http://www.nation.com.pk/letters/31-Dec-2013/nuclear-insanity

Nuclear insanity
December 31, 2013

If you ever ask nuclear experts and advocates in our strategic community why Pakistan is going down the dangerous road leading towards the development of Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNWs), the most logical explanation could be a description of the threats emanating from India’s ‘Cold Start’ doctrine. The Cold Start doctrine is basically a strategy to execute a limited war under nuclear overhang and the Indian Army has been working on this concept since 2004. Although the Indian government and politicians deny the existence of Cold Start doctrine, the Indian army has repeatedly conducted military exercises to operationalize the CSD.

In order to counter this provocative doctrine, the Pakistani military has developed short-range nuclear system to dissuade India from contemplating any ‘limited’ strike against our country but according to many experts, India’s Cold Start doctrine and in turn the Pakistani move toward TNWs have significantly raised the dangers of nuclear escalation between the two countries.

<snip>

In actuality, the development of tactical nuclear weapons is not only creating further complications for our command and control structure but they are more vulnerable to a terrorist attack due to their small size. Both countries cannot afford Cold Start-type doctrines nor battlefield nuclear weapons. Pakistan should immediately take steps to eliminate tactical weapons and instead focus on its ‘internal’ security challenges.

Today Pakistan’s economy is only one-seventh of India’s and our financial position is rapidly in decline. The government should spend more money on uplifting the economic situation of the people instead of wasting it on misconceived strategies. Finally, our civilian government also needs to play a role in determining the overall military strategy.

RIZWAN ASGHAR,
California, December 28.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/chris-hadfield-urges-space-co-operation-with-china-1.2477871

Chris Hadfield urges space co-operation with China
'It's the next logical step'

The Canadian Press Dec 28, 2013

"If you predicted in 1989 that I would fly on an American shuttle to go build a Russian spaceship, people would have said you were crazy," said Hadfield, who last March became the first Canadian to command the International Space Station.

Retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is calling for more co-operation with China in space and he wants it to be part of any international effort to return to the moon.

And he's not alone in his thinking. Space experts agree the Chinese can no longer be left out.

"I think right now a lot of people see it as kind of crazy to co-operate with the Chinese, but I think it's the next logical step," Hadfield recently told The Canadian Press.

<snip>

NASA says on its website that Mir hosted 125 cosmonauts and astronauts from 12 different nations before it was deorbited and sunk into the ocean in 2001.

Hadfield, who became a Canadian astronaut in 1992, visited Mir in November 1995 on the U.S. Space Shuttle Atlantis. He was the only Canadian to ever board the Russian space station.

"If you predicted in 1989 that I would fly on an American shuttle to go build a Russian spaceship, people would have said you were crazy," said Hadfield, who last March became the first Canadian to command the International Space Station.

<snip>

Hadfield said a logical progression would be to include as many countries as possible in an international mission beyond Earth — "hopefully including China and India and the other countries that have launch capability and then progress to the next stepping stone, the next natural waypoint out to space, which is the moon."

<snip>

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/family-photo-captures-shark-lurking-just-feet-from-family-200736440.html

Shark photobomb? Family photo captures big fish lurking just feet from family
By Eric Pfeiffer December 29, 2013 3:07 PM The Sideshow



Can there be such thing as a shark photobomb?

That’s what many are calling an eerie and eye-catching photo inadvertently snapped by a California mother that appears to show a large shark, or maybe a dolphin, swimming near her two children.

"It was quite a shock to see” the photo, June Emerson told KTLA about her photo, which captured the outline of a large fish swimming underneath a breaking wave close to the shore on Manhattan Beach.

“Many local surfers and lifeguards have seen this and believe it to be a shark,” Emerson said. “Of course, I told my kids it was dolphin, as we live at the beach and are in the waters here almost daily.”

<snip>

Published on Dec 9, 2013

Dr. Crystal Dilworth engages in a fireside chat with space entrepreneur Elon Musk and inventor and computational neuroscientist Philip Low to discover how they are changing the world and why. Special thank you to David Franzen for hosting this late night chat at the Canadian Consul General's Residence in Los Angeles.

www.rawscience.tv

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/statuses/414456595431432192

Elon Musk @elonmusk

This is why I think solar power will be the primary long term solution http://www.abb-conversations.com/2013/12/7-impressive-solar-energy-facts-charts/

1,526 Retweets
1,013 Favorites

10:05 AM - 21 Dec 13

http://www.abb-conversations.com/2013/12/7-impressive-solar-energy-facts-charts/

7 impressive solar energy facts (+ charts)
December 2, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

How solar power has changed over the last 10 years

Solar power is in a tremendously different place today than it was in 10 years ago. Below are a handful of impressive stats about solar power’s growth, as well as some general stats about solar energy potential that are also quite noteworthy.

1. Even yearly energy potential from sunshine dwarfs total energy potential from any other source.
The annual energy potential from solar energy is 23,000 TWy. Energy potential from total recoverable reserves of coal is 900 TWy. For petroleum, it’s 240 TWy; and for natural gas, it’s 215 TWy. Wind energy’s yearly energy potential is 25–70 TWy.

2. Approximately 66% of installed world solar PV power capacity has been installed in the past 2½ years.
Furthermore, total installed capacity is projected to double in the coming 2½ years.

3. Global solar PV power capacity grew from about 2.2 GW in 2002 to 100 GW in 2012.
From 2007 to 2012, it grew 10 times over, from 10 GW to 100 GW.

4. There are now about 1.36 million jobs in the global solar PV industry.
There are also about 892,000 in the solar heating & cooling industry.

5. Germany accounted for nearly one third of global solar PV capacity at the end of 2012.
Italy (16%) and Germany (32%) combined accounted for nearly half of global solar PV capacity.

6. The price of solar PV panels dropped about 100 times over from 1977 to 2012.
Since 2008, the price of solar PV panels has dropped about 80%.

7. The sunshine hitting Texas in one month contains more energy than all the oil and gas ever pumped out of the state.
Nonetheless, New Jersey has about 10 times more solar PV power capacity installed than the entire state of Texas.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/12/10/harvard-marijuana-doesnt-cause-schizophrenia/63148.html

Harvard: Marijuana Doesn’t Cause Schizophrenia
By JOHN M. GROHOL, PSY.D.
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on December 10, 2013

<snip>

The new study is the first family study that, according to the researchers, “examines both non-psychotic cannabis users and non-cannabis user controls as two additional independent samples, enabling the examination of whether the risk for schizophrenia is increased in family members of cannabis users who develop schizophrenia compared with cannabis users who do not and also whether that morbid risk is similar or different from that in family members of schizophrenia patients who never used cannabis.”

<snip>

The researchers recruited 282 subjects from the New York and Boston metropolitan areas who were divided into four groups: controls with no lifetime history of psychotic illness, cannabis, or any other drug use; controls with no lifetime history of psychotic illness, and a history of heavy cannabis use during adolescence, but no other drug use; patients with no lifetime history of cannabis use or any other drug and less than 10 years of being ill; patients with a history of heavy cannabis use and no other drug use during adolescence and prior to the onset of psychosis.

Information about all first-, second-, and third-degree relatives was obtained, as well as information about any other relative who had a known psychiatric illness. This resulted in information on 1,168 first-degree relatives and a total of 4,291 relatives. The study gathered together information regarding cannabis use, and family history regarding schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and drug abuse.

<snip>

“While cannabis may have an effect on the age of onset of schizophrenia it is unlikely to be the cause of illness,” said the researchers, who were led by Ashley C. Proal from Harvard Medical School.

“In general, we found a tendency for depression and bipolar disorder to be increased in the relatives of cannabis users in both the patient and control samples. This might suggest that cannabis users are more prone to affective disorders than their non-using samples or vice versa.” Future research is needed to understand this relationship.

Drug abuse also appears to have an important genetic component.

<snip>