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n2doc's JournalRelationship Between Man and Cat May Be Older Than We Think
Humans and cats have been enjoying, or at least tolerating, one another’s company for a very long time. But when, exactly, did we start hanging around together?
Newly published research suggests it was way back in the 4th millennium B.C.E.
“It is clear that there was a close relationship with humans that predate the oldest accepted evidence for domestic cat in Egypt by almost two millennia,” writes a research team led by Wim Van Neer of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. Its paper is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
As the researchers note, conventional wisdom has long held that cats were first domesticated in ancient Egypt somewhere around 1950 B.C.E. A few years ago, however, a discovery was made while excavating an ancient cemetery at Hierakonpolis, a sizable city that predates the pyramids.
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http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/relationship-man-cat-may-older-think-75933/
What do the US, Somalia and South Sudan have in common?
Sixteen, Alone, 23 Hours a Day, in a Six-by-Eight-Foot Box
Trey Bundy in Solitary Lives
NEW YORK — There’s not much inside “the box.” Cinder block walls rise up and close in. There’s a bunk, a sink, a toilet and a metal door with a small mesh window. Food comes through a slot. Sometimes, mice and roaches scamper through.
Teenagers kept in the box sometimes hallucinate and throw fits. They splash urine around or smear their blood and shit on the walls. The concrete room gets so hot in the summertime that the floor and walls sweat.
Ismael Nazario’s longest stretch in the box lasted four months. He paced a lot, talking to himself and choking back tears and rage. He tried to block out the screaming of the teenage boys in other jail cells in his unit, but he couldn’t. Sometimes, he would stand at the door of his tiny cell and yell.
“You just get angry with hearing people constantly hollering all day,” he says. “There’s so many people that have been in that cell and screamed on that same gate, it smells like a bunch of breath and drool.”
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https://medium.com/solitary-lives/26ab1e09632d
Only the U.S., Somalia and South Sudan have declined to ratify the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits juvenile solitary confinement as a matter of international law.
Sanjay Gupta: 'I am doubling down' on medical marijuana
(CNN) -- It's been eight months since I last wrote about medical marijuana, apologizing for having not dug deeply into the beneficial effects of this plant and for writing articles dismissing its potential. I apologized for my own role in previously misleading people, and I feel very badly that people have suffered for too long, unable to obtain the legitimate medicine that may have helped them.
I have been reminded that a true and productive scientific journey involves a willingness to let go of established notions and get at the truth, even if it is uncomfortable and even it means having to say "sorry."
It is not easy to apologize and take your lumps, but this was never about me.
This scientific journey is about a growing number of patients who want the cannabis plant as a genuine medicine, not to get high.
It is about emerging science that not only shows and proves what marijuana can do for the body but provides better insights into the mechanisms of marijuana in the brain, helping us better understand a plant whose benefits have been documented for thousands of years. This journey is also about a Draconian system where politics override science and patients are caught in the middle.
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http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/health/gupta-medical-marijuana/
Deadly Force: Arming America's Police
US police forces are increasingly using military-style tactics to carry out even the most routine daily operations.
The number of SWAT teams and SWAT-style raids across the county have skyrocketed in the last few decades. SWAT raids occur at an estimated 50,000 raids per year and a majority take place for low-level crimes.
It is a trend that is being propped up by billions of federal dollars in Homeland Security grants and access to free military equipment through the Department of Defense for civilian law enforcement agencies.
In the past, police SWAT teams were only used in extreme circumstances; today, they are increasingly sent out to perform routine tasks.
Nowadays, there are tens of thousands of military-style police raids every year. But only the worst cases make the news.
more
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2014/03/deadly-force-arming-america-police-2014348442383391.html
Gold is now the latest bank price-fixing scandal
As if there weren’t enough reasons to cast a jaundiced eye on the banking system, Bloomberg reports that several international banks are now accused of manipulating a key benchmark, known as the gold fix, in the $20 trillion gold market. The charges of fixing gold prices in London are being leveled at Barclays, Deutsche Bank, ScotiaMocatta (the metals-trading division of Canada’s Scotiabank), Société Générale, and HSBC by New York resident Kevin Maher, who filed a lawsuit against the banks in a US federal court yesterday evening (Mar. 4). The lawsuit follows a draft research report published last week by New York University Professor Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Moody’s Investors Service analyst Albert Metz, noting unusual patterns in the gold benchmarks.
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The allegations mark the latest knock to global banks’ role as rate setters in key areas. Most recently some 15 banks and more than 20 traders have been facing a worldwide probe into charges that they’ve been manipulating exchange rates. A month ago New York’s top financial regulator, Ben Lawsky jumped into the fray, launching a probe into forex manipulation against banks chartered to operate in New York.
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All of these shenanigans follow what has so far been the granddaddy of bank scandals: the manipulation of Libor, the London interbank offered rate. At least half a dozen banks, including UBS, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup, have been slapped with multi-billion dollar penalties over charges that they colluded to rig Libor rates, which help to set interest rates on everything from credit cards to mortgages.
http://qz.com/184336/gold-is-now-the-latest-bank-price-fixing-scandal/
Ben Bernanke has earned more from one speech than he did last year at the Fed
During a 40-minute speech in Abu Dhabi yesterday, Ben Bernanke earned more money than he did last year leading the Fed, according to a report from Reuters. His talk at a conference sponsored by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi earned him “at least” $250,000, compared to his 2013 salary of $199,700. If his speaking engagements continue at this pace, which experts say is likely, Bernanke could quickly out-earn his salary for his entire eight-year stint at the Fed.
The move to the speaking circuit has a long and lucrative tradition among former chairman.
“I found that I could give a speech or two and I could earn what I had made at the Fed,” former Fed chief Paul Volcker told the New York Times (paywall). Volcker’s salary was $80,000 a year.
Bernanke’s salary was by no means low compared to the average worker in the United States. But he earned less than a member of Australia’s parliament. And he took home less than half the salary of European Central Bank Chief Mario Draghi, who made $518,264 last year. (The ECB’s Vice President and executive board members out-earned Bernanke as well.)
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http://qz.com/184431/ben-bernankes-250000-speech-shows-why-people-leave-the-public-sector/
Io erupts
En route to the icy worlds inhabiting the outer regions of our solar system, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft zipped past Jupiter, catching Io, the planet’s third-largest moon, enduring a volcanic explosion. Locked in a perpetual tug of war between the imposing gravity of Jupiter and the smaller, consistent pulls of its neighboring moons, Io’s distorted orbit causes it to flex as it swoops around the gas giant. The stretching causes friction and intense heat in Io’s interior, sparking massive eruptions across its surface. Images snapped by the spacecraft’s high-resolution telescopic camera in March 2007 show a 200-mile-high plume spewing from Tvashtar volcano in Io’s northern hemisphere. Watch the video to see it for yourself.
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011455/IO_Eruption-540-MASTER_high.mp4
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http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011400/a011455/index.html
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