UnrepentantLiberal
UnrepentantLiberal's JournalPsychiatric Meds in Water Supply May Alter Fish Behavior
FRIDAY, Feb. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Small amounts of mood-altering drugs used to treat psychiatric disorders that are making their way into rivers and streams may be changing the behavior of some fish, a new study suggests.
Researchers in Sweden found exposure to the anti-anxiety drug, Oxazepam, caused fish to become bolder, less social and eat faster.
Reporting in the Feb. 15 issue of Science, the researchers explained that trace amounts of the drug and other medications end up in waterways downstream of wastewater treatment plants, after being excreted by people. The team worries that exposure of wildlife to pharmaceuticals such as Oxazepam could eventually lead to unexpected ecological and evolutionary consequences.
In the study, the researchers gave wild European perch a dose of Oxazepam that was similar to the amounts of the drug found in Sweden's waterways. They found that even trace amounts of the mood-altering medication seemed to alter the behavior and foraging rate of the wild perch.
"Normally, perch are shy and hunt in schools. This is a known strategy for survival and growth. But those who swim in Oxazepam became considerably bolder," lead researcher Tomas Brodin, an ecologist at Umea University, said in a university news release.
More: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2013/02/15/psychiatric-meds-in-water-supply-may-alter-fish-behavior
Don't forget to watch Asteroid 2012 DA14 at 2:25 PM EST
You can watch it on the NASA Channel or watch it online at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
The best way for most of us to watch asteroid 2012 DA14 come within 17,200 miles of Earth on Friday, and then recede harmlessly into the cosmos, is to fire up your Web browser and watch the show online. Pictures of the space rock, which is about half the length of a football field, are already starting to roll in.
NASA's experts on near-Earth objects say that the time of closest approach will come at 2:25 p.m. ET, when the asteroid is zooming above the eastern Indian Ocean at a speed of almost 17,500 mph (7.8 kilometers per second). It'll be too dim to see with the naked eye, but observers in Australia, Asia and Europe might be able to follow it with binoculars or small telescopes if they know exactly where to look. (If you want to try it, follow the directions at the bottom of this item.)
Then there are the professionals: Astronomers around the world are tracking 2012 DA14 with optical telescopes and radar dishes to learn more about the asteroid's color, shape, spin and reflectivity. Such data could tell them what the object is made of, and perhaps provide insights into how similar objects could be diverted if they were on a threatening course. Which this one is not.
Experts estimate that asteroids the size of 2012 DA14 hit our planet every 1,200 years or so, exploding with the energy of a 2.5-megaton atomic bomb: The last such impact struck a remote region of Siberia without warning in 1908, flattening 820 square miles of forest. If an object that big were to hit in just the wrong place, it could wipe out a city. Coincidentally, a much smaller meteoroid came down over Russia on Friday,sparking a fireball and a glass-shattering shock wave.
More: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/15/16966984-watch-asteroid-2012-da14-buzz-past-harmlessly-via-streaming-video
Hagel's holdup comes down to GOP 'vendetta'
Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says Senate Republicans are embarrassing the U.S. in the international community by delaying the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.
“This is a vendetta, this is a holdover from the past and I think it’s making the United States look very bad,” Bass told Jansing & Co. “We have so many dangers that we’re facing around the world right now and there’s so many expectations for our international leadership and what signal is this sending to the world?”
Current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has agreed to stay on the job until Hagel is finally confirmed. But that vote won’t happen until February 26. Republicans blocking the nomination want more information from Hagel and more details about the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
But Bass says this is just political payback, and says it’s time for Republicans to come to terms with their stinging defeats last November. “Are they ever going to get over it? The election is done, we need to move on.”
More: http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/02/15/hagels-holdup-comes-down-to-gop-vendetta/
Al-Qaeda's secret plan left behind by fleeing Mali Islamists
Fleeing advancing French and Malian forces, al-Qaeda militants left a strategic blueprint outlining their general plan for Mali and the region. The nine-page document unlocks a door to the world's most feared terrorist network.
The letter was discovered by the Associated Press in Timbuktu in a pile of papers and trash inside a building occupied by the Islamists for almost a year. It is signed by Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, the nom de guerre of Abdelmalek Droukdel, the senior commander appointed by Osama bin Laden to run al-Qaeda’s branch in Africa.
The document is comprised of six chapters, only three of which were recovered. The pages are not dated, but a reference to June 2012 events in Mali indicates that the message was sent as recently eight months ago.
In his address to the fighters, Droukdel, the emir in the Islamic Maghreb, predicts that Western intervention would occur sometime in January. He writes, “It is very probable, perhaps certain, that a military intervention will occur… which in the end will either force us to retreat to our rear bases or will provoke the people against us because of starvation or the cutting of supplies and salaries….”
More: http://rt.com/news/mali-islamists-al-qaeda-plan-278/
Two water officials accused of hiding carcinogen in East Orange, New Jersey water
Water contaminated with a chemical linked to cancer was illegally dumped into the Passaic River and flowed downstream through Bergen and Passaic counties as part of a scheme by two utility executives to manipulate water quality reports, prosecutors said Wednesday.
While the dumping went on for almost a month in 2011, state environmental officials said Wednesday that it did not pose a threat to public health. The water polluted with PERC, a chemical used by dry cleaners, was released into the river at Florham Park and would have become diluted long before it reached a drinking water intake pipe in Little Falls several miles downstream, officials said.
Allegations of the dumping were contained in an indictment Wednesday against two executives of the East Orange Water Commission: Harry Mansmann, 58, of Lawrenceville, the commission’s executive director and William Mowell, 51, of Wyckoff,the assistant executive director and engineer.
Prosecutors said the two falsified water reports by shutting down contaminated wells prior to monthly water tests. It allowed them to record lower levels of contaminants in the drinking water supplied to their customers in East Orange and South Orange.
More: http://www.northjersey.com/news/essex/NJ_2_officials_hid_contaminant_in_citys_water_.html
Pics of the World Trade Center under construction
I had the time to take pictures with my phone and thought someone might be interested. (Let me know if these images are too large.)
'Constant Drumbeat' Sped the Pope's Exit
By Rachel Donadio
The New York Times
February 13, 2013
VATICAN CITY - Just days after Pope Benedict XVI returned from a 2010 trip to Britain where he met the queen and mended fences with the Anglicans, prosecutors in Rome impounded $30 million from the Vatican Bank in an investigation linked to money laundering.
In May, soon after the pope made an address on the priesthood, chastising those who sought to stretch the church's rules and calling for "radical obedience," Vatican gendarmes arrested Benedict's butler on charges of theft after a tell-all book appeared, based on stolen confidential documents detailing profound mismanagement and corruption inside the Vatican.
Benedict had hoped that his papacy would rekindle the Catholic faith in Europe and compel Catholics to forge bonds between faith and reason, as he so loved to do.
But after a seemingly endless series of scandals, the 85-year-old who so ably enforced doctrine for his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, seemingly came to understand that only a new pope, one with far greater energies than he, could lead a global church and clean house inside the hierarchy at its helm. In the end, Vatican experts said, he decided he could best serve the church by resigning, a momentous decision with far-reaching implications that are still not fully understood.
More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/world/europe/constant-drumbeat-hastened-the-popes-exit.html
Pentagon creates new medal for extraordinary work by cyber, drone warriors
Source: AP
WASHINGTON —They fight the war from computer consoles and video screens.
But the troops that launch the drone strikes and direct the cyberattacks that can kill or disable an enemy may never set foot in the combat zone. Now, defense officials say, their battlefield contributions may be recognized.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is expected to announce Wednesday that for the first time the Pentagon is creating a medal that can be awarded to troops who have a direct impact on combat operations, but do it from afar.
The Associated Press has learned that the new blue, red and white-ribboned Distinguished Warfare Medal will be awarded to individuals for “extraordinary achievement” related to a military operation that occurred after Sept. 11, 2001. But unlike other combat medals, it does not require the recipient risk his or her life to get it.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pentagon-creates-new-medal-to-for-extraordinary-work-by-cyber-drone-warriors/2013/02/13/a0e104e4-75fe-11e2-9889-60bfcbb02149_story.html
Lebanese Prevent Tankers From Crossing Into Syria
Source: ABC News
Lebanese protesters closed two major roads in northern Lebanon Wednesday to prevent fuel tankers from crossing into Syria, Lebanon's state-run news agency and security officials said.
The National News Agency said the protesters blocked the roads leading to Arida and Dabousiyeh border crossing points. Witnesses said the roads were blocked for hours with rocks and barriers, but then protesters reopened the roads for civilian cars and other vehicles other than trucks.
The protesters claim some diesel exported to Syria is being used by regime tanks in the country's nearly two-year-old civil war that has killed nearly 70,000 people.
The protests in predominantly-Sunni northern Lebanon came a day after the energy ministry denied reports that government-owned refineries were sending diesel to Syria. The ministry said private companies were sending fuel to Syria.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/lebanese-prevent-tankers-crossing-syria-18488692
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