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A US Navy sailor plots the ship’s movement on a position chart in Japan. (US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Raul Moreno Jr.)
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On Sunday, 12 Years a Slave won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film tells the true story of Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man who was drugged and kidnapped in Washington, DC, in 1841 and sold into slavery. Northup, a violinist and family man based in Saratoga Springs, New York, was forced to work on Louisiana plantations for 12 years.
On January 20, 1853 (the same year Northup’s memoir Twelve Years a Slave was published), the New York Times ran a report on Northup titled, “The Kidnapping Case,” promising “interesting disclosures” (it spells his name “Northrup”):
“By the laws of Louisiana no man can be punished there for having sold Solomon into slavery wrongfully, because more than two years had elapsed since he was sold; and no recovery can be had for his services, because he was bought without the knowledge that he was a free citizen,” the story reads.
During his acceptance speech, 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen dedicated the award to the tens of millions of people still in slavery today.
(h/t the New York Times’ Facebook page.)
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Read the New York Times’ 1853 Report on the Solomon Northup "Kidnapping Case"
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“Quantum Leap” was the name of a popular TV show from the early nineties about a quantum physicist who jumps through time inhabiting different bodies with each leap. It is also the name the US Special Operations Command’s DC-area branch gave to an unusual project investigating how to combat crime by exploiting social media. An unclassified document, dated September 2012 obtained by Steven Aftergood’s Secrecy News, reveals that this special ops division met with at least a dozen data mining companies in the last year in an effort to utilize sophisticated tech tools to the exploit the personal information Americans publicly post on the web. The US Special Operations Command now claims that the project has been disbanded—but the report describes QUANTUM LEAP as a success.
The goal of QUANTUM LEAP, according to the report, was to conduct multiple experiments over a period of six months to explore how open source applications could be used to combat a range of crimes, including human and drug trafficking and terrorism. The first experiment, assisting with a money laundering case, involved approximately 50 government and industry participants. “Overall the experiment was successful in identifying strategies and techniques for exploiting open sources of information, particularly social media,” the report notes.
The most heavily used tool in this experiment, according to the report, was Raptor X—which included a plugin called “Social Bubble” that allowed special ops to summon “data via the Twitter API to display Twitter users, their geographic location, posted Tweets and related metadata in the Raptor X geospatial display.” Other tools created by industry partners included one that could “index the internet…as well as collect large quantities of data from the deep web,” and another that performed “real time and automated analysis of publicly available data in all media channels, especially the social media, in many languages.” All in all, during the financial crime scenario alone, the the DC special ops divisions identified more than 200 open-source tools that could be useful.
“This report suggests that a lot can be accomplished…before even taking advantage of clandestine collection capabilities,” says Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. “And the prominent role played by industry is striking. Private firms are the ones providing the tools and tactics to the military for data mining open sources.”
Ken McGraw, a spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command, said in a statement that “We cannot confirm the validity of any of the information listed in the After Action Report. The only information we have received so far is the program is no longer in existence and the people who worked on the program are no longer there.”
But Aftergood notes that based on the report, “the initial results were promising. They produced useful leads. So either the initial results did not pan out, or else the subsequent work was moved elsewhere.”
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QUANTUM LEAP: The US Special Ops Project to Exploit Your Twitter Account
Photo: Tansil et al., Advanced Materials
Bridesmaids often complain about the unsightly beige, tangerine or chartreuse dress they have to purchase for their friend’s big event, and will no doubt wear only once. Now, a Japanese designer has managed to add an additional layer of oddity to wedding and bridesmaid dresses: glowing materials made from silk produced by genetically engineered silkworms. Wired reports:
These silkworms, unlike others that have been fed rainbow-colored dyes, don’t need any dietary interventions to spin in color: They’ve been genetically engineered to produce fluorescent skeins in shades of red, orange, and green.
This isn’t the first time silkworms have been genetically engineered, Wired points out. Some silkworms’ had their genomes tweaked in order to produce spider silk or human collagen proteins.
In this case, the researchers looked to animals that naturally produce fluorescent molecules, including corals and jellyfish. Depending upon what colored glow they wanted their silkworms to produce, Wired explains, they took the corresponding animal’s DNA sequence that produced those glowing colors and inserted it into the silkworm genome.
The resulting silks glow under fluorescent light, and are only ever-so-slightly weaker than silks that are normally used for fabrics, scientists reported June 12 in Advanced Functional Materials. Already, the glowing silks have been incorporated into everyday garments such as suits and ties, and Japanese wedding dress designer Yumi Katsura has designed and made gowns that glow in the dark.
The team says they see potential for the glowing silk to be used for some medical technologies, though the rad fabric is likely to prove be a hit at quirky weddings well before.
More from Smithsonian.com:
Spin Cycle
How Old Is That Silk Artifact?
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Plan a Psychedelic Wedding with Glowing Dresses Made from Material from Engineered Silkworm
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Rep. Darrell Issa says he is “deeply disappointed” that Rep. Elijah Cummings went ahead and released the full transcript of a House Oversight Committee interview with an IRS screening manager that Issa wanted to keep under wraps. Then this:
His own previous release of excerpts from this very same transcript undermines his claims that the Committee is somehow trying to keep some specific revelation from public view.
I’m not even sure what to call this. Chutzpah? Something else? Basically, Issa released a few highly misleading excerpts from the interview and repeatedly refused to release the whole thing. So Cummings released some excerpts on his own, and somehow this is supposed to be evidence that Issa wasn’t trying to hide anything? Say what? I’ll bet Nixon was sorry he didn’t think of that defense.
While we’re on the subject, though, I pulled a muscle last night reading the full transcript of this interview. (Seriously. It still hurts.) And for what it’s worth, it really doesn’t prove that there was no White House involvement in targeting tea party groups. The interviewee was a low-level manager of a screening group that does initial sorting into “buckets” of 75,000 applications per year. He made it clear that applications get only a cursory review in his group; that tea party applications were grouped together mostly for the sake of consistency; and that after three days his folks never see these applications again. He did state that he had no reason to think the White House was involved in the higher-level review of tea-party applications, but it was clear that he really had no way of knowing. It was way above his pay grade.
None of this is to say the White House was involved. There’s never been any evidence of that, and based on what we know it’s vanishingly unlikely. Republicans are just blowing smoke on this. Nonetheless, this particular transcript doesn’t really tell us anything aside from the fact that a low-ranking manager was unaware of any political influence. But he probably wouldn’t be even if there was.
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Index Astartes: Codex Astartes – Games Workshop
The Codex Astartes details the doctrine of the Space Marine Chapters, compiled and written by the Primarch of the Ultramarines, Roboute Guilliman. While not every Chapter follows the Codex completely, it lays the foundation for their organisation and tactics. About this series: The Adeptus Astartes are genetically engineered warriors, created by the Emperor […]
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Iyanden – A Codex: Eldar Supplement – Games Workshop
For thousands of years, the Eldar of Iyanden have sailed through the sea of stars, defending the galaxy’s eastern rim from the threat of Chaos. They have won great victories, but have known terrible tragedy also; what was once the most populous of craftworlds is now but a shadow of its former glory. This supplement to Codex: Eldar allows you to ta […]
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Codex: Eldar – Games Workshop
Codex: Eldar is your comprehensive guide to wielding the deadly warhosts of the Craftworld Eldar upon the battlefields of the 41 st Millennium. This volume details the craftworlds of the Eldar, and the different types of army they field. The Eldar embody excellence in the arts of war, from their psychic might to their deadly aircraft, and their ranks co […]
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Warhammer 40,000 Altar of War: Eldar – Games Workshop
Altar of War missions provide all the information required to play games inspired by the battlefield tactics of the different Warhammer 40,000 armies. This book contains six brand-new missions which you can use instead of the Eternal War missions in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook if you or your opponent has an Eldar army. These battles sho […]
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Inside of a Dog – Alexandra Horowitz
The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think, now in paperback. The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draw […]
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How to Paint Citadel Miniatures: Eldar – Games Workshop
The deadly skimmers, skilled Aspect Warriors and valiant Guardians of the Eldar craftworlds fight a constant battle for the survival of their very species. In this Army Workshop, the talented Studio army painters demonstrate how to paint a varied selection of Eldar miniatures using the Citadel paint range. Example miniatures featured in this extensive painti […]
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How to Raise the Perfect Dog – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier
From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel’s Dog Whisperer , the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, says, “Yes, […]
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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete
For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America’s most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog’s Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of German shepherds and as t […]
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Trident K9 Warriors – Michael Ritland & Gary Brozek
As Seen on “60 Minutes”! As a Navy SEAL during a combat deployment in Iraq, Mike Ritland saw a military working dog in action and instantly knew he’d found his true calling. Ritland started his own company training and supplying dogs for the SEAL teams, U.S. Government, and Department of Defense. He knew that fewer than 1 percent of […]
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The Honest Life – Jessica Alba
As a new mom, Jessica Alba wanted to create the safest, healthiest environment for her family. But she was frustrated by the lack of trustworthy information on how to live healthier and cleaner—delivered in a way that a busy mom could act on without going to extremes. In 2012, with serial entrepreneur Brian Lee and environmental advocate Christopher Gavigan, […]
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With CO2 Cuts Tough, U.S. and China Pledge a Push on Another Greenhouse Gas
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What, precisely, does the PRISM program do? The Guardian described it as providing “direct access” to corporate servers owned by the likes of Google and Microsoft, and I was puzzled about exactly what that meant. From a technical perspective, I didn’t understand what this entailed. Some kind of remote superuser access? Taps on incoming and outgoing communications links? Software agents installed on company servers? Or what? It’s especially peculiar because most of the companies involved have now issued seemingly unequivocal denials that they allow NSA any kind of access at all without a firm legal basis.
Well, the Washington Post updated its story this morning and added this paragraph:
It is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing “collection managers to send content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” rather than directly to company servers.
Does this help? It doesn’t help me much, but maybe it means something to someone with the right background. Anyone care to weigh in?
Also: Britain apparently has access to the PRISM program too, which allows their spy agency “to circumvent the formal legal process required in Britain to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside of the country.”
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Climate change is a helluva thing to live through. But humanity’s ability to cope and survive during past periods of climatic upheaval might have been what inspired species-advancing leaps in culture and innovation.
New research published last week in the journal Science links some of our ancestors’ greatest cultural advances during the Middle Stone Age to periods of tremendous tumult in the climate. The findings suggest climate change helped get our African ancestors off their butts and thrust them off on quests to explore the greater world.
The Middle Stone Age, which began roughly 280,000 years ago and ended perhaps 30,000 years ago, was a momentous time in our history. During this period, Homo sapiens developed modern bodies and brains, and began an epic march out of Africa to inaugurate a worldwide diaspora. This migration begat cave paintings, advanced stone tools, and a cultural revolution that would eventually deliver us to the globalized, Twitter-connected, Monsanto-dominated, mountaintop-removing, solar-panel-using, electric-car-driving world we recognize today.
A team of scientists led by researchers from Cardiff University compared studies of Earth’s prehistoric climate record with archaeological discoveries from territorial expansions in South Africa during the Middle Stone Age. Evidence of leaps in technology included caches of jewelry, tools made from bones and stones, and paintings of early symbols (which were the precursors to language).
The scientists reported finding a “striking correspondence” between these archaeological highlights and the known periods of abrupt climate change. That correspondence, the scientists wrote, “suggests that the well-known major progressions in the development of modern humans” can be linked with “intervals of abrupt climate change.” From the Science paper:
Abrupt Northern Hemisphere cooling events and the associated major shifts in tropical climate dynamics led to extended droughts in large parts of the African continent, which potentially repeatedly bottlenecked early human populations elsewhere. However, conversely, the same abrupt cooling also created favourable humid ‘refugial’ conditions in southern Africa, which along with the highly diverse vegetation and a rich coastal ecosystem, would have combined to provide ample resources for early human expansion. …
Such climate-driven pulses in southern Africa and more widely were probably fundamental to the origin of key elements of modern human behaviour in Africa, and to the subsequent dispersal of Homo sapiens from its ancestral homeland.
What does that discovery say about us today? It’s hardly apples-to-oranges: The climatic changes identified by the researchers were mostly friendly for the ancient, scattered communities that were studied. As favorable conditions receded, new technologies also faded. But here we are by comparison, 6 billion people and counting, staring down weather that seems more angry and destructive than anything we’ve faced yet. But we have advantages that our ancestors did not enjoy: We are beginning to understand the workings of climate, and we could work together to slow down the rate at which it changes.
One of the authors of the study, Ian Hall of Cardiff University, penned some of his own reflections on this in a post in The Conversation:
Perhaps there is a lesson to be learnt from this, given the situation in which we find ourselves now. Once more humans face rapid, potentially disastrous climate change. Our ancestors were probably reduced to a fairly small number, but dealt with the situation with communication, collaboration and invention.
It is these three qualities that would eventually make us the most successful species on the planet, and it is these three qualities that we must rely on to help us tackle our modern climate crisis.
During this period of anthropogenic global warming, we could collectively adapt once again. Instead of stone tools and distant migration, we’ll need to develop new urban design principles, renewable energy systems, and ways of feeding ourselves. In the process, we could end up propelling humanity to new levels of greatness. All of which sounds way better than the alternative. You’ll have to ask the dinosaurs about that one.
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A Duke Energy coal plant bleching pollution in Stokes County, N.C.
North Carolina’s numerous coal plants might be driving Tar Heel State residents to kill themselves.
Suicide is a leading killer in America, and links between air pollution and suicide rates have been known for years. Breathing in bad air might drive people to take their own lives by worsening their health problems, affecting their nervous systems, or generally lowering their life satisfaction.
So Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researcher John Spangler set about trying to understand how polluting coal-fired power plants might affect county-by-county suicide rates in North Carolina, where the statewide rate is higher than the national average [PDF]. What he discovered was an alarming correlation.
Spangler looked at census data, mortality rates, and air contamination levels in North Carolina counties. He found that for every coal plant operating in a county, the number of yearly suicides rose by 1.96 people for every 100,000 people living there. The results were published in the Journal of Mood Disorders [PDF].
From a press release about the study, published by the medical center:
As there were 20 coal-fired electricity plants in North Carolina when this study was carried out, that means there were about 40 suicides a year per 100,000 population related to the plants. When applied to the state’s year 2,000 population of 8,049,313, this equals about 3,220 suicides a year associated with coal-fired electricity plants.
There are many factors that drive people to take their lives, of course, and there was no way that Spangler’s study could account for all of them. That said, he thinks his findings could be useful. Again from the press release:
“Still, it raises the interesting question of whether suicide in a given population is related to the presence or absence of coal-fired electricity plants and the air quality,” he said. “Further research is needed to understand what factors related to coal burning actually are at play and suggest that tighter regulation of coal-fired power plant emissions might cut down on county suicide rates in North Carolina.”
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Coal plants could be linked to thousands of North Carolina suicides
Some federal lawmakers want you to be warned before you put food made from genetically engineered plants and animals into your mouth.
It’s just common sense, right? Yeah, well, tell that to the Food and Drug Administration.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced legislation with bipartisan support Wednesday that would require genetically engineered foods to be clearly labeled. Such commonsense labeling is unpopular with big agribusiness, which fears that consumers would avoid many of their products if they knew about their freaky ingredients. But the idea is overwhelmingly popular with Americans.
Last year, 55 members of the U.S. Senate and House called on the FDA to mandate such labeling, but the effort failed.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on this year’s bill:
The legislation … has support from both sides of the aisle, including more than 20 co-sponsors combined in the Senate and House of Representatives.
It has been hailed by food labeling advocates as a boon for consumers who have repeatedly tried to get such laws passed. California’s Proposition 37, a referendum on requiring genetically engineered food labeling last year, failed to pass. Boxer tried to pass a similar bill, without success, in 2000. But activists say that Boxer and DeFazio’s proposed legislation shows that demand for a genetically engineered labeling law has reached critical mass.
“This is big because for the first time in 13 years the U.S. Senate has recognized consumers’ right to know,” said Colin O’Neil, director of government affairs for the Center for Food Safety, of the federal proposal. “Labeling has become a nonpartisan issue. It’s no longer an issue of if, but when.”
Why label GMOs? You already know, but here are some commonsense arguments from the lawmakers behind the bill:
“Americans have the right to know what is in the food they eat so they can make the best choices for their families,” Senator Boxer said. “This legislation is supported by a broad coalition of consumer groups, businesses, farmers, fishermen and parents who all agree that consumers deserve more — not less — information about the food they buy.”
“When American families purchase food, they deserve to know if that food was genetically engineered in a laboratory,” Representative DeFazio said.
Did we mention that this is really just common sense?
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