Category: Uh Oh…

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From Discover Magazine: Mutant flu paper is finally published, reveals pandemic potential of wild viruses | Not Exactly Rocket Science

Am I the only one that thinks this is a bad idea??!!  o.O

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It’s finally out. After months of will-they-won’t they and should-they-shouldn’t-they deliberations, Nature has finally published a paper about a mutant strain of bird flu that can spread between mammals.

The strain was produced by Yoshihiro Kawaoka from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was trying to understand whether wild bird flu viruses have the potential to start a pandemic. These viruses can occasionally infect humans, but so far, they’ve been contained by their inability to efficiently jump from human to human. Kawaoka’s work makes it clear that they can evolve that ability.

Kawaoka’s study, along with a similar one from Ron Fouchier, has been the subject of intense debate for the last several months (catch up on the backstory here). What are the benefits of the research, and do they outweigh the risks? Now that the paper is finally out, we can start to answer those questions.

I’ve written about the paper for Nature News, focusing very heavily on the science rather than the politics. Head over there for a tighter version of this story. In this post, I’m going to highlight four important themes from the paper.

One: H5N1 can evolve to spread …

from Discover Magazine

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From News: Facing Death, Afghan Girl Runs To U.S. Military

After a teenage Afghan girl spoke to a boy by phone, she was threatened with death by her brothers, who said she dishonored her family. She fled to a U.S. military base, creating a quandary. If returned home, she faced almost certain death. If the military kept her on the base, the deeply conservative Afghan community would be outraged.

 

from News

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From Gizmodo: Apparently, Copyright Trolls Don’t Need to Tell the Band When Suing Its Fans

This is just a sham…
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Unless your band’s name ends with “etallica,” suing your fans for copyright infringement is very bad for publicity (and even if it does, that’s still a dick move Lars). So, imagine All Shall Perish’s surprise when they learned that a Panamanian copyright troll, which no one remembers hiring, recently filed suit against 80 of their fans. More »




from Gizmodo

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From Engadget: Amazon to collect sales tax, create 2,500 jobs in Texas

Amazon to collect sales tax, create 2,500 jobs in Texas

If Amazon’s been your internet safe haven from the ravages of sales tax, you may want to sit down. As part of a settlement with the great state of Texas, Bezos’ baby will start collecting the state’s requisite 6.25-percent sales tax on July 1st. The settlement resolves the online retailer’s ongoing dispute with the Lone Star state, which claimed that Amazon owed $269 million in back taxes. In addition to taking up collection, Amazon has agreed to create at least 2,500 jobs and invest a minimum of $200 million in capital investments, though it admits no fault, and believes “the assessment was without merit,” according to its latest SEC filing. Grouped in with Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota and Washington, this agreement makes Texas the sixth state to collect sales tax from Amazon — and California, Nevada and Arizona will join the collection club in due time. Check out the source links below for the Texas Comptroller’s official statement and more reading on Amazon’s tax agreements across the nation.

Amazon to collect sales tax, create 2,500 jobs in Texas originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 06:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Verge, GeekWire  |  sourceTexas Comptroller, SEC  | Email this | Comments

from Engadget

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From Ars Technica: Going organic hurts veggies, OK for legumes


How could organic stuff not be better? Eschewing pesticides and fertilizers is better for consumers, farmers, the environment, and all the denizens of the ecosystems that comprise it—everyone knows that. Even ask Prince Charles.

Yet, like many ideas that seem to be straightforward, this one turns out to be somewhat complex. If organic agriculture has lower yields, it will require more land to generate the same amount of calories as conventional farms. It will thus cause more deforestation and the loss of biodiversity that accompanies it—hardly environmental boons. To find out how things balance out, researchers at McGill and the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota have performed a meta-analysis comparing the yields of organic and conventional farming. Their results are published in Nature.

 

 

from Ars Technica