The DMCA gets a shot of testosterone

According to CNET News, there's a new copyright bill in the works that takes those anti-technology, anti-consumer DMCA regulations that we loathe and the corporate juggernauts love, and gets them all jacked up on steroids. This does not bode well at all for those of us interested in reasonable copyright policies.

The magic laser

Could a special new laser treatment eliminate obesity, acne, and clogged arteries?

Obesity in the Animal World

Anyone who's had even a short, casual conversation with me probably knows my feelings about tubby pets: I like 'em best. Still, it got me worrying a little bit when every article I saw about huge rabbits mentioned that the Guinness Book of World Records was no longer accepting entries for largest animal in order to prevent people from deliberately overfeeding their pets. What on earth is going on here?

Now Britain's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is saying that pet obesity is reaching dangerous levels, according to this BBC article. As part of RSPCA Week, the organization has released a leaflet explaining the dangers of overfeeding, which include arthritis, high blood pressure, poor liver function and diabetes.

Business plan overhaul

The administration's business plan for this war seems to need a serious overhaul: the ethics of its marketing plan are in question, its projects and initiatives are failing, and its strategy for its human resources (that they should be able to go back into battle after being exposed to several concussive blasts, any of which could have a devastating impact on the brain, for example) is seriously problematic.

Grannies, part II

The granny protest angle worked.

A Fashion Education is Cool

How popular culture has increased the branding of a fashionable education.

Money money, money

A Tigris oil pipeline project is out of the hands of KBR and into the hands of a joint venture between Parsons Corporation and an Australian company, but this doesn’t seem to solve the fundamental problems of the way we planned for this war and the way we expect to pay for it.

Definitions of loyalty, definitions of us

The war at home, right now, is about competing American narratives - the stories we tell ourselves about who we are as a nation - and what it means to have soldiers dying for a narrative that you don’t believe in.

An Immigrant Heritage: NYC's Garment District

As times change radically, so has the look and many other aspects of NYC's garment district and fashion industry.

Songbird Grammar

The common European starling has recently been found to possess grammatical capabilities (or something analogous) that were once believed to be the factor that made human language unique.

According to an article in the most recent edition of Nature, a group led by Timothy Q. Gentner, from the Organismal Biology and Anatomy department at the University of California, San Diego, found that the starlings could be taught to recognize complex 'recursive' structure.

Panda Returned to the Wild

A giant panda raised in captivity for four years has just been released into the wild--the first captive-bred Panda to do this reverse-commute. Xiang Xiang has spent his life training for this moment at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in Sichuan province in China, according to an AP article. He's been learning how to forage for food, mark his territory, build a den, and defend himself.

Chernobyl's Thriving Wildlife

It was twenty years ago today that a reactor exploded at Chernobyl's nuclear power plant. Thirty-one people died immediately from exposure to the radioactivity, and estimates of the total number of people expected to die from Chernobyl-related cancer range from the UN's 9,300 to Greenpeace's 93,000. 77,220 square miles were contaminated, and 300,000 people were permanently evacuated from the area.

In the absense of human occupants, however, the 19-mile exclusion zone around the reactor has become home to a thriving wildlife population. According to an article on the BBC News website, existing populations have been multiplying, and species long gone from the are have been returning.

South Carolina attempting to ban sex toys

Finally some sanity. South Carolina legislators propose a bill to deal with the most serious threat to our country—no, not terrorism, fiscal insolvency, or illegal immigration—the nefarious presence of dildos!

Digital watches for the tech dork at heart

Since it's invention in the early 70s, the digital watch has been treated more as a novelty then a serious accessory. But some of the latest versions, like ones produced by Chanel and Penguin, are replacing upgrading the expected rubber and plastic, to gold, silver and crystal.

Persian sturgeon

Persian sturgeon may prove to be a responsible alternative to other sturgeon species. Still, use caviar sparingly.