(Best watched in HD)

A Journey to Inspire People Whose Disabilities Prevent Them From Leaving the House.

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia -- On May 10, 2013, Sri Lestari, a woman who lost the use of her legs at the age of 23, will embark on a journey from Jakarta to Bali on a modified motorcycle. Over the course of her 1,212 kilometer trip she will visit families of people with disabilities to empower them with her story, and her journey will culminate with a presentation at TEDxUbud on June 1, 2013.

When Sri Lestari was 23, she was in an accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. For 10 years Sri was house-bound, assuming she had lost not only the use of her legs, but her freedom as well. That is, until she got her wheelchair and modified motorcycle. Now Sri lives a full, independent life, and is employed as a social worker by the Indonesian office of UCP Wheels for Humanity, a non profit organization dedicated to increasing access to mobility and improving the quality of life for people with disabilities in developing countries throughout the world.

It is estimated that there are more than 2.4 million people who require a wheelchair in Indonesia, many of whom, spend their lives entirely at home because they cannot access basic mobility equipment or modified motorcycles like Sri's. UCP Wheels for Humanity Executive Director Michael Allen comments: "We are proud to support Sri's journey from Jakarta to Bali. As part of her work with UCP Wheels Indonesia, Sri enriches the lives of children and adults with disabilities every day, and we know that her courage, optimism, and success has the potential to inspire thousands more. She has shown how mobility and opportunity—combined with an undeniable passion for life—can enrich our world, and we are excited to follow her adventures when she sets off." For more information, please visit www.ucpwfh.org.

Contact: Brooke Lykins, Director of Development UCP Wheels for Humanity Email: blykins@ucpwfh.org



A friend of mine is making a documentary series on this and I'll add some clips when they become available...

"Like and share if you agree $1 is far too much!"
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From: I Fucking Love Science

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A new cattle drug called Zilmax is being widely used in the industrial feedlots where most of America’s beef comes from, but not because it produces a better sirloin. In fact, it has been shown to make steak less flavorful and juicy than beef from untreated cattle. Many feedlot owners, big meatpackers, and at least one prominent industry group resisted the drug, worrying that the beef industry would turn off consumers if it started churning out lower-quality steaks.

So what accounts for the sudden popularity of Zilmax? Zilmax is a highly effective growth drug, and it makes cattle swell up with muscle in the final weeks of their lives. And despite concerns within the industry, the economics of modern beef production have made the rise of Zilmax all but inevitable.

The beef industry has been shrinking for decades, a problem that can be traced to cheap chicken. Poultry companies like Tyson Foods figured out in the 1930s and ’40s how to raise chickens in a factory-like system. Using a business model called vertical integration, poultry companies like Tyson began to control every aspect of animal production, from the hatchery to the farm and the slaughterhouse. After the dawn of vertical integration, chickens were raised in barn-like warehouses on the farm, killed and butchered along assembly lines nearby, and, later, shipped out to big customers like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart—with every step of the process dictated by the same company. In the 1990s, the same model was widely applied to pork production, cutting out the middlemen and leading to a drop in pork prices (after adjusting for inflation).

As chicken got cheaper, it took top billing on fast-food menus. Beef got pushed aside. Some companies have tried to vertically integrate cattle production, but it has never panned out economically, thanks to the stubborn biology of cows. Chicken and pigs have offspring in big numbers, which lends itself to industrial-sized barns. (Hens lay a steady supply of eggs that yield full-grown chickens in about two months; sows bear big litters of piglets that reach maturity in about six months.) But a cow can only have one calf at a time, and the gestation period lasts nine months. After that, a calf suckles from its mother for about four months. It would be exorbitantly expensive to confine that life cycle in a warehouse, since the cow and calf would have to be sheltered and fed for over a year, just to get one full-grown heifer out of the deal. As a result, the vast majority of calves are still born and reared on wide-open ranchland, where herds of them eat free grass and stick by their mother’s side.

But cattle producers still imitate the heavily industrialized chicken industry to compete. Zilmax is part of a new regime for raising cattle that emphasizes higher production and cost-cutting wherever possible. This regime is what created the modern-day feedlot, where thousands of cattle, after being raised on open ranchland, are corralled on muddy hillsides to spend the last few months of their life eating corn. It is also what necessitates the battery of pharmaceuticals and feed additives that cattle must consume to stay healthy and gain weight—as Michael Pollan and others have noted, cattle didn’t evolve to digest corn, so they easily become sick on feedlots without careful monitoring.

Continues: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/food/2013/02/zilmax_the_cattle_growth_drug_that_s_making_beef_more_like_chicken.single.html

For more on what happened in the world of science this week, check out TWIST (This Week In Science and Technology), ScienceAlerts new series with Carin Bondar and Phil Plait: http://bit.ly/XzHago

Gold nugget forming bacteria: http://bit.ly/14C1QIK
Bionic eye: http://bit.ly/WTitKo
Sea urchins: http://bit.ly/WbLZNl
Mammal ancestor: http://bbc.in/YZKkie
Stem cells: http://bit.ly/Y3s94C
Earth like planets: http://hvrd.me/12iA29h

Courtesy of: I fucking love science

From: The Politburo of Teabilly Mockery

Say you really want to hate everyone AND find the love of your life. Westboro Match is here to help, from the fine folks at Westboro Baptist Church, the people with the awful signs who picket soldier funerals and stuff.

http://www.upworthy.com/the-worst-online-dating-site-in-the-history-of-the-world-4?c=bl3

Online version of the article (with some great comments below): http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/shortcuts/2013/feb/01/disco-dance-edl-google-facebook

Their FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/englishdiscolovers

There seems to be a lot of consensus here that, after the 1st year's trial period, the jury system is broken and that the best way to fix it is to redefine the method in which jurors are given the privilege to serve.

As a reminder, below is the current equation that works out a member's chances of serving...



If enough DUers give their suggestions and an agreed upon consensus is reached, maybe the Admins will take the suggestions seriously and fine tune the selection process accordingly?