Science – It’s a bee-utiful thing!

None of us like bee stings, but we all like the produce that bees help to sustain, not least the honey that comes from the bees themselves. Bees are an extremely important part of our agricultural eco-system, especially for sustainable and organic farmers. I was therefore very interested to read in Ars Technica's science blog about a possible cure for colony collapse disorder. Apiarists were extremely worried when they noticed the sudden and dramatic decline of otherwise healthy aviaries in recent years. Many suggestions were made as to root cause, including cell phone use. It now appears that a cure is on the horizon. Spanish researchers, according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Microbiology Reports, investigated colony collapse in many Spanish aviaries. They isolated a parasitic fungus, which they discovered to be the root cause of the colony collapse. Treating other diseased colonies with an anti-fungal agent enabled the colonies to recover completely. I'm looking forwards to a bee-utiful summer!

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Hippo Birdies Triple-Hexadecimal

Today marks 3 x 2^4 years since I made an illegal uterine U-turn and backed into this life. That's 17,532 days of cardiovascular goodness; circa 2 Billion heartbeats. I'm three times the age I was when I got my first kiss. Presbyopia is now nagging me, and my temples are graying. TMI, you say? Be that as it may, I have an existential dilemma. This birthday is a round number, arguably rounder than 50 (2 x 5^2). I should celebrate. But how? "Take the day off!" cry the masses. But I haven't had a regular job since the late 1980's. I don't usually give any of my clients notice for taking a day off, and they rarely notice. "Buy yourself something nice." But I have a bad habit of buying what catches my fancy, plus an instinct not to fancy expensive or frivolous things. Ignore my slide rule, camera, and typewriter collections. Also, I recently ordered 10 lbs of aluminum dust, a controlled substance that will be brightly expended. You'll hear more about that in July. (hint) "Do something fun," is good advice. But I don't have a routine of drudgery to escape from. My aching, aging shoulder is too sore to properly "do" the City Museum, but I may go dancing in the evening.

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Time to yank some professional licenses . . .

Based on the release of additional torture memos of the Bush Administration, Mike Dunford of The Questionable Authority suggests that it's time to revoke some professional licenses. I agree. Here's an excerpt:

Reading these memos, it's very clear that there are quite a few CIA employees who are allegedly medical professionals. Those people need to find new professions. I would strongly suggest that you take a few minutes - particularly if you're a doctor or a psychologist - to suggest to your colleagues at the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association that it might be good to take some formal steps along those lines.

For additional information on the way the American Psychological Association facilitated the torture, consider this DI post, based on Amy Goodman's book, Standing Up to the Madness.

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Who needs a tea-bag? – The truth about income, taxes, and the past 30 years

I got involved in a discussion on Ed Brayton's blog earlier today, which referenced yesterday's Tea-bag 'protests'. As a result, I ended up doing some research on pre/post tax income from 1979 to 2006. Taxes in this case is defined as 'effective' tax rates according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) guidelines, not some 'subset', or arbitrary, or marginal rates. These are the taxes actually paid, and the income actually retained. Based on the data presented by the CBO, with all dollars equalized to the 2006 value, the richest 1% of Americans saw their incomes after taxes increase by 256% since 1979. By comparison, the poorest 20% of Americans saw their income increase by only 11% after taxes over the same time period. Putting this another way - in 1979 the wealthiest 1% earned, on average, 22.6 times the poorest 20% ($337,100 -v- $14,900). By 2006, the wealthiest 1% had extended their lead to a staggering multiple of 72.75 times the poorest 20% ($1,200,300 -v- $16,500).

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Paranoia as a permanent state of being – –

This post about a panicked cautionary note was sent to me today, obviously well after the tea-party fact, but I thought it was quite amusing. The ultimate effect being, of course, that their efforts at keeping any sort of grassroots movement going was shot squarely in the foot, as they effectively censored themselves out of communicating with each other. Some of the responses to the post are hilarious. Seems of late I've been reading too many rightwing kneejerk responses, barely literate and rarely logical, to eloquent liberal articles and posts, and I was beginning to feel an unease that "they" are going to take over again. I was reminded, reading these responses, that the left side of the general public is still out there, making merry and feeling confident. Whew. Now, is it just me, or does anyone else find that the further to the right one lands on the political spectrum, the less functional one's sense of humor seems to become? Not only can they not poke fun at themselves, which all of my friends (read: left-leaning people with brains) do pretty well, but they can't put words together to CREATE humor, either. Just fear, volume and paranoia. And ranting. Lots and lots of ranting.

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