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POPSGood bye Gene, Hello Dene “What makes DNA a living molecule is the dynamics of it, and a dynamic vocabulary would be helpful,” she said. “I talk about trying to verb biology.” And to renoun it as well. Writing last year in the journal PloS One, Dr. Keller and David Harel of the Weizmann Institute of Science suggested as an alternative to gene the word dene, which they said could be used to connote any DNA sequence that plays a role in the cell. So far, Dr. Keller admits, it has yet to catch on.
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POPSThe Night We Waved Goodbye To America... . . . . . . . . .our last best hope on Earth. . . . . . . Great article from Peter Hitchens @mail Online There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy. They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world. Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.
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POPSPoverty and the Brain "The point is that poverty isn't just an idea, or a state of mind: it actually warps the mind. Some brains never even have a chance." deserves a second thought
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POPSAsking ‘Why Do Species Go Extinct?’ 
A. In 1978, I went to Hawaii, supposedly a tropical paradise. I am an enthusiastic birder, and I looked forward to getting into the lush forest to view the abundant flora and fauna the islands were famous for. Here you had this rich island chain, out in the midst of the Pacific, full of wondrous birds and plants — a place supposedly richer in natural diversity than even the Galápagos. I had brought with me field guides to the fauna and flora, all published in the early 1970s. Yet once in the Hawaiian forest, I had a shock: my books were listing species that were extinct — or about to become so. I was in the forest six days a week and I kept thinking, “If I give it enough time, I’ll certainly see most of the species still left.” But I saw very little. In fact, in Hawaii today, I’d say there are only about 10 remaining native land bird species, with another 10 clinging to survival. So suddenly this extinction business seemed very real. Whenever you’d meet biologists over coffee, th
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POPSStephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press
Great stuff. The printing press was the world's first mass-production machine. Its invention in the 1450s changed the world as dramatically as splitting the atom or sending men into space, sparking a cultural revolution that shaped the modern age. It is the machine that made us who we are today. Stephen…travels to France and Germany on the trail of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press…Along the way he discovers the lengths Gutenberg went to keep his project secret, explores the role of avaricious investors and unscrupulous competitors, and discovers why printing mattered so much in medieval Europe. But to really understand the man and his machine, Stephen gets his hands dirty - assembling a team of craftsmen and helping them build a working replica of Gutenberg's original press. He learns how to make paper the 15th-century way and works as an apprentice in a metal foundry in preparation for the experiment to put the replica press through its paces.
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POPSBanned Book - Bunny Suicides The book is f-ing hilarious in that glorious way black humor is. The fact that one parent thinks she can decide for a community what will be on its library shelf is maddening.
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POPSAlaskan Gothic On the other side of this increasingly connected world, tens of millions of Bristol's and Levi's generation in Asia are staying in school for their advanced degrees in engineering and sciences in part because someone taught them which is the business end of a condom. The children of Palin's America are prepared only to be the drones for the Asian century or cannon fodder for a futile struggle against it. And McCain endorses that message.
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POPSBook Art Some of these have been clipped before but most are new to me.
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POPSOld Blighty, the birthplace of English "Collins' editors know that old words die hard — and that some people will vilipend (regard with contempt) any execution without a fair trial. So they've offered the chance of a reprieve. They have made public 24 words that face deletion because editors could find no example of their use in their database of English-language books, newspapers, broadcasts and other media. If, by February 2009, a word reappears in that database with at least six "high quality" citations, it could be spared from the semantic dustbin. "We're looking to see if dropping a little stone in the pond of language actually does generate ripples," says Brookes."
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POPS" I am Joe Six-Pack. I am not who they think that they are talking to. Are you?" More: Joe is the guy I worked with who served in Vietnam, worked construction, had four kids, thought Portland micro-brews were for hippies and weirdos -- and told me one day about having to change churches, because "our pastor spends all his time talking about how bad the gays are, and I go to church for God, and I really don't think God cares who you sleep with or who you marry." Oh, and he went back to school at 45 to get a degree in architecture, so I guess he won't be Joe Six-Pack soon. His income will put him into that Better Class of People y'all think you're part of. Joe is a writer or an actor or an artist who waits tables, pumps gas, shelves books, does landscaping, delivers pizza, scrubs toilets, and otherwise works his or her ass off all day or night to pay the mortgage so they can continue to write or act or make art.
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POPSMore Evidence of Sanctified Civil Liberty Violations
Border Agents are now allowed to search you and your car and belongings without evidence or suspicion of wrong doing. They can make copies of anything you have in your possession including laptops, cell phones, personal papers, diaries, date books, etc. What they do with this information ends up on government databases to be added to your very own file which, of course, you cannot access but every law enforcement agency across the country can, with or without a valid reason. If citizens were not aware that there are unethical individuals in law enforcement and scattered throughout the government who can access these files, and if we did not know that files get ‘lost’, and if we were not aware that computer files get hacked into, why would we worry? But these things have all become reality and pervasive. First Amendment rights are one of the last protections we Americans have against this government becoming a Fascist state. And since George W Bush was first elected, his gan
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POPSNaomi Wolf discusses her new book "Give Me Liberty" In her previous book The End of America , wolf discusses how American democracy itself is being slowly dismantled from within by the Bush regime. Her new book, Give Me Liberty , is about what we as citizens can do to prevent the shadow of authoritarianism in America.
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POPSThe Genetic Early Adopters Knome is at the forefront of the push toward so-called personalized medicine. Scientists and physicians hope that when sequencing costs come down enough, genetic analysis will become a ubiquitous part of health care, helping doctors choose the best treatments for a specific patient, or helping individuals take steps to prevent diseases for which they are at risk.
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POPSFalse Internet Claims And Rumors Debunked: FactCheck.org
A few of these claims were included in a chain e-mail by a woman named Anne Kilkenny. We'll be looking into other charges in that e-mail for a future story. For more explanation of the bullet points above, please read the Analysis. CNN's Soledad O'Brien made the claim on Sept. 4 Palin slashed the special education budget: She tripled the funding per-pupil. One false rumor accuses then-Mayor Palin of threatening to fire Wasilla’s librarian for refusing to ban books from the town library. Some versions of the rumor come complete with a list of the books that Palin allegedly attempted to ban. The story is false on several fronts: Palin was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party – which calls for a vote on whether Alaska should secede from the union or remain a state – despite mistaken reports to the contrary. But her husband was a member for years, and she attended at least one party convention, as mayor of the town in which it was held.
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POPS"Artwork inspired by the mysteries and marvels of science." wonderful images "I am often very inspired by science - books on popular science and maths, documentaries, and of course rubbish sci fi films. Here is some of the artwork inspired by the mysteries and marvels of science." The wonderful image is an original drawing by the artist Masonic Boom, aka Kate St.Claire, as part of her series of "science"
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POPSCorporate Welfare End the corporate welfare, close up the loopholes, subsidies, and the offshore enabling, and it might be feasible to lower corporate taxes to between 15 and 25 percent, on the record. Not that most don't pay this percent now...
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POPSScribd - online publishing One of early problems Scribd encountered was that there was no good format for displaying its documents, as formats like PDF, Microsoft Word, and PowerPoint were designed before the Internet existed. In response, Scribd created iPaper, the first document format built for the web. Like YouTube's player did for video formats, iPaper standardizes all document formats into one viewer that can be seamlessly integrated into webpages. Recognizing the value of this technology, Scribd released the Scribd Platform, which allows any website to use iPaper to display their documents.
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POPSThis is the Reality of the so-called Surge Success--despair I wonder if 'Merrikans who supported this war and occupation ever really understand what the USA has done to Iraqi PEOPLE? And Afghani People. What a disgrace we are--'Merrikans should be deeply ashamed. Is this what you would call a victorious war that solved anything, Willhelm?
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