Slashdot Mirror

Frozen vegetables can be more nutrient rich than fresh, especially if the fresh vegetables were flown in from another country or stored in a warehouse before making it to the supermarket.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2902223.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_vegetables
http://www.livestrong.com/article/71064-fresh-versus-frozen-produce-which-healthier/

Actually, Wikileaks simply stole somebody else's report, reformatted it, and published it on their website as their own work.

Wikileaks won an award from Amnesty, for that.

The guys who actually did the hard work? Well, they got murdered.

You would think that any journalist who is writing an article about something being imaged would also include the picture:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17156036

Here's the link to the actual article with more pictures:

http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2012.20.html

Here's the article:
Imaging the charge distribution within a single molecule
Fabian Mohn, Leo Gross, Nikolaj Moll & Gerhard Meyer
Nature Nanotechnology (2012) doi:10.1038/nnano.2012.20

It's lazy journalists who couldn't do 2 minutes of Googling who are killing journalism, not the Internet or Online Publishing!

At least one pic here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17156036

They could move to Las Vegas! They have plenty of ... Wait http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4719473.stm No, they shouldn't go to Las Vegas.

"Right now, 6,000 people a month are moving to this valley because the weather is good, the taxes are low and there are plenty of jobs," she said.
Mr Van Ee laments that the town he arrived in some 20 years ago is now the fastest growing urban area in the country.
- Friday, 29 July 2005

Little did they know a couple years later their urban expansion problems would be solved. Who says Las Vegas isn't lucky :)

They could move to Las Vegas! They have plenty of ... Wait http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4719473.stm No, they shouldn't go to Las Vegas.

You are right riverrat1, the graph ended in 2000, it wasn't a prediction, thanks for that. Still, what does the name of the IPCC have to do with any of my questions? Why change the name? I'll tell you why, because since 1995, the world has not been warming, yet carbon emissions have continued to rise.

The BBC picked up some good examples a few years ago.

To my mind these actions cited as being a good use of ASBO's are (or should be) illegal. Why not prosecute these offenders for offenses such as vandalism and disturbing the peace, instead of bypassing due process.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4406129.stm

it is known as double jeopardy...and it does not apply in the UK anymore...at least according to this(quick google search)

The point of an ASBO is that magistrates can basically make up a law on the spot and announce that it applies to just a few people.

In theory, it's meant to deal with small numbers - maybe as few as one - of people that are known to cause trouble by making it illegal for them to do things that would normally be perfectly OK because most people would be able to apply some common sense - but in their case aren't. Essentially it gives some flexibility when you've got someone who's discovered a way of persistently annoying people but can usually stay on the right side of the law. The BBC picked up some good examples a few years ago.

Critics have pointed out that it's absolutely ripe for abuse.

You are correct - any time an article appears on any mainstream blog or newssite about anything remotely related to AGW or CAGW etc, the hordes of deniers pounce to try and corrupt popular support to their twisted minority view, then move on to the next. They appear to be highly organised.

On forums that support comment voting, messages that you and I would deem to be rational and common-sense will quickly get a wildly disproportionate negative score if it appears to contain any whiff of truth supporting the reality.

Good example of this here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17126699 swamped by some recognisable WUWT followers.

Almost as if they just exist to trash the science. I can see through it, but the average Joe probably can't.

Scientists by and large are rational and analytical people, passionate about their work and motivated by discovering answers to the problems they investigate - the rewards of discovering the truth of a mechanism or process, or creating something new are intrinsic. Financial reward is very much secondary. I suspect that they don't easily comprehend that other kinds of people don't, won't or can't see the world in the same way, that have belief systems not based on logic and are able to selectively deny evidence if it doesn't support their agenda - I guess all sides can be guilty of this to some degree, but AGW denial is getting particularly nasty, and especially sad that Republican politicians seem to be abandoning their duty and disowning GW in order to win votes. Nature doesn't respect party divides - ask King Canute.

There are a few activists that care enough to try and counter the denialists threat, but they are outnumbered. The average guy doesn't feel as compelled to act as the sockpuppets, perhaps they are busy dealing with more immediate worries of paying the bills, but after all, their futures are also at stake, which is a teensy weensy bit more important that the short term profits of those with an interest in seeing that Humanity doesn't do the right thing and transform to a sustainable future.

The BBC has an article up which shows the breakdown of nominations by genre:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17074585

Sci-Fi does seem to be one of the smaller genres by nominations.

However, does it really matter? I know I stopped reading critics reviews of movies decades ago, because largely they all review from a particular viewpoint. A more action/sci-fi/fantasy film may not be up for winning an oscar, but if it does it's job (ie entertains) then its genre shouldn't be held against it. As such I'll only read reviews of films which are penned by people interested in that genre and the film's objective.

These are commonly called 'copyright traps' or 'fictitious entries'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry

Last year Google did a similar thing to Microsoft - by placing meaningless entries in their database - when they suspected Bing was copying their search results.

Australian executive charged in China with embezzlement

And who just happen to be ethnic Chinese citizens of other countries...

There's countless millions of pre-industrial people alive today. Do they commonly exhibit this behavior? You don't need to dig through medieval diaries when there are humans alive now who exist at varied levels of social and technological development. I'm more interested how agrarian and hunter-gatherer societies treat sleep today than urban Europeans a few hundred years ago. Urban Europeans have always engaged in bizarre activities.

The account I read http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783 mentioned an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria.

iPlayer does stream live content. Pick a channel on the left hand side at http://bbc.co.uk/iplayer and you'll see the very top of the list is marked "Watch Live". You need a TV license to watch live streamed TV via iPlayer as stated at http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/playing_tv_progs/tvlicence.

I don't watch live shows on iPlayer; I only every use it because the shows I want to watch are on at inconvenient times.

iPlayer does stream live content. Pick a channel on the left hand side at http://bbc.co.uk/iplayer and you'll see the very top of the list is marked "Watch Live". You need a TV license to watch live streamed TV via iPlayer as stated at http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/playing_tv_progs/tvlicence.

I don't watch live shows on iPlayer; I only every use it because the shows I want to watch are on at inconvenient times.

You don't need a time machine, just a plane ticket and some money. Buying brides is still common practice in certain places of the world.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4862434.stm

I'm a little worried that you know of such things.

You don't need a time machine, just a plane ticket and some money. Buying brides is still common practice in certain places of the world.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4862434.stm

http://www.csvr.org.za/wits/papers/paplvsl.htm - Africa rape culture
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8107039.stm - Rape is common and expected
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31835572/ns/world_news-africa/t/rape-culture-condemned-south-africa/ - Rape is a culture there.

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/aids-virgins.htm -- how some africans believe the yunger the rape victim the more potent the cure to AIDS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misconceptions_about_HIV_and_AIDS -- even more about this nutty belief.

Everyone that modded him down is a head in the sand idiot. Africa is a Nasty Horrible place for women. it's flat out hell.

I've often wondered what happens to all the 7.62mm that gets fired in intimidation/celebration in Africa and the Middle East.

They kill people.

PETA is currently trying to get the 13th amendment to be applied in the case of five killer whales held by SeaWorld.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16920866

Yes, PETA is trying to get antislavery law to be applied against animals, which if successful will seriously change everything...

I think they're wrong with the killer whales, but if you're talking about dolphins and chimpanzees, they may have a stronger argument. The latter two species are probably much closer to what we could sentience than most other species out there, and if they want to make a case they'd be wiser to start there.

Thinking of it as "human rights" will lead to all sorts of problems if we ever get 'real' AI or discover aliens (or genetically engineer some animals a la The Uplift War). (Or maybe I've simply absorbed too much sci-fi. :)

45% is the national average. In some areas it's 80% (That article points out that the national figures for Iceland, Finland and Slovakia are 70%-80%)

It's a good idea - if your population is educated, then they are likely to be more productive, higher earners, less likely to be reliant on benefits etc.

45% is the national average. In some areas it's 80% (That article points out that the national figures for Iceland, Finland and Slovakia are 70%-80%)

It's a good idea - if your population is educated, then they are likely to be more productive, higher earners, less likely to be reliant on benefits etc.

PETA is currently trying to get the 13th amendment to be applied in the case of five killer whales held by SeaWorld.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16920866

Yes, PETA is trying to get antislavery law to be applied against animals, which if successful will seriously change everything...

WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR WORLD??

Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser
Most UK Muslims will vote Labour
British Muslims recruited to fight for 'al-Qaeda' in Somalia
Hate preacher: One day we will stone adulterers
Sharia: a law unto itself?
'Record rise' in UK anti-Semitism
Assimilation’s Failure, Terrorism’s Rise
U.K. Cuts to Military Will Curb Influence
Iran cuts oil exports to UK and France

Much of Europe is in deep trouble.

The US might avoid the worst of it.... if it can prevent Iran from tossing a nuke at it and the EMP sends life back to 1901. The major European powers were supposed to put a lid on the problem - it didn't work out that way.

Yes, because the UK is famous for its death camps. Oh ... wait ... no it isn't.

Actually, we invented them during the Boar war

Actual death camps tend to not leave any survivors. They fill up, kill everybody, and are filled up again to repeat. At least 75% survived the badly run, cruel camps that the British Army ran in the Boer War.

Africa Imperialism in the dock - the Boer War

The farms of Boers and Africans were destroyed and the Boer inhabitants of the countryside were rounded up and held in concentration camps.

The plight of the Boer women and children in these camps became an international outrage - more than 20,000 died in the carelessly run, unhygienic camps.

The commandos continued their attacks, many of them deep into the Cape Colony, General Jan Smuts leading his forces to within 80km (50 miles) of Cape Town.

But Kitchener's drastic and brutal methods slowly paid off. The Boers had unsuccessfully sued for peace in March 1901; finally, they accepted the loss of their independence by the Peace of Vereeniging.

While certain Afrikaners are calling for an apology from the Queen, Sussex University lecturer Dr Saul Dubow, an expert in modern South African history, told BBC News Online that their demands were "specious".

He said: "Overall, the British were the aggressors, but the primary blame for the deaths in the concentration camps has much more to do with incompetence and lack of medical care than a deliberate attempt to kill.

That is the difference - death camps are intended to kill the occupants, all of them. (Put the citizens of a town on a train, move them to the death camp, kill them. Put the citizens of another town on the train, move them to the camp, kill them. Repeat.) Concentration camps are meant to hold. That doesn't mean that the circumstances of the concentration camp won't result in many deaths due to privation, cruelty, incompetence, and even calculation. The camps were internationally condemned, and rightly so. But nobody should confuse the British concentration camps in South Africa that 75% survived with the extermination / death camps of the Germans in Poland and other places that killed nearly everyone that entered them to the tune of hundreds of thousands of people each.

Extermination camps

The extermination camp Belzec was established in May 1942 and continued to function until August 1943. 600,000 Jews fell victim to the merciless efficiency of the gas chambers at Belzec.

Sobibor also began its terrible business of mass murder in May 1942. The killings continued through October 1943, when an uprising among the prisoners put and end to the activities of the camp. 250,000 lost their lives in Sobibor’s gas chambers.

The extermination camp Treblinka was working from July 1942 to November 1943. In August 1943 an uprising destroyed many of the facilities. 900,000 Jews lost their lives in the terribly efficient extermination camp at Treblinka.

Canadian Boer War veterans look back

Spoken like a person who doesn't understand the complex realities surrounding animal cruelty and animal care. There are plenty of respectable animal shelters that do put animals down. Here's why: some proportion of the animals that are brought in will never, ever be re-homed. For example, around 25% of the dogs brought in to dogs homes are from police seizures of illegal fighting dogs. These dogs have been raised to fight, and used in illegal dog fights. These animals are, and will always be, dangerous. It is just not usually possible to re-home them in a family environment. The larger animal centers get tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of animals in this kind of state every year. Their funding is limited, and they can't afford to house and feed and pay veterinary bills for every animal until it reaches the end of its natural life. At this point there is a difficult choice: a) let the animal starve (obviously cruel) b) kill the animal in a humane way (not nice, but less cruel). The shelters choose option b. It should be no surprise why, even some nation's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have spoken in favour of culling when faced with the alternative of having uncared for animals starve to death.

On a continent that goes apeshit over Genetically Modified and other Bioengineered Crops, it seems unlikely this will gain any traction in the commercial market place, at least not in the EU. On the other hand, the EU may take the stance that since this work was pioneered in the EU, it can't possibly be bad.

Now on Mars, or long space voyages this might have some appeal, especially Mars, where there is a possibility of finding water, thereby eliminating one of the heaviest component of any food product. Although unless making and transporting the necessary equipment and media takes up less room and less weight than a freezer full of hamburger this seems unlikely there as well. Chances are the growth media can be shipped dry as well, and reconstituted with distilled water from any source.

Even if the cost per pound could be brought in line with animal sources, it seems unlikely to be a rational method of food production here on earth, simply because significant portions of the meat supply would be put at risk by a simple power failure, or contaminant in the growth media.

The rest of this story will no doubt be filled with hand wringing posts over the amount of CO2 that cattle produce (something never attributed to Wildebeest herds), and how this will save the earth. The whole concept creates an intellectual conundrum for the Peta crowd. They would love to get animals off the farm, and this method presents a way forward, but having to embrace those huge corporations, and bio-engineering is probably more than they could stomach.

Create a @ Work account, simple

This also means you can easily avoid problems such as this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16338040

Yes. This is the easy answer.
The only other condition of this: I will (and no one should complain) if I don't use my real name but a pseudonym instead. They only "own" me for 8 hours a day and I have a reputation to protect that is built on the remaining 16 hours.

Italians seem to have unique solutions to their economic woes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14774526

Create a @ Work account, simple This also means you can easily avoid problems such as this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16338040

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15734483

In politics, like programming, all problems can be solved by introducing another level of indirection.

Crime commissioner system 'designed by politicians for politicians'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9696000/9696474.stm

Forty-one Police and Crime Commissioners will be elected later this year in areas outside London. Commissioners in the biggest force areas will receive salaries of more than £100,000. Their job includes setting priorities for their police force, overseeing its budget and hiring the chief constable.

The former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott, who is seeking to become Labour candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner in Humberside, said that the role would bring more accountability to strategic planning.

--

I won't post links to the many articles on this topic.

The prevailing trend in Canada seems to be drifting way from scientific research: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16861468

Each time I read a new article about my country, I become more and more ashamed to be Canadian...

* It's actually illegal to so much as rip your purchased CD onto a portable player for convenience in the UK

Not for long, hopefully! Proposed Changes

As one of the talking heads is quoted as saying in the above linked article:

"The review pointed out that if you have a situation where 90% of your population is doing something, then it's not really a very good law,"

A 'rare' and sensible insight! Now let's hope the government can get a move on actually passing it, as a bill, through Parliment.

We don't need to write a sci-fi story about the elderly taking risks to help the young. It's happening right now in real life: Japan pensioners volunteer to tackle nuclear crisis.

*Citation needed* I was raised SDA in Australia, and lived in SDA communities in Cali, strangely enough one centered around Loma Linda University Medical Centre, a very highly regarded hospital. You can bet that everyone in that community got their shots, it was a prerequisite for going to Loma Linda Academy, run by the SDA church.

He might be mixing up SDA and Jehovah's Witnesses, who will refuse blood transfusions.

There are occasionally stories in the news about doctors going to court to overrule the decisions of parents who won't let their children receive a transfusion. Unfortunately this doesn't always happen, such as in the case of a teenager dying in the UK a couple of years ago. However, despite the negative consequences that dogma can have on them and their children, they are rarely referred to a "cult"; this is a recognised religion, with all the protections that the law therefore provides to it.

There's an interesting video on YouTube about faith healing, and specifically the harm that "Christian Scientists" can cause their children by believing that medical science is a myth, and the only true way to heal disease is through prayer. Again this leads to unnecessary suffering and death, both of adults and children. However again this is a recognised religion, protected by law.

Before modding me as “troll”, note that I'm not trying to argue that all religion is evil etc. etc. However, the rights of the individual to practise their own religious beliefs should never be more important than the rights of their children to receive the correct medical care.

BTW, some of these diseases really are quite extinct in the US.

And that's why US children no longer get a smallpox or polio vaccine. When the disease has been eradicated, we don't vaccinate against it anymore. However, the stuff we're still vaccinating for is still kicking, and that's why we still vaccinate for it!

Polio is still alive. There are still outbreaks elsewhere, and it could make a resurgence in the West if we stop vaccinating for it. Unfortunately, there's been recent resistance to the vaccine that's granted the disease a bit of a comeback in Africa; in Nigeria there are local Muslim clerics who accuse it of being a Western plot to sterilise their women.

BTW, some of these diseases really are quite extinct in the US.

And that's why US children no longer get a smallpox or polio vaccine. When the disease has been eradicated, we don't vaccinate against it anymore. However, the stuff we're still vaccinating for is still kicking, and that's why we still vaccinate for it!

Polio is still alive. There are still outbreaks elsewhere, and it could make a resurgence in the West if we stop vaccinating for it. Unfortunately, there's been recent resistance to the vaccine that's granted the disease a bit of a comeback in Africa; in Nigeria there are local Muslim clerics who accuse it of being a Western plot to sterilise their women.

What if I refuse just this one vaccine? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16109424

Now up on the BBC News site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17039722

Obama Said it and its the truth. The rise of ATM's and other kiosh hardware/software are having a detrimental effect on employment. It is only going to get worse. The same thing happened with agriculture and the same thing happened/is happening with manufacturing. As machines take on more ability the need for human workers is decreased. The bank where I go has 10 teller windows in the building and only two tellers working. It was all they needed to take care of the 2-3 people who had to come inside. A lot of people use automatic deposit and debit cards/computers for access to their funds. No people needed.
This is one of the "secret" factors which are causing higher levels of unemployment. It is not all because people dont' want to work or because companies aren't hiring. A lot of positions simply don't esist any more. They have been superseded by technology.
For the record Obama wasn't bemoaning anything. He was simply stating a fact and then followed up with the corrolary. SInce those jobs are gone where are the next jobs coming from and what do people need to know to be employed.
The next big technological hit coming for workers. Automated fast food.
http://news.foodfacts.info/2006/02/automated-ordering-at-taco-bellkfc.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7335351.stm

I think I need to develop the Terrorist Detector 3000. It will just be a plain metallic arch (but a *cool* looking metallic arch). [..] What's more, the Terrorist Detector 3000 will only cost airports $50,000 each, saving them tons of money.

This is oddly reminiscent of something that *actually happened* with the Iraqi government.

What liquid agent is a terrorist going to use to blow up a plane? Napalm? Or just set the plane on fire?

This kind of comment always comes up in these discussions: suggesting that it isn't possible to construct a liquid bomb in a regular drinks bottle by mixing precursor liquids taken through the security checks.

Watch this video on BBC News of a 500ml drinks bottle bomb being detonated in an aircraft. It is possible. The man who built that bomb was Dr. Sidney Alford, an explosives and IED expert who does work for the Ministry of Defence. Here's an article about the liquid bomb. They state that they used 400ml of liquid which could be mixed from individual 100ml bottles. There was even a plot to use this exact method to blow up several aircraft simultaneously over the Atlantic. People were prosecuted and jailed for life for it.

At this point a lot of people refer me to an apparently widely read article at The Register, Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible? which suggests that the plot would not have worked: "But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living." Hmmm. What people missed is that The Register later backpedalled and decided that, Yes, there was a viable liquid bomb plot. The bomb plot that The Register originally ridiculed was a complete strawman - the bombers never intended to make TATP in the toilet of a commercial plane.

They do it in Brussels too. The classical music is played on the Metro there in evenings, during the day they play English language pop (no French or Dutch to avoid antagonising people). I'm not aware of any crime statistics, but a local told me that when they introduced it she did notice a big effect on the groups of youths that used to hang around the stations. The article says something similar about this latest experiment, "Young people quit hanging out at one Portland station 'almost immediately' after classical music began playing, Scruggs said."

They've done this at a few London Underground stations since 2005 and since 2004 on the Tyne and Wear Metro.

In London, the music was played over the existing announcement system's speakers, so it was horribly distorted. Fortunately, it was only around the station entrance, not the actual platforms, so I could wait in peace.

Nonsense, there were Muslim astronomers experimenting with heliocentric models back in the 13th century

Not according to wikipedia :

Nicolaus Copernicus (German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; Italian: Nicolò Copernico; Polish: Mikoaj Kopernik; in his youth, Niclas Koppernigk;[1] 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe.[2]

Unless "comprehensive" is the way to make this statement a technical lie, you're plain wrong.

BTW: my point is not that Christians were the sole caretakers of science, it's that they're the only caretakers that managed not to burn all their scientific knowledge and they also didn't get destroyed (btw : although not a certainty, it is extremely likely that all of the societies that did get destroyed burned their scientific knowledge first. A prime example of this would be the mayans : they possessed relatively advanced astronomic knowledge in their early period that was no longer present in their last period).

Another sidepoint is that muslims, and by that I mean all variants of muslim civilization, except the last one (let's called it "post-colonization islam" to illustrate that it's the one that uses the western (canonical) institutions that were created during colonization) destroyed all their scientific knowledge (and they're still at it). They did not just destroy it, they did so for this reason.

And here is a list of famous scientists of the middle ages, to illustrate how knowledge was really kept.

And while this is less true today due to the massive resources oil use has made available to the human race, making scientific research basically have insignificant budgets, these Catholic orders that did guard science during the dark ages invested huge amounts of their budgets into scientific research, copying books, and all sorts of necessary things ... I wouldn't be surprised if they invested 80% or more of their resources, that could have gone to luxury living, into science.

Today even the tiny science budgets we do allocate (sadly far less than 1% of govt. budgets) pay for a huge amount of research, thanks to oil allowing us to work and live at the scale that we do. But it's pretty obvious what would happen if we lost our abundant energy reserves, and no serious attention is put into it. Except of course, by the aforementioned orders who maintain huge paper libraries, and actually have a plan if funding dries up. Perhaps an illustration for how far this can go, how well it can work, see here.

I would have stopped considering them allies the second it was known that 16 out of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Funny how some of them seem to be alive, and this is what the BBC dug up just a few shorts days after the event.

"Buddhists I agree"

The recently ended Sri Lankan civil war was fought between the Sinhalese Buddhist majority and the Tamil Hindu minority. There have been Buddhist attacks against Muslims as well, e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14926002