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Source: http://careers.bpwusa.org/jobs/5059600/business-manager
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Jan. 2, 2013 ? As Twelfth Night approaches and the Christmas decorations start to look old, as the last crumbs of cake are swept away and the remnants of the turkey have finally been consumed, there is the perennial question as to what to do with the tree. Research published in the International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology suggests that the needles of the plant Pseudotsuga menziesii, commonly known as the Douglas fir could be used to sterilize nano devices destined for medical applications.
Chemist Poushpi Dwivedi of MNNIT in Allahabad, India, and colleagues explain that one of the most troubling problems in biomedicine is bacterial infection at the site of implanted medical devices, prosthetics and sensors. They explain that despite advances in sterilization procedures and aseptic measures pathogenic microbes can still invade biomaterials and tissues. The researchers are developing an antimicrobial, self-sterilizing composite material derived from Douglas fir needles that is essentially a silver/chitosan bionanocomposite that can be used to safely coat medical implants and surgical devices to preclude microbial growth.
The team points out that silver nanoparticles have been tested widely for their potential as antimicrobial agents given that silver is well known to have bactericidal properties. They point out that using biological agents has come to the fore as an efficient and effective way to make novel types of silver nanoparticles with uniform size and shape and biocompatible surfaces for use in medicine. The team has now used an extract from Pseudotsuga menzietii together with silver nitrate solution to generate nanoparticles. These particles can then be readily dispersed in chitosan polymer to make a material that can coat metals and other materials. The plant extract acts as a natural chemical reducing agent to convert the silver ions in the nitrate solution to nanoscopic silver metal particles.
"The size and the percentage of the particles produced can be easily controlled, according to the requirement, by the initial concentration of the metal precursor and volume of the plant biomass," the team explains. So, as you are sweeping up the last fallen needles from your Christmas tree come Twelfth Night, think on, those needles could underpin the next medical shot in the arm.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/--E7G2XK8KY/130102140445.htm
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Zero Dark Thirty, Hollywood's version of how we killed Osama bin Laden essentially says that torture works. Torture is disturbing, but tough, and American heroes do it.
Do not be misled. Pay attention: The men and women who hunted, found, and killed Osama bin Laden -- and heroes they are -- did not need to use torture. Torture is un-American. It is evil. We found bin Laden using painstaking intelligence work, not waterboards.
The shocking opening scenes and the underlying premise of Zero Dark Thirty, the latest fillip of the torture hagiography to afflict and pervert American society insidiously propagates the view that torture is necessary; tough men and women must make tough decisions, right? It becomes clear how deeply America's moral frames of reference have deteriorated when we realize that it was Kathryn Bigelow, a Hollywood director and power, and not a known shill for the Neoconservatives, whose film presents torture as having been instrumental in finding Osama bin Laden, and that "enhanced interrogation" is Americans doing what Americans must do to protect home and hearth.
Bigelow's views -- like those of so many millions of Americans -- seem to have been colored by the big lie about torture perpetrated by the Bush Administration, and now the Republican Party, for eight years and beyond: Americans must work on the "dark side, if you will" to protect ourselves. Torture is legal -- because, well, because a political hack in the Justice Department, at the behest of the vice president, says so. So, therefore, it is acceptable. A message not-so-subliminally enhanced by the zeitgeist-shaping avatars of pop culture like the execrable 24, which shows tough-guy Jack Bauer saving us all every week by torturing people, and doing what needs to be done, damn the law and all hand-wringers. Even left-wing Hollywood now weaves it into our national consciousness as part of our imagined reality. Even Hollywood filmmakers.
Polls show that a majority of Americans under 35, who came of age hearing from our leaders that enhanced interrogation was necessary and right, believe it is acceptable for American officers to torture. The Republican Party openly advocates its use. No matter hundreds of years of legal and social effort to oppose torture, no matter the Constitution of the United States ("cruel and unusual punishments... shall not be inflicted," Amendment VIII.)
No. Understand this, from someone who had some involvement in our "enhanced interrogation" program and who worked on terrorism issues for years (see my book, The Interrogator, which relates my involvement in the interrogation of a senior member of al-Qaeda.) I was there: Torture does not work; it makes it harder to evaluate what detainees say, and more suspect. It is unnecessary, it is counterproductive, it is illegal, and it is immoral. Torture besmirches the meaning of America. We become the evil we oppose when we engage in "enhanced interrogation" -- in torture.
Do not be deluded by the subliminal messages of a false and harmful reality as you munch popcorn and squirm at the opening segment of Zero Dark Thirty. Precisely because of its power and the subtlety of its overall theme -- intelligence work is painstaking and slow and often confusing, and dedicated civil servants must sometimes make impossible choices -- Zero Dark Thirty contributes to an un-American message about torture, guised in the uniform of steely eyed, if sometimes ambiguous, heroism. John Wayne did not really storm the beaches of Normandy, although we all watched him do it. George Bush and Dick Cheney, however, really did avoid serving in uniform, although we all watched them send others to fight and argue that torture is legal and acceptable. And now, their message has made it into an otherwise subtle and perceptive film about the hunt for bin Laden. But one cannot sanction torture.
Hunting, finding, and killing bin Laden is one of the cathartic triumphs in the history of the CIA. Bin Laden needed to die. The tale deserves to be sung by bards and should be a source of pride for all Americans. This is another fact I lived during my CIA career: The CIA, the FBI, the U.S. military, and the U.S. government are relentless against our enemies. No one -- no one -- can kill Americans and get away with it. We will hunt you down, you will not escape and you will pay. American power and will are fearsome.
A former head of MI-6, Great Britain's equivalent to the CIA, remarked to me once, "I always encourage myths about MI-6, and I thank the stars for James Bond. People tend to believe that British intelligence is all-powerful, and everywhere. When, of course," here he smiled genteelly, "we are not so powerful, and we are very small." The CIA, the U.S. government and especially American society, are powerful, and we should not be small. We do not need the insidious myth that torture works, or is necessary. In an otherwise laudable film, Zero Dark Thirty's opening scenes corrode our culture, just as "enhanced interrogation" has.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-l-carle/zero-dark-thirty-torture_b_2395939.html
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Google just announced that the Hyundai Motor Company, the corporation behind the Hyundai and Kia car brands, will integrate Google Maps and Places into its telematics systems. Both Hyundai's Blue Link and Kia's second-generation UVO eServices will soon give drivers access to Google Maps and Google Places.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/LJsDOzkbYUE/
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BAGHDAD (AP) ? Two separate bombings south of Baghdad killed 10 people and wounded another 24 on Monday, Iraqi officials said ? the latest apparent attacks by militants aimed at undermining security and confidence in the government.
The deadliest attack was in the town of Musayyib some 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of the capital, where militants planted bombs around two houses, one belonging to a police officer. Two women and two children aged 11 and 14 years old along with three men were killed, while three others were wounded in the pre-dawn blasts, a police officer said.
In the city of Hillah, a parked car bomb exploded in a busy street where local government offices are located, killing three people and wounding 21, another police officer said. He said some Shiite pilgrims were there making their way to the nearby city of Karbala to mark the 7th century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein.
He didn't say how many pilgrims were among the casualties. Hillah is about 95 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad.
Two doctors confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.
Although violence has ebbed since the height of the insurgency in the past, some groups presumed to be primarily Sunni extremists are still able to launch lethal attacks nationwide against government officials or civilians.
Shiite pilgrims are one of their favorite targets. Each year, hundreds of thousands converge on the southern city of Karbala where the Imam Hussein is buried. Many travel on foot and the mass gatherings are frequently attacked despite tight security.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-10-people-killed-attacks-south-baghdad-104345446.html
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