toxic love

From: Wookielabs

"Researchers have known for a few years that a rat infected with Toxoplasma loses its natural response to cat urine and no longer fears the smell. And they know that the parasite settles in the rat’s amygdala, the part of the brain that processes fear and emotions. Now a new study in the journal PLoS ONE adds another bizarre piece to the tale:
When male rats infected with Toxoplasma smell cat urine, they have altered activity in the fear part of the brain as well as increased activity in the part of the brain that is responsible for sexual behavior and normally activates after exposure to a female rat." — Smithsonian
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superluminal

Photo: Michael Hale

"The idea that nothing can travel faster than light in a vacuum is the cornerstone of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, which itself forms the foundation of modern physics. If neutrinos are traveling faster than light speed, then one of the most fundamental assumptions of science—that the rules of physics are the same for all observers—would be invalidated. 'If it's true, then it's truly extraordinary,' says John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN. [...]
     The experiment is called OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus), and lies 1,400 meters underground in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy. It is designed to study a beam of neutrinos coming from CERN, Europe's premier high-energy physics laboratory located 730 kilometers away near Geneva, Switzerland.[...]
     'If you give up the speed of light, then the construction of special relativity falls down,' says Antonino Zichichi, a theoretical physicist and emeritus professor at the University of Bologna, Italy. Zichichi speculates that the 'superluminal' neutrinos detected by OPERA could be slipping through extra dimensions in space, as predicted by theories such as string theory."
— Scientific American
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" 'It would be the biggest physics discovery in a century because we'd have to completely revise everything from subatomic physics to what we know about how the universe evolved,' said Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada.
     Einstein's theory of relativity incorporates his crucial idea that the speed of light—about 186,000 miles a second—is a barrier that can't realistically be breached. In the famous equation E=mc² that equates mass with the energy contained within it, for example, the 'c' represents the speed of light. If particles go faster than light, things become troublesome.
     Under such a scenario, an observer in a rocket ship traveling near the speed of light who was watching the Gran Sasso experiment taking place, 'would detect the neutrino before it was emitted—they'd see it going backwards in time,' said Dr. Turok."
— Guatam Naik, The Wall Street Journal
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last/first/last/first

From: Comicvine

"America is far less inclined than many of its rich-world peers to use taxation and redistribution to reduce inequality. The OECD, a think-tank, reckons that taxation eats up a little less than 30% of the average American’s total compensation, compared with nearly 50% in Germany and France. America’s top federal income-tax rate of 35% is lower than in many other advanced economies (although most Americans also pay state taxes). Britain’s top tax rate is 50%. Swedes and Danes acquiesce to tax rates that would outrage many Americans: Sweden’s top rate is 57% and Denmark’s is 55%. Unsurprisingly, the American state is also less generous to the poor. Unemployment benefits in the United States replace a smaller share of income, and run out more quickly, than in most European countries."— The Economist
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"It’s usually assumed that the reason Americans specifically don’t want to see taxes raised on the rich is because, in spite of driving a defunct GM brand four-door, they think of themselves as the 'soon-to-be rich.' But a paper published in the National Journal of Economic Research in July suggests otherwise. They offer that it’s not hoping to be on top that makes us not want the wealthier to be taxed more – it’s the fear of being at the bottom. It’s referred to as 'last-place aversion.' " — Tina Dupuy, Crooks and Liars
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penny wise

" [...] Research indicates that a copper surface is more effective at preventing the spread of germs than stainless steel. Copper has a 2000 year history of antimicrobial applications in a multitude of cultures. More recent research has sought to determine uncoated copper's effectiveness in stemming the proliferation of infectious disease. At the University of Southampton in the U.K. research studies have shown that many common disease causing microbes such as E. coli, Aspergillus niger (black mold) and Influenza A, die within hours on copper surfaces. The Influenza A family of viruses includes the problematic Avian flu and swine flu strains and copper can help contain a flu. Even deadly antibiotic resistant bacteria associated with infections such as MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) die within 1.5 hours on pure copper. On stainless steel and plastics, typically used for food-processing hardware, pathogens survived unabated for days, sometimes more than 30 days. There is enough solid evidence to put man’s oldest metal to work throughout the world to help protect us from infectious disease. Tested copper alloys, such as brass or bronze also offer increased protection versus non-copper containing materials such as stainless steel, wood and plastics, although not nearly as effective as pure copper surfaces." — Bukisa
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" [...] Extensive laboratory tests have demonstrated copper's antimicrobial efficacy against key organisms responsible for these infections, and clinical trials around the world are now reporting on its efficacy in busy, real-world environments. [...] The latest trial -- conducted in intensive care units at three facilities in the United States -- has shown that the use of antimicrobial copper surfaces in intensive care unit rooms resulted in a 40.4% reduction in the risk of acquiring a hospital infection." —Science Daily
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by the bootstraps

The Conjurer by Hieronymus Bosch (from: Wikimedia Commons)

"[...] So let's recap: an out-of-control and increasingly unregulated financial industry causes the greatest economic crash since the Great Depression through greed and irresponsible leverage, and then gets bailed out by taxpayers around the world. In the U.S., this is coupled with tax cuts disproportionately benefiting the same irresponsible 'investors' that sent the economy into a tailspin.
     The subsequent recession drives government deficits sky high due to lack of growth and lack of tax revenue, even as the financial industry that caused the mess rebounds to record profitability on the backs of ordinary citizens suffering in deep recessionary conditions.[...]
     When historians write about this period, it will be in terms of amazement at the collective hysteria of elite intelligentsia, combined with shock at the ruthlessness of the titan financiers and the all-too-easy cowing of once proud nations. [...]
     If, that is, there are any historians left by the time the social consequences of all this destruction are finally played out." — David Atkins, Hullabaloo
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objects foreign and domestic

From: Reanimation Library

“When the patient was asked if he himself had introduced the candle into the urethra, he reluctantly admitted that two days previously, while drunk, he had had intercourse with a prostitute whom he could not pay. She in her anger had inserted the candle while he was asleep.”
— Improbable Research
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"The clergyman, in his 50s, told nurses he had been hanging curtains when he fell backwards on to his kitchen table. He happened to be nude at the time of the mishap, said the vicar, who insisted he had not been playing a sex game. The vicar had to undergo a delicate operation to extract the vegetable, one of a range of odd items medics in Sheffield have had to remove from people’s backsides or genitals." — Regretful Morning
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"Suppositories and pessaries in those early days were made with such vehicles or excipients as (1) oils and fats, (2) gums and resins, and (3) honey. Suppositories frequently encased a piece of soft, old linen, which enabled the undissolved mass to be withdrawn. These now have their equivalent in the linted suppository and the Watson-Cheyne bougie. All these forms of medication dropped out of use, at least in good practice, during the eighteenth century."— Chest of Books
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blink, blinkered, blinkereder

Photo: Michael Hale

"Surprise, surprise. Demand creates jobs. Austerity kills jobs. If consumers don't have money to spend, eventually the system seizes up and even well-insulated multinational firms take a hit. So Wall St. is taking up vain hope that the Fed will use more 'quantitative easing' to funnel money into the financial sector, to offset the austerity measures that Washington delightfully put in place in the middle of a recession, to prevent the discredited ratings agencies from maybe saying some mean things.
     The denizens of Wall St. must be the most short-sighted people on the planet. They've bought our government wholesale and gotten just about everything they've asked for. They've played Republicans and Democrats off of one another, encouraging neoliberal economic policy, free trade, bank bailouts, and then a hoodwinked Tea Party movement to stand up to Democrats just in case they might consider raises taxes even ever so slightly on the rich.
     What they've gotten for their trouble is a deadlocked government divided between far-right and center-right with a few mostly powerless center-left and progressives sprinkled in. A government that cannot even begin to function properly, has effectively hollowed out the American middle class, made investment in the future nearly impossible, and is ultimately very bad for business."— David Atkins, thereisnospoon
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