n2doc

n2doc's Journal

April 21, 2016

Students have no ‘right’ to quality education, CA state court rules

A divided state appeals court ruled Wednesday that California’s anemic level of school funding does not violate students’ constitutional right to an education of “some quality” because no such right exists.

The 2-1 decision by the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco upheld a judge’s dismissal of a suit filed by some of the state’s major participants in public education — school boards and administrators, the California Teachers Association and State PTA, and nine school districts, including San Francisco and Alameda. The plaintiffs argued that a state that trails nearly every other state in per-pupil spending, staffing and student achievement violates California’s 1879 constitutional guarantee of a school system that encourages “the promotion of intellectual ... improvement.”

Similar suits have been filed in other states, and a majority have been successful, with courts in at least six states finding that their school finance systems violated students’ rights. Last year, the Washington state Supreme Court held its Legislature in contempt for failing to increase funding and imposed a fine of $100,000 a day, which is still in effect.

But the San Francisco court said the right to a public education, guaranteed by the California Constitution, does not include a right to any particular level of educational quality or funding.

more
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Court-California-students-have-no-right-to-7278567.php

How nice of them to clarify this for the proles

April 21, 2016

What a Looming Patent War Could Mean for the Future of the Marijuana Industry

By Greg Walters

On August 4, 2015, US officials quietly made history by approving the first-ever patent for a plant containing significant amounts of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, according to the patent's holders, their lawyers, and outside experts in intellectual property law.

Patent No. 9095554, issued to a group of breeders in California, "relates to specialty cannabis plants, compositions and methods for making and using said cannabis plants and compositions derived thereof," according to the 145-page document, which is filled with charts, graphs, and reams of scientific jargon describing a range of hybrid strains with distinctive ratios of cannabinoids.

"There is a real need for cannabis varieties for potential medical use that produce modulated THC concentrations and varying concentrations of other pharmacologically active substances," the patent says. "There is also a need for healthier cannabis for recreational use with reduced negative side effects from THC. The inventions described herein meet that long-felt need."

But while the patent may inaugurate a new era of acceptance for marijuana in the US, it also opens up a new source of turmoil for the fast-growing industry: disputes over the intellectual property rights to America's most potent and innovative marijuana strains.

"It's going to be a mess," said Tim Blake, a longtime grower and activist who founded California's annual Emerald Cup cannabis competition. Marijuana growers developing new varieties, he added, "are going to have to spend a lot of money on attorneys."

more
https://news.vice.com/article/a-patent-for-cannabis-plants-is-already-a-reality-and-more-are-expected-to-follow

April 21, 2016

Scientists are studying what made Queen singer Freddie Mercury's voice so amazing and unique

In a new scientific study, researchers conducted acoustical analysis of Queen singer Freddie Mercury's singing voice. While he spoke in a baritone voice, Mercury had a tremendous singing range. But his real vocal superpowers were a rather unique vibrato combined with his ability to use subharmonics, like a Tuvan throat singer. The Austrian, Czech, and Swedish scientists report on their research in the journal Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology.

"Perceptually, Freddie Mercury's irregular (and typically faster) vibrato is clearly audible in the sustained notes of famous songs such as 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (A Night at the Opera) or 'We Are the Champions' (News of the World), and it appears to be one of the hallmarks of his vocal style," they wrote.

In other Mercury news, a notebook containing some of his last lyrics will be auctioned off at Bonham's in June. It's estimated to go for £50,000-£70,000.

http://boingboing.net/2016/04/20/scientists-study-queen-singer.html

April 21, 2016

Meet Fran Drozdz, the 72-year-old who finished Boston Marathon after 9 hours

BY LISA GUTIERREZ

It took Fran Drozdz so long to finish Monday’s 26.2-mile Boston Marathon that her husband panicked - and called the police.

Her husband, Stan, has cancer for the third time. She completed the race for cancer patients like him, running with a charity team of more than 550 others that raised money for Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

She is a cancer survivor, too.

Drozdz - aka “Thunder Thighs” - has run more than 75 marathons, at least one in every state, according to The Huffington Post.

She started running marathons at age 36 in Hawaii, where her husband was stationed as a pilot with the U.S. Air Force, she told her hometown newspaper in Arizona, the West Valley View.

She’d never run Boston before. “It was the people who were so wonderful,” she gushed to The Boston Herald about the legendary race.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article72737892.html#storylink=cpy

April 20, 2016

After North Carolina’s Law, Trans Suicide Hotline Calls Double

Anti-transgender bathroom laws like North Carolina’s HB 2 are not just inconvenient for transgender people. They may also be life-threatening.

Greta Gustava Martela, co-founder of Trans Lifeline, a crisis hotline for transgender people, told The Daily Beast that their call volume has “nearly doubled” since North Carolina restricted the use of public bathrooms based on birth certificate gender markers.

“This would normally be a time of year when we would be on an upswing,” Martela told The Daily Beast, explaining that suicide prevalence generally rises in the spring, but to her the steepness of this increase is “indicative of some event happening, rather than the normal seasonal fluctuations.”

Trans Lifeline data shared with The Daily Beast shows that before Governor Pat McCrory signed HB 2 on March 23, the hotline’s daily volume peaked at around 200 incoming calls. After the law, the peaks started getting higher.

From April 8 to April 16, the most recent date included in the data set, the hotline has only seen two days below 200 incoming calls. On April 13, they received what Martela notes is an “unprecedented” 357 calls.

more

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/20/after-north-carolina-s-law-trans-suicide-hotline-calls-double.html

April 20, 2016

‘And then we wept': Scientists say 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef now bleached

The conclusions from a series of scientific surveys of the Great Barrier Reef bleaching event — an environmental assault on the largest coral ecosystem on Earth — are in, and scientists aren’t holding back about how devastating they find them.

Australia’s National Coral Bleaching Task Force has surveyed 911 coral reefs by air, and found at least some bleaching of the vast majority of them. The bleaching was the worst in the reef’s northern sector — where virtually no reefs escaped it.

“Between 60 and 100 percent of corals are severely bleached on 316 reefs, nearly all in the northern half of the Reef,” Prof. Terry Hughes, head of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said in a statement to the news media. He led the research.

Severe bleaching means that corals could die, depending on how long they are subject to these conditions. The scientists also reported that based on diving surveys of the northern reef, they already are seeing nearly 50 percent coral death.

more

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/20/and-then-we-wept-scientists-say-93-percent-of-the-great-barrier-reef-now-bleached/