Munk’s devil rays are very social animals and have been spotted traveling in groups that number in the hundreds of thousands. Breaching and slapping the water en masse could be a way that the rays communicate with each other, Notarbartolo di Sciara suggests, although he emphasizes that no research has been done to test that idea.

“[All devil rays] have a system of pores on the skin that can detect low frequency vibrations,” he says, so it’s possible that Munk’s devil rays are sensitive to the loud noise that they make when they land after jumping. But, he adds, “I could be completely wrong.”

The Munk’s devil ray is named for the renowned oceanographer Walter Munk, whom Notarbartolo di Sciara calls a mentor. Munk was able to see the animal in person for the first time earlier this year and had his own theory for why they breach: “I said they just jump for the joy of it. Why shouldn’t they jump for the joy?”

Beyond the mystery of their leaping, there’s a lot about Munk’s devil rays and other rays that has yet to be studied. “Devil rays have really been neglected by science for a long time,” says Notarbartolo di Sciara. But there’s been a surge of general interest in recent years in part because of the popularity of diving, which has given more people the opportunity to see rays firsthand—particularly manta rays, which, by extension, attract attention to other ray species—and because some Asian and Southeast Asian countries have begun to voraciously hunt rays for their filter plates to use in Chinese alternative medicine, according to Notarbartolo di Sciara. Wildlife films featuring Munk’s devil rays in action have also piqued the public’s curiosity, he says.

New BBSRC-funded research is creating a cellular model of the human brain, known as the iBrain

Posted by digger666 on 11 June 2014

via Current Biology – bbsrc: New BBSRC-funded research is creating a….

Many current methods of brain research are restricted in their capabilities, but the iBrain will pave the way for new explorations of human brain activity at a cellular level and, in the future, set us on course to unravel the real mysteries of the brain, such as where our personalities and identities lie and how we might one day be able to restore these precious traits when they are lost to disease and trauma.The scientists developing this model hope that the iBrain will revolutionise basic research into human brain function, as well as having a huge impact on neurodegenerative disease, which causes immense suffering worldwide.The images above show a close up of a cortical neuron culture from induced pluripotent stem cells iPSCs – the team hope that their model will help them to reveal how neurons and their support cells, known as astrocytes, operate together, something that is poorly understood currently.Research from a BBSRC-funded team from the Universities of Oxford Prof. Zhanfeng Cui and Cambridge Prof. Ole Paulsen and Aston University Prof. Michael Coleman and Drs Rhein Parri and Hill

Read more: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/pa/grants/AwardDetails.aspx?FundingReference=BB%2fH008527%2f1For more awesome images of brain cells go to: http://tmblr.co/ZtJ7bq15oRwTNImages from: Dr Julian George from the University of Oxford

Current Biology – bbsrc: Antibiotic hunters Bacteria known as…

Posted by digger666 on 11 June 2014

via Current Biology – bbsrc: Antibiotic hunters Bacteria known as….

Current Biology 11TH JUNE 2014

PHOTOSET REBLOGGED FROM MOLECULAR LIFE SCIENCES bbsrc:

Antibiotic hunters

Bacteria known as Streptomyces see images above are the source of the majority of important antibiotics used in medicine today. These drugs have revolutionised the treatment of infectious disease since their introduction into clinical practice in the 1940s.Recently, the World Health Organisation has warned of a “post-antibiotic era”, where people could die from simple infections that have been treatable for decades. This is because some disease-causing bacteria have evolved to become resistant to most currently used antibiotics, for example MRSA.BBSRC investment in Streptomyces research since the 1960s has had a huge impact on our understanding and development of antibiotics, and scientists at the BBSRC-funded John Innes Centre are among those now using this knowledge to help discover and develop the new antibiotics needed to counter the threat of antibiotic resistance.If you want to find out more about this area of research make sure you get yourself along to the Great British Bioscience Festival exhibit showing at the Science in Norwich Day on the 1 of June.Read more: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/research/impact/streptomyces-antibiotics.aspx

Top image and middle image copyright: David Hopwood and Andrew Davis

Bottom image of copyright:Tobias Kieser

Two Pyrops candelaria on tree by Earnest Tse

Posted by digger666 on 11 June 2014

via Current Biology – earthlynation: via 500px / Two Pyrops….

earthlynation:via 500px / Two Pyrops candelaria on tree by Earnest Tse

Wow, look at them!

Pyrops candelaria (Laternaria candelaria and Fulgora candelaria in older literature) is a species of planthopper that lives in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Laos, Thailand and other parts of southeast Asia. It is the type of the genus Pyrops erected by Spinola in 1839. Members of this genus are sometimes called lanternflies. Despite their name, lanternflies do not emit light. Like all lanternflies, P. candelaria feeds on plant sap (from longan and lychee trees, among others). Its long, slender proboscis is used to pierce tree bark to reach the sap. They are often sought out by collectors.

– courtesy Wikipedia

The Satanic Capitalist | Published on Wednesday, June 11, 2014 by Common…

Posted by digger666 on 11 June 2014

via The Satanic Capitalist | Published on Wednesday, June 11, 2014 by Common….

Published on Wednesday, June 11, 2014 by Common Dreams- Jon Queally, staff writer

The internal strife and civil war spurred by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 is escalating rapidly.

The Sunni militia that has staked a claim to areas on both sides of the Iraq/Syria border is expanding its military campaign against the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as it moved southward on Wednesday following a decisive victory in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday.

Known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the powerful military force has proven capable of overwhelming the Iraqi Army and Iraq’s parliament has declared a state of emergency at the request of al-Maliki. Government officials have called for a large-scale and immediate military response to the ISIL threat.

According to International Organization for Migration, approximately 500,000 Iraqis have fled the city of Mosul in order to escape the expected battle between government forces and the ISIL, who follow an extremist Islamic philosophy.

On Wednesday, the insurgents claimed to have taken control of the entire province of Nineveh, Agence France-Presse reported, and there were reports of militants executing government soldiers in the Kirkuk region.

Speaking from Athens, Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshya Zebari called for immediate military retaliation to reclaim Mosul and other areas, saying, “The response has to be soon. There has to be a quick response to what has happened.”

Additional reporting revealed that ISIL forces moved south overnight to the town of Baiji, home to a key oil refinery and power plant that supplies electricity to key areas in the south, including Baghdad and other large cities.

The move south towards Baiji has significant strategic implications. As Reuters reports:

The militants offered safe passage to some 250 men guarding the refinery on the outskirts of Baiji, about 200 kilometres south of Mosul, on condition they leave.

Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called on his country’s leaders to come together to face “the serious, mortal” threat […] he said during a trip to Greece.

Zebari said Baghdad would work with forces from the nearby Kurdish autonomous region to drive the fighters from Mosul.

Baiji resident Jasim al-Qaisi said the militants had also asked senior tribal chiefs in Baiji to persuade local police and soldiers not to resist their takeover.

“Yesterday at sunset some gunmen contacted the most prominent tribal sheikhs in Baiji via cellphone and told them: ‘We are coming to die or control Baiji, so we advise you to ask your sons in the police and army to lay down their weapons and withdraw before (Tuesday) evening prayer’.”

ISIL forces have been steadily gaining ground in Iraq in recent months, enabled in certain ways by the conditions created by the civil war that continues to rage in Syria which has allowed for a steady flow of fighters and weapons across the increasingly unregulated border.

As many experts and historians have pointed out, the current political instability and sectarian violence—which many now regard as an open civil war in the country—was unleashed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Though in part justified by the Bush administration on the unsubstantiated charges that Al-Qaeda received support and backing from the government of Saddam Hussein, the sad and deadly irony now evident in Iraq shows that it was the U.S. military occupation and widespread destruction of Iraqi society that has opened the door to the extremist militias that now control key portions of the country.

As Middle East historian Juan Cole writes at his Informed Comment website on Wednesday:

It is an indictment of the George W. Bush administration, which falsely said it was going into Iraq because of a connection between al-Qaeda and Baghdad. There was none. Ironically, by invading, occupying, weakening and looting Iraq, Bush and Cheney brought al-Qaeda into the country and so weakened it as to allow it actually to take and hold territory in our own time. They put nothing in place of the system they tore down. They destroyed the socialist economy without succeeding in building private firms or commerce. They put in place an electoral system that emphasizes religious and ethnic divisions. They helped provoke a civil war in 2006-2007, and took credit for its subsiding in 2007-2008, attributing it to a troop escalation of 30,000 men (not very plausible). In fact, the Shiite militias won the civil war on the ground, turning Baghdad into a largely Shiite city and expelling many Sunnis to places like Mosul.

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Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/11-0