Plaintiffs: NASA Altering Climate Data

The Firewall

Our various climate science organizations (and associated forces) have been doing us the service of altering historical temperature data.

A Judge as recently ordered that NASA release very specific records requested by statistician Stephen McIntyre:

WASHINGTON (CN) – NASA must release additional documents on its revisions of global temperature data based on a statistician’s discovery, a federal judge ruled.

“In August 2007, a statistician named Stephen McIntyre discovered an error in NASA’s temperature data sets, which he alleged caused an overstatement of temperatures in the United States from the year 2000 onward,” the ruling states. “He posted his findings on his website ClimateAudit.org. and also emailed them to NASA climate scientists. In response, on August, 7, 2007 [the Goddard Institute of Space Studies] revised values in its temperature data set. GISS did not issue a press release announcing or explaining the corrections.”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute…

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STUNNING-Security Researcher: The FIRST COMPUTER VIRUS TRANSMITTED Through Your Computer MICROPHONE?

A Conservative Edge

Security Researcher Says New Malware Can Affect Your BIOS; Be Transmitted Via the Air – CIO.com.

PC World — Rip out your computer’s microphone and webcam, turn off your Bluetooth, and put on your tinfoil hats, it’s “super amazing crazy security storytime.”

A noted security researcher says he has found a new type of malware that can affect some of the lowest levels of your machine. Even more surprising, this bit of nasty code could be the first example of an airborne computer virus.

No, I’m not talking about Wi-Fi downloads, but input signals converted into code by your laptop’s microphone. The new malware is dubbed badBIOS by Dragos Ruiu, the security researcher who says he uncovered it.

Ruiu recently told Ars Technica that he’s been tracking down badBIOS for the past three years. Since badBIOS is reportedly a crafty piece of code, all he has right now is a…

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Kierkegaard: “The Bible Is Easy To Understand. But…”

Shepherd/Guardian

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The Heart Has Its Own “Brain” and Consciousness

Leiden University fires employee for research fraud, two retractions to follow

Retraction Watch

A researcher at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands has been fired for research fraud, and the university is retracting two papers, the Dutch press is reporting.

But don’t ask us who the employee was. That information is conspicuously absent from the medical center’s communications on the subject.

Here’s a press release from Leiden, in English via Google Translate:

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Weymouth couple, Mark Hodgdon & Fiancee Mary, could face fine for helping injured baby seal, can’t even touch it says the FMMPA

A Conservative Edge

Weymouth couple could face fine for helping injured baby seal.

MARSHFIELD, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) — A North Weymouth couple who rushed to the aid of an injured baby seal at a Marshfield beach could face a $5,000 fine for trying to help.

Mark Hodgdon was scuba diving around 1:30 p.m. when he found a stranded baby seal covered in bite marks.

“As I got a little big closer, he just swam closer to me and jumped right up on my shoulder,” said Hodgdon.

Hodgdon said the seal was barely floating and was doing everything it could to take a breath. He got the 2-foot pup onto a raft and it immediately stuck its neck out and kissed Hodgdon. He brought the seal to shore and got a better view of its injuries.

“There was a whole row of marks going across his belly up on his side,” Hodgdon explained. “You…

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Scientists Discover Quadruple Helix: Four Strand DNA In Human Cells

Scientists Discover Quadruple Helix: Four Strand DNA In Human Cells.

The human race knows very little of itself, almost like a race with amnesia. As we continue to move forward through time, new discoveries are made that make old theories obsolete and false. It’s a good lesson that shows us how we can attach ourselves to “truths” and believe them whole-heartedly, often forgetting that truth is constantly changing and new paradigms of perception always lurk around the corner.

Decades after scientists described our “chemical code” of life using the double helix DNA, researchers have discovered four-stranded DNA within human cells. The structures are called G-quadruplexes, because they form in regions of DNA that are full of guanine, one of the DNA molecule’s four building blocks. The others are adenine, cytosine and thymine. A hydrogen bond is responsible for holding the four guanines together. The four stranded DNA usually presents itself right before cell division.

The discovery was published online in Nature Chemistry, and you can take a look at it here. The study was led by Shankar Balasubramanian at the University of cambridge, UK.

For us, it strongly supports a new paradigm to be investigated – using these four-stranded structures as targets for personalized treatments in the future.We have found that by trapping the quadruplex DNA with synthetic molecules we can sequester and stabilise them, providing important insights into how we might grind cell division to a halt — Shankar Balasubramanian

via Scientists Discover Quadruple Helix: Four Strand DNA In Human Cells.

The Existence of Nothing

physics4me

2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate

The concept of nothing is as old as zero itself. How do we grapple with the concept of nothing? From the best laboratory vacuums on Earth to the vacuum of space to what lies beyond, the idea of nothing continues to intrigue professionals and the public alike.

Join moderator and Hayden Planetarium Director Neil deGrasse Tyson as he leads a spirited discussion with a group of physicists, philosophers and journalists about the existence of nothing. The event, which was streamed live to the web, took place at the American Museum of Natural History on March 20, 2013.

PANELISTS:

J. Richard Gott, professor of astrophysical sciences, Princeton University, and author of Sizing Up the Universe: The Cosmos in Perspective

Jim Holt, science journalist and author of Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story

Lawrence Krauss, professor of physics, Arizona State University and author of…

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Down’s syndrome cells ‘fixed’ in first step towards chromosome therapy

Down’s syndrome cells ‘fixed’ in first step towards chromosome therapy.

Researchers shut down the extra chromosome responsible for Down’s syndrome, paving the way for future treatments

Scientists have corrected the genetic fault that causes Down’s syndrome – albeit in isolated cells – raising the prospect of a radical therapy for the disorder.

In an elegant series of experiments, US researchers took cells from people with DS and silenced the extra chromosome that causes the condition. A treatment based on the work remains a distant hope, but scientists in the field said the feat was the first major step towards a “chromosome therapy” for Down’s syndrome.

“This is a real technical breakthrough. It opens up whole new avenues of research,” said Elizabeth Fisher, professor of neurogenetics at UCL, who was not involved in the study. “This is really the first sniff we’ve had of anything to do with gene therapy for Down’s syndrome.”

Around 750 babies are born with DS in Britain each year while globally between one in a 1000 and one in 1100 births are DS babies. Most experience learning difficulties.

via Down’s syndrome cells ‘fixed’ in first step towards chromosome therapy.

Ants in the past: Journal pulls insect-global warming paper after questions arise over results

Ants in the past: Journal pulls insect-global warming paper after questions arise over results.

 

A group of ecologists in Germany who published a paper on the potential impact of global warming on ants in the Harz Mountains — northern Germany’s highest range — have retracted the paper after becoming, well, a bit antsy about the validity of their findings.

The article, “Diversity of ants across an altitudinal gradient in and outside a spruce forest in the Harz Mountains, Germany,” appeared in August 2012 in the journal Insect Science, a publication of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The last author of the paper was Christoph Scherber, of the University of Göttingen.

via Ants in the past: Journal pulls insect-global warming paper after questions arise over results.