Sceptici în România

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Skeptical Reporter for June 21^st, 2013

Announcement:

A new petition has been launched that aims at banning Creationism and Intelligent Design in the science classroom by federal law. The petition states: “Even after 150 years after the establishment of evolution, some schools across the US are "teaching the controversy," including Creationism and Intelligent Design. Both of these so-called "theories" have no basis in scientific fact, and have absolutely zero evidence pointing towards these conjectures. These types of loopholes in our education are partially to blame for our dangerously low student performances in math and science. Therefore, we petition the Obama Administration to ban the teachings of these conjectures that contradict Evolution”. You can find the petition and sign it at petitions.whitehouse.gov.

And now, let’s look at the news in skepticism.

Naveena Shine, the Eastside woman testing whether she could live just on sunshine, gave up her experiment on day 47 of not eating, after losing 20 percent of her body weight. She explained that she had to end her experiment with the New Age spiritual idea of “breatharianism” because her money has run out and she doesn’t want to encourage others to try it without having their “belief systems lined up”. “I was just asking a question, but there was just so much negative response that that means the question can’t even be asked,” she said about her experiment. She also says that she didn’t want to be responsible for others trying “Living on Light”. Shine declared she simply wanted to know if “breatharianism,” a New Age belief that sunshine can substitute for food, was possible. She posted about her experiment on Facebook, YouTube and her Living on Light website. Doctors have warned that it is not possible for humans to photosynthesize, and four deaths have been linked to people who apparently had tried.

In the UK, a labor politician has defended his beliefs in extra-terrestrial life - after claiming to have fathered a child with an alien. Married father-of-three Simon Parkes, who represents Stakesby on Whitby Town Council, said his wife had rowed with him after revealing he had a child called Zarka with an alien he refers to as the Cat Queen. The 53-year-old driving instructor said he has sexual relations with the alien about four times a year. Councillor Parkes, who also claims his "real mother" is a green alien with eight fingers, said people only claim he is mad because they have not shared his experiences and that the encounters don't affect his work on behalf of Whitby residents.

Doctors were shocked by the case of a 12-year-old girl who was diagnosed  with acute pancreatitis, from the toxic side effects of more than 80 dietary supplements, which the girl's mother carried in a shopping bag. The girl's mother had been treating her with the supplements and other therapies for four years to treat the girl's "chronic Lyme disease," a condition that, experts say, doesn't actually exist. Doctors were able to control the girl's illness with standard therapies and although her story was unforgettable, it wasn't unusual. Parents now "routinely" bring children to her hospital with a variety of alternative remedies, hoping that nurses will administer them during a child's stay. There are more than 54,000 varieties sold in stores and the Internet, according to the Food and Drug Administration. About 50% of Americans use alternative medicine, and 10% use it on their children, notes Paul Offit, Children's Hospital's chief of infectious disease. He has published a book: “Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine” is which he paints a picture of an aggressive, $34 billion a year industry whose key players are adept at using lawsuits, lobbyists and legislation to protect their market. "It's a big business," says Offit, best known for developing a vaccine against rotavirus, a diarrheal illness that killed 2,000 people each day, mostly children in the developing world. In the best cases, Offit says, alternative remedies are ineffective but relatively harmless, functioning as expensive placebos that may appear to relieve symptoms such as pain, largely because people expect them to. In the worst cases, scam artists masquerading as healers push bogus cures on desperate, vulnerable people, charging prices that patients can't afford.

In Japan, the health ministry decided to withdraw its recommendation for a vaccination to protect girls against cervical cancer after registering hundreds complained about possible side effects, including long-term pain and numbness.  The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is not suspending the use of the vaccination, but it has instructed local governments not to promote the use of the medicine while studies are conducted on the matter. It is rare for the ministry to withdraw a recommendation for a vaccine that is used regularly by local governments and is spelled out in a law. Girls can still receive the vaccination for free, although medical institutions must now inform them beforehand that the ministry does not recommend it. The risk of cervical cancer increases in women in their 20s or 30s. About 9,000 people contract the disease every year in Japan, and about 2,700 die annually. The World Health Organization recommends the vaccination, which is used in various countries.

And now let’s look at some news in science.

A China-based supercomputer has taken the title of world's most powerful system. Tianhe-2, developed by the government-run National University of Defence Technology, topped the latest list of the fastest 500 supercomputers, by a team of international researchers. They said the news was a "surprise" since the system had not been expected to be ready until 2015. China last held the top rank between November 2010 and June 2011. According to the list, the US has the world's second and third fastest supercomputers, Titan and Sequoia, while Japan's K computer drops to fourth spot.

The world's population could reach 11 billion by the year 2100, according to a new statistical analysis. That represents 800 million more people than was forecast in 2011. Most of that increase comes because birth rates in Africa haven't dropped as fast as projected. "The fertility decline in Africa has slowed down or stalled to a larger extent than we previously predicted, and as a result the African population will go up," said study co-author Adrian Raftery, a statistician at the University of Washington, in a statement. The United Nations reported that the population hit 7 billion in October 2011. That's an amazing increase from the mere 5 million people who lived on the planet in 8000 B.C. or the 1 billion who were alive in 1805. Right now, Africa's population stands at 1.1 billion, but that is expected to increase four-fold, to 4.2 billion, by 2100. The rest of the world is unlikely to see big changes from the past estimate.

Raising awareness of organ donation on social media websites can help boost donation rates, according to a new study. Facebook began allowing users to make their status as organ donors visible in their profiles in May 2012, and on the first day of the change, about 13,000 people in the U.S. registered to become organ donors —20 times more than the average number of daily registrations. The effect of the social media initiative on its first day varied across states, ranging from a seven-fold increase in registrations in Michigan, to 100-fold increase in Georgia, the results showed. The findings mean that social media might be an effective tool for encouraging organ donation, as well as tackling other public health problems in which communication and education are essential, the researchers said.

Seasonal flu shots have prevented about 13.6 million cases of illness over the last six years, according to new estimates from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The researchers analyzed information from each flu season between 2006 and 2011, including the number of flu illnesses and flu hospitalizations, as well as how well the vaccine worked and the total number of people who were vaccinated each year. The analysis also revealed that flu vaccines prevented an estimated 5.8 million doctors' visits and 112,900 flu-related hospitalizations. While flu vaccination has had a substantial health benefit, even more flu cases could be prevented if more people — particularly young and middle-aged adults — were vaccinated, the researchers said.

And, now, in local news from Romania, we learn that

The Romanian medical system may be in big trouble as union representatives have announced major strikes across the country and threaten that many doctors may quit their jobs. They require salary raises for doctors, but the Health Ministry declared there are are no funds available for such raises.

Links:

• https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/ban-creationism-and-intelligent-design-science-classroom-federal-law/pNY6mCBg
• http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021211809_experimentendsxml.html
• http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/10488568.Whitby_councillor_claims_to_have_fathered_alien_child/
• http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/18/book-raises-alarms-about-alternative-medicine/2429385/
• http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201306150057
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22936989
• http://www.livescience.com/37442-world-population-approaching-11-billion.html
• http://www.livescience.com/37508-organ-donation-facebook-social-media.html
• http://www.livescience.com/37567-anonymous-internet-privacy-tools.html

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Skeptical Reporter for June 14^th, 2013

Jurors at the Michael Jackson trial heard testimony from a surprise witness: the ghost of Michael Jackson! Randy Phillips, CEO of concert promoter AEG Live, testified about a chat he had with his longtime friend Brenda Richie, who claimed to have talked to a medium who had channeled the spirit of Michael after his 2009 death. Allegedly, Jackson’s ghost absolved Dr. Conrad Murray of any guilt in his death and admitted he “accidentally killed himself,” Phillips said. Brian Panish, a lawyer for Michael Jackson’s family, objected to Phillips’ ghost story, calling it triple hearsay, since Phillips was relaying a chat from Richie, who had heard from a medium, who — allegedly — spoke to the deceased. Remarkably — over the laughter of courtroom spectators — LA County Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos allowed Phillips’ explanation to stand. Jackson’s family is suing AEG Live, claiming that concert promoters knew the King of Pop was in declining health, but did nothing to help him — other than hire Murray. AEG officials insist they had no idea Jackson was in such fragile shape and argue the company shouldn’t be held liable for Murray’s criminal acts.

Deadly violence linked to witch hunts is an increasingly visible problem in Papua New Guinea — a diverse tribal society of more than 800 languages and 7 million people who are mostly subsistence farmers. Experts say witch hunting appears to be spreading to parts of the country where such practices never took place before, but they and government officials in the South Pacific nation seem at a loss to say why it appears to be growing. Some are arguing the recent violence is fueled not by the nation's widespread belief in black magic, but instead by economic jealousy since the country has experienced an economic boom. The changing economic situation has widened the divide between the rich and the poor and the unfortunate resort to the belief system to eliminate those who are perceived as well-off. The United Nations has documented hundreds of cases of sorcery-related violence in Papua New Guinea in recent years and many more cases in remote areas are thought to have gone unreported. Until last month, the country's 42-year-old Sorcery Act allowed for a belief in black magic to be used as a partial legal defense for killing someone suspected of inflicting harm through sorcery. The government repealed the law in response to the recent violence.

Conspiracy theorists have dismissed US radio host Alex Jones as a government stooge designed to make conspiracy theorists look ridiculous, following his meltdown on live BBC television. Jones used his appearance on Andrew Neil’s Politics Show to make shouty conspiracy theorists appear mentally ill in front of an audience of millions. The BBC have been congratulated for opening their doors to those suffering from paranoid delusions and other undiagnosed mental disorders. However the conspiracy theorist movement have spoken out to disown Alex Jones in the strongest possible terms. Conspiracy blogger Chuck Matthews stated: “He’s not one of us, no way. Alex Jones is clearly a plant by a government desperate to silence the conspiracy theory movement by making us all look like complete idiots.” The BBC's Sunday Politics was the setting for a confrontation between host Andrew Neil and US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was labelled the worst person to be interviewed on the show and an idiot. He had been invited on the show alongside journalist David Aaronovitch to discuss the secretive Bilderberg conference, which took place near Watford.

The controversial Australian Vaccination Network is now effectively blacklisted as a media source after the Australian Communications and Media Authority reprimanded a regional broadcaster for using statements from founder Meryl Dorey. In an August 2012 report about a measles outbreak in Sydney, WIN News Illawarra included the following statement by Ms Dorey: "All vaccinations, in the medical literature, have been linked with the possibility of causing autism...". According to ACMA, using the statement conveyed a "higher level of controversy and uncertainty about immunisation than was justified by the facts". WIN was found to have breached two provisions of the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice. The findings come as a new local group to combat misinformation about vaccination has emerged. The Northern Rivers Vaccination Supporter Group was started by polio survivor Ross Cornwill.

And now let’s look at some news in science.

The mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the matter in the universe could be composed, in part, of invisible and nearly intangible counterparts of atoms, protons and electrons, researchers say. Dark matter is an invisible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe. Scientists inferred the existence of dark matter via its gravitational effects on the movements of stars and galaxies. Most researchers think dark matter is composed of a new type of particle, one that interacts very weakly at best with all the known forces of the universe except gravity. This might not hold true for all forms of dark matter, though. Now, researchers suggest a new kind of dark matter could exist, and it could be as plentiful as conventional matter. "There is no good reason to assume that all the dark matter in the universe is built out of one type of particle," study author Andrey Katz of HarvardUniversity explained. These new dark matter particles would essentially consist of heavy "dark protons" and light "dark electrons." They would interact with each other far more than other dark matter particles. The interactions between dark protons and dark electrons could make them lose energy over time. As such, they might slow down enough to clump into flat disks around galaxies, just like regular matter does. This concept means galaxies would have two disks, one made of regular atoms and one of dark atoms, which is why the investigators call their idea the double-disk dark matter model.

A project currently on Kickstarter would give supporters the tools to remote-control a cockroach using their smartphones. Called RoboRoach, the project is billed as "the world's first commercially available cyborg" and comes from a group of educational researchers called Backyard Brains. RoboRoach has three components: a cockroach with surgically implanted electrical stimulators, a cockroach-size "backpack" that transmits these signals to a smartphone and an app that allows users to send the cockroach directional commands. The controls build off of the cockroach's existing biology: cockroaches navigate by feeling their surroundings with their long antennae. The RoboRoach takes advantage of this natural mechanism to control the cockroach's direction. It's a technique similar to the deep brain stimulation currently used to treat Parkinson's disease, or treatments for deafness such as cochlear implants. Neither the surgery nor the actual process hurt the cockroaches, Backyard Brains says. The project's developers explain that it's more than just a neat trick — it's a learning tool, designed to teach neuroscience principles to people at a young age.

An ultra-faint collection of 1,000 stars orbiting the Milky Way is the most lightweight galaxy ever discovered. The dwarf galaxy known as Segue 2 is bound together by a tiny clump of dark matter. Scientists who measured it say the finding adds support to theories about the formation of the universe. Models predict that the outskirts of our cosmic neighborhood should be teeming with tiny galaxies, but scientists have found far fewer satellite dwarf galaxies in the Local Group than they expected. Astronomers' inability to measure these cosmic bodies "has been a major puzzle, suggesting that perhaps our theoretical understanding of structure formation in the universe was flawed in a serious way," said study researcher James Bullock, a University of California, Irvine cosmologist. "Finding a galaxy as tiny as Segue 2 is like discovering an elephant smaller than a mouse," he added. Segue 2 has a luminosity just 900 times that of our sun. The Milky Way, meanwhile, is 20 billion times brighter. The researchers say there could be thousands more very low-mass star bodies orbiting the Milky Way, just beyond our ability to detect them.

Restricting the use of psychoactive drugs in research represents the most serious case of scientific censorship since the Catholic Church banned the works of Copernicus and Galileo, some scientists say. In a paper published in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, a group of researchers argues that drug laws enacted in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s have hindered vital research into the drugs' functions and therapeutic uses. The laws were designed to prevent drug use and drug harm, but they failed to do that, said paper co-author David Nutt, a psychopharmacologist at Imperial College, London. Nutt and his colleagues focused on three classes of drugs restricted by national laws and international conventions: cannabis (marijuana), MDMA (ecstasy) and psychedelics. Prior to restrictions, studies investigating these drugs had demonstrated important therapeutic uses, the authors argue. Aside from medicinal uses, the scientists say psychedelic drugs can play a role in probing the nature of consciousness, because they induce changes in the conscious state.

And, now, in local news from Romania, we learn that

A Romanian student has invented a very small and easy to use device that will recharge your mobile phone if you run out of battery. After a semester of research, Răzvan Mărcuş has created the device that looks like a phone case and will keep your phone permanently charged. It is easy to use and much smaller that other such technologies. It works like a generator and can be adapted for any kind of phone model.

Links:

• http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/ghost_of_jacko_stars_at_la_trial_Flr5EJeWiSLJQsCT9djE9L
• http://newsthump.com/2013/06/09/conspiracy-theorists-dismiss-alex-jones-as-government-conspiracy-to-make-conspiracy-theorists-look-stupid/
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jun/09/andrew-neil-alex-jones-sunday-politics
• http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/media-authority-blow-for-avn/1903650/
• http://www.livescience.com/37328-dark-matter-atoms-disks.html
• http://www.livescience.com/37316-smallest-dwarf-galaxy-found.html
• http://www.livescience.com/37401-roboroach-smartphone-neuroscience.html
• http://www.livescience.com/37365-drugs-bans-restrict-research.html
• http://www.realitatea.net/dispozitiv-revolutionar-creat-de-un-student-la-mecatronica-pastreaza-telefonul-incarcat-permanent_1201632.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:51 — 8.1MB)

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Skeptical Reporter for June 7^th, 2013

The number of New York parents who had their child skip at least one required vaccine due to religious reasons increased over the past decade, according to a new study. What's more, researchers found counties with high religious exemption rates also had more whooping cough cases - even among children that had been fully vaccinated. States set their own requirements on which vaccines a child must have received to enter school. All allow exemptions for medical reasons, and most, including New York, also permit parents with a religious objection to forgo vaccination. "Particularly in New YorkState, I do believe that parents are using religious exemptions for their personal beliefs," said Dr. Jana Shaw, who worked on the study. Studies have shown cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, have been on the rise across the U.S. Researchers suspect that's due to the use of a new type of pertussis vaccine - which is safer, but less effective over the long run - and to more children missing or delaying vaccination.

Journalist Tony Ortega has written an article about the Church of Scientology using a natural disaster to spread the faith: “One of our tipsters forwarded to us an e-mail that will be all too depressingly familiar to our longtime readers. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Scientology is leaping on the chance to take advantage of another natural disaster to promote itself. In this case, Texas Scientologists are being urged to head to Oklahoma, the site of several recent deadly tornadoes. Once they get there, the “volunteer ministers” will do what they've done in places like New York after 9/11 and Haiti after its big earthquake: set up yellow tents and pretend to be useful by giving out “touch assists” — running their fingers over people as if it were a form of faith healing — and handing out Scientology booklets”.

In the United States, the FDA is trying to better supervise mobile apps that promise users to help them with various medical conditions. The FDA said it will publish final guidelines for medical apps later this year, potentially sweeping tons of new apps under its jurisdiction. But some app makers and lawyers are worried that the FDA’s approach could be overkill. "If the FDA regulates in a broad brush fashion, that will stifle innovation," said Matthew Kaminer, general counsel for Epocrates, a company that makes a drug-reference app for doctors, which has more than 1 million active users. Part of this issue is that it remains unclear exactly what type of app should be considered "medical," and which of these should be regulated by the government. Medical apps can be grouped into two broad categories: those designed for patients to use on their own, and apps designed for healthcare professionals, including doctors and nurses, to help them treat patients. And there is a larger problem in distinguishing between apps that offer legitimate medical functions, and those that are little more than digital snake oil.

Turkey has a long history as a secular state, for mostly Islamic people. So it comes as no surprise that a TV program is promoting Creationism. But what may be surprising is the women, or at least how they're dressed, spreading that message. Turkey’s Islamic creationist guru Adnan Oktar is a regular fixture on his TV channel A9. Oktar and his cult-like organization have been in the Turkish media space for decades. But only last year did he deploy his new weapon in the battle against Darwinism: A flock of ostensibly attractive, curvy young women. The “kittens,” as he calls them, call him “master” and generally react at the right moments and nod their heads in agreement with whatever he says. Some of the women have their own programs in which they also “debunk” evolution, among other things. The spectacle has attracted attention beyond the creationist community. Turkish artist Pinar Demirdag describes herself as a “visual narrator” of “extreme happenings.” She says she finds herself drawn to Oktar’s kittens, who look eerily as though they were all created in a Turkish Barbie factory. Demirdag calls the spectacle a “sensation overload,” skillfully combining Islam, sexual objectification, demagoguery and Versace.

And now let’s look at some news in science.

Europe has launched its giant robotic freighter towards the International Space Station (ISS). The vehicle, dubbed Albert Einstein, is carrying food, water, equipment and fuel for the orbiting outpost. The space truck left Earth on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana at 18:52 local time on Wednesday. At 20.2 tones, the Albert Einstein freighter is the heaviest spacecraft ever launched by Europe. The vessel will spend the next 10 days performing checks and maneuvers designed to take it to the vicinity of the 415 km-high station. Albert Einstein will stay attached to the ISS until October. Astronauts will gradually remove its 6.6 tones of supplies, replacing them with rubbish that has built up on the platform. When the freighter leaves the platform, it will take this refuse into a destructive dive into the Earth's atmosphere.

A mouse-sized fossil from China has provided remarkable new insights into the origin of primates. At 55 million years old, it represents the earliest known member of this broad group of animals that includes humans. Scientists have called the diminutive creature Archicebus, which roughly translates as "ancient monkey". They believe that its skeleton helps explain the branching that occurred at the very base of the primate evolutionary tree. The team puts Archicebus on the line leading to tarsiers, a collection of small arboreal animals now found exclusively in south-east Asia. But its great age and primitive features mean it sits right at the base of this lineage, and so it has much to say also about the emergence of the tarsiers' sister grouping - the anthropoids, the primates that include monkeys, apes and us. It suggests the first of these anthropoids were, likewise, petite creatures scurrying through the tropical canopies that grew to cover the Earth shortly after the dinosaurs' extinction. "We are all very curious about the ancestors of primates, including those of human beings. From this almost complete skeleton, we can conclude that our ancestors were a kind of very small animal. It was very active and agile; and it lived in the trees and fed on insects", Dr Xijun Ni from the Chinese Academy of Sciences explained.

The UK population must be encouraged to eat less meat "over time" in an effort to make the global food supply more sustainable, MPs have said. The International Development Committee said increased growing of grain to feed cattle was reducing the resources for nourishing people. And food production companies that wasted too much should face "clear sanctions". The committee's report comes ahead of World Environment Day, which focused on the issue of global hunger. Prime Minister David Cameron will be hosting a G8 "hunger summit" in London. The global demand for meat is growing, with China more than doubling its consumption per person since 1985. The amount of meat eaten by people in the UK stood at 85.8 kg each in 2007, according to official figures. The UK Food Group suggests that the production of meat causes an annual "calorie loss" around the world equivalent to the need of 3.5 billion people.

Japan has built a new generation of trains that will travel at speeds of 500 km/h. The nation has successfully tested its new generation of "L0" trains that use magnetic levitation, or "maglev" technology, to achieve record-breaking speeds. The L0 trains — the fastest in the world — are on schedule to be ready for passengers in 2027 on the line connecting Tokyo with Nagoya, a trip of about 351 kilometers that will take just 40 minutes instead of the usual 90 minutes. Japan inaugurated the era of high-speed bullet trains almost 50 years ago. Maglev trains use powerful magnets to levitate and propel the train's cars, which rely on the principles of magnetic attraction and repulsion to hover above their track without using wheels.

And, now, in local news from Romania, we learn that

The cleanest hospital in Europe might be in Braşov. A private medical unit in Romania is fighting for the prized title with three other hospitals from Germany, Luxembourg and Ireland. Representatives of the World Health Organization have arrived in Braşov and declared the medical unit has the highest chances of winning. "We use high grade disinfectants in turn according to regulations. The hospital areas are cleaned according to a closely kept schedule. And we have monthly checks to verify the microscopic state of cleanliness”, Andreea Moldovan, a specialist in infectious diseases has declared.

Links:

• http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/03/us-vaccine-exemptions-idUSBRE95202G20130603
• http://tonyortega.org/2013/06/05/just-what-oklahoma-tornado-victims-need-scientology-to-the-rescue/
• http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/3/4380244/how-should-medical-apps-be-regulated
• http://www.pri.org/stories/politics-society/religion/turkey-s-creationist-tv-channel-uses-women-described-as-barbie-like-to-spread-message-13980.html
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22793103
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22770646
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22756864
• http://www.livescience.com/37195-japan-bullet-train-worlds-fastest-maglev-train.html
• http://www.realitatea.net/un-spital-din-romania-nominalizat-la-titlul-de-cel-mai-curat-spital-din-europa_1192794.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:31 — 8.7MB)

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Skeptical Reporter for May 24^th, 2013

In the United States, Ball State University has agreed to investigate complaints that a course taught by a physics and astronomy professor has crossed a line from being about science to being about Christianity. Science blogs have been discussing the course for a few weeks now. Ball State received a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation charging that the course -- "The Boundaries of Science" -- is being used "to proselytize students and advance Christianity." The letter states that the course's description makes it seem "to be an honest objective investigation regarding the intersection of science and religion." But the letter notes that the syllabus and reading list includes creationists and "Christian apologists who lack any scientific credentials whatsoever," while leading proponents of the idea that evolution is true (embraced by a wide scientific consensus) are not represented.

The founder of a controversial anti-immunization group has been accused of using apprehended violence orders to gag her critics. Former Australian Vaccination Network president Meryl Dorey has applied for AVOs against three of her most vocal opponents. As a special condition of the AVOs, she wanted the men banned from making online comments about her in "any derogatory manner". She took out an AVO against Daniel Raffaele, who helped start the Stop the Australian Vaccination Network group, claiming he made threatening calls to her. Raffaele, who denied making any threatening calls, said he eventually agreed to the order because he was "sick of dealing with it", although he made sure her "gag order" was struck out. "The only thing I was never going to agree to was being silenced on the internet. The information (the AVN) spread is dangerous and it's not based on anything other than lies - and it costs lives", Raffaele said. Western Australia-based Dan Buzzard, another AVN opponent, said Ms Dorey probably saw taking out the AVOs as a "quick and easy" way to silence her critics. Ms Dorey refused to comment on the applications but denied using the AVOs to shut up her opponents. She said she had received anonymous death threats and had only taken the AVOs out at the suggestion of police.

Two Philadelphia faith-healing churches have a long history of the youngest members of their congregation dying because parents refused medical care. Families who attend Faith Tabernacle Congregation in North Philadelphia and First Century Gospel Church in Juniata Park have lost more than two dozen children to illness since 1971, according to non-profit Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Inc. Both churches believe in the power of prayer over modern medicine. Two members, Herbert and Catherine Schaible stand charged with third-degree murder and other crimes after their 7-month-old son Brandon died from bacterial pneumonia, dehydration and a group B streptococcus infection on April 18. The Schaibles are members of the First Century Gospel Church. At least 22 children from the congregations have died from illnesses. In 1991, Faith Tabernacle lost five children to the measles after an outbreak. One child from First Century Gospel also died.

For the fourth time since 1956, voters in Portland, defeated a plan to add fluoride to the public water supply. For weeks, residents have been debating fluoridation, the addition of fluoride to tap water for the purpose of reducing cavities and tooth decay. About 60 percent of voters cast their ballots against fluoridation. "The measure lost even with my own 'yes' vote," Portland's mayor Charlie Hales said in a statement. "Disappointing, but I accept the will of the voters." More than $1 million dollars was spent on the campaign, which is a considerable sum for a Portland-only election issue. In the period before the vote, proponents of fluoridation outspent anti-fluoridation groups by a 3-to-1 margin, public records show. Pro-fluoride groups say that fluoridation will help reduce cavities among poor children who don't have access to dental care. Those in the opposing camp object to fluoridation's possible negative health effects, like impaired brain development and function, and say the practice amounts to forced medication of the populace without consent. Fluoridation is supported by the American Medical Association, the American Dental Association and the CDC, which lists it as one of the top 10 most important public health measures of the 20th century.

And now let’s look at some news in science.

Excavations at an archaeological site in Bahrain are shedding light on one of the oldest trading civilizations. Despite its antiquity, comparatively little is known about the advanced culture represented at Saar. The site in Bahrain is thought to be the location of the enigmatic Dilmun civilization. The belief system here has a lot in common with those of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt”. According to Salman al-Mahari, the Bahraini archaeologist in charge, the Saar settlement divides into two: a residential zone and, at a small distance, the cemetery where the inhabitants buried their dead. Dilmun, one of most important ancient civilisations of the region and said to date to the third millennium BC, was a hub on a major trading route between Mesopotamia - the world's oldest civilisation - and the Indus Valley in South Asia. It is also believed that Dilmun had commercial ties with ancient sites at Elam in Oman, Alba in Syria and Haittan in Turkey.

The United Kingdom's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has come up with a printed circuit board that falls apart when immersed in hot water. The organization has developed circuit boards made out of what they're calling "unzippable polymeric layers" built to withstand the heat stressing and long-term thermal cycling. The layers easily come apart, however, when they come into contact with water of sufficient temperature for several seconds. The resistors, capacitors and integrated circuits, which don't have to be changed or adapted from their current formats in any way, are mounted on the boards. But after the contact with hot water, they can simply be scraped off, ready to be harvested and reused in other devices. The NPL says the technology can be applied to three-dimensional structures and flexible electronics as well as rigid circuit boards. Lab tests showed that 90 percent of the components can be reused, compared with the 2 percent that can be salvaged from current boards.

A new breed of flu vaccine is being developed that provides better and broader protection than commercially available ones — at least in animal tests. Current flu vaccines use inactivated whole viruses and must be regularly remade to target the strains most likely to cause illness in the coming year. But the nanoparticles in the new vaccine would require fewer updates because they induce the production of antibodies that neutralize a wider range of flu strains. They could even protect against varieties of flu that have not yet emerged. “This is taking us on the road to a universal vaccine,” says Gary Nabel, now at the biotechnology firm Sanofi, who led the work in his former lab at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland. The self-assembling nanoparticles can be made in the lab without having to grow real viruses in eggs or cell cultures, a time-consuming step of commercial vaccine preparation. “In theory, a new version could be produced quickly once a new pandemic virus had been identified, or a new seasonal variant started to circulate,” says Sarah Gilbert, a vaccine researcher at the University of Oxford, UK, who was not involved in the work.

On the 17^th of March, an object the size of a small boulder slammed into the lunar surface, creating a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything scientists had ever seen. NASA's lunar monitoring program has detected hundreds of meteoroid impacts. For the past eight years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. "Lunar meteor showers" have turned out to be more common than anyone expected, with hundreds of detectable impacts occurring every year. But they just got to see the biggest one yet. "On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. Anyone looking at the Moon at the moment of impact could have seen the explosion--no telescope required.  For about one second, the impact site was glowing like a 4th magnitude star. Ron Suggs, an analyst at the Marshall Space Flight Center, was the first to notice the impact in a digital video recorded by one of the monitoring program's 14-inch telescopes. "It jumped right out at me, it was so bright," he recalls. The explosion caused by the impact was similar to one caused by 5 tons of TNT.

And, now, in local news from Romania, we learn that

The winner of the famous INTEL science contest has returned home, to Romania. Ionuţ Budişteanu has won not only international recognition, but also a check for 75.000 dollars. The 19 year old student from Râmnicu Vâlcea won the contest with his self-driving automobile.

Links:

• http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/17/ball-state-agrees-investigate-science-course-some-say-pushing-religion
• http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/founder-of-anti-immunisation-group-australian-vaccination-network-meryl-dorey-uses-avos-to-gag-critics/story-fni0cx4q-1226646264163
• http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Faith-Healing-Churches-Linked-to-Two-Dozen-Child-Deaths-208745201.html
• http://www.livescience.com/34578-portland-voters-reject-fluoridation.html
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22596270#?utm_source=feedly
• http://www.livescience.com/34619-gadget-that-dissolve.html?utm_source=feedly
• http://www.nature.com/news/universal-flu-vaccine-effective-in-animals-1.13042?utm_source=feedly
• http://www.astronomy.com/News-Observing/News/2013/05/Scientists%20witness%20bright%20explosion%20on%20the%20Moon.aspx
• http://www.realitatea.net/elev-roman-premiat-in-sua-a-realizat-un-automobil-care-se-conduce-singur_1184551.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:51 — 9.9MB)

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Skeptical Reporter for May 17^th, 2013 

Announcement:

Romania will host the first international humanist conference in Eastern Europe, on the 25^th of May. The conference „Education, Science and Human Rights” is hosted by the Romanian Humanist Association in partnership with the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the European Humanist Federation. The event will take place at the Parliament Palace and has speakers such as PZ Meyers and Richard Wiseman. So, if interested, don’t hesitate to purchase a ticket now.

A research endeavor in China, regarding the genetic sources of genius has come under fire.  Researchers at BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute) in Shenzhen, China, the largest gene-sequencing facility in the world, are searching for the quirks of DNA that may contribute to superior intelligence. Plunging into an area that is littered with failures and full of controversy, the researchers are scouring the genomes of 1,600 genius subjects in an ambitious project to find the first common genetic variants associated with human intelligence. The project, which was launched in August 2012 and will begin data analysis in the next few months, has spawned wild accusations of eugenics plots, as well as more measured objections by social scientists who view such research as a distraction from pressing societal issues. Some geneticists, however, take issue with the study for a different reason. They say that it is highly unlikely to find anything of interest — because the sample size is too small and intelligence is too complex. Earlier large studies with the same goal have failed. But scientists from BGI’s Cognitive Genomics group hope that their super-smart sample will give them an edge, because it should be enriched with bits of DNA that confer effects on intelligence. “An exceptional person gets you an order of magnitude more statistical power than if you took random people from the population. I’d say we have a fighting chance,” says Stephen Hsu, a theoretical physicist from Michigan State University, who acts as a scientific adviser and is one of the project’s leaders.

Family Radio, the Oakland-based evangelical network run by Harold Camping, who predicted the end of the world in May 2011 is in financial trouble, according to public financial documents. The nonprofit that runs Family Radio has sold its three largest radio stations, all cash generators. At the start of 2007, Family Radio was worth $135 million, according to its tax returns. By the end of 2011 its net assets had dropped to $29.2 million, even though Family Radio received $85.2 million in donations over that five-year period. In 2012, records show it took out a $30 million bridge loan to keep operating while awaiting the station sales proceeds; it is not clear whether that loan has been paid off. Former and current insiders allege the situation may be even worse than it appears, claiming donations have dropped almost 70 percent since the Rapture prediction proved incorrect, leading to numerous layoffs of longtime Family Radio staff members. Those insiders say the nonprofit mishandled the sales of the stations, reaping far less than they were worth, and is on the hook for millions of dollars to devotees who have loaned them money over the years.

A rhino-head heist spree swept Europe in 2011, as thieves raided museums and auctions houses in seven countries, prompting 30 investigations by Europol, 20 of which are ongoing. Similar heists have also been on the rise in Africa, as well as in the odd American backwater town. One happened in Dublin just last month. Sales in Vietnam are driving these robberies. The country’s appetite for rhino horn is so great that it now fetches up to $100,000/kg, making it worth more than its weight in gold. The surge in Vietnamese demand is fairly recent. Though rhino horn elixirs for fevers and liver problems were first prescribed in traditional Chinese medicine more than 1,800 years ago, by the early 1990s demand was limited. The removal of rhino horn powder from traditional Chinese pharmacopoeia in the 1990s had largely doused demand. But things started changing in 2008. Although there is no certain evidence for this rise in demand, the issue may have to do with a rumor that swept Vietnam in the mid-2000s that imbibing rhino horn powder had cured a Vietnamese politician’s cancer. That rumor persists to this day. In Vietnam, at least some respected doctors vouch for rhino horn’s cancer-curing properties. The country has had a surge in the number of wealthy citizens, but as in many fast-developing countries, the quality and availability of cancer care hasn't kept pace with the economic growth rate.

Consumers should not buy sexual enhancement supplements, either online or in stores, because the products may contain undisclosed drugs that could cause serious harm, medical experts say. Although advertisements on sex supplements purport that the products improve sexual function, there is no evidence to support these claims, said Dr. Pieter Cohen, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. In fact, there is no non-prescription product that has any proven benefit for helping with erections, Cohen said. Oftentimes manufacturers secretly add prescription drugs, such as sildenafil (sold under the brand name Viagra) or tadalafil (brand name Cialis), so that customers continue to use the products, Cohen said. Sometimes these undisclosed drugs are slightly modified versions of existing drugs, which are completely experimental and have not been shown to be safe. "These products either do not work, or if they do work, are potentially harmful," because they contain undisclosed drugs, Cohen said. In 2009, sex supplements tainted with high doses of diabetes medication caused more than 12 deaths in Asia. If doctors, lawmakers and legislatures don't act soon to reduce exposure to these supplements, more deaths could follow, he stated.

And now let’s look at some news in science.

Google and NASA  have joined up to study artificial intelligence by creating a computer that relies on the unique properties of quantum physics. To study artificial intelligence and create this computer, the two giants are forming the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, which will be housed at NASA's Ames Research Center located in Silicon Valley. They expect the quantum computer, which will complete calculations way faster — by some estimates at least 3,600 times faster — than today's supercomputers, will be up and running by the third quarter of this year. The quantum computer would be able to find complex patterns in information in order to determine creative outputs, a process called machine learning. "We believe quantum computing may help solve some of the most challenging computer science problems, particularly in machine learning. Machine learning is all about building better models of the world to make more accurate predictions," Google noted in a blog post announcing the partnership.

A pocket of water some 2.6 billion years old has now been discovered in a mine 3 kilometers below the Earth's surface. It is the most ancient pocket of water known by far, older even than the dawn of multi-cellular life. The finding raises the tantalizing possibility that ancient life might be found deep underground not only within Earth, but in similar oases that may exist on Mars, the scientists who studied the water said. Geo-scientist Barbara Sherwood Lollar at the University of Toronto and her colleagues have investigated deep mines across the world since the 1980s. Water can flow into fractures in rocks and become isolated deep in the crust for many years, serving as a time capsule of what the environment was like at the time it got sealed off. "It was absolutely mind-blowing," Sherwood Lollar said. The site was formed by geological activity similar to that seen in hydrothermal vents. This ancient water poured out of the boreholes the team drilled in the mine at the rate of nearly 2 liters per minute. It remains uncertain precisely how large this reservoir of water is.

In recent years astronomers have extended their view almost to the very edge of the observable universe. With the venerable Hubble Space Telescope researchers have spotted a handful of galaxies so faraway that we see them as they appeared just 400 million years or so after the Big Bang. But even as astronomers peer ever deeper into the Universe to explore the cosmic frontier, others are finding new realms to explore in our own backyard. Such is the case with Leo P, a dwarf galaxy that astronomers have just discovered in the Milky Way’s vicinity. At a distance of some five million or six million light-years from the Milky Way, Leo P is not quite a next-door neighbor, but on the vast scales of the Universe it counts as a neighbor nonetheless. Intriguingly, Leo P seems to have kept to itself, rarely if ever interacting with other galaxies. So the discovery offers astronomers a rare glimpse at a cosmic object unsullied by disruptive galactic encounters. It also suggests the presence of other small galaxies that await discovery in our corner of the cosmos.

A fundamental property of the rarest element on Earth, astatine, has been discovered for the first time, scientists say. Astatine occurs naturally; however, scientists estimate less than 30 grams exist worldwide. For a long time, the characteristics of this elusive element were a mystery, but researchers at the CERN physics laboratory in Switzerland have now measured its ionization potential — the amount of energy needed to remove one electron from an atom of astatine, turning it into an ion or a charged particle. The measurement fills in a missing piece of the periodic table of elements, because astatine was the last naturally occurring element for which this property was unknown. Astatine, which has 85 protons and 85 electrons per atom, is radioactive, and half of its most stable version decays in just 8.1 hours, a time called half-life.

And, now, in local news from Romania, we learn that

The Romanian Patriarchate, together with the Catholic Commission of European Episcopacies, is supporting a citizens’ initiative to stop financing for human embryos research. “The Romanian Patriarchate supports the “One of us” citizens’ initiative that aims to protect dignity, right to life and integrity for each human being since the moment of conception in the European Union”, a press release from the institution shows. The initiative requires the European Union to cease financing activities that include the destruction of human embryos.

Links:

• http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-project-probes-the-genetics-of-genius-1.12985
• http://www.twincities.com/ci_23227161/end-line-christian-radio-network-that-predicted-2011.html
• http://qz.com/82302/theres-a-country-that-will-pay-300000-per-rhino-horn-to-cure-cancer-and-hangovers-and-its-wiping-out-rhinos/
• http://www.livescience.com/31968-sex-supplements-dangers.html
• http://www.livescience.com/32053-google-nasa-study-artificial-intelligence.html
• http://www.livescience.com/32028-oldest-water-found-underground.html
• http://www.nature.com/news/astronomers-discover-new-neighbor-galaxy-to-the-milky-way-1.12916
• http://www.livescience.com/32064-rarest-particle-on-earth-property.html
• http://www.realitatea.net/patriarhia-romana-se-opune-finan-arii-cercetarii-pe-embrioni-umani_1182578.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:17 — 9.4MB)

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Skeptical Reporter for May 10^th, 2013

Announcement:

Romania will host the first international humanist conference in Eastern Europe, on the 25^th of May. The conference „Education, Science and Human Rights” is hosted by the Romanian Humanist Association in partnership with the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the European Humanist Federation. The event will take place at the Parliament Palace and has speakers such as PZ Meyers and Richard Wiseman. So, if interested, don’t hesitate to purchase a ticket now.

After three women were freed in Cleveland, a decade after they disappeared, it was revealed that psychic Sylvia Browne declared that one of them, Amanda Berry, was dead. Amanda Berry’s mother traveled to New York to tell her story to psychic Sylvia Browne on the Montel Williams Show. Amanda Berry’s mother wanted to know if her daughter was still alive. “Can you tell me…Is she out there?” Berry’s mother Louwana Miller asked. “I hate when they’re in the water,” Browne said. “She’s not alive honey.” “It hurts my mind but it eases it; now I know,” Miller explained after hearing the prediction by the world-renowned psychic. Years later, Amanda Berry was found alive, together with two other women who had been held captive for a decade. Unfortunately, Amanda’s mother passed away and never got to see her daughter again.

The long-running saga of San Francisco's proposed cell phone warning labels appears to finally be coming to a close. The law would have required cell phone makers to place labels on their devices that detail the typical energy they transfer to the human body. According to Reuters, the city government has now settled the lawsuit by accepting that the law will never come into effect, after an injunction  The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, which sued the city, argued that the law was a bit of a mess. The Federal Communications Commission has established a safety level for wireless radiation exposure, and no phones sold in the US are allowed to exceed it. The ordinance was forcing companies to disclose numbers that were all below the legal limit. Complicating matters further, the exact dose users receive would vary depending on the wireless network the device was on and the manner in which it was being used. More generally, there are no clear indications that wireless hardware creates any health risks in the first place, which raises questions of what, exactly, the legislation was supposed to accomplish. Although a number of small, preliminary studies have suggested potential dangers, larger, more comprehensive works indicate that any potential risks take decades to be felt, and cell phones simply haven't been in use long enough for us to know for sure.

Childcare centers should have the right to ban unvaccinated kids from childcare centers and preschools under a "no jab, no play" policy proposed in Australia. The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph launched a campaign to stop the rise in the number of children succumbing to preventable diseases because parents are failing to have them fully immunized  Although only 1.5 per cent of parents are "vaccine refusers" or conscientious objectors, many parents are forgetful, leaving areas of New South Wales with vaccination rates below 85 per cent - despite the inarguable scientific proof that the vaccination program has saved thousands of lives and eradicated diseases that crippled children just a generation ago, including polio. Despite effective vaccines, Australia has been unable to eradicate diseases such as whooping cough because some parents do not immunize  leaving small babies and children with cancer and other immune-compromising conditions vulnerable. The Australian Medical Association believes tougher measures - potentially including bans for non-immunized children - should be introduced to make life harder for "free-riding" parents who refuse or forget to vaccinate.

Belief that the "Second Coming" of Jesus is nigh may be preventing climate change action, according to a study published in the Political Science Quarterly. The research examined data from the 2007 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to discover that belief in the "end times" reduced a person’s probability of strongly supporting government action on climate change by 12 percent, when controlling for demographic and cultural factors. Furthermore, when the effects of party affiliation, political ideology and media distrust were removed, this number increased by almost 20 percent. “It stands to reason that most non-believers would support preserving the Earth for future generations, but that end-times believers would rationally perceive such efforts to be ultimately futile, and hence ill-advised,” the authors of the study said. A similar study released in December 2012 found that roughly 36 percent of those living in the U.S. pointed to the severity of recent natural disasters, including super-storm Sandy, as evidence that the “end times” predicted in the Bible were near.

And now let’s look at some news in science.

Much to the consternation of scientists, the cylindrical platinum-iridium artifacts that represent the kilogram have been gradually packing on extra weight due to surface contamination. Since that unit of measure is the last to be based on an artifact and not a physical constant of nature it means that scientists no longer know exactly how much a kilogram is. That makes experiments requiring extreme precision more difficult, so researchers from Mettler Toledo, CERN and the EPFL have been working for the last 15 years on a so-called Watt balance. This would rely on the principle of electromagnetic force restoration. The team managed to created a "load cell" that's much more accurate than the current standard. This means that the goal of replacing a hunk of metal from 1878 with something more “solid” is within reach by the 2015 target date.

Astronomers are calling for volunteers to help them search for "space warps," rare and distant galaxies that bend light around them like enormous lenses. Citizen scientists participating in the Space Warps project, which was launched on the 8^th of May, could help shed light on the mysterious dark matter pervading the universe and aid research into a number of other cosmic phenomena, organizers said. "Not only do space warps act like lenses, magnifying the distant galaxies behind them, but we can also use the light they distort to weigh them, helping us to figure out how much dark matter they contain and how it’s distributed," Phil Marshall, a physicist at Oxford University in England and one of Space Warps' leaders, said in a statement. The Space Warps project asks armchair astronomers to spot gravitational lenses in hundreds of thousands of deep-sky images. The human brain is better than computers at picking out patterns, and amateurs can do it about as well as professional astronomers can. Participants don't have to spend hours peering at their computers to make a meaningful contribution. "Even if individual visitors only spend a few minutes glancing over 40 or so images each, that’s really helpful to our research — we only need a handful of people to spot something in an image for us to say that it’s worth investigating," Oxford's Aprajita Verma, another of Space Warps' principal investigators, said in a statement.

London Zoo is appealing to fish keepers to try to find a mate for a critically endangered, tropical species. The Mangarahara cichlid is extinct in the wild but the three in captivity are all male. Described as "gorgeously ugly", the Zoo is hoping to start a conservation programme if a fit female can be found for the captive males. And with two of the males now 12 years old, the quest is said to be extremely urgent. These cichlids were named after the river in Madagascar where they were first found. The construction of dams on the river caused the streams they lived in to dry up and the fish is now believed to be extinct in its natural habitat. There are two males in captivity at London Zoo and another in Berlin. There had been a female in captivity at the German zoo but attempts to breed ended in disaster when the male killed her. The hope is that the much sought after female cichlid will be found in a private collection somewhere around the world. London Zoo is asking anyone with information about female cichlids to email the team at fishappeal@zsl.org

A particle storage ring spanning 15 meters in diameter is set to go on a long cruise this summer, from New York to Illinois, where it will get a new life capturing ultra-rare particles in a magnetic field. The huge electromagnet, made of steel and aluminum, is the centerpiece of a machine built at Long Island's Brookhaven National Laboratory in the 1990s. Now it's needed at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside of Chicago for a study on muons, exotic subatomic particles that exist for just 2.2 millionths of a second. While most parts of the machine can be broken down and shipped halfway across the country in parts, the huge but delicate ring needs to go in one piece. One wrong tilt or twist could irreparably damage the complex wiring inside. The ring will travel the roads only at night and at speeds of just 16 km/h when it goes from lab to port and then port to lab. "It costs about 10 times less to move the magnet from Brookhaven to Illinois than it would to build a new one," Lee Roberts of Boston University said in a statement. "So that's what we're going to do. It's an enormous effort from all sides, but it will be worth it." The Muon g-2 experiment will start in 2016 and will involve 26 institutions around the world.

And, now, in local news from Romania, we learn that

Renowned academician Solomon Marcus expressed his disappointment in the poor financing of research in the European country. He explained that the doctoral title had become a trivial matter, with many who are unworthy gaining one without making the effort such a title should impose. He explained that doctoral titles should more easily be revoked if the work done to acquire one is not satisfactory.

Links:

• http://www.wkyc.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=26501
• http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/san-francisco-gives-up-on-cell-phone-warning-stickers/
• http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/no-jab-no-play-campaign-launched-to-ban-unvaccinated-kids-from-childcare-centres-and-preschools/story-fncvk70o-1226635256015
• http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1734/20130503/belief-second-coming-jesus-nigh-preventing-climate-change-action-study.htm
• http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/03/researchers-give-the-kilogram-a-fundamental-equivalent/
• http://www.livescience.com/29425-space-warp-galaxies-citizen-science.html
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22468206
• http://www.livescience.com/29475-muon-particle-storage-ring-brookhaven-fermilab.html
• http://www.realitatea.net/solomon-marcus-critica-dur-subfinantarea-cercetarii-si-titlurile-de-doctor-devenite-blazon_1173632.html

You can become a citizen scientist at:

http://spacewarps.org/

You can purchase your ticket for the “Education, Science and Human Rights” Humanist conference at:

http://www.eventim.ro/ro/bilete/education-science-and-human-rights-bucuresti-palatul-parlamentului-316070/event.html