Rainforest Mcnuggets, DU Sakharov & Pauling, Harpers & HIV, Pianka & Ebola, Tiktaalik

nytimes
7/04/2006 Greenpeace on Thursday said McDonald's was fueling Amazon rainforest destruction by using soybeans grown in the region as feed for chickens that end up served in the fast-food chain's European restaurants.
In a reported entitled, ''Eating up the Amazon,'' the environmental group said it has traced soy beans grown in illegally desforested areas of the rainforest to McDonald's Corp. restaurants, as well as other restaurant chains and supermarkets across Europe.
''Fast Food giants like McDonald's are trashing the Amazon for cheap meat. Every time you buy a Chicken McNugget you could be taking a bite out of the Amazon,''

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nukewatch Depleted Uranium DU

uranium ore contains 99.3% U-238, 0.7% U-235 and traces of U-234. DU metal is depleted of U-235 down to about 0.2%, hence the name. The rest is U-238 and traces of U-234. The combined radioactivity of DU is about 40% less than in the natural mix of uranium isotopes.

What the world needs now is protesters of the calibre of Sakharov and Linus Pauling
Sakharov left his position as CCCPs favourite bomb maker, and accepted demotion into internal exile, in the first instance because he calculated that nuclear radiation from tests would kill hundreds of thousands
Linus Pauling campaigned strongly against nuclear radiation, to the extent that his passport was confiscated.

I am concerned about the several thousand tons of DU that the USA is scattering around Iraq,Afghanistan,and Australia. How bad is it. Some say tens of thousands of Nagasaki bombs.
Even if its equivalent to merely hundreds of Nagasaki bombs, its a ghastly dust to scatter.
Thousands of years from now, nanobots will still be scurrying round the dirt, scavenging DU atom by atom. In the interim hundreds of thousands of birth defects and cancers will ensue. Cancers may well be curable, but birth defects will require unimaginable science to prevent - a nanobots must enter the oocyte nucleus and repair chromosomes, but chromosomes themselves are about as compact as information storage can get, so what will the nanobot carry as a "good" list. Its currently not possible to describe the mechanics of 'correcting' a coiled coiled coil of DNA. We must await sufficiently advanced magic. May not happen for centuries. Long after America and Iraq are barely remembered ancient empires, mutations will be harming people around the world

During the “Kosovo DU” scandal, U-236, plutonium, americum and other transuranic elements turned out to be in DU, contrary to industry specifications. Although these extremely toxic and radioactive substances were present only in trace quantities, their high power significantly increases the toxicity and radioactivity of the 30 mm DU bullets shot in Operation Allied Force.

DU left in Iraq in 2003 : 1.8E6kg DU radiation = 40% of natural
U in Nagasaki 10kg radiation 120x natural
Iraq/Nagasaki = 0.4 * 1.8E6/(10 * 120) = 600 so DU = 600 Nagasaki bombs
This ignores the prompt radiation during the fission event over Nagasaki.
My calculations may be out. Its clear that ingest alpha emitters are extremely dangerous. Uranium as a chemical is worse than Arsenic.
A good reason not to mine the stuff. But the USA has piles of the stuff, so they will probably continue making bullets and sabots until their empire fades.

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cjrdaily aidstruth
Harpers Magazine March06 "Out of Control: AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science," by Farber
AIDs denialists ride again. Seems dodgy, even if my favourite wacky scientist, Kary Mullins, joins in with the denialists. Mullins famously stopped his VW, and told his girlfriend "I've just had an idea which will win me a Nobel Prize" - the PCR idea of repeatedly doubling DNA - and it did. His slim book tells how he prefers women at 10,000 days (28 years). He used to spice up his lectures with slide of naked women. Not sure if he did this in Stockholm before the king. Anyway I'll repeat his Harper's quote later.

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Pianka "I actually think the world will be much better when there's only 10 or 20 percent of us left."
has taken a lot of flack. pandasthumb have sprung to his defence pandasthumb Transcripts of his lectures dont seem so horrible.
seguingazette

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Tiktaalik, yet another missing link. Which opens up a gap on either side, as pandasthumb points out.

Rainforest Mcnuggets DU Sakharov & Pauling Harpers & HIV Pianka & Ebola Tiktaalik

Jet Carbon, Rail Oil, Bushra al-Khalil

chevron jet fuel

Round Trip Carbon

		A330	A380	A340	Lufthansa
	km	2.5 l/pc	2.9 l/pc	3.6 l/pc	4.5 l/pc
Manila	6262	156.55	181.6	225.43	281.79	litres
.		328.76	381.36	473.41	591.76	kg CO2 one way
.		657.51	762.71	946.81	1183.52	Round trip
.		179.5	208.22	258.48	323.1	C/trip
Bangkok	9290	232.25	269.41	334.44	418.05	litres
.	.	487.73	565.76	702.32	877.91	kg CO2
.	.	975.45	1131.52	1404.65	1755.81	round trip
.	.	266.3	308.91	383.47	479.34	C/trip

l/pc = litres/person/100km
Lufthansa = average, including older?
C = kg of carbon (1kg CO2 = 0.273kg Carbon)

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USA:2002: Transport Oil:
Freight rail 27.8% of the ton-miles with 220,000 bbl/day
trucks 32.1% of the ton-miles with 2.07 E6 bbl/day
Light commercial trucks 300,000 barrels/day.
This makes railroads more than eight times more fuel-efficient, as well as more labor-efficient than trucking.

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Bushra al-Khalil Saddams lawyer , dont know about her name, named after Iranian nuke? ok cache.boston crapped out, I hate it when my linked pics vanish, so I have found another pic & photobucketed it
Jet Carbon Rail Oil Bushra al-Khalil

Jet Carbon, Coral, LeBlanc, Bamako, Wellington

fightglobalwarming fightglobalwarming
tells me that 2 7hr jet trips makes10.6 tTons of CO2
(they persist in the confusion by also calling this "Carbon" but I think they mean CO2)
they say the average American emits 8.4Tons, but my single occupancy house itself generates 8.4 Tons
- so not driving a car isnt so grand

We assume ..the plane averages 430 mph.
A domestic or international trip originating in the U.S. averages 33.4 passenger miles per gallon according to Transportation, Energy, and the Environment.
..a gallon of jet fuel produces 21.1 lbs of CO2 ..
..each passenger mile creates 0.63 lbs. of CO2..
The Climate Neutral Network estimates that non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions from air travel are at least as significant as the CO2 impacts.
According to the Climate Neutral Network, upstream processes add an additional 8 percent, meaning that 1.36 lbs. of CO2 equivalents are created for each passenger mile..
one passenger-hour emits 0.265 metric tons CO2 equivalent.

so 30 hours = 8 Tons CO2 equivalent (not 10.6 but still a heap)

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Coral OK
March 31, 2006.. The Great Barrier Reef is far more resilient to rising water temperatures than scientists feared..
..professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, from the U Queensland's Centre for Marine Studies
..coral north of the Keppel Islands near Rockhampton had escaped bleaching, and less than 1% of the outer reef had been affected.
..about 1000sqkm of reef has experienced moderate to severe bleaching ..quite a minimal impact."
..concerned that the 2005-06 summer could be a repeat of 2001-02, when more than half the reef was bleached and between 5% and 10% of the coral died.
..The reef is worth $5.8 billion to the national economy..

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Coral not OK
cnn March 31, 2006 ....the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.
..estimates from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has recently died.
"It's an unprecedented die-off," ..colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months."
.."We haven't seen an event of this magnitude in the Caribbean before," said Mark Eakin..NOAA Coral Reef Watch.
..The Caribbean is actually better off than areas of the Indian and Pacific ocean where mortality rates -- mostly from warming waters -- have been in the 90% range in past years, said Tom Goreau..Global Coral Reef Alliance.. (this sounds a bit tendentious Tom)
..New NOAA sea surface temperature figures show the sustained heating in the Caribbean last summer and fall was by far the worst in 21 years of satellite monitoring, Eakin said.

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Random Families - once read, you read it again immediately
Jessica is 16 as we start , so Jessica born 1968
Lourdes Jessicas mother is 32
Big Daddy Lourdes man is 25
Lourdes children: Robert Jessica Elaine Cesar
Robert & Jessica have the same father
Lillian friend o9f Jessica
V boyfriend of J
Puma & J have a child Serena 'little star'
May 85 Cesar is 11
Puma's wife is Trinket
Milegros is Pumas friend
P & T 1986 a son
J & Willy (22) twins Brittany & Stephanie
Willy is brother of Puma W has 4 kids already
Lourdes new boyfriend Que Que
Elaine boyfriend Angel
Roberts girlfriend Shirley
Elaines boy child is L's first grandchild
1987
1988 J is 20 years old
J boyfriend "Boy George' ($500,000/week Heroin)
Rocco friend of Cesar 9 years older 22 so C is 13 born 1975?
... I will update this genealogy when I find the book currently lost in the laundry

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the NYTimes boosts Bamako..

several of these establishments, including Mr. Keita's Mofu and Oumou Sangare's Hotel Wassulu, are owned by musicians.)

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Wellington in the 1930s (Korean phone ad)

Jet Carbon Coral LeBlanc Bamako Wellington

Random Families, Zinio, Big Old Fat Female Fish, Urchins)

more grub(s), originally uploaded by jto_.

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Having lived in Manhattan in 1980,
lived with a heroin dealers wife & kids while he was in prison,
Loved "Jennie from the Block"
& lived with dirt poor Barrio extended family over 8 years,
so its odd that I came late to "Random Families" 2003
the story of a Puerto Rican family from late 80s through to 2000

gothamgazette interview

npr audio interview
- she says those days in South Bronx were her happiest. Odd how poverty can be fun.
LeBlanc was rather poor herself during most of the 10 years she researched the book
- claims she was never asked for $ by Coco. That seems hard to fathom
She now has degrees from Smith,Oxford & Yale
Her 'characters' (absolutely not fictional) place a lot of importance on photos
so its a shame her book doesnt have pictures.
___________________________________________________________________
Science Magazine sends me an email offering a sub for $100
turns out they mean their electronic version, which is a "Zinio" kind of ebook
As much as I love HTML I hate PDF, and I now know I hate Zinio even more
Its like pdf but worse - cant jump to a page, slow scrolling, cant select text,
an altogether unpleasant experience. I moved to Darlington to be near Sydney U in 96
and bugger me if Fisher Library didnt cancel the print version of 'Science' & 'Nature'
I guess guessing that academics had their own e-version.
Anyway their free sample went on about glaciers suddenly speeding up
figures of 70 and 100 km³ tossed about. Time to go short on shore property.

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Oil Eaters :
alternet
University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Agriculture, an average of over seven calories of fossil fuel is burned up for every calorie of energy we get from our food. This means that in eating my 400 calorie breakfast, I will, in effect, have "consumed" 2,800 calories of fossil-fuel energy. (Some researchers claim the ratio to be as high as ten to one.)
..to process just one pound of coffee requires over 8,000 calories of fossil-fuel energy -- the equivalent energy found in nearly a quart of crude oil, 30 cubic feet of natural gas, or around two and a half pounds of coal.
">harpers
motherjones
Julia Whitty .....
Apparently no one really remembers how many big fish used to inhabit the sea or how big they got. “The few blue marlin left today,” says Myers, “reach one-fifth of the weight they once had
....Big Old Fat Female Fish (BOFFFs), who produce better-quality and -quantity eggs than younger females. Yet fisheries managers continue to promote the targeting of older fish, followed by younger fish, until none can grow old.....
....Fifty years ago no one imagined that the Green Revolution would prove so lethal to the world ocean. But now we know that chemical fertilizers cause plants to bloom in the sea as miraculously as they do on land, with deadly consequence. It’s no coincidence that almost all of the nearly 150 (and counting) dead zones on earth lie at the mouths of river
............
deadzones
[I hadnt realised that urchins were in trouble..this is talking about the "barrel" shaped urchins, not the nasty black long spined urchins

which are dong fine in Bohol, wrecking the resort swimming there, maybe because theyre not eaten (inedible or cultural?(its hard to believe the Filipino culture would refuse anything edible))]
In the wake of the epidemic, filamentous algae, which the sea urchins ate, exploded across the reefs. St. Croix saw a 27 percent increase in algal biomass within five days of the sea urchin die-off. In the course of two years, Jamaica’s reefs increased in algal cover from 1 percent up to 95 percent
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Diamond Sand cont...
World fuel carbon = 6.9E9T/yr
So: Diamonds/yr = 6.9E9/3.52m³ = 2E9m³ 2 km³
2 cubic kilometres of Diamond per year to absorb current fossil fuel carbon

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scoop
letters from Iraq "One of the most disturbing things was what a little girl told me the other day. She said that when American soldiers smile it’s like seeing a skull looking at you. She said that every time they see a smiling American someone dies in their village."

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Random Families Zinio Big Old Fat Female Fish Urchins