Prompted by widespread Internet outcry against Facebook’s support of CISPA, Joel Kaplan, the site’s VP of U.S. Public Policy, has taken to the Facebook blog to defend his company’s position, exlaining the difference between SOPA and CISPA and why the latter would help protect Facebook.
“One challenge we and other companies have had is in our ability to share information with each other about cyber attacks. When one company detects an attack, sharing information about that attack promptly with other companies can help protect those other companies and their users from being victimized by the same attack,” Kaplan writes. “Similarly, if the government learns of an intrusion or other attack, the more it can share about that attack with private companies (and the faster it can share the information), the better the protection for users and our systems.”
Kaplan made sure to address Facebook users’ worries about privacy: “The concern is that companies will share sensitive personal information with the government in the name of protecting cybersecurity. Facebook has no intention of doing this.”
CISPA will likely go to a full vote on the House floor later this month.
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Simply Hired “Search millions of job listings from across the web. Find local jobs, salary comparisons, and employment trends at Simply Hired. New jobs added daily.”
In the United States, over 3,000 deaths per year from lung cancer in nonsmokers are due to secondhand smoke. – Provided by RandomHistory.com
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The NFL has taken the advice of a psychotherapist and this season will roll out league-wide mandatory counseling — and a code-of-conduct exam — for any fans eighty-sixed from games for violence and/or rowdiness. No amount of groveling or bribery will get offenders back in their seats — a 70 percent passing grade on the exam is the only thing that gets them off the “unforgiven” list.
Actual true-or-false questions from the quiz:
- Behaving badly toward other fans, such as fighting, swearing or threatening them, is OK as long as they deserve it.
- According to MetLife Stadium’s alcohol policies, four drinks is the maximum a person may purchase at a time.
- Every fan has a right to like any team they wish. Using abusive language toward fans who support teams you don’t like will not be tolerated.
Answers:
- False.
- False, it’s two.
- True.
Yep, this should take care of things.
From the nypost
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Huntington’s Disease Could Protect Against Cancer
Huntington’s disease is a rare hereditary condition characterized by involuntary muscular movements, progressive cognitive decline, and early death. Interestingly, it appears that individuals affected by this condition have a significantly lower risk of developing cancer than the general population, suggesting that Huntington’s disease provides some protective measure against cancer. Data show that the same is also true for other polyglutamine diseases. Discovering how these sorts of diseases protect against cancer could help in the development of cancer treatments. More …
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As heroin gets cheaper and deadlier, authorities shift to bolder, more aggressive tactics
Angry suburban parents are joining the effort, too. They’ve organized anti-drug rallies and founded organizations to spread the word about heroin in affluent areas where it is usually considered a distant, unlikely threat.The more assertive approach is not entirely new to the drug war, but it’s being adopted more widely and in more areas that have rarely been so bold _ comfortable residential communities.”We are going to treat every overdose scene like a crime scene. We are going to treat every overdose as a potential homicide,” said Stephen Wigginton, U.S. attorney for southern Illinois. “Heroin is the bullet.”Once associated with rock stars and inner-city junkies, heroin has become far more dangerous and accessible in recent years. Mexican cartels a half-decade ago created a form of the drug so pure it can be snorted or swallowed instead of injected, making heroin more appealing to teenagers and suburbanites who don’t want the stigma of shooting up.
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You expect me to what?!
AS THE legions of gym bunnies and jogging enthusiasts who race out into the spring sunshine every year clearly demonstrate, running can be fun. More specifically, running triggers the release of brain chemicals called endocannabinoids that create a potent feeling of pleasure. As their name suggests, these endocannabinoids work in the same way as the active ingredient of marijuana.
From an evolutionary standpoint this surge of endocannabinoids, and the “runner’s high” it creates, make sense. For ancient humans, remaining fit enough to run after game and away from predators and enemies was vital for survival. Yet whether other mammals are also driven to exercise by endocannabinoids has remained a mystery. Now a study led by David Raichlen of the University of Arizona has revealed that the runner’s high does exist in other species, but not in all.
Dr Raichlen hypothesised that endocannabinoid-driven exercise highs would be found in those mammals that gain an evolutionary benefit from being fast on their feet: antelopes, horses and wolves, for example. However, he also thought that they would not be present in those which are known for being quick and agile, but not for running, like ferrets. To test these ideas, he and a team of colleagues devised an experiment that monitored the endocannabinoid levels of different species after they had been walking or running on a treadmill.
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Titanic 100th anniversary: Shoes and coat found at wreck site implies likely resting place of human remains
[still can't get enough on the Titanic? Here then.]
The New York Times first reported about the photographs in Saturday editions.
Filmmaker James Cameron, who has visited the wreck 33 times, told the newspaper that he had seen ‘zero human remains’ during his extensive explorations of the Titanic.
The New York Times first reported about the photographs in Saturday editions.
Filmmaker James Cameron, who has visited the wreck 33 times, told the newspaper that he had seen ‘zero human remains’ during his extensive explorations of the Titanic.
‘We’ve seen shoes. We’ve seen pairs of shoes, which would strongly suggest there was a body there at one point. But we’ve never seen any human remains,’ Mr Cameron said.
‘We’ve seen shoes. We’ve seen pairs of shoes, which would strongly suggest there was a body there at one point. But we’ve never seen any human remains,’ Mr Cameron said.
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North Korea marks 100th anniversary of founder’s birth – The Big Picture
North Korea will mark the 100th anniversary of its founding father’s birth on April 15. Kim Il-Sung ruled the communist country from its inception in 1948 until his death in 1994. The country is also making international news with the planned launch of a satellite, which concerns many other countries because of the nuclear capabilities of the rocket being used. Officials escorted a group of international media from the capital to the see the rocket in Tongchang-Ri earlier this week. Compiled here are group of recent images from inside the country. — Lloyd Young (30 photos total)
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A few years ago, at a highway safety conference in Savannah, Ga., I drifted into a conference room where a sign told me a “Pedestrian Safety” panel was being held.
The speaker was Michael Ronkin, a French-born, Swiss-raised, Oregon-based transportation planner whose firm, as his website notes, “specializes in creating walkable and bikeable streets.” Ronkin began with a simple observation that has stayed with me since. Taking stock of the event—one of the few focused on walking, which gets scant attention at traffic safety conferences—he wondered about that inescapable word: pedestrian. If we were to find ourselves out hiking on a forest trail and spied someone approaching at a distance, he wanted to know, would we think to ourselves, “Here comes a pedestrian”?
Of course we wouldn’t. That approaching figure would simply be a person. Pedestrian is a word born from opposition to other modes of travel; the Latin pedester, on foot, gained currency by its semantic tension with equester, on horse. But there is an implied—indeed, synonymous—pejorative. This dates from Ancient Greece. As the Oxford English Dictionary notes, the Greek πεζός meant “prosaic, plain, commonplace, uninspired (sometimes contrasted with the winged flight of Pegasus).” Or, in the Latin, pedester could refer to foot soldiers (e.g, peons), “rather than cavalry.”
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The neuroscience of happiness .
The scientific argument for being emotional .
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In the opening lines to The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot wrote “April is the Cruelest Month.”You might agree if you live in the southeastern United States. Last April, a historic outburst of 202 tornadoes turned broad swaths of that part of the country into a disaster zone.“The event of April 27th and 28th 2011 was the costliest convective storm in U.S. history,” said Kevin Knupp, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. And he doesn’t just mean costly in terms of property damage — 316 people lost their lives.Of the 202 twisters that day, 62 tore through Alabama, where Knupp works. Ten of them were ranked EF 4 and 5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Three tornadoes churned paths more than 120 miles long, and a large number of the twisters cut swaths more than a half mile wide.Knupp saw the results first-hand, and he’s been studying them ever since. Aided by a team of graduate students and colleagues, he’s sifted through gigabytes of data collected by NASA and NOAA satellites and local ground sensors. A year later, they have drawn some interesting conclusions.One discovery was how rapidly an EF-5 spun up near the small town of Hackleburg, Alabama.“The Hackleburg storm got its act together really quickly,” says Knupp. This particular twister formed only 50 minutes after the underlying thunderstorm appeared. For comparison, the average time for tor
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Scientists find evidence that human ancestors used fire one million years ago .
Gulf Coast residents say BP Oil Spill changed their environmental views, UNH research finds .
Endangered bats find sanctuary in Israeli ‘ghost bunkers’ .
What’s in a surname? New study explores what the evolution of names reveals about China .
Cyberbullying and bullying are not the same .
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Titanic Orphans: 1912
New York. April 22, 1912. “Titanic survivors.” Brothers Michel (“Lolo”) and Edmond Navratil, ages 4 and 2, whose father perished when the RMS Titanic sank 100 years ago today, and were known as the “Titanic orphans” until their mother was located in France. Our second look at these Titanic tots. Lolo, the last male survivor of the Titanic, died in 2001. Bain News Service photo.
via.
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