)
)
Call me, Joda Ray (@cult.gamut)
6 hours ago
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Bacteria On Your Fingertips Could Identify You
Most of the time, the DNA used for legal evidence is human DNA. But scientists in Colorado think DNA evidence from bacteria may someday finds its way into the courtroom.
Noah Fierer of the University of Colorado, Boulder, studies the bacteria that live on skin.
"Our bodies are covered in bacteria," says Fierer, "but most of these are harmless, and some of them may actually be beneficial. So it's nothing to be paranoid about." In fact, there are about a hundred different kinds of bacteria that typically grow on human skin.
And that gave Fierer an idea. "We leave this trail of bacteria everywhere we go, and the idea was could we use this trail to identify who had touched a given object or surface," he says.
The reason this bacterial trail could be used to identify someone is that we differ in the kinds of bacteria we carry around. Each of us has bacterial communities that are unique to us. And bacterial communities don't change very much over time.
So these communities could be used to identify someone.
Microbial 'CSI'
Let's say you wanted to find who has been using a particular office computer. Here's how it would work: "We could swab a keyboard key, for example, pull the bacterial DNA off that swab, and then identify all or nearly all of the bacteria that make up that community," says Fierer.
So that's what he did. He and his colleagues swabbed the individual keys from three personal computer keyboards, "and then matched those keys to the bacteria on the fingertips of the owners of the keyboard. And we showed that we could basically identify whose keyboard it was pretty well."
Fierer then tried a similar experiment with people's computer mice, and he could match a mouse to its owner. The findings appear in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In one final experiment, Fierer and his colleagues found that they could still perform an analysis of bacterial DNA two weeks after it had been left on a surface.
Fierer says he's already had some informal discussions with law-enforcement agencies about his bacterial ID techniques, and there's been interest in this approach. But Fierer's the first to say it's not ready for the courtroom. At least not yet.
"There's a lot of work we need to do to figure out how accurate it is and what are the limitations and so forth, but, yeah, it's encouraging. It does seem like we can actually take advantage of that uniqueness of our bacterial communities," he says.
Joe Palca @'NPR'
GOP Amendment: No Viagra for Sex Offenders
One part of that strategy is to offer amendments on which Democrats would be hard-pressed to cast a "no" vote. If the Senate makes any amendments to the legislation, it has to go back to the House -- a possibility that Democrats are hoping to avoid.
GOP Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma (pictured) today released a list of the nine amendments he has filed, and right at the top is a clear illustration of the strategy -- an amendment entitled "No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs To Sex Offenders." Here's how it's described:
"This amendment would enact recommendations from the Government Accountability Office to stop fraudulent payments for prescription drugs prescribed by dead providers or, to dead patients. This amendment also prohibits coverage of Viagra and other ED medications to convicted child molesters, rapists, and sex offenders, and prohibits coverage of abortion drugs."By opposing that amendment, Democrats are, at least in theory, opening themselves up to charges that they support using government money to provide sex offenders with Viagra -- surely an unpopular position if ever there was one.
Other amendments on Coburn's list are designed to undercut Democrats' claims about what the bill will do - see amendment #5, "If You Like the Health Plan You Have, You Can Keep It." Coburn's third amendment says simply, "Congress Should Not Lecture Americans About Fiscal Responsibility."
Senate Democratic leaders are pressing their members not to break ranks and support Republican amendments (or introduce amendments of their own) in order to get the bill passed as soon as possible. In a statement, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka made that same argument.
"Any amendment offered during this process is nothing more than a poison pill," he said. "A 'NO' on amendments is a 'YES' on health care.
Brian Montopoli @'CBS'
What economics teaches us about drugs
In all the coverage in the papers about mephedrone – the new as-yet-legal drug also known as meow meow and connected with the death of a number of unfortunate young people recently – there has been little focus on the economics. Which probably ought not to be a surprise, since this is an emotive issue. But economics helps explain why drugs like mephedrone have gained popularity in the past year or so: quite simply – because they are so cheap.
The average cost of a gram of cocaine in the UK, according to DrugScope, the independent experts on these things, was £39. The price for a gram of mephedrone is closer to a tenner. A gram of ketamine costs half as much as the cocaine, and when you bear in mind that, according to analysis by the Forensic Science Service the average purity of cocaine these days is 26.4pc, compared with 45pc only five years ago (and 63pc in 1984), the value comparison is pretty stark.
Even in the illicit world of drugs (or not so illicit, yet, in the case of mephedrone), price still matters. We know from statistics that the proportion of 16-24 year olds who indulge in these kind of things has been pretty steady (at around 10pc) for some years. So let’s not panic about that. What’s changed is the kind of things they tend to consume: consumption of cheaper drugs like ketamine and mephedrone has leapt in the past couple of years.
Another often-unremarked dynamic is availability: mephedrone has similar effects to ecstasy tablets. So it is probably no coincidence that mephedrone’s rise in popularity has coincided with an a sudden and unprecedented shortage in ecstasy in the UK, something which is linked to the seizure of 33 tonnes of sassafras oil (one of the main ingredients of ecstasy) in Cambodia in June 2008.
With youth unemployment running at the highest level for over a decade, and Britain still stuck in the jaws of recession, I would be shocked if youngsters hadn’t become more price conscious – including about drugs. Now, a separate issue is that mephedrone is clearly too easy to get hold of – something which will not be the case after its almost inevitable ban. But, as I say above, this isn’t the obstacle many people assume it is. The evidence suggests that there is a certain small proportion of people who will want to take drugs even if they are illegal, and whether something is or isn’t illicit won’t change this. Over time we can and should try to reduce this through rehabilitation and education (drugs are anti-social and psychologically and physically degrading at best, potentially fatal at worst), but experience shows that simply making things illegal is not the silver bullet so many seem to think. On the contrary. Price dynamics, on the other hand, do seem to change peoples’ behaviour.
And here the evidence for mephadrone is not encouraging. Since Ketamine was made a class C drug in 2006, its price has actually fallen from £28 a gram to £20. This almost certainly suggests that drug dealers are cutting costs by mixing it with God knows what else. The same will almost certainly happen with mephadrone if it is outlawed: it will become more difficult to get hold of (but that won’t matter for the vast, vast majority of those who want to try it), the price will fall, and so will the purity, making it more dangerous.
Finally, distressing and upsetting as it is to hear of young people dying on what are supposed to be nights of celebration and fun, let’s not forget that alcohol is a far more dangerous drug, killing far more people. What makes mephedrone different is that many of the kids taking it do not know the dangers. The lesson surely ought to be to warn people of these risks and make it more difficult to get hold of, rather than shoving it blindly into the criminal world, where it will become far more dangerous?
Edmund Conway @'The Telegraph'
Another sort of related point here with all of the tabloid crap about the deaths caused by Mephedrone over the last couple of weeks in the UK, can I just point out that the toxicology reports are not finished yet.
We do not actually know what killed those people yet...
A Flock Grows Right at Home for a Priest in Ukraine
The many feet scampering around the Volovetskiy home are testament to that.
The family’s six children range from Pavlina, 21, to Taras, 9. In the middle is Roman, 16, who wants to be a Catholic priest when he grows up. Just like his father.
Dad is the Rev. Yuriy Volovetskiy, who leads a small parish here and whose wife, Vera, teaches religious school. The Volovetskiys serve in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which believes that celibate priests are not necessarily better priests.
Ukrainian Greek Catholics represent a branch of Catholicism that is distinct from the far more prevalent Roman Catholic one. The Ukrainian church is loyal to the pope in Rome, and its leader is a cardinal and major archbishop.
But it conducts services that resemble those in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In religious terms, it follows the Eastern Rite, not the Latin one that is customary in Roman Catholicism.
Historically, the Vatican appears to have tolerated the traditions and attitude toward celibacy of the so-called Eastern Rite Catholics in order to retain a foothold in regions where Orthodox Christianity has dominated. But this exception suggests that the Vatican view on celibacy is not as rigid or monolithic as it might otherwise appear.
And so home life with the Volovetskiys offers this portrait: a father who is a Father, wearing a Catholic clerical collar, doting on his children like any other parent, even organizing an impromptu family musical recital. (“I will sing for you!” said Irena, 13, while she plucked the strings of the bandura, the Ukrainian national instrument).
Ukrainian priests, while reluctant to criticize Pope Benedict XVI over his unyielding stance on the celibacy requirement, said permitting them to raise families enriched their ability to tend to parishioners’ needs.
“It is important when a priest has an understanding of not only himself,” said Father Volovetskiy, 45, who entered a seminary when he was in his 20s. “Having a family gives a priest a deeper understanding of how to relate to other people and help other people. It is more natural, it makes more sense, for a priest to have a wife and children.”
The Rev. Roman Kravchyk, 50, a senior Ukrainian Greek Catholic official, said he was often asked by seminary students whether they should try to have a family or remain celibate (sexual relations outside marriage are not an option). He said he did not strongly encourage either, though he pointed out the advantages of marriage.
“It seems to me that when a priest is not married, it is difficult for him to explain things to parishioners,” Father Kravchyk said. “Because he has not lived through them.”
He added that celibacy would seem to go against human nature.
“Having a sexual life, no one can escape that,” he said. “We are all living people. We are not stones. Though there have to be limits.”
Father Kravchyk and Father Volovetskiy, who were interviewed here in western Ukraine before the scandal broke out in Germany this month, declined to address the issue of whether sexual abuse by priests was connected to celibacy.
The Vatican has rejected such a link. Senior church officials have said that if celibacy was the cause of these scandals, then there would not be problems of child sex abuse outside the priesthood. Still, whether or not a link exists, publicity about the German cases has touched off a renewed debate over the issue.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which has roughly five million adherents in Ukraine, is one of a small number of Eastern Rite Catholic churches. Others also recognize the pope’s leadership and permit married priests. These churches account for only about 1 or 2 percent of all Catholics.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic leader, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, is celibate, as is typical among the leadership of Eastern Rite Catholic churches. The cardinal has not spoken out in recent days on the issue of celibacy, though he has said that he does not think that ending the requirement would help the Vatican confront the declining number of men who want to become priests.
But Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vienna, suggested this month that in response to the German abuse scandal, the Vatican should question its policies, including celibacy. His spokesman later clarified that Cardinal Schönborn was not calling for abolishing the requirement.
Here in Rudno, a suburb of Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine, Father Volovetskiy has a small church, St. Volodymyr the Great, that hints at a melding of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Inside, there are depictions of Jesus Christ similar to those seen on Russian icons, as well as photos of Pope John Paul II.
At his home the other day, it was clear how Father Volovetskiy’s life diverged from that of a Roman Catholic priest. Mrs. Volovetskiy, 44, was teaching religious school on the first floor to 20 or so young children, including their youngest, Taras.
Upstairs, Pavlina, their eldest, who is studying to be an archivist and a religious school teacher, was making lunch. The others, including Yuriy, 18, and Khrystyna, 10, showed off the house. On one wall was an old wedding photo — Father Volovetskiy carrying his bride, Mrs. Volovetskiy.
The children said they were proud that their father was a priest, though they acknowledged that it was a challenge always having to set an example.
“People may not know you well, but they know who your father is, and they are watching you in the street and in the school,” said Roman, the 16-year-old. “It’s a little like being a target.”
Father Volovetskiy said having children changed how he approached his calling.
“It helps me to view the world through the eyes of others,” he said. “And it helps people trust me more. They see that there is a priest who has a family, and they see how we live. We are part of society.
Clifford J Levy @'New York Times'
Please don't...
A man should know when not to pass out in drunken stupor in front of fellow travellers. There is obvious wisdom in this...
The Future Newsroom: Lean, Open and Social Media-Savvy
On the campus of Penn State University, a rivalry between a rogue campus blog and the official newspaper has become a fascinating mirror of the strife between old and new media. In only a matter of months, the unofficial campus blog Onward State, has marshaled the power of social media to compete with the award winning 112-year-old campus paper The Daily Collegian. With one-tenth of the Collegian’s staff size, Onward State has constructed a virtual newsroom that collaborates in real-time with Google Wave, outsourced its tip-line to Twitter, and is unabashed about linking to a competitor’s story.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this sociological Petri dish is that many of the players began as teenagers. In other words, the old/new media rivalry might not be generational, but ideological. What follows is a practical look at the successful social media strategies of Onward State, and a comparison of the world views of two camps of student journalists and their professional counterparts — a comparison that portends a long war to come.
A Crowdsourced Newsroom
The transparent back-and-forth embeds Onward State into the hub of campus conversation. For instance, when an academic department decided to try its hand at democracy and hold a naming contest for the new student center, Onward State was a natural partner, whom they first informed via Twitter. As such, Shaver never underestimates the “sheer power that a well-run Twitter feed can have.”
On the other side of the aisle, The Collegian takes a decidedly expert-based approach. Editor-in-Chief Rossilynne Skena said that while social media is “great for getting out short bursts of information,” the Collegian’s competitive advantage is “really going into depth and detail about a particular subject,” complete with perspectives from local leaders. Instead of putting their ear to the social media grindstone, The Collegian tracks down leads through trusted sources. Once a connection is made, Skena prides herself on being able to assign a person experienced in the field with personal “training” from the Collegian.
Shaver’s defection from The Collegian, due to what he believed was a technologically-phobic bureaucracy, is a mirror imagine of what was happening to some newsrooms in the mid-2000s. Erin Weinger, a former Los Angeles Times fashion writer, recounts her frustrations with her editorial team. “It took multiple meetings and various e-mails to get the permission needed to get my section on Twitter,” she said.
“Journalism has remained so unchanged … that journalists didn’t feel they had to change.” As such, there was a general skepticism of online sources. “Leads can be found everywhere now, from places you’d never deem credible in the past. Amateur blogs, for one … But, five years ago, if you said you were citing a stranger on the Internet you’d [probably] get yelled at by an editor.”
Appropriately enough, Erin now runs her own LA fashion blog.
To Link, or Not to Link
The largely philosophical wrestling match over linking stories became a professional journalism crisis when a New York Times journalist was caught plagiarizing in order to push out a time-sensitive news story. Felix Salmon, a blogger for Reuters, argued that the root of this dishonesty lies squarely in the link-phobic mindset of old-media journalists.
“[W]hat’s more depressing still is that even the bloggers at the [New York Times] and [Wall Street Journal] are link-phobic, often preferring to re-report stories found elsewhere, giving no credit to the people who found and reported them first. It’s almost as though they think that linking to a story elsewhere is an admission of defeat, rather than a prime reason why people visit blogs in the first place.
Salmon concluded, “It’s a print reporter’s mindset.”
Virtual Collaboration
“Our office really consists of my dorm room, I guess. We don’t have any kind of physical structure, so we use [Google ()] Wave as our virtual newsroom,” said Shaver. Throughout the day, Shaver and his team monitor several waves at once, each tailored for a different department. In a single browser tab, Shaver has a unique eagle’s-eye view of the entire newsroom. In real-time, his editorial team can toggle between multiple conversations or throw an idea out to the crowd for greater perspective.
Consistent with its crowdsourcing mantra, Google Wave () permits more inclusive perspective and helps keep eyes everywhere on campus. For perspective, Shaver uses Google Wave to canvas his writers, which hail from different social groups on campus. As such, he’ll put “the nucleus of an idea up in wave and [let] it float and see what people say about it.”
As for keeping tabs on campus activity, because there is no formal workplace, Onward State writers are already situated throughout the university. For instance, when the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile came to Penn State, Onward State reporters were already sprinkled throughout campus, and a writer in the vicinity could have been tapped to snag a quick photo. As silly as it may seem to give priority to something like the Weiner Mobile, hyper-local news is still about competitive advantage, and speedy reporting gives Onward State an upper-hand.
The low-overhead of a crowdsourced newsroom has become an appealing alternative as the Internet’s top destinations, from Craigslist () to Google, erode the advertisement cash cow that once funded well-staffed newspapers.
Now, a talented writer with a broadband connection can reach the same audience. As new media advocate Jeff Jarvis wrote on his blog “I’m seeing that it’s possible for someone to come along with relatively little investment and a much smaller staff that operates more collaboratively to compete with the big, expensive traditional newsroom at low cost.”
In contrast, The Collegian thrives in the dynamic of a centralized newsroom. “What we really like is when we’re able to work with the people face-to-face,” said Skena. Instead of tossing up an idea to a digital billboard, Skena likes the ability to throw the keyboard to a colleague for help punching through writer’s block.
Hobbyists Aren’t in it For the Money
When Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Newscorp, began elaborating on its threats to pull Fox News content from Google News, the thrust of his point was simple: “Quality content is not free.”
Arriana Huffington, who’s blog was implicitly indicted in Murdoch’s article, responded with a visceral rebuttal. Huffington argued that people like Murdoch “can’t understand why someone would find it rewarding to weigh in on the issues — great and small — that interest them. For free. They don’t understand the people who contribute to Wikipedia () for free, who maintain their own blogs for free, who Twitter for free, who constantly refresh and update their Facebook page for free, who want to help tell the stories of what is happening in their lives and in their communities… for free.”
Onward State’s motivational strategy seems to be representative of this view. “Money making is not something that we’ve really embraced yet,” said Shaver. The money from one fund raiser they did manage went to a staff party.
A Divergent Future
In reality, the “old vs. new media” split is not a cleanly sliced dichotomy. Media titans, such as CNN, now regularly respond on-air to Twitter chatter, especially during the 2009 Iran Election Crisis, for example. But, as Jon Stewart has joked, the adoption of social media has been a messy collision of disparate worlds.
Perhaps the future of how this will all unfold is again best foretold by the situation at Penn State. Onward State plans to dive into the dark waters of amateur content, developing a larger space for user-generated content on both Facebook () and its website. The Collegian, in contrast, has just begun (as of January) to play with a more interactive Twitter feed, and is explicit about keeping user content at arm’s length.
However, it’s far too early to tell which strategy is, ultimately, more advantageous. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the flash-bang success of online college newspapers may be unsustainable, especially if a charismatic leader leaves the paper for, say, a semester abroad. Professional blogs as well, may find some undiscovered Kryptonite. If the pace of innovation is any indication, it may not be long before we know the answer.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this sociological Petri dish is that many of the players began as teenagers. In other words, the old/new media rivalry might not be generational, but ideological. What follows is a practical look at the successful social media strategies of Onward State, and a comparison of the world views of two camps of student journalists and their professional counterparts — a comparison that portends a long war to come.
A Crowdsourced Newsroom
The transparent back-and-forth embeds Onward State into the hub of campus conversation. For instance, when an academic department decided to try its hand at democracy and hold a naming contest for the new student center, Onward State was a natural partner, whom they first informed via Twitter. As such, Shaver never underestimates the “sheer power that a well-run Twitter feed can have.”
On the other side of the aisle, The Collegian takes a decidedly expert-based approach. Editor-in-Chief Rossilynne Skena said that while social media is “great for getting out short bursts of information,” the Collegian’s competitive advantage is “really going into depth and detail about a particular subject,” complete with perspectives from local leaders. Instead of putting their ear to the social media grindstone, The Collegian tracks down leads through trusted sources. Once a connection is made, Skena prides herself on being able to assign a person experienced in the field with personal “training” from the Collegian.
Shaver’s defection from The Collegian, due to what he believed was a technologically-phobic bureaucracy, is a mirror imagine of what was happening to some newsrooms in the mid-2000s. Erin Weinger, a former Los Angeles Times fashion writer, recounts her frustrations with her editorial team. “It took multiple meetings and various e-mails to get the permission needed to get my section on Twitter,” she said.
“Journalism has remained so unchanged … that journalists didn’t feel they had to change.” As such, there was a general skepticism of online sources. “Leads can be found everywhere now, from places you’d never deem credible in the past. Amateur blogs, for one … But, five years ago, if you said you were citing a stranger on the Internet you’d [probably] get yelled at by an editor.”
Appropriately enough, Erin now runs her own LA fashion blog.
To Link, or Not to Link
The largely philosophical wrestling match over linking stories became a professional journalism crisis when a New York Times journalist was caught plagiarizing in order to push out a time-sensitive news story. Felix Salmon, a blogger for Reuters, argued that the root of this dishonesty lies squarely in the link-phobic mindset of old-media journalists.
“[W]hat’s more depressing still is that even the bloggers at the [New York Times] and [Wall Street Journal] are link-phobic, often preferring to re-report stories found elsewhere, giving no credit to the people who found and reported them first. It’s almost as though they think that linking to a story elsewhere is an admission of defeat, rather than a prime reason why people visit blogs in the first place.
Salmon concluded, “It’s a print reporter’s mindset.”
Virtual Collaboration
“Our office really consists of my dorm room, I guess. We don’t have any kind of physical structure, so we use [Google ()] Wave as our virtual newsroom,” said Shaver. Throughout the day, Shaver and his team monitor several waves at once, each tailored for a different department. In a single browser tab, Shaver has a unique eagle’s-eye view of the entire newsroom. In real-time, his editorial team can toggle between multiple conversations or throw an idea out to the crowd for greater perspective.Consistent with its crowdsourcing mantra, Google Wave () permits more inclusive perspective and helps keep eyes everywhere on campus. For perspective, Shaver uses Google Wave to canvas his writers, which hail from different social groups on campus. As such, he’ll put “the nucleus of an idea up in wave and [let] it float and see what people say about it.”
As for keeping tabs on campus activity, because there is no formal workplace, Onward State writers are already situated throughout the university. For instance, when the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile came to Penn State, Onward State reporters were already sprinkled throughout campus, and a writer in the vicinity could have been tapped to snag a quick photo. As silly as it may seem to give priority to something like the Weiner Mobile, hyper-local news is still about competitive advantage, and speedy reporting gives Onward State an upper-hand.
The low-overhead of a crowdsourced newsroom has become an appealing alternative as the Internet’s top destinations, from Craigslist () to Google, erode the advertisement cash cow that once funded well-staffed newspapers.
Now, a talented writer with a broadband connection can reach the same audience. As new media advocate Jeff Jarvis wrote on his blog “I’m seeing that it’s possible for someone to come along with relatively little investment and a much smaller staff that operates more collaboratively to compete with the big, expensive traditional newsroom at low cost.”
In contrast, The Collegian thrives in the dynamic of a centralized newsroom. “What we really like is when we’re able to work with the people face-to-face,” said Skena. Instead of tossing up an idea to a digital billboard, Skena likes the ability to throw the keyboard to a colleague for help punching through writer’s block.
Hobbyists Aren’t in it For the Money
When Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Newscorp, began elaborating on its threats to pull Fox News content from Google News, the thrust of his point was simple: “Quality content is not free.”Arriana Huffington, who’s blog was implicitly indicted in Murdoch’s article, responded with a visceral rebuttal. Huffington argued that people like Murdoch “can’t understand why someone would find it rewarding to weigh in on the issues — great and small — that interest them. For free. They don’t understand the people who contribute to Wikipedia () for free, who maintain their own blogs for free, who Twitter for free, who constantly refresh and update their Facebook page for free, who want to help tell the stories of what is happening in their lives and in their communities… for free.”
Onward State’s motivational strategy seems to be representative of this view. “Money making is not something that we’ve really embraced yet,” said Shaver. The money from one fund raiser they did manage went to a staff party.
A Divergent Future
In reality, the “old vs. new media” split is not a cleanly sliced dichotomy. Media titans, such as CNN, now regularly respond on-air to Twitter chatter, especially during the 2009 Iran Election Crisis, for example. But, as Jon Stewart has joked, the adoption of social media has been a messy collision of disparate worlds.Perhaps the future of how this will all unfold is again best foretold by the situation at Penn State. Onward State plans to dive into the dark waters of amateur content, developing a larger space for user-generated content on both Facebook () and its website. The Collegian, in contrast, has just begun (as of January) to play with a more interactive Twitter feed, and is explicit about keeping user content at arm’s length.
However, it’s far too early to tell which strategy is, ultimately, more advantageous. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the flash-bang success of online college newspapers may be unsustainable, especially if a charismatic leader leaves the paper for, say, a semester abroad. Professional blogs as well, may find some undiscovered Kryptonite. If the pace of innovation is any indication, it may not be long before we know the answer.
Greg Ferenstein @'Mashable'
The passing of an era...
Forget all the recent deaths in the punk family. It's all sad, but it's not as iconic as this gem:
Yep. The end of an era indeed...
Columbus Go Home DC! Roy Beck, Tea Baggage, Undercover Feds, and Comprehensive European Reform!
Prankster Robert Erickson heads to our nation's Capitol, discovering grassroots Tea Party Americans calling out: "COLUMBUS GO HOME!" Interview with hardcore anti-immigrant leader of Numbers USA, Roy Beck, and the unveiling of a plan for Comprehensive European Reform.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
India's military weaponizes world's hottest chilli
Don't try this at home - I'm a professional idiot LOL!
The Indian military has a new weapon against terrorism: the world's hottest chili.
After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized "bhut jolokia," or "ghost chili," to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects, defense officials said Tuesday.
The bhut jolokia was accepted by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world's spiciest chili. It is grown and eaten in India's northeast for its taste, as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat.
It has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili's spiciness. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units, while jalapeno peppers measure anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000.
"The chili grenade has been found fit for use after trials in Indian defense laboratories, a fact confirmed by scientists at the Defense Research and Development Organization," Col. R. Kalia, a defense spokesman in the northeastern state of Assam, told The Associated Press.
"This is definitely going to be an effective nontoxic weapon because its pungent smell can choke terrorists and force them out of their hide-outs," R. B. Srivastava, the director of the Life Sciences Department at the New Delhi headquarters of the DRDO said.
Srivastava, who led a defense research laboratory in Assam, said trials are also on to produce bhut jolokia-based aerosol sprays to be used by women against attackers and for the police to control and disperse mobs.
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