Weather Warfare: Beware the US military’s experiments with climatic warfare

Weather Warfare: Beware the US military’s experiments with climatic warfare
Jan 20, 2013 | Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Climatic warfare’ has been excluded from the agenda on climate change.  

“HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems globally.”


“‘Climatic warfare’ potentially threatens the future of humanity, but has casually been excluded from the reports for which the IPCC received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.”


Pdf version of article on Weather Warfare by Michel Chossudovsky, The Ecologist, December 2007 (pdf)

Rarely acknowledged in the debate on global climate change, the world’s weather can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated electromagnetic weapons. Both the US and Russia have developed capabilities to manipulate the climate for military use.

Environmental modification techniques have been applied by the US military for more than half a century. US mathematician John von Neumann, in liaison with the US Department of Defense, started his research on weather modification in the late 1940s at the height of the Cold War and foresaw ‘forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined’. During the Vietnam war, cloud-seeding techniques were used, starting in 1967 under Project Popeye, the objective of which was to prolong the monsoon season and block enemy supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The US military has developed advanced capabilities that enable it selectively to alter weather patterns. The technology, which is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), is an appendage of the Strategic Defense Initiative – ‘Star Wars’. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, operating from the outer atmosphere and capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems around the world.

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Cats Take on Owners' Habits (Good and Bad)

Close-up of a cute cat face.
CREDIT: © Pavalache Stelian | Dreamstime.com

Cats Take on Owners' Habits (Good and Bad)
Jan 19, 2013 | Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Cats really do become part of our families, to the point that they take on human habits -- good and bad -- and adapt their lifestyle with that of their owners, says new research.

The finding shows how profoundly captivity can affect certain animals. While genetics help to explain some aspects of personality and behavior, an individual's environment clearly is a factor too.

"Our findings underline the high influence of human presence and care on the amount of activity and daily rhythm in cats," concluded Giuseppe Piccione and colleagues of the University of Messina's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

Dogs and Cats Help Prevent Infections in Kids

For the Journal of Veterinary Behavior study, the researchers studied two groups of cats. Each group received excellent care, in terms of food, medical attention and grooming. The owners of all the cats worked during the day and returned home in the evenings.

The first group of cats, however, lived in smaller homes and stayed closer to their owners. The second group lived more of an indoor/outdoor lifestyle on larger property. These cats were also kept outside at night.

Over time, the cats in the first group mirrored the lives of their owners. Their eating, activity and sleeping patterns were very similar. The cats left out at night became more nocturnal, matching the behaviors of semi-dependent farm cats with more feral ways.

"Cats are intelligent animals with a long memory," Jane Brunt, DVM, and the executive director of the CATalyst Council, told Discovery News. "They watch and learn from us, (noting) the patterns of our actions, as evidenced by knowing where their food is kept and what time to expect to be fed, how to open the cupboard door that's been improperly closed and where their feeding and toileting areas are."

Cats Do Roam, Tracking Shows

Piccione pointed out that cats' food intake is associated with that of owners, perhaps explaining why human and cat obesity rates seem to so often match. Cats may even match their elimination patterns with those of their owners.

"It's always interesting when I hear about people who have the litterbox in their bathroom and the cat uses it when the owner is on the toilet," Brunt, a past president of the American Association of Feline Practitioners, said.

Another recent study, published in Applied Animal Behavior Science, looked at personality in cats. Many of the primary traits -- arrogant, social, shy, trusting, aggressive, calm, timid, excitable, dominant and curious -- apply to humans as well.

Authors Marieke Cassia Gartner and Alexander Weiss of The University of Edinburgh believe that the environment in which a feline lives "is one possible explanation for the variance in results in the domestic cat, as personality may not be completely comprised of genetic makeup."

Humans even serve as role models for their cats.

"While it's commonly thought that cats are solitary and aloof and can take care of themselves, studies have shown that cats are social animals and when people are their main social group, it's important for owners to understand that they are the role model and we have to encourage their activities with proper play/prey techniques," Brunt explained, adding that when owners take time to play with their cats, the felines are more motivated to stay active.

While it's now known that owners greatly influence their cats, the reverse is true as well. Cats can influence that habits and lifestyle of their owners. Brunt said that we often adjust our schedules to fit theirs, such as getting up earlier and responding to their needs.

"I also think we can learn a lot from cats," she added. "When they sit on our lap softly purring with rhythmic breathing and half-closed eyes, the sense of serenity and calm that comes over us is like a private lesson in inner peace and meditation."

Sky-High Radiation Found in Fukushima Fish

Japanese fishermen unload their catch at
the Hirakata fish market in Kitaibaraki,
Ibaraki prefecture, close to the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant on
April 6, 2011. (TEPCO)

Sky-High Radiation Found in Fukushima Fish
Jan 18, 2013 | Common Dreams | Jacob Chamberlain

Glaring contamination from nuclear disaster persists    

In the latest discovery revealing the ongoing and devastating effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, a fish contaminated with over 2,500 times the legal amount of radiation has been caught off the coast of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, officials announced Friday.

Plant operator TEPCO stated that the radioactive element caesium was detected in a murasoi fish at levels "equivalent to 254,000 becquerels per kilogramme -- or 2,540 times more than the government seafood limit," Agence France-Press reports.

Radioactive contamination has remained consistent in the after-life of the crippled nuclear plant. In October, a group of scientists discovered that the plant was likely still leaking radiation into the sea, with up to 40% of bottom feeding fish near the site of the nuclear disaster still showing elevated levels of radiation.

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"The fact that many fish are just as contaminated today with caesium 134 and caesium 137 as they were more than one year ago implies that caesium is still being released to the food chain," Ken Buesseler, senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution of the United States reported at that time.

"The (radioactivity) numbers aren't going down. Oceans usually cause the concentrations to decrease if the spigot is turned off," he added. "There has to be somewhere they're picking up the cesium."

This week's alarming discovery reveals that the situation for the ecosystems surrounding the plant remain dire.

TEPCO has come under fire for neglecting essential safety measures ahead of the disastrous nuclear meltdown, and the Japanese government has been cited for malfeasance regarding issues of public safety and contamination surrounding the nuclear disaster. Critics have continually highlighted 'unreliable' radiation monitoring, under-reported leakage, and other transgressions.

Obama's Gun Control Push While Fraudster Bankers Go Unprosecuted

Obama's Gun Control Push While Fraudster Bankers Go Unprosecuted
Jan 18, 2013 | usawatchdog

Tree and human health may be linked

© USDA Forest Service
A tree-lined street in Toledo, Ohio in 2006,
before emerald ash borer infestation.
Credit: Dan Herms, Ohio State University

Tree and human health may be linked
Jan 16, 2013 | Geoffrey Donovan | USDA Forest Service

Evidence is increasing from multiple scientific fields that exposure to the natural environment can improve human health. In a new study by the U.S. Forest Service, the presence of trees was associated with human health.

For Geoffrey Donovan, a research forester at the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station, and his colleagues, the loss of 100 million trees in the eastern and midwestern United States was an unprecedented opportunity to study the impact of a major change in the natural environment on human health.

In an analysis of 18 years of data from 1,296 counties in 15 states, researchers found that Americans living in areas infested by the emerald ash borer, a beetle that kills ash trees, suffered from an additional 15,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease and 6,000 more deaths from lower respiratory disease when compared to uninfected areas. When emerald ash borer comes into a community, city streets lined with ash trees become treeless.

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The researchers analyzed demographic, human mortality, and forest health data at the county level between 1990 and 2007. The data came from counties in states with at least one confirmed case of the emerald ash borer in 2010. The findings - which hold true after accounting for the influence of demographic differences, like income, race, and education - are published in the current issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

"There's a natural tendency to see our findings and conclude that, surely, the higher mortality rates are because of some confounding variable, like income or education, and not the loss of trees," said Donovan. "But we saw the same pattern repeated over and over in counties with very different demographic makeups."

© USDA Forest Service
Three years later, in 2009, after the invasive
insect spread to the neighborhood.
Credit: Dan Herms, Ohio State University

Although the study shows the association between loss of trees and human mortality from cardiovascular and lower respiratory disease, it did not prove a causal link. The reason for the association is yet to be determined.

The emerald ash borer was first discovered near Detroit, Michigan, in 2002. The borer attacks all 22 species of North American ash and kills virtually all of the trees it infests.

The study was conducted in collaboration with David Butry, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology; Yvonne Michael, with Drexel University; and Jeffrey Prestemon, Andrew Liebhold, Demetrios Gatziolis, and Megan Mao, with the Forest Service's Southern, Northern, and Pacific Northwest Research Stations.

Fire Ant Monarchy Ruled by 'Social Chromosome'

A 616-gene sequence ("social chromosome")
determines whether a single queen or many
will rule a colony of fire ants, Solenopsis invictaI.
Here, a queen, three smaller workers and one pupa.
CREDIT: Romain Libbrecht and Yannick Wurm

Fire Ant Monarchy Ruled by 'Social Chromosome'
Jan 16, 2013 | Live Science | Stephanie Pappas

Whether fire ants bow to one queen or accept many rulers depends on one long strand of genes, a new study finds.

The gene sequence is the first "social chromosome" ever discovered, according to study researcher Yannick Wurm of Queen Mary, University of London, who called the DNA sequence a "supergene."

"This was a very surprising discovery," Wurm said in a statement. "Similar differences in chromosomal structure are linked to wing patterns in butterflies and to cancer in humans, but this is the first supergene ever identified that determines social behavior."

Choosing queens

The fire ant Selenopsis invicta is one of many fire ant species known for nasty stings. The species is native to South America and invasive elsewhere. One of its odder traits is a particular flexibility about its social structure. Some members of the species live in colonies with a single queen, while others tolerate hundreds of queens. [Gallery: Stunning Photos of the World's Ants]

The new genetic analysis, published Thursday (Jan. 17) in the journal Nature, finds that a sequence of genes on a certain chromosome determines which social arrangement is acceptable to the ants. Much in the same way that the human sex chromosomes vary between X and Y, the ant chromosomes vary between B and b.

If all the workers in a colony carry the B variant only, they will accept a single queen that also carries only the B variant (marked as BB, because the chromosomes come in pairs). But if some workers in the colony carry the b version of the chromosome, the colony will accept multiple queens — but only those queens with a mismatched "Bb" set of chromosomes.

Worker fire ants with only the B variant
of the social chromosome will accept a single
queen also with only the B variant
(described as "BB"). But if the queen has the
other variant, the so-called Bb queen, she will
be attacked by these BB workers (shown here).
CREDIT: Chih-Chi Volans Lee,
Yu-Ching Huang and John Wang

Smelly queens?

The chromosomal differences have been linked to a number of anatomical differences in the ants, Wurm and his colleagues wrote, from the queen's fecundity to the size of male workers and the structure of their sperm. These differences could explain how the ants "know" what sort of monarchy to accept.

"Odor is likely involved," Wurm told LiveScience. "We know the queens smell different."

The two different genes may also confer their own advantages. BB queens mate and disperse to their own colonies when they reach maturity, making them good at invading new areas, the researchers wrote. Bb queens join others near their maternal colony and, working together, produce more workers overall. This might make them more successful in previously colonized areas.

Wurm and his colleagues plan to dig deeper into the chromosome to find out which of the 616 genes in the social sequence are responsible for the differences between ants. They also hope to find out if similar sequences play social roles in other species. And the differences aren't just academic. The fire ants have spread into the southern United States as well as Australia and China, where they are major pests.

"Our discovery could help in developing novel pest-control strategies," Wurm said. "For example, a pesticide could artificially deactivate the genes in the social chromosome and induce social anarchy within the colony."

What Aristotle and Joshua Bell can teach us about persuasion - Conor Neill

What Aristotle and Joshua Bell can teach us about persuasion - Conor Neill
Jan 14, 2013 | TEDEducation

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-aristotle-and-joshua-bell-can-teach-us-about-p...

Imagine you are one of the world's greatest violin players, and you decide to conduct an experiment: play inside a subway station and see if anyone stops to appreciate when you are stripped of a concert hall and name recognition. Joshua Bell did this, and Conor Neill channels Aristotle to understand why the context mattered.

Lesson by Conor Neill, animation by Animationhaus.

2,000 Year-Old Shipwreck Discovered, Contains Natural Medicines

The aquarium recreated in the museum,
where several vials and containers,
(still sealed), are preserved.
Photo: EMANUELA APPETITI

2,000 Year-Old Shipwreck Discovered, Contains Natural Medicines
Jan 14, 2013 | Natural Society | Elizabeth Renter

Once upon a time, people used plants for healing and it wasn’t referred to as “alternative”. Back then, “traditional” medicine referred to that which had been around the longest, which was healing based on the use of plants and nature. Now, things have changed and we occasionally need a reminder that nature has been providing medicine for millennia and can still be trusted to provide it today. One of those reminders came  just a couple years ago when archaeologists discovered a wooden box full of medicine in a 2,000 year-old sunken ship off the coast of Tuscany.

The ship was believed to have sank around 130 B.C., well over 2,000 years ago. It was transporting wine, glassware, lams, and ceramics. It isn’t clear where the ship originated or what its final destination was, but we do know there was likely a healer on board.

Inside a wooden box, preserved deep under the sea, was a collection of pills. Using DNA sequencing, scientists were able to determine what was inside these pills, and it wasn’t some lab-created, branded pharmaceuticals.

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The pills contained all natural plants and materials including crushed celery, onions, carrots, cabbage, alfalfa, chestnuts, radish, yarrow, parsley, nasturtium, hibiscus, and clay. Also within the box was a mortar and pestle, likely used to crush the plants and herbs for the medicinal preparations.

“It’s a spectacular find. They were very well sealed. The plants and vegetables were probably crushed with a mortar and pestle – we could still see the fibres in the tablets. They also contained clay, which even today is used to treat gastrointestinal problems,” said Dr Alain Touwaide, from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington DC.

The finding marks the oldest known remains of ancient medicines. Dr. Alain Touwaide from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington D.C. says that the remedies are those documented in Ancient Greek texts, which were later modeled by Ancient Romans—both of whom can trace their medical practices to Africa, the ‘true birthplace of medicine’.

More than likely, the researchers say, the medicine was used to treat general malaise and those digestive complaints common with sailors on the high seas. To this day, many of the components found within these ancient pills are still used to treat modern ailments—including clay for upset stomachs, celery for rheumatism, and onion for infections.

There are people who would argue that the life expectancy of a person in these ancient times was dramatically less than a person today, and that their herbal medicines weren’t doing anyone any favors. But, this is a narrow-view, failing to look at the shortcomings of sanitation and the spread of disease back then. Now, for instance, we don’t live with open sewage and we all know to cook our foods to a proper temperature.

There are commendable advances that have taken place over the past few thousand years, to be sure. Better housing, more sound infrastructure, and cleaner living in general are just a few. But, there’s a chance we could learn something from our predecessors—namely, that some things should not be forsaken or left behind in the name of advancement; that some things, including natural healing, truly are timeless.

Additional Sources:

AfricaResource

Eurekalert.org

NASA: We May Be On the Verge of a “Mini-Maunder” Event

© Discovery.com

NASA: We May Be On the Verge of a “Mini-Maunder” Event
Jan 14, 2013 | Washington's Blog

Is a Planetary Cooling Spell Straight Ahead?

All climate scientists agree that the sun affects Earth’s climate to some extent.   They only disagree about whether or not the effect form the sun is minor compared to man-made causes.

We noted in 2011:

This week, scientists from the US Solar Observatory and the US Air Force Research Laboratory have discovered – to their great surprise – that the sun’s activity is declining, and that we might experience the lowest solar output we’ve seen since 1645-1715. The Register describes it in dramatic tones:

What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening.

Scientists who are convinced that global warming is a serious threat to our planet say that such a reduced solar output would simply buy us more time … delaying the warming trend, but not stopping or reversing it.

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On the other hand, scientists who are skeptical about global warming say that the threat is a new mini ice age. (Remember that scientists have been convinced in the past that we would have a new ice age, and even considered pouring soot over the arctic in the 1970s to help melt the ice – in order to prevent another ice age. Obama’s top science advisor was one of those warning of a new ice age in the 1970s. And see this.)

NASA reports this week that we may be on the verge of another Maunder Minimum (a period with an unusually low number of sunspots, leading to colder temperatures):

Much has been made of the probable connection between the Maunder Minimum, a 70-year deficit of sunspots in the late 17^th-early 18th century, and the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters.  The mechanism for that regional cooling could have been a drop in the sun’s EUV output; this is, however, speculative.

The yearly averaged sunspot number for a period of 400 years (1610-2010). SOURCE: Courtesy of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

***

The sun could be on the threshold of a mini-Maunder event right now.  Ongoing Solar Cycle 24 is the weakest in more than 50 years.  Moreover, there is (controversial) evidence of a long-term weakening trend in the magnetic field strength of sunspots. Matt Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory predict that by the time Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Independent lines of research involving helioseismology and surface polar fields tend to support their conclusion.

NASA explains that interactions between the sun, sources of cosmic radiation and the Earth are very complicated, and it takes an interdisciplinary team of heliophysicists, chemists and others to quantify what is really going on.  And the Earth’s climate is also affected by cosmic radiation.

So – even if NASA’s prediction of a period of an unusually low amount of sun spots is proven correct – it is hard to know whether that will lead to a large or small reduction in temperature trends.

Meet Zbigniew Brzezinski, Conspiracy Theorist

Meet Zbigniew Brzezinski, Conspiracy Theorist
Jan 4, 2013 | corbettreport

SHOW NOTES: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=6545

Corbett Report Podcast #252

Conspiracy theorists Zbigniew Brzezinski believe that organizations of interest work behind the scenes to manipulate world politics. They believe that false flag terror events are used to justify wars of aggression on political enemies. They believe that humanitarian rhetoric is used to mask military aggression, as in Syria. In short, they are realistic observers of world politics, just like Zbigniew Brzezinski. Join us today on The Corbett Report as we here all about the conspiratorial view of history straight from the horse's mouth.