Historic Russian Seed Bank Faces Destruction

Priceless Plant Collection in Peril

Ninety percent of the more than 5,000 varieties of berries and fruit seed at the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry seed bank in Leningrad, Russia are found in no other seed bank or plant research center in the world. During WWII, with Leningrad under siege, twelve scientists protecting the seed bank's valuable specimens starved to death, unwilling to eat the rare seeds.

What makes a few hundred thousand plant seeds worth dying for? The carefully tended seed collection at VRI -- one of the oldest seed banks in the world -- preserves rare genetic traits that could one day help farmers save entire nations from famine.

Yet today, part of Vavilov's priceless repository is in danger of being lost forever. The seed bank's research station at Pavlovsk, home to thousands of rare plant varieties, is facing destruction by one of the most banal evils imaginable: a housing development. A group of Russian real estate developers plans to bulldoze the historic agricultural research center -- and its fields of rare berry bushes and fruit trees -- to build the Russian equivalent of a subdivision of McMansions.

TAKE ACTION: SAVE THE SEED BANK FROM DESTRUCTION!

The Crop Diversity Crisis

Modern industrialized agriculture has encouraged the standardization of crop seeds. Most of the world now depends on fewer than 150 species of plants for food, and 90% of the crop varieties grown just 100 years ago are no longer commercially produced, leaving most of humanity dependent on just a few varieties of vital food crops like corn, wheat or apples.

This lack of crop diversity makes the food plants most people depend on for survival highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, disease and insect pests. With an artificially limited gene pool, most conventional food crops cannot evolve new defenses quickly from one generation to the next to deal with a changing environment. And planting the same variety of a plant from one field to the next makes it easy for plant diseases to spread. A new virus or fungus might wipe out not just one farmer's field, but an entire state's crop.

But older, heirloom varieties of food plants often carry genes that can help plants withstand drought, flooding and pestilence. And that is why seed banks like the one at Pavlovsk are so vitally important -- by preserving a wide variety of plants and seeds, seed banks preserve genetic traits that one day might save entire plant species from extinction.

Save the Seed Bank

If the Russian real estate developers have their way, the Pavlovsk agricultural research station might be destroyed in just a few months. The Global Crop Diversity Trust and botanists around the world are petitioning the Russian government to save Pavlovsk's seeds.

The director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Dr. Cary Fowler, is encouraging anyone who would like the Russian government to stop the destruction of this historic seed bank to join a Twitter campaign to convince Russia's President, Dmitry Medvedev, (@kremlinrussia_e)to intervene.

TAKE ACTION:  

Tell President Medvedev to save the seed bank!

@'Care2'

Freebie download from Jim Fairchild (Grandaddy/Modest Mouse)

 

Costs of Major U.S. Wars Compared

More than a trillion dollars has been appropriated since September 11, 2001 for U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.  This makes the “war on terrorism” the most costly of any military engagement in U.S. history in absolute terms or, if correcting for inflation, the second most expensive U.S. military action after World War II.

A newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service estimated the financial costs of major U.S. wars from the American Revolution ($2.4 billion in FY 2011 dollars) to World War I ($334 billion) to World War II ($4.1 trillion) to the second Iraq war ($784 billion) and the war in Afghanistan ($321 billion).  CRS provided its estimates in current year dollars (i.e. the year they were spent) and in constant year dollars (adjusted for inflation), and as a percentage of gross domestic product.  Many caveats apply to these figures, which are spelled out in the CRS report.

In constant dollars, World War II is still the most expensive of all U.S. wars, having consumed a massive 35.8% of GDP at its height and having cost $4.1 trillion in FY2011 dollars.  See “Costs of Major U.S. Wars,” June 29, 2010.

@'Secrecy News'

Why raw data sites need journalism

Very cool!

Israeli military chief defends Gaza flotilla raid

Travelling Solo

 

Travelling solo is a state of mind, says Jenny Diski, photographed above in Tsavo national park, Kenya Photograph: Frederic Courbet/Panos Pictures

It's really simple: the great thing about travelling alone is that there is no one else with you. No one whose wishes and needs you have to consider when you want to spend the day at your hotel in bed reading excursion brochures or gloomy Thomas Bernhard. You want to stay in bed? You stay in bed. You want to lie at the edge of an ocean and let the surf play with your feet? You do that. You want to see the sights? Really? Do you really? Well, if you must, you can.

You travel alone, you do exactly as you want. This surely needs no further explanation. But, of course, I'm from what Margaret Thatcher (that well-known communitarian) called the Me generation. Being with other people on holiday makes me anxious. Are they comfortable, happy, restless, resentful, bored? On the whole, togetherness requires compromise and why would you want to compromise (more than already required by the location and budget) while travelling, as well as in your real, everyday life?

Nevertheless, I know that there are those who find the word "alone" distressing. That scene in Les Enfants du Paradis where the insufferable toddler enters the theatre box, in which the gloriously tragic Arletty watches her secret love on stage, and pipes: "Vous êtes toute seule, madame?" makes being toute seule a lifelong terrifying prospect. Well then, try "solo".

The difference between travelling solo and travelling alone is a state of mind. I've been travelling alone for decades, long before I could call myself a "travel writer" – not that I do call myself a travel writer. But the word could is essential here. It's true that, for different reasons in different places, people can be curious, suspicious even, of a woman (young, middle-aged or old) travelling alone. Yet tell them you're a writer and not only is everything explicable but people will stay and talk to you, telling you sometimes wonderful stories about their lives. Use the writer excuse with a different look on your face, and people will understandingly leave you alone.

In those circumstances where you might feel awkward – eating alone in a restaurant full of holiday couples and families, lizarding on a beach hoping for perfect peace, ordering a drink at a bar in a small town – only think of yourself as a writer on an assignment and the unease falls away. You are, after all, doing what a writer does: looking, thinking, playing with characters or ideas, and idling. Once you've explained yourself to yourself it does wonders for not worrying about what other people think. It makes all social unwillingness acceptable. You can talk, not talk; join, not join; everything's covered for other people and for you. You're travelling solo, not alone.

I've chilled out in the Caribbean, encircled America by train, cargo-shipped across the Atlantic and explored the Antarctic peninsula, all solo and at ease, using my laptop as a flag of peace and quiet. Even before I really did write travel stuff, I went to Greek islands in that blissful condition of being alone but free to talk to people if I wanted, by using the journalism excuse.

There are other ways to travel solo without raising eyebrows, as I did when I went with my three-year-old to Lake Como and was stared at with deep suspicion and disapproval by the other, mostly elderly, Italian guests in the hotel. Eventually, I made it a point to "find" myself sitting in the foyer next to the crossest-looking elderly lady and explained how sad and yet comforting it was to return here where my late husband and I had enjoyed such happy holidays. She broke into a relieved smile to discover I was a virtuous widow and not a disreputable single mother, as I was, and passed the news around, so that the rest of the vacation allowed me to "mourn" while basking in benevolent glances.

As a young woman in Greece, I found a polite but very firm "no, thank you" was sufficient to send young Greek men, who were both practical and fatalistic, off to try their luck elsewhere.

There are limits to easing your way alone in the world. None of these strategies would have worked in the train I took in my late teens from Rome to Assisi. It was full and I had no seat booked, so I spent the journey standing in the corridor in a tube-like crush with what seemed like an entire brigade of the Italian army. This was awkward and uncomfortable.

For several hours the young men, every one of them, stared unblinking at me with that deadly gaze poised between loathing and lust, until the train reached Assisi, where I fought my way through hands, mouths and groins to the exit. I hadn't thought of the journalism justification at that stage, but it really wouldn't have helped.

Jenny Diski @'The Guardian'

Fifa investigates North Korea World Cup abuse claims

♪♫ Pink Anderson - She Knows How To Stretch It

Aurora Photography

@'Spaceweather'

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(Thanx Anne!)

Being Rational

Ancient language mystery deepens

A linguistic mystery has arisen surrounding symbol-inscribed stones in Scotland that predate the formation of the country itself.

The stones are believed to have been carved by members of an ancient people known as the Picts, who thrived in what is now Scotland from the 4th to the 9th Centuries.

These symbols, researchers say, are probably "words" rather than images.

But their conclusions have raised criticism from some linguists.

The research team, led by Professor Rob Lee from Exeter University in the UK, examined symbols on more than 200 carved stones.

They used a mathematical method to quantify patterns contained within the symbols, in an effort to find out if they conveyed meaning.

Professor Lee described the basis of this method.

"It I told you the first letter of a word in English was 'Q' and asked you to predict the next letter, you would probably say 'U' and you would probably be right," he explained.

"But if I told you the first letter was 'T' you would probably take many more guesses to get it right - that's a measure of uncertainty."

Using the symbols, or characters, from the stones, Professor Lee and his colleagues measured this feature of so-called "character to character uncertainty".

They concluded that the Pictish carvings were "symbolic markings that communicated information" - that these were words rather than pictures.

Professor Lee first published these conclusions in April of this year. But a recent article by French linguist Arnaud Fournet opened up the mystery once again.

Mr Fournet said that, by examining Pictish carvings as if they were "linear symbols", and by applying the rules of written language to them, the scientists could have produced biased results.

He commented to BBC News: "It looks like their method is transforming two-dimensional glyphs into a one-dimensional string of symbols.

"The carvings must have some kind of purpose- some kind of meanings, but... it's very difficult to determine if their conclusion is contained in the raw data or if it's an artefact of their method."

Mr Fournet also suggested that the researchers' methods should be tested and verified for other ancient symbols.

"The line between writing and drawing is not as clear-cut as categorised in the paper," Mr Fournet wrote in his article. "On the whole the conclusion remains pending."

But Professor Lee says that his most recent analysis of the symbols, which has yet to be published, has reinforced his original conclusions.

He also stressed he did not claim that the carvings were a full and detailed record of the Pictish language.

"The symbols themselves are a very constrained vocabulary," he said. "But that doesn't mean that Pictish had such a constrained vocabulary."

He said the carvings might convey the same sort of meaning as a list, perhaps of significant names, which would explain the limited number of words used.

"It's like finding a menu for a restaurant [written in English], and that being your sole repository of the English language.

Victoria Gill @'BBC'

Rehab As Punishment

Phelps 'Catfish' Collins RIP

Phelps "Catfish" Collins, the legendary funk guitarist who played with James Brown and Parliament/Funkadelic, died Friday in Cincinnati after a battle with cancer. He was 66. "My world will never be the same without him," said his brother Bootsy Collins in a statement. "Be happy for him, he certainly is now and always has been the happiest young fellow I ever met on this planet."
Growing up in Cincinnati, Catfish inspired Bootsy to outfit an old guitar with bass strings, helping to define Bootsy’s signature funk sound. Catfish also introduced his brother to the music of Indiana blues guitarist Lonnie Mack. The siblings first played together in the Pacemakers, a funk act, in 1968. One year later, James Brown recruited them to join the original lineup of the J.B.'s, Brown's touring band. Catfish's clean, funky strumming was integral to Brown classics like "Super Bad," "Get Up," "Soul Power," and "Give It Up." "It was like playing a big school with James [as the teacher], like psychotic bump school, only deeper," Bootsy told Rolling Stone in 1978.
When the original J.B.'s split from Brown in 1971, the Collins brothers joined Parliament-Funkadelic, playing on albums like 1972's classic America Eats Its Young. (Catfish also played in Bootsy's side project, Bootsy's Rubber Band.) In 1983, Catfish split from Funkadelic, remaining mostly quiet until 2007, when he contributed guitar to the Superbad soundtrack.
Collins' death comes just one month after fellow Parliament-Funkadelic guitarist Garry Shider passed away from cancer at 56.

Patrick Doyle @'Rolling Stone'

The Stranglers - Spain (Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s edit)

  

SageFrancisSFR If the artist has to wear multiple hats in order to survive but the middlemen refuse to work extra angles then #KillEmAllAndLetGodSortEmOut

HA!

Thom Yorke plays new Radiohead song

Radiohead front-man Thom Yorke played a surprise gig at the Big Chill festival, and during his set, the man performed a brand new Radiohead tune called “Give Up The Ghost”. This wasn’t, however, the first time Yorke has played “Give Up The Ghost”.
via prettymuchamazing

download link for another live version of "Give up the Ghost"

Emma Hack - Body Art

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Hitchens on Mortality

Everyone goes on holiday in Britain...

 Even Hells Angels.

I've just found a wonderful, very funny documentary made in 1973 about a group of British Hells Angels.

It's about their daily life and culminates in them going on a weekend mini-break on a derelict barge in the pouring rain near Aylesbury.

They're obviously not very nice people (especially as they tend to go on about Nazis). And the film has a disapproving commentary that talks about their "psychotic tendencies" and their "empty daily existence". But as you watch the film you begin to realise that the director (or possibly the editor) was making a completely different film.

It uses the Hells Angels as a comic and exaggerated parody of the emptiness of the daily life for everyone in Britain.

The film is full of wonderful moments. The lead character - Mad John - goes round to see his wife, but completely ignores her because he finds a letter to him from the fountainhead of Angeldom - the California Angels chapter.

His wife stomps off leaving Mad John with his suitcase of memorabilia. Inside the suitcase is a magazine called "Big Chopper" and a real chopper. He sits with his only real friend - his alsatian dog called Hitler.

And the Hells Angels' holiday ends with all them all sitting together on the barge in the rain watching Dr Who on television drinking cans of lager.

Not much change there then. 

Here are the stars of the film:

"Mad John" the Vice President of the Chapter. He was named "Mad John" by "Buttons" who was the first official Hells Angel's leader in Britain. (You can see Buttons' legendary autobiography - Buttons, The Making of a President - briefly in Mad John's suitcase.)

Karl - the Sergeant at Arms of the Chapter. He has been cross-eyed ever since his eyes were knocked out of their sockets in a fight.

Mad John's dog called Hitler plus a great carpet and some fantastic wallpaper.

And Angel member Mick's mum who comes round to lend them a portable TV for the weekend.

She is asked what she thinks about her son being a Hells Angel - and she gives one of the best quotes I have ever heard. It is brilliantly comic.

Adam Curtis @'BBC'

HA!

Robert Gibbs attacks the fringe losers of the Left

Wyclef Jean Marks Haitian Presidential Campaign with First Ad

If Wyclef Jean announcing his foray into Haitian politics wasn’t bizarre enough, the hip-hop star’s first campaign ad will get your heads scratching in bewilderment.
The first spot for the Fas A Fas campaign follows Jean during a campaign trail, with fanatic supporters rallying around the star, much like at a hip-hop concert.
There’s no dialog involved either; there’s just celebrity posturing with the thumbs-up signs and posters of Jean’s face being touted all through the two-and-a-half minute ad. In fact, the whole thing looks and sounds more like a music video than anything else.
Sure, it’s not that bad, but the ad doesn’t answer any questions or give any information on Jean’s campaign. So after watching it, we’re still unconvinced if Jean can run a country as he can a stage.
Watch the above video from HipHopWired and tell us what you think of the ad. 

@'Design Taxi'

Resurgence of large dams threatens tribal people worldwide, report says 

(Thanx j6nnie!)

Jaron Lanier - The First Church of Robotics

HERE

ubuweb An anthology of the cut-up tapes of William S. Burroughs, rare & unpublished, of over 3 hours duration [MP3]: http://is.gd/ebzgz 1 minute ago via web

The Music Copyright Enforcers

Skateboarding in 3D: The Photography of Sebastian Denz

Jilala Wedding Procession (recorded by Paul Bowles, 1978)

   

C.W. Moss - 'Unicorn Being A Jerk'

HERE

OOOPS!!!

This moment was bound to happen

More on what happened from Shannyn Moore

♪♫ Grinderman - Heathen Child

Canada/US tour dates:

Thu 11 November - Phoenix, Toronto, ON

Fri 12 November - Metropolis, Montreal, QC

Sat 13 November - House of Blues, Boston, MA

Sun 14 November - Nokia Theatre, New York, NY

Tue 16 November - 9:30 Club, Washington, DC

Thu 18 November - Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA

Fri 19 November - Cannery Ballroom, Nashville, TN

Sat 20 November - Minglewood Hall, Memphis, TN

Mon 22 November - Riviera Theatre, Chicago, IL

Tue 23 November - First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN

Fri 26 November - Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC

Sat 27 November - King Cat Theater, Seattle, WA

Mon 29 November - Warfield, San Francisco, CA

Tue 30 November - Music Box, Los Angeles, CA

Wed 1 December - House of Blues, San Diego, CA

Update:

TorrentReactorTown

Bitches Brewery

Get it HERE

Cheers!!

Octave One Live @ Hi-Tek-Soul, Ministry Of Sound, London - 28-03-2009

    

Fifteen years...

Mexico police detain their own commander at gunpoint

As The Drug War Rages On, Will Mexico Surrender?

Mexico is in the midst of its most violent confrontation with drug traffickers, with an estimated 28,000 people killed since President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels soon after he took office in late 2006.

But drug trafficking has long gone on in Mexico, and for many decades operated under the eye of the government, according to analysts. Mexico changing politics has, in effect, changed the way drug cartels operate.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century. After 71 years in power, the party finally lost the presidency in 2000.

From the 1960s through the '80s, organized crime was intertwined with the government, according to Diego Enrique Osorno, a Mexican journalist and author of the recently published history, The Sinaloa Cartel.

"In this period, you have to remember that the PRI had control of everything," Osorno says. The PRI controlled the press, the oil fields, politics and even the narcotics trade.

Osorno obtained the memoires of Miguel Felix Gallardo, the founder of the Guadalajara cartel. "Gallardo viewed himself as essentially a soldier of the PRI," Osorno says. "He worked for the system to maintain order. Back then, the PRI had a monopoly on power."

George Grayson, a professor at the College of William and Mary, says the PRI covertly cut deals with the criminals to allow a particular trafficker to operate in a particular part of Mexico.

"The capos would pay bribes to local, state and federal officials; in return, the government would turn a blind eye to their activities," he says.

But Mexican drug gangs under the PRI had to follow strict rules. They were supposed to act discreetly, spurn kidnapping, avoid killing civilians and not encroach on another cartel's turf.

"If in fact the cartels broke the rules of the game, the PRI had the capacity to come down on them like a ton of bricks," Grayson says.

A major narcotics trafficker at the time was Pablo Acosta. In the mid-1980s, Acosta controlled smuggling along a swath of the Texas border south of El Paso.

Terrence Poppa, a reporter at the El Paso Herald Post, wrote a biography of Acosta titled Drug Lord to try to explain how the Mexican drug trafficking business worked. What he discovered shocked him.

"It was an organized type of protection that ran all the way to Mexico City, and involved the top layers of government, including the president of Mexico," he says.

Poppa found that the governor's office in Chihuahua state had sold Acosta the right to control drug smuggling around the border area adjacent to the Big Bend area of Texas.

Each month, Poppa says, Acosta paid the local police, military and particular PRI officials a cut of his profits. Those PRI officials in turn sent money each month to their bosses further up the governmental hierarchy.

"It was a protection set-up. And this is what Pablo Acosta benefited from. And that was how he was able to operate, and all other traffickers in Mexico — it was like a universal system," Poppa says.

With so many people in government getting bribes, there was little incentive to crack down on the narcotics trade. The PRI's kickback system even encouraged the cartels to expand, Poppa says.

The cartels ramped up their arms smuggling networks. They diversified into legitimate businesses to launder their profits. They recruited special forces soldiers to be their muscle.

Then the PRI lost the presidency in 2000 to Vicente Fox and his National Action Party, or PAN, and Mexico was left with a monster it couldn't control.

"The PRI gave an enormous amount of space for organized crime to flourish," Poppa says. "An enormous amount of space."

Calderon, also of PAN, won election in 2006 and succeeded Fox. Calderon's government is working to crack down on the cartels, but organized crime is fighting back with heavy weapons, grenades and even car bombs.

The offensive has destabilized parts of the country, scared away foreign investment and left thousands dead. And despite the deployment of thousands of federal forces, some of the corrupt structures established under the PRI still exist, analysts say.

Calderon has blamed the United States and its appetite for cocaine, marijuana and other substances for stoking the conflict through drug consumption. "It's as if our neighbor were the biggest drug addict in the world," he wrote in an editorial printed in Mexican newspapers in June.

In the Mexican Congress, there have been calls for the country to give up the drug war entirely and legalize all narcotics.

Poppa says that if the United States were to decriminalize drugs it would help eliminate the huge profits garnered by the brutal cartels.

"In my view, the best reason for ending drug prohibition is to save Mexico, to save the democracy of Mexico that the Mexican people have struggled so hard to gain," he says.

Ironically, one of the effects of the drug violence has been a resurgence in popularity for the PRI, says Denise Dresser, a political scientist in Mexico City.

The PRI is seeking to shed its past image as corrupt and authoritarian. The party has made gains in recent local elections and is seeking to regain the presidency in 2012. It has promised it can manage the cartels far better than Calderon.

"It's as if the Communist Party were resurgent in Russia. We're witnessing, in many ways, the return of an authoritarian party that governed Mexico for 71 years," Dresser says.

The drug war has dominated Calderon's term in office, but despite his declarations to the contrary, there are few signs that he's winning.

Whoever wins the 2012 elections is expected to take a new approach toward the cartels. Many voters may even hope for a return to the days when the PRI let organized crime run drugs unfettered up to the U.S. border, but kept the violence off the streets.

Jason Beaubien @'npr'

Listen to the Story

82 Things You Didn’t Know About Andy Warhol

'Straddling' bus – a cheaper, greener and faster alternative to commute

A big concern on top of urban transportation planner’s mind is how to speed up the traffic: putting more buses on the road will jam the roads even worse and deteriorate the air; building more subway is costly and time consuming. Well, here is an cheaper, greener and fast alternative to lighten their mind up a bit: the straddling bus, first exhibited on the 13th Beijing International High-tech Expo in May this year. In the near future, the model is to be put into pilot use in Beijing’s Mentougou District (bjnews). (The official site of the high-tech expo put it as 3D fast bus, which I think is more confusing, for now I’ll just call it the straddling bus.)

Proposed by Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., Ltd, the model looks like a subway or light-rail train bestriding the road. It is 4-4.5 m high with two levels: passengers board on the upper level while other vehicles lower than 2 m can go through under. Powered by electricity and solar energy, the bus can speed up to 60 km/h carrying 1200-1400 passengers at a time without blocking other vehicles’ way. Also it costs about 500 million yuan to build the bus and a 40-km-long path for it, only 10% of building equivalent subway. It is said that the bus can reduce traffic jams by 20-30%.

Here is the presentation by Song Youzhou, chairman of  Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., Ltd.

Translation:

What you can see from the video is traffic jams, what you can hear is noise, and there is also invisible air pollution. At present, there are mainly 4 types of public transits in China: subway, light-rail train, BRT, and normal bus. They have advantages and disadvantages, for example, subway costs a lot and takes long time to build; BRT takes up road spaces and produces noises as well as pollution to the air. How to develop environmental-friendly public transportation? Straddling bus provides a solution. Let’s watch a demonstration.

The straddling bus combines the advantages of BRT, it is also a substitution for BRT and subway in the future. As you all know, the majority vehicle on the road is car, the shortest vehicle is also car. Normally our overpass is 4.5-5.5 m high. The highlight innovation of straddling bus is that it runs above car and under overpass. Its biggest strength is saving road spaces, efficient and high in capacity. It can reduce up to 25-30% traffic jams on main routes. Running at an average 40 km/h, it can take 1200 people at a time, which means 300 passengers per cart.

Another strength of straddling bus is its short construction life cycle: only 1 year to build 40 km. Whereas building 40-km subway will take 3 years at best. Also the straddling bus will not need the large parking lot that normal buses demand. It can park at its own stop without affecting the passage of cars. This is what the interior looks like: it has huge skylight that will eliminate passengers’ sense of depression when enter.

There are two parts in building the straddling bus. One is remodeling the road, the other is building station platforms. Two ways to remodel the road: we can go with laying rails on both sides of car lane, which save 30% energy; or we can paint two white lines on both sides and use auto-pilot technology in the bus, which will follow the lines and run stable.

There are also two ways in dealing with station platform. One is to load/unload through the sides; the other is using the built-in ladder so that passengers can go up and to the overpass through the ceiling door.

Straddling bus is completely powered by municipal electricity and solar energy system. In terms of electricity, the setting is called relay direct current electrification. The bus itself is electrical conductor, two rails built on top to allow the charging post to run along with the bus, the next charging post will be on the rails before the earlier one leaves, that is why we call it relay charging. It is new invention, not available yet in other places.

The set here is super capacitor, a device that can charge, discharge and store electricity quickly. The power it stores during the stop can support the bus till the next stop where another round of charging takes place, achieving zero toxic gas throughout the process.

About the ultrasonic waves put forth from the end of the bus, that is to keep those high cars or trucks away from entering the tunnel. Using laser ray to scan, cars get too close to the passage will activate the alarm on the bus end. Inside the bus, there are turning lights that indicate a the bus is intending to make a turn to warn the cars inside. Also radar scanning system is embedded on the walls to warn cars from getting too close to the bus wheels.

Nowadays many big cities have remodeled their traffic signaling system, to prioritize public buses, that is to say when a bus reaches a crossing, red light on the other side of the fork will turn on automatically to give buses the right of way. Our straddling bus can learn from this BRT method. The car can make the turn with the bus if that is the direction it wants to go too; if not, the red light will be on to stop the cars beneath while the bus take the turn.

The bus is 6 m in width and 4-4.5 m high. How will people get off the bus if an accident happens to such a huge bus? Here I introduce the most advanced escaping system in the world. In the case of fire or other emergencies, the escaping door will open automatically. I believe many of you have been on a plane. Planes are equipped with inflated ladder so people can slide down on it in emergency. I put the escaping concept into the straddling bus. It is the fastest way to escape.

The bus can save up to 860 ton of fuel per year, reducing 2,640 ton of carbon emission. Presently we have passed the first stage demonstration and will get through all of the technical invalidation by the end of August. Beijing’s Mentougou District is carrying out a eco-community project, it has already planned out 186 km for our straddling bus. Construction will begin at year end.

Thank you.

Annie Lee @'China Hush'

How Google Counted The World’s 129 Million Books

Indonesian Muslim preacher Bashir in terror arrest

Indonesian police have arrested the controversial Muslim preacher Abu Bakir Bashir on terror charges.

Officials said they had proof he was linked a training camps recently discovered in Aceh, West Sumatra.

Mr Bashir is known for fiery anti-Western rhetoric but proof of direct engagement in attacks has been elusive.

The discovery in February of training camps in Aceh showed the opening of a new front in the country's often successful campaign against extremism.

The anti-terror police unit Detachment 88 detained Mr Bashir because of links to Islamic militant training camps, a government official said.

He is believed to be the head of a hardline Islamist group, the Jema'ah Ansharut Tauhid.

Mr Bashir's lawyer, Muhammad Ali, said his client was arrested in the Ciamis district of West Java.

Founder of the Ngruki boarding school in East Java, he was the spiritual adviser to young men who went on to mount the Bali bomb attacks of 2002 which killed 202 people.

Mr Bashir was released from prison in 2006 after serving several years for involvement with Jemaah Islamiah, the group responsible for the Bali bombings.

His history of activism goes back to the 1980s when then-President Suharto imprisoned him for advocating that Indonesia should be an Islamic state.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group has reported a general decline in violent extremism across Indonesia but has stressed the ability of the remaining small groups to commit terrorist acts.

It said in a report last month that some members of JAT were involved in violent plots foiled by police.

This weekend, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he had been saved from an attack on his life by anti-terror police.

Last July, simultaneous suicide bomb attacks on two five-star hotels in Jakarta killed nine people.

@'BBC'

David MacGregor - Itchy Feet

HERE

This one is for you Spaceboy!!!

Benzocaine targeted in drugs war on 'cutting agents'

DooneyStudio RT @mediahunter Family First candidate Wendy Francis y'day compared gay marriage to “legalising child abuse'' [More Oz election weirdness]

Digg me but don't bury me...

I don't know how much truth there is behind this story, but I do know this: there's nothing uglier than a mob of angry teabaggers, on and offline...

A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year.

"The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page. I'll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives." -phoenixtx (aka vrayz)

More @'MikeTheMadBiologist'