No matter what you do or where you go, you're always going to be yourself. And Panexa knows this. Your lifestyle is one of the biggest factors in choosing how to live. Why trust it to anything less?

MERD | Panexa (Acidachrome Promanganate)

Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy -- but only in candidates they opposed.

When presented with negative information about the candidates they liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said. When the unpalatable information was rejected, furthermore, the brain scans showed that volunteers gave themselves feel-good pats -- the scans showed that "reward centers" in volunteers' brains were activated. The psychologist observed that the way these subjects dealt with unwelcome information had curious parallels with drug addiction as addicts also reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior.

Now this is damn interesting...

Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases

Check it out… It pumps propane and pure oxygen into the gopher holes for about 5 minutes… and then let's a spark go and all the gopher holes blow up, killing all the gophers!

OMFG thats awesome!

Boing Boing: Help Richard blow up his gophers with a $1295 explosive system

In what might resemble a horrifying moment in a science fiction film, astronauts aboard the International Space Station will toss an empty spacesuit overboard next week.

The Russian suit will carry three batteries and a ham radio transmitter and antenna. Amateur radio operators on Earth will be able to listen to its transmissions over several days until the batteries fail.

Um, yeah. Sure.

An Orbiting Spacesuit With Transmitter

Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.

They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.

When pigs glow...

A brain chemical recently found to boost trust appears to work by reducing activity and weakening connections in fear-processing circuitry, a brain imaging study at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has discovered. Scans of the hormone oxytocin's effect on human brain function reveal that it quells the brain's fear hub, the amygdala, and its brainstem relay stations in response to fearful stimuli. The work at NIMH and a collaborating site in Germany suggests new approaches to treating diseases thought to involve amygdala dysfunction and social fear, such as social phobia, autism, and possibly schizophrenia, report Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, M.D., Ph.D., NIMH Genes Cognition and Psychosis Program, and colleagues, in the December 7, 2005 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

"Studies in animals, pioneered by now NIMH director Dr. Thomas Insel, have shown that oxytocin plays a key role in complex emotional and social behaviors, such as attachment, social recognition and aggression," noted NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, M.D.. "Now, for the first time, we can literally see these same mechanisms at work in the human brain."

"The observed changes in the amygdala are exciting as they suggest that a long-acting analogue of oxytocin could have therapeutic value in disorders characterized by social avoidance," added Insel.

Tell the truth now... trust me... :)

Trust-building hormone short-circuits fear in humans

Tom Cross, who is a software security researcher and co-developer of the MemeStream social networking website, also disagrees that “if we want to improve America's scientific competitiveness, we need to increase the supply of technical workers, which will reduce their cost.” Gathering Storm, he believes, has “misdefined the problem, [which] is on the demand side and not the supply side.”

“Technological competitiveness is not about how much technology you are doing but what kind,” he states. “You don't want to lead the world in having development sweatshops where people grind out code for hours at low wages. ... You want to lead the world in creating new innovations.”

Science Magazine quoted my MemeStream. :)

ScienceCareers.org | What's Wrong With American Science? : Benderly: 9 December 2005

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) was co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. Today, it has more than 135 chapters in 34 countries.

Recent public statements by Tom Cruise were the openning salvo in a broad PR campaign in support of this organization. Saw a freeway billboard for them tonight. They must be running against Intelligent Design for the Nobel Prize in Disingenuous Sophistry. (I'll add into the competition people who think disease is a social construct.)

To be sure, I've seen first hand the nature of involuntary psychiatric "treatment" by the state, and I share the perspective that it is abusive. This does not lead to the conclusion that psychiatric treatment is always or even usually abusive. Unfortunately, by using examples of the former as a springboard to attack the later, the Scientologists damage the credibility of those who are seriously concerned about the former. Perhaps this is intentional.

Home - Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)

El Segundo, CA – November 18, 2005 – On Friday, November 25 at 1 p.m. (PDT), the Falcon 1 countdown to launch is expected to reach T-Zero. At that point, the hold-down clamps will release and the Falcon 1 rocket will begin its journey to orbit, accelerating to 17,000 mph (twenty-five times the speed of sound) in less than ten minutes.

Designed from the ground up by SpaceX, Falcon 1 is a two stage rocket powered by liquid oxygen and purified, rocket grade kerosene. On launch day, Falcon 1 will make history for several reasons:

* It will be the first privately developed, liquid fueled rocket to reach orbit and the world's first all new orbital rocket in over a decade.
* The main engine of Falcon 1 (Merlin) will be the first all new American hydrocarbon booster engine to be flown in forty years and only the second new American booster engine of any kind in twenty-five years.
* The Falcon 1 is the only rocket flying 21 st century avionics, which require a small fraction of the power and mass of other systems.
* It will be the world's only semi-reusable orbital rocket apart from the Shuttle (all other launch vehicles are completely expendable).
* Most importantly, Falcon 1, priced at $6.7 million, will provide the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any launch vehicle in the world, despite receiving a design reliability rating equivalent to that of the best launch vehicles currently flying in the United States.

The maiden flight will take place from the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands. The customer for this mission is DARPA and the Air Force and the payload will be FalconSat-2, part of the Air Force Academy’s satellite program that will measure space plasma phenomena, which can adversely affect space-based communications, including GPS and other civil and military communications. The target orbit is 400 km X 500 km (just above the International Space Station) at an inclination of 39 degrees.

SpaceX Announces Falcon 1 Launch Date

But they also declare that basic Darwinian theory — that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life — has been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology.
In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

They also redefined math so it is no longer limited to the quantitative assessment of problems.

Evolution Critics Score Win in Kansas - Yahoo! News