0 Planned chip will provide rapid bioagent detection
The National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Food and Drug Administration plan to team up to develop a chip that will predict drug toxicities and the safety of vaccines.
The chip will bring together many different types of human cells onto a chip and have them communicate with one another. The agencies plan to spend up to $140 million over five years in an effort to develop the chip, Smart Planet reports.Experts say that the chip will also aid in the fight against bioterror.
"The Department of Defense needs to rapidly develop and field safe an effective medical countermeasures against biological threats to US warfighters," Smart Planet reports.
The chip will be inlaid with human cells that represent human physiological systems from the brain to the heart and everything in between. The collaboration will make an effort to combine human cell types like liver and kidney cells to represent physiological systems and have them "talk to each other" on a chip. The goal is to get 10 different physiological systems represented in 3D on the chip, which would allow scientists to assess the effects of a candidate drug on gene expression, the neurological system, on proteins in the cardiovascular system and more.
“The idea is you’re looking for signatures that would tell you whether this is a safe compound to try in a human patient,” Collins said, according to Smart Planet.
According to the DARPA press release, the NIH will focus on developing micro-sized systems to mimic human physiology and pathology, DARPA will develop engineering platforms and the biology required and the FDA will advise the agencies on how to meet requirements for safety and effectiveness.
“Drug toxicity is one of the most common reasons why promising compounds fail,” Francis Collins, the NIH director, said in a press release, according to Smart Planet. “If things are going to fail, you want them to fail early."
0 Environmental activists or a disgruntled scientist more likely next "Terror threat"
AUSTRALIAN defence and security experts have "increasing concerns" that Australia may be the target for deadly bioterrorism attacks.
But a decade after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, environmental activists or a disgruntled scientist are seen as more likely threats than the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Recently released proceedings of a "biodefence scenario planning workshop", held last year at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation's Fishermans Bend laboratories, reveal that senior federal and state security and health experts have reviewed bioterrorism threats based on the assumption that al-Qaeda may seek to attack on Australian soil.
But participants at the conference observed that "overseas terrorists' interest in attacking Australia may not be particularly high" and that it was "more likely" that "a disgruntled person with a scientific background, [or] groups advocating environmental preservation and protection" would be responsible for any bioterrorist attack. Unidentified "local ethnic groups" were also identified as a risk.
0 Dengue Fever – a case of bioterrorism?
A lot of rumours are in the air about the fast spreading dengue, considered the severest epidemic that hit the city in decades, Pakistan Today has learnt.
A banker, Ahsan Manzoor, thinks that it came with used tyres imported from East Asia, which were initially banned.
“When those countries discard the tyres, we import it for use not realising that they could bring diseases like dengue, as all mosquitoes came in those containers,” he added. A housewife from DHA however believed that the virus came from Africa in containers. “The virus initially hit Africa and reached Thailand and from there came in containers to Pakistan,” she added.
Many others however consider it one of the worst forms of bioterrorism with some foreign hand involved in it. “Just look at the route of all flights coming from abroad.
They fly over DHA, Model Town and Cantt; the three most hit localities in the city, right before landing. It is possible that the planes, before landing, drop dengue mosquitoes from the tyres chamber. The fact is obvious from the incidence of dengue in these localities,” a female doctor from Mayo Hospital said.
Many others further think it to have come from NATO containers. “The NATO containers come with all kinds of stuff and recently a scandal also came to light showing they are not even properly checked.
These containers pass through Pakistan and stay at various stations before reaching Afghanistan. It is possible that the dengue mosquito came from NATO containers,” Nasir, a BCom student, said.
What really interested me was the 1 and only public comment that has been placed on the above article, pasted below:
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Comment (1)
"Real Facts "
DENGUE & vector “Aedes Aegypti Mosquito” are Germs Warfare Weapon Genetically Engineered in Lahore.
Do you want to know the whole truth about “The Killer Mosquito “Aedes Aegypti”?
31 years (June 1980) ago I exposed the American’s secret Biological & Germs Warfare work & laboratory in Lahore. Where they Genetically Engineered Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic fever virus, Dengue Fever Virus, West Nile virus & Chikungunya Fever virus etc. After my report I was threaten to life, forced to refute my report, sacked from job, harassed & finally arrested under Martial law regulation to the notorious torture camp Lahore Fort & investigated under high treason offence . Ehsan: bllf@hotmail.com
DENGUE & vector “Aedes Aegypti Mosquito” are Germs Warfare Weapon Genetically Engineered in Lahore.
Do you want to know the whole truth about “The Killer Mosquito “Aedes Aegypti”?
31 years (June 1980) ago I exposed the American’s secret Biological & Germs Warfare work & laboratory in Lahore. Where they Genetically Engineered Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic fever virus, Dengue Fever Virus, West Nile virus & Chikungunya Fever virus etc. After my report I was threaten to life, forced to refute my report, sacked from job, harassed & finally arrested under Martial law regulation to the notorious torture camp Lahore Fort & investigated under high treason offence . Ehsan: bllf@hotmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wonder how legit it is?
0 New Computer Game Is "War Porn" Say Journalists
A group of software developers from Brisbane is creating a computer game in which the players are war correspondents reporting from a conflict zone.
The game's creators say it is a realistic portrayal of life as a war correspondent, although with many of the more mundane details taken out.
But not everyone is impressed.
In WarCo, players run around in a conflict zone with a camera, dodging bullets, grenades and bombs in an attempt to make the best possible story.
The game's developer, Morgan Jaffitt, says there are plenty of stories that players can follow.
"What we ask you to do is to go and film the story elements that you find interesting and then at the end of that section the game will put together a story based on which story elements you focused on," he said.
"We also offer you the ability to go on and edit your own story.
"As an example: in the opening of the game - as you arrive on a plane into an airport that's currently under fire in the middle of the revolution you can focus on the story of the loyalist soldiers who are defending the airport; you can focus on the story of a wounder civilian who's looking for her daughter; or you can focus on the issue of the arms that are coming into the country, and being supplied by various international agencies, and what that means about their relationships with the loyalist forces."
War porn
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the idea.
BBC reporter Nick Bryant has been a correspondent in several conflict zones including Afghanistan, Kashmir, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
He has just released a book on his experiences.
He says he worries that a game about war reporting could be sending the wrong message.
"I think there's a trend within the industry at the moment to give prominence in news reports and prominence online to footage where war correspondents come under fire and I think it's a worrying trend because it makes the war correspondent the story rather than the war," he said.
"And I think it sends a very dangerous message to the young journalists who are coming up: that the best way for them to very quickly make their name is to go to somewhere very dangerous, and hope to get shot at, and then to broadcast that material and hope to make their name.
"I guess my concern about this sort of game is that it reinforces that trend. It's a kind of war porn, almost."
Mmmmmm...
0 Psychologists help 9/11 truth deniers
Psychologists help out the conspiracy theorists that won't let go of the official conspiracy theory.
0 Zionist Ted Poe "Do You Know The Muffin Man? The Muffin Man The Muffin Man"
Like there's nothing else going on in the world....oh brother!
0 Pentagon rethinks bioterror effort
Critics say US$1.5-billion initiative has not delivered results.
In the film Contagion, it takes just a few months for scientists to make a vaccine against a deadly virus. Yet a real US military programme that aimed to do just that is being dismantled after five years of trying.
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| Soldiers are yet to see any effective new countermeasures against bioterror agents. |
The Transformational Medical Technologies (TMT) initiative, born in the US Department of Defense in 2006, was originally conceived as a five-year, US$1.5-billion project that would substantially accelerate the development of countermeasures to protect soldiers against biological attacks. Made into a permanent programme in 2009, it set out to sequence the genomes of potential bioterror agents, explore new drug technologies and develop 'broad-spectrum' therapies that would work against multiple bacterial and viral pathogens — especially haemorrhagic fever viruses such as Ebola and Marburg. Supporters of the programme point out that three candidate drugs developed under the programme, for pathogens including Ebola virus, are now in clinical trials.
The TMT programme, however, has ceased to exist as a stand-alone effort. Alan Rudolph, director of Chemical and Biological Technologies for the TMT's parent office, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, is folding some TMT projects into other Pentagon efforts and reordering their priorities. Critics say that it has failed in its underlying objective to provide a faster, game-changing approach to biodefence. No antibiotics developed by the TMT have entered clinical trials. The drug candidates it has developed are designed for single pathogens, not multiple threats. And although the programme is set to award a major clinical-trial contract later this year, the drug being tested would treat not exotic, untreatable pathogens but ordinary influenza, a disease already heavily researched outside the Pentagon.
0 Israeli Army Use New "Sound Weapons" to Disperse Protesters
 |
| A youth holds up the national flag at demonstration |
The Israeli army Wednesday used an acoustic weapon called 'The Scream' for the first time to disperse Palestinians demonstrating at Qalandia checkpoint, north of Jerusalem, in support of the Palestinian bid to the United Nations.
Within seconds, the sound emitted by the weapon causes people to fall to their knees, unable to maintain their balance. The weapon also causes dizziness and nausea, and long exposure to the sound can cause damage to hearing. It can be heard even if sound-proof earplugs are used.
Dozens were injured with peculiar medical condition causing the Palestinian protesters to immediately disperse after the Israeli army fired the weapons.
Soldiers also used a new kind of tear gas bombs which caused people to faint giving them no time to move away, which made it hard for reporters to be at the scene.
Shortly before noon, Israeli soldiers shot an unnamed 15-year-old in the eye with a rubber-coated steel bullet from a distance of 25 meters.
He was taken to a Ramallah hospital, where it was confirmed he lost his eye. The boy, as well as many others at the demonstration, was throwing rocks and bottles at the soldiers, who in violation of their own open-fire regulations shot from close range.
Four other Palestinians were shot and an international solidarity activist was shot in his ear. Three Palestinians--one from Jenin, one from Nablus, and one from Ramallah--were arrested by plainclothes Israeli troops. Palestinians burned tires to obscure Israeli soldiers' lines of sight as the battle went on into the evening.
Four other Palestinians were shot and an international solidarity activist was shot in his ear. Three Palestinians--one from Jenin, one from Nablus, and one from Ramallah--were arrested by plainclothes Israeli troops. Palestinians burned tires to obscure Israeli soldiers' lines of sight as the battle went on into the evening.
And the Faux News coverage....
just for that, should I say "different angle"...
0 Woman’s afro searched for explosives
Airline passenger left in tears after officers 'dig' her scalp
HUMILIATED: Isis Brantley was left in tears after officers stopped her at airport and checked for explosives in her hair
A WOMAN was left in tears after security at a US airport insisted on checking her afro in case she was concealing explosives.
Isis Brantley was stopped at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia after she had cleared security checks.
Brantley, a hairdresser from Dallas, Texas, claims she was traveling down an escalator when she heard someone shout, 'Hey you, hey you, ma'am, stop. Stop - the lady with the hair, you.’
She says that two Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents told her she could not go any further until they checked her hair for explosives.
“And so she started patting my hair, and I was in tears at that point,” Miss Brantley told NBC News.
“And she was digging in my scalp,” she added.
Miss Brantely says she was left “humiliated” as the TSA staff patted her hair down right there instead of asking to return to a private area for screening.
After the pat-down, Brantley complained to a TSA supervisor at Hartsfield-Jackson who then apologised to her.
She explained: “She said, ‘Ma'am, please, I promise you, I'm going to take care of it. I'm so sorry that happened to you,’”
Miss Brantley, who has worn her hair naturally for 20 years and frequently travels across the U.S. to see clients, says she has never had her hair checked until Monday's (Sept 19) incident.
The TSA said in a statement: “Our screening procedures are designed to ensure the security of the traveling public,
“Additional screening may be required for clothing, headwear or hair where prohibited items could be hidden.
“This passenger left the checkpoint prior to the completion of the screening process. She was offered but refused private screening.”
HUMILIATED: Isis Brantley was left in tears after officers stopped her at airport and checked for explosives in her hairIsis Brantley was stopped at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia after she had cleared security checks.
Brantley, a hairdresser from Dallas, Texas, claims she was traveling down an escalator when she heard someone shout, 'Hey you, hey you, ma'am, stop. Stop - the lady with the hair, you.’
She says that two Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents told her she could not go any further until they checked her hair for explosives.
“And so she started patting my hair, and I was in tears at that point,” Miss Brantley told NBC News.
“And she was digging in my scalp,” she added.
Miss Brantely says she was left “humiliated” as the TSA staff patted her hair down right there instead of asking to return to a private area for screening.
After the pat-down, Brantley complained to a TSA supervisor at Hartsfield-Jackson who then apologised to her.
She explained: “She said, ‘Ma'am, please, I promise you, I'm going to take care of it. I'm so sorry that happened to you,’”
Miss Brantley, who has worn her hair naturally for 20 years and frequently travels across the U.S. to see clients, says she has never had her hair checked until Monday's (Sept 19) incident.
The TSA said in a statement: “Our screening procedures are designed to ensure the security of the traveling public,
“Additional screening may be required for clothing, headwear or hair where prohibited items could be hidden.
“This passenger left the checkpoint prior to the completion of the screening process. She was offered but refused private screening.”
0 Obama Wrong About Palestinian State?
The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks down President Obama's speech at the United Nations regarding Israel and a Palestinian state.
0 "If They Support Terror Roots That Denies Israel's Right To Exist Why Should They Get Statehood"
Hannity = Douche
This guy makes actual bile rise up into my throat.
0 'Palestinians need just two more Security Council votes in bid for statehood'
Palestinian Foreign Minister says attempts underway to win over Gabon, Nigeria and Bosnia-Herzegovina, in quest for UNSC majority; U.S. has vowed to veto the proposal if it cannot garner a blocking majority.
 |
| The United Nations Security Council. |
"They are trying to convince two or three more Security Council members to vote in favor of accepting Palestine as a UN member state," Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki said.
The Palestinians hope to enlist nine members behind them, even if "the U.S. is going to veto it and embarrass itself," he told Voice of Palestine Radio from New York.
Full Story: http://www.haaretz.com/news/
0 Obama, the Palestinian State & Zionist Schizophrenia
By Gilad Atzmon
Those who monitor the Hebrew press and understand the Jewish State may be slightly puzzled to find out that while in the Hebrew press there is only just a little and insignificant attention to the current Palestinian leaders' drive for statehood, the Israeli English media outlets are saturated with news about the prospect of a pro-Palestinian resolution in the UN next week.
If you want to understand this clear discrepancy between the Jewish Hebrew press and English outlets, then here it is--we are dealing here with a clear split within the Jewish collective psyche.
I guess that some may be surprised to learn that Israel and most Israelis actually want the Palestinian initiative to go ahead and to succeed. They want a Palestinian State because this is the only solution that would save the ‘Jews only State’ from a demographic meltdown.
Recent polls in Israel prove that the majority of Israelis are very excited about the ‘Two State Solution’. Not only are the Israelis not threatened by the idea of a Palestinian State, they actually love it, for It would settle their reality within a framework of international law. Also, you may want to bear in mind that Kadima party, that won the last two elections in Israel, has been and still is, devoted to ‘disengagement’, a clear separation between the ‘Jews’ and the Palestinians by means of Israeli unilateral withdraw. In other words, a Palestinian statehood achieves the exact same goal; it removes Israelis from any responsibility to territories it once occupied and destroyed. It is obvious that some elements in Israel oppose the Palestinian UN initiative: I guess that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is not too happy about it. West Bank settlers may also be very angry but for some reason, even they are relatively quiet these days.
And yet, the Jewish Lobby around the world totally opposes the Palestinian UN initiative: it clearly holds a very simplistic image of an expansionist Jewish State from the ‘river to the sea’. And as it seems, it is not going to give up on its dream very soon.
What we see here in practice is a clear identity crisis or even a schizophrenic counter flow of aspirations between the Israeli and the Diaspora Zionist. While the Israelis are reverting to the old Jewish Ghetto attitude, they prefer to shrink, stay together and surround themselves with vast and impenetrable concrete walls, the Diaspora Zionist Jewish narrative is confrontational, belligerent, hawkish militant and expansionist. They want it all, with the Palestinians or without them.
Once again we notice that Israel and Zionism have evolved into two separate and opposing discourses. While Israel is seeking to maintain its racially oriented identity through politics of segregation, the Diaspora Zionist discourse is still insisting on solving the Jewish Question by the means of a conflict with no end.
But let us for a moment look at America; let’s try to understand how the world’s ‘single superpower’ is handling this Judeo-centric schizophrenic apparatus.
President Obama and his administration are obviously very confused. On the one hand, they are subject to some relentless pressure inflicted by the Jewish lobby. The Lobby doesn’t leave the American administration with much room to manoeuvre. But on the other hand, both American administration and Israeli Government do realise that, as far as Israel and its ‘security’ are concerned, the Palestinian UN initiative is not such a bad idea at all. In fact, Israel cannot pray for more than that.
It is clear by now that President Obama is not going to be saved by any of the so- called ‘America’s best friends’. For AIPAC and the Lobby, Obama is an instrument. By now the Lobby is used to regarding American politicians as their subservient puppets. Israel, on the other hand, is not going to save America either. It is too suspicious of the current administration. Israel is basically tired of the current American Administration. It will be happy to see Obama beaten.
Consequently, the American Administration is heading towards an inevitable humiliation in the UN.
It will have to veto a decision voted for by many of America’s allies. This is clearly a disaster for Obama. And yet, one man can save America from its doomed fate. This man is no other than the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Only Abbas and the PA can let America off the hook.
It will have to veto a decision voted for by many of America’s allies. This is clearly a disaster for Obama. And yet, one man can save America from its doomed fate. This man is no other than the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Only Abbas and the PA can let America off the hook.But the meaning of it all is also very embarrassing. It means that the Palestinian President Abbas (who is a relatively weak figure in Palestinian politics as well as in international diplomacy) is the only person who can save our world’s ‘single superpower’ from a diplomatic fiasco.
I cannot make up my mind whether this is funny or sad, but let me tell you, it is certainly volatile.
The time is certainly right for America, Britain and the West to find the strength to oppose Zionist Lobbying and the power of Jerusalem.0 Surge in Afghan night raids causes backlash
A surge in the number of controversial Nato night raids in Afghanistan has caused a "tremendous backlash" among Afghans and is endangering civilian lives, a new study said on Monday.
The US-led coalition force carries out raids under cover of dark to pick off insurgents alongside a counter-insurgency campaign aimed at coaxing the population away from supporting the Taliban.
But any gains made by night raids come "at a high cost", said the study by billionaire philanthropist George Soros's Open Society Foundations and Afghan non-governmental organisation The Liaison Office.
"Touted gains have come at a high cost. The escalation in raids has taken the battlefield more directly into Afghan homes, sparking tremendous backlash among the Afghan population," the 38-page report said.
A lack of transparency and accountability had also "reinforced Afghan perceptions that international military use night raids to kill, harass and intimidate civilians with impunity," it said.
Isaf: Night raids a tactical success
The report said the number of night raids had increased fivefold between February 2009 and December 2010, with an average of 19 raids per night across the country as foreign combat troops aim to leave by the end of 2014.
A spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) defended the raids as a tactical success but said the report's findings would be studied and recommendations implemented "that may improve the effectiveness of our operations in Afghanistan".
"Night operations are an effective method of maintaining the pressure on the enemy while minimising risk to innocent civilians," said ISAF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings.
President Hamid Karzai has led public criticism of the raids for causing civilian casualties, a thorny issue in the 10-year war that began when US-led troops brought down the Taliban regime in 2001, sparking the insurgency.
Civilians unfairly subject to night raids
But "85% of night operations are conducted without a shot being fired and account for less than 1% of civilian casualties", added Cummings.
The report acknowledged that Nato directives and operational guidance had significantly reduced civilian casualties, but said that "many of these improvements have been undermined or overshadowed by the surge in night raids".
"In many cases, non-combatants appear to be subjected to night raids due to their proximity to insurgent activities, or incidental information about insurgent groups, rather than due to their actual conduct or status," it added.
There are about 140 000 foreign, mainly American troops, serving in Afghanistan to help Karzai's Western-backed government defeat the Taliban.
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