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By Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar
$ 19.77
By David K. Shipler
$23
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AP photo / Henny Ray Abrams
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By Chris Hedges — Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good.
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A devastating and growing problem is explored in Michael Paul Mason’s riveting new book, “Head Cases.”
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Composite: communicationcorner.com/wikimedia
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What on earth was John McCain referring to during Tuesday’s debate when he kept bringing up that mysterious “$3 million overhead projector” that Barack Obama ostensibly supported in Chicago?
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grizzlybay.org
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After years of looking to energy profits instead of science, Sarah Palin has finally accepted the argument that human activity has led to an increase in global warming. Palin now says, “I believe that man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change.”
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So what was with all of the invocations of the deity at last week’s Democratic National Convention? Stephen Colbert talks about the Dems’ public displays of piety with Lori Lippman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition for America, producing another kind of sacred text to take the Bible’s place as he swears Brown in for her “Colbert Report” testimonial.
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Wikimedia Commons / Ansgar Walk
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Not only is George W. Bush’s secretary of the interior trying to rewrite endangered species protections, he also appears to be tuning out public input, which is required by law. Scientists and activists from more than 100 environmental groups have signed a petition demanding a longer, more democratic hearing before environmental protection goes the way of the icecaps.
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shinyshiny.tv
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The infiltration of American universities by the military is nothing new, but this is: Scientists at UC Berkeley are zeroing in on a way to render people and inanimate objects—which could include weapons and combat vehicles—invisible.
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NASA / JPL-Caltech/University Arizona/Texas A&M University
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For the first time, NASA has captured and is analyzing a sample of actual Martian water, which was collected by the Phoenix lander. It will take some weeks to fully process the data and determine whether the Red Planet could ever have supported life, but it’s a promising development for scientists and space nuts alike.
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By Ellen Goodman — Let me begin by raising a glass of champagne to the official closing of the math gap. It turns out that girls do not lack the math gene. Nor are they math-phobic. Nor is there any “intrinsic” difference—thank you, Larry Summers—between the abilities of girls and boys to succeed in the numbers business.
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Mr. Fish
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The renowned author sits down with Truthdig literary editor Steve Wasserman to tell stories about his books, the many loves of his life—including dinosaurs and Halloween—and his own starring role in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise to fame.
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science-ed.pnl.gov
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Debates about gender equality in the sciences are nothing new, but now the stakes may be higher for universities with science funding from the federal government to prove that sexual discrimination isn’t present in their departments. Title IX isn’t just for sports anymore.
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commons.wikimedia.org / NASA
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A former EPA official alleged Tuesday that the vice president’s office influenced congressional testimony about the public health effects of climate change. Last October, it was revealed that six of 14 pages of the proposed testimony of the director of the Centers for Disease Control were deleted because so many references to global warming had been cut.
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AP photo / Henry Arvidsson / United Nations
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As a former U.N. weapons inspector, Scott Ritter knows a thing or two about nuclear threats around the world. So when so-called experts go on television or appear in print to help make the case for war with Iran, it gets his attention.
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Here’s a story, both chilling and inspiring: how prisoners at an Oklahoma prison in the aftermath of the Depression led a struggle to limit the practice of compulsory sterilization.
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NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
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For seven agonizing minutes, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had no idea if the $420 million and countless hours invested in the Phoenix Mars Lander would amount to more than a black spot on the Red Planet. Ultimately the mobile laboratory was able to dodge the 50 percent failure rate for Mars landings and beam back a few snapshots to prove it arrived safely in the northern polar region.
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nasa.gov
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The pope’s chief astronomer has written an article in the Vatican newspaper that argues that intelligent beings “created by God could exist in outer space.” The article, “Aliens Are My Brother,” is likely a move by the Vatican to strengthen its scientific credentials, bringing science and religion closer while maintaining papal control over the entire universe.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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By Chris Hedges — The New Atheist writers from Richard Dawkins to E.O. Wilson to Sam Harris have become the high priests not of science but the cult of science.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Health nuts, take heed: A sweeping review of almost 70 scientific studies of the health benefits of vitamins and, in particular, those trendy antioxidants, has found “no convincing evidence” of increased lifespan. In fact, vitamins A, E and beta-carotene could even increase a person’s chances of dying prematurely, according to scientists at Copenhagen University.
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By Marie Cocco — The latest plot twists are stunners, even as they unfold against the scandalous backdrop of the Bush administration’s sorry regulatory record.
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AP photos / left: Gautam Singh / right: Uwe Lein
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By Chris Hedges — The battle under way in America is not a battle between religion and science. It is a battle between religious and secular fundamentalists. It is a battle between two groups intoxicated with the utopian and magical belief that humankind can perfect itself and master its destiny.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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A prominent Antarctic scientist says a large ice shelf is disintegrating much faster than he predicted. In fact, it’s “hanging by a thread,” according to David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey. The concern over melting ice shelves has to do with the tremendous amount of water they store. The more they melt, the more sea level rises.
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epp-ed.eu
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A California senator is working to push a bill through the state’s legislative channels that would make global warming a required study topic in California public schools, but detractors maintain that the science behind Sen. Joe Simitian’s proposed academic addition is unclear.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Nobel Prize-winning biologist David Baltimore has told his peers that researchers are no closer to discovering an HIV vaccine after decades of study. He called for new approaches and said the challenge was difficult because “to control HIV immunologically the scientific community has to beat out nature, do something that nature, with its advantage of four billion years of evolution, has not been able to do.”
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By Ellen Goodman — Remember when eating was an art, not a science? Remember when food wasn’t medicine? Remember when food didn’t need to be defended? ... Remember the good old days?
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By Eugene Robinson — On April 2, 2002, the Los Angeles Dodgers played a home game against the San Francisco Giants, raising the question: If both pitcher and batter are artificially enhanced, does that level the playing field?
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By Eugene Robinson — Is the thought of him as president just vaguely scary? Or have we learned enough about the man that we should be hair-on-fire alarmed at the prospect, still pretty remote, that he could actually win?
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By Amy Goodman — Fires rage through Southern California. Massive rainstorms drench New Orleans. The Southeast is in the midst of what could be the worst drought on record there. Atlanta could run out of water. What links these crises? Global warming.
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By Will Durst — Funnyman Durst sends up the absurd criticism of Al Gore and the Nobel Prize. Why stop at global warming when there’s plenty in the world of science and nature to deny?
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Russian officials say they have proof to back up Moscow’s claim to the north pole—and nearly half a million square miles of neutral Arctic territory—but don’t expect Denmark, Canada and the U.S. to go down without a fight. It’s all part of a nakedly opportunistic attempt to cash in on energy resources made available by global warming and melting ice caps.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Roughly 600 Peruvian townspeople are suffering a variety of ailments, from headaches to vomiting, after visiting the crash site of a mysterious fireball that fell from the heavens. Scientists are en route to analyze the object, which they believe is simply a meteorite.
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spmedia.canada.com
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The Blacksmith Institute, a U.S.-based environmental group, has identified the 10 most polluted places on the planet. Cities in Russia, China, India, Zambia, Peru, the Ukraine and Azerbaijan made the list, which focuses on the impact pollution has on the local population.
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iflipflop.com
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More and more troops are coming home from Iraq with brain damage, the result of repeated exposure to explosions, and doctors are having a difficult time keeping up. For many, the damage causes problems experts have never seen before and aren’t sure how to treat.
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Now seems as good a time as any to revisit the genius of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator.” In this climactic scene, Chaplin rails against the menace of war and hopes for a world where people actually care about each other.
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jwharrison.com
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The Yangtze river dolphin was thought to be extinct, a victim of China’s explosive economic growth and environmental negligence, but one of the baiji, as the animal is known, was just caught on tape—alive and well.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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A team of British scientists has developed a short-term, 10-year projection of the climate crisis—that’s short-term because most global-warming models work with centuries. And, yes, their findings indicate it will continue to get hotter through the next decade.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Russia is launching an underwater expedition to the North Pole in order to back up its claim to a massive section of the Arctic, which may contain vast energy reserves. “The Arctic is ours and we should demonstrate our presence,” said a Russian parliamentarian and explorer who will participate in the flag-planting expedition.
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lajerga.com
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Finally, a gender-focused study that doesn’t fall prey to the hidden gender biases of its research team (a phenomenon that occurs all too frequently in concordance with a little-known, but often operative, adjunct to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle).
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While it may be frowned upon to discuss the weather, in this age of global warming it’s worth noting that the current heat wave is expected to break records throughout the western United States. Boise, Idaho, for instance, is about to be 6 degrees hotter than ever, while the town of Baker, Calif., which conveniently possesses a 134-foot-tall thermometer, recently topped off at 125 degrees. Can the ice caps be far behind?
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wulfweard.blog.co.uk
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While many schools continue to move toward abstinence-only (aka “keep your fingers crossed”) sex education, some communities are fighting for more candid and honest curricula. A Maryland school district, for example, just won the right to teach middle and high schoolers about homosexuality and the proper use of condoms.
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Popular Mechanics probes the former vice president about his newly green home, his new concert series and the future of ethanol.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Egyptologists have discovered what they believe to be the 3,000-year-old remains of Egypt’s most powerful female ruler, Hatshepsut. The original wicked stepmother, Hatshepsut usurped the throne from her stepson, who probably retaliated after her reign by trying to obliterate any record of her.
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By Ellen Goodman — With the stem cell debate, scientists once again have to negotiate the political gauntlet, where every breakthrough is met by an ill-informed stump speech.
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By Eugene Robinson — Al Gore has been in town launching his new book, “The Assault on Reason,” and you could have predicted the buzz: Is he about to jump into the race? What you probably wouldn’t have predicted, because it’s insane, is the counterbuzz—that Gore, poor fellow, is just too ostentatiously smart to be elected president.
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It could happen. The most alarming difference between the Democratic and Republican debates would have to be the response to this question: “Is there anyone on this stage ... that does not believe in evolution?” Three hands shot up.
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eso.org
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A team of scientists has discovered what could be the first habitable planet outside the solar system. More information is needed before an accurate assessment can be made, but researchers have suggested that planet 581c has a temperature range of between 32 and 104 degrees, and could contain vast quantities of liquid water.
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greenpeace.org
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that the climate crisis could afflict billions of people, especially the poor, with food and water shortages, drought and flooding. “For the first time, we are no longer arm-waving with models; this is empirical data,” explained one of the panel’s leading scientists.
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utexas.edu
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Polar ice experts warned Wednesday that a Texas-size block of ice in the Antarctic has thinned surprisingly fast. The Amundsen Sea Embayment contains enough water to elevate sea levels worldwide nearly 20 feet.
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AP Photo / Ed Reinke
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By Chris Hedges — If the Christian right succeeds in legitimizing creation “science,” it will strike a critical blow against the basic principles that make our society work.
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