Shelter Sense

Bayer + Monsanto = A Match Made in Hell

2018-06-23T09:38:00.000-04:00

Corbett Report | Jun 23, 2018

It is hardly surprising that the first thing Bayer did after completing their takeover of Monsanto earlier this month was to announce that they were dropping the Monsanto name, merging the two companies' agrichemical divisions under the Bayer Crop Science name. After all, as everyone knows, Monsanto is one of the most hated corporations in the world. But Bayer itself has an equally atrocious history of death and destruction. Together they are a match made in hell.

TRANSCRIPT AND MP3 AUDIO: https://www.corbettreport.com/bayer/

Straight-Foward Truth on GMO Safety [Video Lecture]

2018-06-19T07:41:00.002-04:00

GM Watch | June 19, 2018 | Claire Robinson

Watch lecture ten of our independent lecture series to learn that Cornell is indeed misleading us on the safety of GMOs (among a host of other topics). (Time 1:01:27)

Monsanto in Epic Fail with Attempted Attack on Global Glyphosate Study

2018-05-27T09:41:00.000-04:00

Sustainable Pulse | May 22, 2009

The peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts from the pilot phase of the Global Glyphosate Study were revealed last Wednesday in a Press Conference at the European Parliament.

The results of the short-term pilot study showed that glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) were able to alter certain important biological parameters in rats, mainly relating to sexual development, genotoxicity and the alteration of the intestinal microbiome, at the ‘safe’ level of 1.75 mg/kg/day set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

As is normal practice for Monsanto, their Public Relations department was soon in action to try and crush the scientists involved and the study results, which could cause major damage to the product that supports their whole business model – the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup.
However, this time their PR campaign against the Study was only met with contempt and disdain from journalists, politicians, scientists and the public in countries across Europe.

Urban Dictionary – Epic Fail: A mistake of such monumental proportions that it requires its own term in order to sucessfully point out the unfathomable shortcomings of an individual or group.

Monsanto’s epic fail began with their comments in The Guardian newspaper:

Scott Partridge, Monsanto’s VP for global strategy told the Guardian: “The Ramazzini Institute is an activist organisation with an agenda that they have not disclosed as part of their crowdfunding efforts. They wish to support a ban on glyphosate and they have a long history of rendering opinions not supported by regulatory testing agencies.”

There are many things that are ‘interesting’ about Scott Partridge’s comment:

Epic Fail #1: Monsanto attacked the wrong Institute

The excellent Guardian article was mainly discussing a study on the microbiome of the rats, hence the title: “Glyphosate shown to disrupt microbiome ‘at safe levels’, study claims”. This study was actually carried out at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York on samples provided by The Ramazzini Institute.

The truth is that Monsanto has never been faced with an independent study on glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides, in which multiple Institutions and Universities are involved. They are used to attacking one single scientist or a small institution.

The Global Glyphosate Study involves The Ramazzini Institute, the University of Bologna (Faculty of Agriculture, Veterinary Science and Biostatistics) the Genoa Hospital San Martino, the Italian National Institute of Health, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and the George Washington University.

Monsanto have now shown that they will struggle to attack this group of well-respected Institutions!

Epic Fail #2: Monsanto suggests expert cancer scientists are activists

Monsanto’s Mr. Partridge was obviously having a bad day, as he also suggested that “The Ramazzini Institute is an activist organization”. This could not be further from the truth. In fact they are expert scientists who have been protecting public health for over 40 years.

The activities of the Ramazzini Institute (RI) focus primarily on the experimental identification and quantification of carcinogenic risks and on the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of drug therapies and active ingredients that may be used to prevent the development and/or progression of cancer.

The Ramazzini Institute’s long-term studies on Formaldehyde, Vinyl Chloride and Benzene, amongst others have led to global regulatory change on these chemicals.

The RI study design closely mirrors the human condition, in which persons may be exposed to agents in all phases of life for varying lengths of time. A distinctive characteristic of most RI carcinogenicity studies is that rodents are treated from prenatal life and kept under observation until natural death or at least 130 weeks of age. This lifespan protocol is in contrast with most laboratories where rodents are treated starting from adulthood and sacrificed at 110 weeks of age (representing about 2/3 of the lifespan) and corresponding to 60-65 years in humans. This practice means that the researchers miss a significant proportion of cancers induced by early exposure during pregnancy and that might show up in old age.

Sorry Mr. Partridge and Monsanto, you cannot change the truth!

Epic Fail #3: Monsanto claims no link between glyphosate and cancer…off topic

Monsanto’s Mr. Partridge continued by telling the Guardian; “All the research to date has demonstrated that there is no link between glyphosate and cancer.”

Does this not seem to be a bit off topic Mr. Partridge? There is no suggestion in the short-term studies, which he was being asked about, that glyphosate is linked to cancer.

However, if Monsanto really want to bring up this topic, we would suggest they have a chat to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), who classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen” in 2015.

Oh…..I forgot they are currently also trying to campaign against IARC too, including an attempt to stop the U.S. government from funding the Agency. I wonder why that is…..

It is time that we all stop Monsanto in their tracks and support the Global Glyphosate Study, which is being funded by the public worldwide. You can help them by donating here.

Solar minimum for 2018 - 2020 could be unprecedented in modern astronomy

2018-05-27T09:03:00.000-04:00

SOTT | May 23, 2009

© David Hathaway/NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center
The story thus far... and the curious drama that is solar cycle #24.

Have you been keeping an eye on Sol lately? One of the top astronomy stories for 2018 may be what's not happening, and how inactive our host star has become.

The strange tale of Solar Cycle #24 is ending with an expected whimper: as of May 8^th, the Earthward face of the Sun had been spotless for 73 out of 128 days thus far for 2018, or more than 57% of the time. This wasn't entirely unexpected, as the solar minimum between solar cycle #23 and #24 saw 260 spotless days in 2009 - the most recorded in a single year since 1913.

Cycle #24 got off to a late and sputtering start, and though it produced some whopper sunspots reminiscent of the Sol we knew and loved on 20^th century cycles past, it was a chronic under-performer overall. Mid-2018 may see the end of cycle #24 and the start of Cycle #25... or will it?

One nice surprise during Cycle #24 was the appearance of massive sunspot AR 2192, which popped up just in time for the partial solar eclipse of October 23^rd, 2014. Several times the size of the Earth, the spot complex was actually the largest seen in a quarter century. But just as "one swallow does not a Summer make," one large sunspot group couldn't save Solar Cycle #24.

The Sun goes through an 11-year sunspot cycle, marked by the appearance of new spots at mid- solar latitudes, which then slowly progress to make subsequent appearances closer towards the solar equator, in a pattern governed by what's known as Spörer's Law. The hallmark of a new solar cycle is the appearance of those high latitude spots. The Sun actually flips overall polarity every cycle, so a proper Hale Cycle for the Sun is actually 11 x 2 = 22 years long.

Read more at SOTT..

How to Run Your Car Using Water

2018-05-14T12:22:00.000-04:00

delvis11 | May 24, 2009

For more information please visit http://www.greenfuelh2o.com

Weedkiller products more toxic than their active ingredient, tests show

2018-05-13T10:57:00.000-04:00

The Guardian | May 8, 2018 | Carey Gillam

After more than 40 years of widespread use, new scientific tests show formulated weedkillers have higher rates of toxicity to human cells

Formulated weedkillers, like Monsanto’s widely-used Roundup, leave residues in food and water, as well as public spaces. Photograph: Rene van den Berg/Alamy Stock Photo

US government researchers have uncovered evidence that some popular weedkilling products, like Monsanto’s widely-used Roundup, are potentially more toxic to human cells than their active ingredient is by itself.

These “formulated” weedkillers are commonly used in agriculture, leaving residues in food and water, as well as public spaces such as golf courses, parks and children’s playgrounds.

The tests are part of the US National Toxicology Program’s (NTP) first-ever examination of herbicide formulations made with the active ingredient glyphosate, but that also include other chemicals. While regulators have previously required extensive testing of glyphosate in isolation, government scientists have not fully examined the toxicity of the more complex products sold to consumers, farmers and others.

Monsanto introduced its glyphosate-based Roundup brand in 1974. But it is only now, after more than 40 years of widespread use, that the government is investigating the toxicity of “glyphosate-based herbicides” on human cells.

The NTP tests were requested by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2015 classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. The IARC also highlighted concerns about formulations which combine glyphosate with other ingredients to enhance weed killing effectiveness. Monsanto and rivals sell hundreds of these products around the world in a market valued at roughly $9bn.

Mike DeVito, acting chief of the National Toxicology Program Laboratory, told the Guardian the agency’s work is ongoing but its early findings are clear on one key point. “We see the formulations are much more toxic. The formulations were killing the cells. The glyphosate really didn’t do it,” DeVito said.

A summary of the NTP work stated that glyphosate formulations decreased human cell “viability”, disrupting cell membranes. Cell viability was “significantly altered” by the formulations, it stated.
DeVito said the NTP first-phase results do not mean the formulations are causing cancer or any other disease. While the work does show enhanced toxicity from the formulations, and show they kill human cells, the NTP appears to contradict an IARC finding that glyphosate and/or its formulations induce oxidative stress, one potential pathway toward cancer. The government still must do other testing, including examining any toxic impact on a cell’s genetic material, to help add to the understanding of risks, according to DeVito.

The NTP work informs a global debate over whether or not these glyphosate-based weedkilling chemical combinations are endangering people who are exposed. More than 4,000 people are currently suing Monsanto alleging they developed cancer from using Roundup, and several European countries are moving to limit the use of these herbicides.

“This testing is important, because the EPA has only been looking at the active ingredient. But it’s the formulations that people are exposed to on their lawns and gardens, where they play and in their food,” said Jennifer Sass, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

One problem government scientists have run into is corporate secrecy about the ingredients mixed with glyphosate in their products. Documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests show uncertainty within the EPA over Roundup formulations and how those formulations have changed over the last three decades.

That confusion has continued with the NTP testing.

“We don’t know what the formulation is. That is confidential business information,” DeVito said. NTP scientists sourced some samples from store shelves, picking up products the EPA told them were the top sellers, he said.

It is not clear how much Monsanto itself knows about the toxicity of the full formulations it sells. But internal company emails dating back 16 years, which emerged in a court case last year, offer a glimpse into the company’s view. In one 2003 internal company email, a Monsanto scientist stated: “You cannot say that Roundup is not a carcinogen … we have not done the necessary testing on the formulation to make that statement. The testing on the formulations are not anywhere near the level of the active ingredient.” Another internal email, written in 2010, said: “With regards to the carcinogenicity of our formulations we don’t have such testing on them directly.” And an internal Monsanto email from 2002 stated: “Glyphosate is OK but the formulated product … does the damage.”

Monsanto did not respond to a request for comment. But in a 43-page report, the company says the safety of its herbicides is supported by “one of the most extensive worldwide human health and environmental databases ever compiled for a pesticide product”.

Carey Gillam is a journalist and author, and a public interest researcher for US Right to Know, a non-profit food industry research group.

News ALERT: WiFi street lamps emit radiation that causes insomnia, nosebleeds and stillbirths, officials deny reality

2018-05-06T10:29:00.000-04:00

Natural Health 365 | April 30, 2018 | Jonathan Landsman

© Natural Health 365

Gateshead, a town in Northern England, has become the center of a controversy over 5G wireless technology. Local resident Mark Steele, a scientist who formerly worked for the IEEE Communications Society, maintains that the borough’s WiFi “smart” lights –many located right outside residents’ bedroom windows –are causing insomnia, nosebleeds and stillbirths.

“Babies are dying in the womb,” Steele maintains. “It’s a humanitarian crisis.” Not so, say Gateshead officials, who assert that the reports of illness are “false,” and should be ignored.

Experts say: 5G technology will put current WiFi systems ‘on steroids’

5G (fifth-generation) networks, which operate in the 24 to 90 gigahertz spectrum, are being developed in order to facilitate the “Internet of Things” – a planned network of interconnected devices such as lights, home appliances, and even motor vehicles.

Natural health experts and advocates maintain that radiation from existing wireless 3G and 4G technology is already causing serious adverse health effects, including increased risk of gliomas, or brain tumors.

Cell phone radiation has been found to interfere with DNA replication, possibly triggering mutations that could in turn trigger cancer. Opponents of wireless technology also say it is responsible for heart arrhythmias and cognitive problems – among other conditions.

And 5G foes say that the new WiFi networks, which use higher frequencies than those ever utilized – or tested – before, will exacerbate things further. Some experts liken the effect to putting the current WiFi system – already associated with grave health risks – on “steroids.”

Suspicion mounts regarding premature 5G rollout and ‘secret trials’

By 2020, 5G is expected to be launched throughout Britain.

But Steele thinks Gateshead jumped the gun, allowing the government to perform a ‘secret trial’ by rolling out the technology ahead of time.

Despite the Gateshead Council’s assertions that the lights are operating at 2G to 3G, Steele believes they are already emitting 5G radiation. He reports that many people have been plagued with health problems since the installation of the lights in 2016, and says he knows of “at least three” women in the area who have suffered stillbirths.

Noting the lack of small birds in the area, Steele says that the lights have decimated insect and bird populations, along with harming human health. “The sparrows,” says Steele, “have been annihilated.”

Gateshead Council: “Nothing to see here” (ignore the health dangers)

In a Facebook post on April 9, the The Gateshead Council pushed back against the allegations, urging . residents to ignore “conspiracy theories” and “scare stories” about the dangers of 5G radiation.

The council insists that the borough is using the old 2G/3G mobile phone network technology – not 5G – and that there is no threat of cancer, miscarriages, insomnia or nosebleeds. In the post, the council also points out that they are taking advice from Public Health England, which in turn reviewed WHO guidelines governing wireless radiation.

A small transceiver allowing street lights to be turned off and on is in use, the council reports – adding that it transmits for a total of only 80 seconds a week, at less than 1 percent of the safe exposure limit set by authorities.

“The tales (of adverse effects and conspiracy) are completely untrue,” the Council adds, urging that they be “ignored.” So, just like the vaccine manufacturers, the telecommunications industry would have us believe that WiFi is perfectly ‘safe and effective.’

Many residents, however, remain unconvinced. (and, for good reason)

Experts point to research linking wireless technology and cancer

A growing list of experts, physicians and researchers are joining the groundswell of support against 5G – and warning of life-threatening consequences of WiFi technology.

Dr. Thomas Rau, medical director of the renowned Paracelsus Clinic in Switzerland, asserts that EMFs (electromagnetic fields) from wireless networks and cell phones can cause cancer, ADD, heart arrhythmias, insomnia and Parkinson’s disease.

The European Academy for Environmental Medicine agrees, reporting that EMF radiation is linked to cancer, insomnia and mental health disorders – while Ulrich Warnke, an internationally esteemed professor from the University of Saarland, asserts that EMF radiation from light transmitters can cause disruption of the body’s nitrogen monoxide system, which keeps cells healthy and regulates gene expression.

As for the World Health Organization, that agency has classified EMF radiation as a ‘possible human carcinogen’ since 2011.

Extensive studies demonstrate the damaging effects of radiation from wireless technology

A $25 million study conducted by the National Institutes of Health’s National Toxicology Program provided a definitive link between 2G/3G cell phone radiation and heart and brain cancer in rats. Researchers cited “clear evidence of carcinogenicity.”

An additional study conducted at the Rammazzini Institute for Environmental Policy reinforced the results of the NTP study. Both showed a statistically significant increase in rare malignancies – the very same malignancies found in population studies of human cell phone users.

Finally, recent research shows that pregnant women exposed to the highest levels of EMF radiation are 48 percent more likely to lose their babies than women exposed to the lowest amount.

Protect yourself by reducing exposure

Of course, you can minimize radiation exposure from WiFi with some common-sense precautions, such as: keeping cell phones away from the body, turning WiFi off when not in use, and keeping devices in airplane mode when not using them.

Whenever possible, use speakerphones or hands-free headset, and keep conversations brief.
Better yet, text instead of calling – or use a landline.

Obtaining a radio frequency meter – which analyzes ambient radiation exposures from WiFi routers, cell phones and cell towers – can help you determine the level of EMFs in your home.
With Intel reportedly planning to bring 5G to its laptops by next year, it is clear that time is running out.

EMF Scientists – an alliance of 220 researchers and doctors from 42 different countries – is currently appealing to the UN to ask the WHO to develop stricter EMF guidelines, and to better educate the public as to the risks. Although this is a good start, much more needs to be done to protect human health and the environment from the upcoming 5G rollout – and the dangers of wireless systems.

Sources for this article include:

DailyMail.co.uk
HuffingtonPost.co.uk
NaturalHealth365.com
NaturalHealth365.com

Getting Real About “Smart Cities”: Questions to Ask Before Your Community Becomes “Smart”.

2018-05-06T10:11:00.000-04:00

Activist Post | May 5, 2018 | BN Frank

Business leaders and elected officials across the U.S. and around the world seem to be hell bent on turning communities into “Smart Cities.”

Many have already written articles about health, privacy, and security risks involved with becoming “Smart Cities.” I wrote one just last week.

Becoming a “Smart City” requires ignoring “The Precautionary Principle.”

Hundreds of small cell towers must be installed everywhere including in front of homes, public rights of ways, historic districts to make a “Smart City.” These towers may be 4G and/or 5G technology.

Many around the world are concerned about small cell towers. Dr. Oz featured a segment about 5G small cell towers on his February 9, 2018 show.

Research has proven that there are health risks from 5G exposure, from exposure to all other sources of cell phone and wireless WiFi radiation and from exposure to Electrical Pollution (Electrosmog).
If you aren’t concerned about health, small cell towers being installed in front of or near your home will still undoubtedly lower your property value and create cyber security risks.

If your community leaders are also gushing like school girls about becoming a “Smart City,” Roxana Marachi, Ph.D wrote a fantastic article about efforts to make San Jose, CA a “Smart City.” It includes 10 questions to ask community leaders and rain on their parade.

These questions as well as much of the information provided with them could be applied in communities everywhere.

Thanks Roxana! You rock!

For more information, contact the following organizations:

California Defeats Monsanto in Court to List Glyphosate as Carcinogen

2018-05-06T10:00:00.000-04:00

Sustainable Pulse | Apr 20, 2018

A California Appellate Court sided with the State of California and Center for Food Safety (CFS) on Thursday, affirming that Monsanto’s glyphosate pesticide can be listed as a known carcinogen under Proposition 65.

Monsanto’s lawsuit challenged the 2015 announcement by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) that it intended to list glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide, Roundup, under California’s landmark Proposition 65.

Proposition 65 requires notification and labeling of all chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, and prohibits their discharge into drinking waters of the state. CFS intervened in the case, defending the listing of glyphosate as a carcinogen and the public’s right to know when it is being exposed to cancer-causing chemicals.

“This is a huge win for all Californians—and a huge loss for Monsanto—as it upholds our right to protect ourselves and our environment from unnecessary and unwanted exposure to the dangerous chemical, glyphosate,” said Adam Keats, senior attorney at CFS.

Glyphosate is a broad spectrum herbicide that is widely used in agriculture, parks, home gardens, and residential landscapes. It is the most heavily used pesticide in the world, in large part due to the proliferation of Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup Ready crops that are resistant to glyphosate.

In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.” California subsequently issued the notice of intent to list glyphosate as a Proposition 65 chemical based on the IARC finding. Under Proposition 65, no person in the course of doing business may knowingly or intentionally expose any individual to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity without first giving a clear and reasonable warning. The discharge of such chemical into a source of drinking water is prohibited. With today’s court ruling, these protections will now be required for glyphosate products.

“All California consumers have the right to know that glyphosate is considered a probable carcinogen, and Proposition 65 ensures that the public obtains that knowledge,” concluded Rebecca Spector, West Coast Director at Center for Food Safety. ”We are pleased that the California Appellate Court prevented Monsanto’s attempt to keep the public in the dark about potential hazards from their products.”

A Cancer on Society: Monsanto claims right not to speak about Roundup

2018-04-29T12:17:00.000-04:00

SOTT | Apr 29, 2018 | Alfonso Saldaña & Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap

Common Dreams - Monsanto doesn't want the world to know their product is labeled a "probable carcinogen."

It's no secret that Monsanto Corporation's trademarked pesticide Ready Roundup has become one of the most widely used herbicides in agriculture since its introduction in the mid-1970s. What might be a surprise to most is that, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), glyphosate, the principal ingredient in the herbicide, is a "probable carcinogen." Acting to protect its public, as governments should do, the State of California required that food labels indicate the presence of glyphosate. Problem sorta solved... except for Monsanto's ill-gotten and ill-considered constitutional rights.

Obviously, Monsanto doesn't want the world to know that it is highly likely their product is a carcinogen, so Monsanto took California to court - and won. Despite the IARC's findings, a U.S. District Judge has temporarily suspended the labeling of food products that contain traces of the herbicide, because it violates Monsanto's First Amendment "right not to speak".

"We are pleased Judge Shubb granted our request," said Chandler Goule, the chief executive officer for the National Assn. of Wheat Growers after the ruling. Goule went on to say that this is the first step in preventing California environmental officials "from forcing farmers, growers, and manufacturers to place false and misleading labels on agricultural products."

Back in 2015, when the WHO brought together 17 oncology experts from 11 countries to review the long-suspected link between glyphosate and kidney disease in farm workers, they concluded and published, that glyphosate is a "probable carcinogen." However, the WHO conclusion stirred an international controversy: European pesticide regulators and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency alleged that contrary evidence was ignored or omitted.

It should come as no surprise that Monsanto also rejected the WHO's findings, which predicted the IARC would find carcinogens in its weed killer. Reminiscent of Big Tobacco and Big Oil companies' tactics, they set in motion a plan to discredit the international agency's study in order to continue selling their dangerous product. And thanks to its corporate constitutional rights and deep pockets, Monsanto found a willing shill in climate-change-denier and, ironically, the chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas).

Throughout his 32 years in Congress, Rep. Smith has received large monetary contributions from fossil fuel, automobile, and pharmaceutical/health industries, including Monsanto. Rep. Smith lashed out against the IARC during a hearing last February, accusing it of conducting "cherry-picked science" and even threatening retaliation by cutting off the U.S. contribution to the international agency. Such biased behavior has been a constant throughout his 5-year tenure as the science committee chairman, while Rep. Smith has made it his personal mission to relentlessly attack the integrity of individual scientists and the scientific community at large.

It is outrageous for an elected official to willingly jeopardize his constituents' health and safety to protect Monsanto's profits. Citizen backlash exploded; thousands expressed their anger online as a petition to tell Congress not to defund cancer research had reached over 42,800 signatures. After 16 terms of loyally supporting his campaign contributors, Smith announced last year that he won't seek re-election when his term ends in 2018.

The congressman's departure may be good riddance, but the root problem does not lie with any individual political figure or party. It lies with the Supreme Court's interpretation of constitutional "personhood." As long as we fail to fix the Constitution by establishing once and for all that human beings, not corporations like Monsanto, are entitled to constitutional rights, and that political money is not free speech, more corporate-funded shills will ascend to power to assert corporate interests over environmental sustainability and human wellbeing.

To prevent this cancerous process from metastasizing, take action now! Join the hundreds of organizations and over 450,000 individuals all across the nation working with the Move to Amend to pass the We the People Amendment. It is the only amendment bill before Congress that will address both doctrines undermining democratic self-governance: money as speech and corporate constitutional rights. It's high time to demand government serves We the People, not corporate donors. Sign the petition at: MoveToAmend.org/motion.

State of US Agriculture Losses as the Grand Solar Minimum Intensifies

2018-04-29T09:32:00.000-04:00

Adapt2030 | Apr 29, 2018

Editor's note: Crop losses are going to increase but realizing that corn and wheat are not necessarily eaten by healthy people especially those who avoid eating products that are sprayed heavily with pesticides such as wheat. These products are used to create processed foods which will rise in price, it may be good to avoid eating heavily processed foods.

Organic Universe

2015-03-09T11:11:00.001-04:00

The following blogs were built from October 2011 through August 2012 (see research list in left sidebar) and remain available for research during these periods, ending in March 2015, where the project was moved and updated to one blog, see here.

These sites as of this posting have generated over 800,000 visits, and provide an array of alternative news information and transformation occurring during these times.

Everything that was posted here can still be followed exclusively through Twitter as one of five categories. (See widget in sidebar.) Although, now, and because of the transformations occurring, I must move forward and reduce the workload, improve focus, and provide a better platform that reflects the entire house as a course of action.

"It seems impossible to not know what our five senses are being used for. It has been learned that information must include an array of the what we perceive as sensations for preception to occur, that is to say, so that we understand them in context to our environment. Alternative media authors are rapidly working out the kinks in this chain where feelings have been assumed and fed with useless sensational alterations. The truth however, is that these stigmas are not really sensations, they are powerful centers entwined in the octave of life."

Learn more here. You can contact me here.

Postings on this blog may occur in the future for research purposes only. Be sure to visit and bookmark the current posting schedule here.

SOTT Summary February 2015 - Extreme Weather, Earth Changes, and Fireballs

2015-03-09T06:02:00.000-04:00

SOTT Media | Mar 8, 2015

The following video compiles footage of 'signs of the times' from around the world during February 2015 - 'earth changes', extreme weather, meteor fireballs, and planetary upheaval.

The pattern of global deluges continued last month as flooding again hit the Balkans, Greece, Bolivia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Northwest, Australia, and East Africa. February saw 'orange' snow, 'blue' snow and 'dirty rain' as particulates from ever more erupting volcanoes and incoming meteors continue to build up in the atmosphere. It's not just conditions above ground that are changing: alarming numbers of whales, sea lions and other sea creatures continue to wash up dead or dying on beaches around the world.

February saw meteor fireballs ranging from flashes that momentarily turned night into day over New Zealand, Florida and Korea... to a long-duration bolide of comet/asteroid size that broke up over the western half of North America. There were several major train derailments in February, particularly in the U.S., where oil companies are bypassing pipeline networks to transport fracked oil. We suspect that many railway lines are deforming due to the increased seismic activity.

More loud booms were heard and felt across the U.S. in February. Although attributed to 'frost quakes', where water seeps into the ground then freezes and cracks the bedrock, these localized booms also happened in ice-free regions, suggesting that some other mechanism is causing them. Besides strong earthquakes off Japan and along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an unusually strong quake in central Spain sent people running into the streets. Japan saw more snow records broken, wild weather continued to pummel the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East was again snowed under.

THE major weather event in February 2015 was the record snow and cold in the U.S. Northeast. The South and Midwest were also hit hard, but the Northeast appears to have had both its snowiest and coldest month ever, at least since since record-keeping began in the mid-19th century. Meteorologists attributed this to the meandering Polar Jet stream delivering a 'Siberian Express' of non-stop winter storms from the northern Pacific down and across the North American continent, but another factor could be super-cool air coming down from the troposphere.

The ice age cometh?

If you like this video, please share!

[...]

Toxic Chemicals Costing Society Billions in Damages to Human Health Alone

2015-03-07T12:55:00.000-05:00

A field of soybeans. (Photo: Tom Erickson/flickr/cc)

Common Dreams | Mar 6, 2015 | Sarah Lazare

New study finds hormone-disrupting chemicals found in pesticides, plastics, and more driving staggering—and costly—human health problems

Hormone-disrupting chemicals found in human-made products—from plastics to pesticides—are causing health problems that cost society billions, a new study finds.

Published Thursday in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, the examination was conducted by eighteen researchers in eight countries and is the first attempt to quantify the concrete costs of these chemicals.

According to researchers, the costs come to more than $170 billion a year in Europe alone—what they call a "conservative" estimate.

But beyond the dollar amount, the human health problems the study highlights are staggering.

"Global experts in this field concluded that infertility and male reproductive dysfunctions, birth defects, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and neurobehavioral and learning disorders were among the conditions than can be attributed in part to exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs)," reads a summary of the research.

Nneka Leiba, deputy director of research for Environmental Working Group, points out that endocrine-disruptors are found in common products around the world: "Potent hormone disruptors such as bisphenol A, or BPA, are in the lining of most canned goods and on many cash register receipts. Phthalates are in PVC plastic, food packaging and personal care products. And brominated flame retardants are ubiquitous in most upholstered furniture."

Researchers found that, in the EU, intellectual disabilities caused by prenatal exposure to pesticides containing organophosphates—which are endocrine disruptors—were the number one cause of this high cost.

"The analysis demonstrates just how staggering the cost of widespread endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure is to society," said Leonardo Trasande, associate professor at New York University who led the study. "This research crystallizes more than three decades of lab and population-based studies of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the EU."

And Leiba notes "this is not just a European problem. Americans are routinely exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in everyday consumer products."

Leiba adds, "All of them are everywhere in American households."

Vaccinated Farmed Fish Have Side Effects

2015-03-07T12:46:00.000-05:00

Natural Blaze | Mar 5, 2015 | Catherine J. Frompovich

Be forewarned, please, that this will not be very pleasant reading, especially if readers eat farm-raised fish and, in particular, salmon, a highly-farm-raised fish. “Wild-caught” need not apply.

During my years of research, I’ve come across all sorts of information, studies, and papers relating to animal vaccines, but this one sort of “takes the cake,” in my opinion. Farmed fish are vaccinated because, according to the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science (NSVS),

Modern fish farming is highly industrialized and relies heavily upon effective vaccines to minimize losses caused by infectious diseases. [1]

Want to know how to vaccinate a fish?

Please see slide 4 of the 28-slide presentation, “Side-effects of vaccination: an example of the conflict between guidelines and real life.”

It looks like a PowerPoint presentation made by Trygve T. Poppe and Gunvor Knudsen of the NSVS.

However, before I go any further about fish vaccinations, readers ought to know that there’s a 404-page book detailing the science of fish vaccinations titled—what else but—“Fish Vaccination,” May 2014 published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The book obviously is a guide to sustainable bio-production, disease prevention to reduce losses by employing the use of antimicrobials and vaccinations, which are considered effective in stimulating the immune system of fish.

Did anyone ask the fish? That may sound like an unlikely and stupid question, but in the NSVS PowerPoint presentation, slide 10 states,

Over the years fish farmers in Norway (and strangly [sic] enough to a very limited extent in other countries) have experienced severe and unacceptable side-effects in vaccinated fish.

[Hmmm! I could have told them to expect that; it’s a no brainer!] [CJF emphasis added]

There’s a photograph of a fish carcass with some sort of black “diseased-like” flesh inside the abdominal cavity. Check it out for yourself here (No. 12) .

The two slides following No. 12 show other fish health problems such as generalized granulomatous peritonitis and abdominal lesions affecting internal organs that often have heavy melanization, meaning causing tissue to turn dark or black.

Something I find rather interesting, and bordering on empathetic, is the remark on slide 15 that vaccines save fish lives [sounds familiar] from acute death from bacterial infections, but some fish are sentenced to “life-long suffering due to severe pathological lesions in internal organs.” If that happens to fish from vaccines, what, if anything, happens to human vaccinees’ organs?

But, the real “kicker” is the remark on another slide about their having no consensus about pain perception in fish! Interestingly, though, there is a caveat that’s added, “…but anorexia and retarded growth are good indicators.” Anorexia in fish! Retarded growth too! Hmmm. Can autism occur in fish?

A fish liver granuloma [nodular inflammation in tissue] with multinucleated giant cell is featured on slide 16.

Slide 18 features the inside cavity of a fish that has to be seen – really – to believe, and people eat vaccinated farmed fish! Or, hopefully, diseased fish never make it to market. But, what if their diseased organs are removed—are those fish marketed? I wonder, “What will happen with vaccinated GMO fish?”

Candidly, the PP presentation reports that the magnitude and significance of fish disease cases are unknown and “certainly underreported” [probably just like human vaccine damage] “as most cases have been closed in agreement between the fish farmers and the vaccine manufacturer. This is confirmed by The Norwegian Medicines Agency (NMA).” Since the fish obviously don’t have legal rights, this sounds familiar and probably similar to what apparently goes on at the U.S. Vaccine Court, in my opinion.

Slide 20 has a chart of “Reported side-effects from fish veterinarians to Norwegian Medicines Agency, 1996 to 2004.” Not knowing how to interpret that chart correctly, I wouldn’t want to take a guess since I was not in the audience to hear the presenters’ interpretation. However, following that on the very next chart, we read two rather disconcerting statements, I think:

Is this an example of testing where results obtained in experiments are far from what happens in real life? [Again, human vaccine tests are fudged; we know that from some whistleblowers [6] and a federal court case [5].]
Possible problems are not addressed well enough prior to release of the products [vaccines]

Whereas, on another slide (22) this most pointed of questions appears:

How can this happen as long as these vaccines are approved by NMA following their testing protocols (since 2001)? [That seems like vaccine adverse event history just repeating itself when human vaccines are used, especially in the USA as the VAERS reports indicate.] [CJF emphasis added]

Apparently, a similar question can – and should be – asked regarding human vaccines and the testing/approval process.

At one point, slide 25, this blunt and self-searching question is asked about vaccines for fish:

Should we INCREASE the number of experimental fish for vaccine testing prior to release in order to reduce the number of side-effects? (or how should we REFINE present testing?)

It would seem that the NSVS scientists have more concern about fish than the U.S. FDA has about vaccines harming children. With all the complaints about the HPV vaccines causing harms, even deaths, to teenage girls, the FDA apparently is not asking any questions!

Now, we get down to what, for me, was the “nitty-gritty” of the fish’s health issues:

They were concerned about animal welfare and the “quality of life” for the fish prior to slaughter.
That the side-effects from vaccines in fish were still occurring after 12 years of extensive use of vaccines, and people were eating vaccinated fish!
They want to find ways to refine present testing to reduce side-effects! So, they realize that side effects still go on after 12 years, and continue to use vaccines. Duh!

I think I know how they can reduce all those vaccine side effects. Eliminate the vaccines; take the fish out of farms, tanks, and pens and let fish be fish! What’s happening with “farmed” fish confirms what happens when corporate-food-production ‘innovates’ on the way in which Nature intends for food production: free roaming; not-confined in close quarters thereby promoting infectious diseases from exposure to filth; and not being subjected to chemical intervention from feed or vaccines.

Vaccines for Other Animals

Other corporate-food-producers, e.g., egg production and chickens, are notorious for cramped quarters, even stacked cages for egg-laying hens, plus supplemented GMO feed ‘enhanced’ with antibiotics and other chemicals for faster growth, or for earlier harvesting than would be normal naturally. Merck & Company produces vaccines for chickens, turkeys, and ducks. (Source)

Feed lots for cattle are another example of stress on animals grown for food. Stress in any form enables or promotes animals from all genres to produce stress-related hormones. Humans produce certain hormones like cortisol and epinephrine. Furthermore, cortisol is also produced by cattle! [2] Some researchers contend that animals in fear, or under stress, produce excess adrenalin, cortisol-like excretions and steroid-like hormones, which are secreted into their tissues and have been found in their meat served to research lab animals. Here’s the “Beef cattle herd health vaccination schedule.”

In the above information about fish vaccine adverse effects, it is interesting to learn that two veterinary scientists seem concerned about “quality of life” for fish prior to slaughter.

Animal vaccines for pets have been responsible for tumor growths at injection sites, especially in cats. [3, 4] That’s why veterinarians recommend vaccinating on cats’ limbs, so the limbs can be amputated, if need be.

Vaccines are BIG business for both humans and animals, too. Here are just a few animal vaccination schedules:

The Chicken Vet – Vaccination
http://www.chickenvet.co.uk/health-and-common-diseases/vaccination/index.aspx

Cattle Vaccines and Their Use
http://www.iowabeefcenter.org/Beef%20Cattle%20Handbook/Vaccines_Cattle.pdf

Vaccination Schedule for Goats and Sheep
http://www.valleyvet.com/library/sheep_vaccine.html

Vaccination Schedule for Pigs
http://animals.pawnation.com/vaccination-schedule-pigs-2248.html

Caring for Rabbits, Guinea Pigs and Ferrets
http://www.vetwest.com.au/pet-library/caring-for-rabbits-guinea-pigs-and-ferrets

Vaccinations for Adult Horses
http://www.aaep.org/custdocs/adultvaccinationchart.pdf

Overview of Vaccination for Exotic Mammals
http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/exotic_and_laboratory_animals/vaccination_of_exotic_mammals/overview_of_vaccination_of_exotic_mammals.html

Preventive Medicine for Zoo Animals

http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/exotic_and_laboratory_animals/zoo_animals/preventive_medicine_for_zoo_animals.html

So, what’s in your meat or fish?

References:

[1] http://oslovet.norecopa.no/gardermoen/2405poppe.pdf
[2] http://www.dairyco.org.uk/technical-information/animal-health-welfare/mastitis/symptoms-of-mastitis/stress-health-and-productivity/#.VPhd8hQ5D9I
[3] http://www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/cancer/c_ct_vaccine_sarcoma
[4] https://www.avma.org/KB/Resources/Reference/Pages/rbbroch.aspx
[5] http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/06/27/47851.htm
[6] http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/obama-grants-immunity-to-cdc-whistleblower-on-measles-vaccine-link-to-autism/

Resources:

Vaccines for fish in acquaculture

http://www.aqualifeservices.com/services/fish-vaccination/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15757476
http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/150/vaccines-for-fish-in-aquaculture/

Vaccine Associated Fibrosarcoma

http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?A=526
http://www.fws.gov/fisheries/aadap/INAD%20Workshop%20Files/Workshop%202011%20Bozeman
/Presentations/Wednesday/Wed%20PM/Mitchell_Fish%20vaccine%20status%20AADAP%20August%202011.pdf

Image source

Catherine retired from researching and writing, but felt compelled to write this article.

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.

Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.

Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008)

Antarctic gaining sea ice despite climate model predictions – study

2015-03-07T07:08:00.000-05:00

RT | Mar 7, 2015

For decades, climate scientists have been predicting that quantities of ice in the South Pole would shrink in the face of climate change and other global warming-related issues, but a recent study by scientists in China has found that the ice levels have actually been growing in the region over decades. RT’s Alexey Yaroshevsky has more on the controversy from New York.

Grand tree of life study shows a clock-like trend in new species emergence and diversity

2015-03-06T06:08:00.001-05:00

IMAGE: The tree of life compiled by Temple
University researchers is depicted in a new
way -- a cosmologically inspired galaxy of
life view -- and contains more
than 50,000 species... view more

Credit: Temple University

Eurekalert | Mar 3, 2015

Temple University researchers have assembled the largest and most accurate tree of life calibrated to time, and surprisingly, it reveals that life has been expanding at a constant rate.

"The constant rate of diversification that we have found indicates that the ecological niches of life are not being filled up and saturated," said Temple professor S. Blair Hedges, a member of the research team's study, published in the early online edition of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. "This is contrary to the popular alternative model which predicts a slowing down of diversification as niches fill up with species."

The tree of life compiled by the Temple team is depicted in a new way --- a cosmologically-inspired galaxy of life view --- and contains more than 50,000 species in a tapestry spiraling out from the origin of life.
For the massive meta-study effort, researchers painstakingly assembled data from 2,274 molecular studies, with 96 percent published in the last decade. They built new computer algorithms and tools to synthesize this largest collection of evolutionary peer-reviewed species diversity timelines published to date to produce this Time Tree of Life.

The study also challenges the conventional view of adaptation being the principal force driving species diversification, but rather, underscores the importance of random genetic events and geographic isolation in speciation, taking about 2 million years on average for a new species to emerge onto the scene.

"This finding shows that speciation is more clock-like than people have thought," said Hedges. "Taken together, this indicates that speciation and diversification are separate processes from adaptation, responding more to isolation and time. Adaptation is definitely occurring, so this does not disagree with Darwinism. But it goes against the popular idea that adaptation drives speciation, and against the related concept of punctuated equilibrium which associates adaptive change with speciation."

Besides the new evolutionary insights gained in this study, their Timetree of Life will provide opportunities for researchers to make other discoveries across disciplines, wherever an evolutionary perspective is needed, including, for example, studies of disease and medicine, and the effect of climate change on future species diversity.

Researchers around the world utilize molecular clocks to estimate species divergence times, calculating DNA mutational rates with species divergence times from gene and genomic sequences, that together with the fossil record and geological history, provide a constantly improving view of Darwin's "grandeur of life."

These new results add to the decade-long efforts of the Timetree of Life initiative (TTOL), which includes internet tools and a book, led by team members Hedges and Sudhir Kumar. "The ultimate goal of the TTOL is to chart the timescale of life -- to discover when each species and all their ancestors originated, all the way back to the origin of life some four billion years ago," said Hedges.

As an ongoing service to the scientific community, Hedges and Kumar plan to continue adding new data to TTOL from future peer-reviewed studies. They also will improve their current tools, such as web and smartphone apps, and develop new tools, that will make it easier to access the information and to explore the TTOL, and for scientists to update the growing tree with their new data.

###

Besides Hedges and Kumar, other members of the research team that published this new article included Julie Marin, Michael Suleski, and Madeline Paymer.

Oil & gas execs ‘pressured’ Oklahoma geologists not to reveal fracking-quakes link

2015-03-06T06:08:00.000-05:00

Reuters / Jim Urquhart

RT | Mar 5, 2015

Newly-obtained emails reveal that Oklahoma geologists were pressured by oil industry big-shots not to push on with their assessments of possible links between earthquakes in the state and hydraulic fracturing industry, most often referred to as fracking.

More than a year since a sharp spike in earthquakes in the region, which coincided with fracking for oil and gas, the Oklahoma Geological Survey say there might be a possible link. The rise resulted in magnitude 3 earthquakes almost twice daily on average – three times as many as in disaster-prone California.

But after the body issued a joint statement with the USGS in October 2013, saying that "activities such as wastewater disposal" could be a “contributing factor to the increase in earthquakes,” oil execs started to panic, according to newly-obtained emails by EnergyWire.

This allegedly led to the OGS avoiding mentioning that the lion’s share of earthquakes in the region was man-made. The silence has lasted since 2010 and was apparently due to pressure not to disclose the findings.

OGS geologist at the University of Oklahoma, Austin Holland, was one of the scientists aware of the link, but earlier did not wish to discuss it for lack of direct scientific proof.

It now turns out he was later being influenced by oil executives with a vested interest in the continuation of fracking in the area, according to the obtained emails.

“Researchers in Oklahoma, notably Austin Holland… have repeatedly said the increase in seismic activity cannot be fully explained by man-made causes,” Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association (OIPA) President Mike Terry said in a 2013 statement, pointing to Holland’s earlier scientific skepticism.

That statement coincided with Holland’s research, which found disturbing data from the southern town of Marietta, but stopped short of wholeheartedly acknowledging the fracking and earthquake link.

But when the OGS cautiously joined the USGS assessment in admitting that there was a relationship between fracking and growing seismic risks, Austin Holland was called into meetings with his boss at the university, President David Boren, and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC). He spoke with Jack Stark of the OCC, then also vice president of exploration at Continental Resources.

The OCC is the main regulatory body for oil and gas in the state.

Reuters / Gareth Fuller

Continental Resources Chairman Harold Hamm – the University of Oklahoma’s leading financial donor – started getting really interested in the findings around that time. Hamm, who was Mitt Romney’s energy adviser, is not a believer in the relationship between seismic activity and the oil and gas industry.

The joint statement by OGS/USGS aroused fear in the oil execs, as Holland recounted in one of the emails from 2013.

He was trying to explain to Continental and the OCC that his input only benefited the USGS assessment, but that "Continental does not feel induced seismicity is an issue and they are nervous about any dialog about the subject," as he wrote to his superiors at the university.

"They are in the denial phase that this is a possibility,” he wrote of the execs.

One of the people also dissatisfied with the Oklahoma geologists partnering up with the USGS was Patrice Doubles, the OCC commissioner. At the time, she was running for Congress and got more campaign funds from Continental than almost any other senator. That included money from Hamm.

As Holland explained in the email, Douglas said that she wished to “of course, protect the safety of Oklahomans, but also balance that with industry in the state.”

Earlier this year, in the Washington Post, Holland did admit that higher-ups were trying to influence his work – specifically, Hamm. In fact, according to a piece by fellow geologist Bob Jackman, Holland told him at the time: “you don’t understand – Harold Hamm and others will not allow me to say certain things.”

Holland later tried to downplay Jackman’s quote to EnergyWire, but Jackman later said he had written down Holland’s confession word for word immediately after the conversation.

A few other geologists have spoken out about the relationship between Hunton dewatering operations and a rise in earthquakes in the vicinity of Oklahoma City. They have also been warning that a surge in smaller quakes could increase the likelihood of greater ones.

Unlike other states where fracking is also commonplace, Oklahoma did little in the way of caps or regulations or shutdowns. Instead, reports emerged that state authorities limited such powers to information-gathering missions.

According to EnergeyWire, the view on Oklahoma having fracking-related earthquakes is shared by many academic and federal seismologists.

These new revelations come on the heels of fresh data from Oklahoma that has the US Geological Survey pointing to a clear scientific link between quakes and fracking.

Missing link? African bones predate earliest-known humans by 400,000yrs

2015-03-06T06:07:00.000-05:00

Screenshot from vimeo user Arizona State University

RT | Mar 5, 2015

A newly discovered fossil has shaken up science’s view of human evolution and could be the missing link between apes and humans: 400,000 years older than the oldest human bone found, the discovery could entirely rewrite our story.

For decades scientists have been stumped on the gap between humans that walked bent over and those that walked upright. Who was the mysterious ancestor that joined the ape-like Australopithecus with the human-like Homo? We could be looking at an answer. It now appears the timeline for earliest upright humans goes back not to 2.3 – but to 2.8 million years.

Institute of Human Origins Discovery from Arizona State University on Vimeo.

An Ethiopian student at Arizona State University and an accompanying research team discovered the lower jawbone and five teeth in Ethiopia in 2013. Now, for the first time, the findings have been published in two papers simultaneously, while a third supprorted the notion that this could indeed be a unique species, and not a Homo habilis.

The fragments definitely belong to the Homo lineage (of which we are the only remainder), but scientists are puzzled about what the species exactly is. In fact, it could turn out to be a completely new one.

Found 250 miles from Addis Ababa, the fragments are believed to belong to our ancestor from when the current dry land was still wetlands, interspersed with trees providing shade and rivers nourishing them. It was discovered not too far from another famous find – Lucy, the ape-like Austrolapithecus afarensis, known to be the earliest potential ancestor of the human family.

That transition between the two types is the first time in our history we switched from bashing things with rocks to actually using our brains to solve puzzles, although there was another transitional type – the crude and less brainy Paranthropus – thought to have appeared just before the transition to Homo.

Chalachew Seyoum of ASU, screenshot
from video, Arizona State University

"There is a big gap in the fossil record between about 2.5 million and 3 million years ago — there's virtually nothing relating to the ancestors of Homo from that time period, in spite of a lot of people looking," study co-author and one of the leaders of the team, Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada, told Live Science.

Now, for the first time, the 700,000-year hole between Lucy-like and Homo-type humans is beginning to fill up with information.

“This is a little piece of the puzzle that opens the door to new types of questions and field investigations that we can go after to try to find additional evidence to fill in this poorly known time period,” ASU Institute of Human Origins director William H. Kimbel said in the press release.

“It’s an excellent case of a transitional fossil in a critical time period in human evolution,” he added.
The nature of the new find is not without its naysayers: some scientists have posited that the fossil actually belongs to the well-known species of Homo habilis –the earliest known member of the Homo lineage. But careful digital processing has shown that these are not Homo habilis fragments and they in fact belong to a creature that came shortly before it.

It took years for scientists to get to where they are now. The research started in 2002 with painstaking surveying. The scientists were careful not to disturb anything unnecessarily. “So it took us basically 13 years to find this [human ancestor]. It doesn’t mean that the work that we did was wasted up until that time. But when we did find this [jaw], we were pretty excited that after all this time it actually worked out,” assistant professor and co-author Chris Campisano said.

Screenshot from vimeo user Arizona State University

The expectation was that if they were to dig around the area, they would find Lucy’s contemporaries – not what looked like the missing link.

“We first started collecting fossils in the area around where the jaw was eventually found in 2012,” Campisano went on. “When we realized how old the sediments were, we thought we might be able to find more specimens of Lucy’s species and figure out what happened to that lineage. Instead, we were rewarded with a much more exciting discovery.”

“Honestly, it was an exciting moment…I had good experience in field surveying and knew where potential sediments are. I climbed up a little plateau and found this specimen right on the edge of the hill,” said Chalachew Seyoum, the student behind the find.

What we know for sure, according to Professor Kaye Reed of ASU, is that the creature walked on two legs and lived in eastern Africa. Diet and tool use are very important logical next steps to understanding just how clever this ancestor was.

The research continues at ASU for other fossils around the same area to find answers to those questions.

Screenshot from vimeo user Arizona State University

Shock: Fracking Used to Inject Nuclear Waste Underground for Decades

2015-03-05T08:14:00.000-05:00

TruthStream Media | Mar 4, 2015 | Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton

Unearthed articles from the 1960s detail how nuclear waste was buried beneath the Earth’s surface by Halliburton & Co. for decades as a means of disposing the by-products of post-World War II atomic energy production.

Fracking is already a controversial practice on its face; allowing U.S. industries to inject slurries of toxic, potentially carcinogenic compounds deep beneath the planet’s surface — as a means of “see no evil” waste disposal — already sounds ridiculous, dangerous, and stupid anyway without even going into further detail.

Alleged fracking links to the contamination of the public water supply and critical aquifers, as well as ties to earthquake upticks near drilling locations that are otherwise not prone to seismic activity have created uproar in the years since the 2005 “Cheney loophole,” which allowed the industry to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act by exempting fracking fluids, thus fast tracking shale fracking as a source of cheap natural gas.

Now, it is apparent that the fracking industry is also privvy to many secrets of the nuclear energy industry, and specifically, where the bodies are buried, err… dangerous nuclear waste is buried, rather — waste that atomic researchers have otherwise found so difficult to eliminate.

Truthstream uncovered several published newspaper accounts from the Spring of 1964 concerning a then-newly disclosed plan to dump nuclear waste produced by the atomic energy industry into hydraulic fracturing (fracking) wells using a cement slurry technique developed by Halliburton & Co. The top two fracking companies in the nation at the time were Halliburton and Dowell, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical.

And here we thought fracking was a relatively new industrial phenomenon growing in popularity over just the last couple of decades. Boy were we wrong. Revealed within these articles is Halliburton’s long-standing relationship with the secret government and deep ties between the oil and nuclear industries.

Teaming up with the U.S. Government and Union Carbide Corp., who operate nuclear materials divisions at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee, Halliburton was then credited with “solving” the radioactive waste problem faced by America’s secretive nuclear industry. Dumping waste via fracking had apparently been going on since 1960, according to the reports, but was only made public here in 1964.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Each of the articles Truthstream found carry the same account under different headlines, with four of them using identical copy, and the fifth, published in the San Antonio Express, slightly rewritten based upon the same source information. The photo captions of each story also add some useful tidbits:

These ran in the:

April 19, 1964 edition of the Great Bend Tribune,
the April 22, 1964 edition of the Warren Times-Mirror,
the April 26, 1964 edition of the Lubbock Avalanche Journal,
the May 3, 1964 edition of the San Antonio Express News (original)
and the June 15, 1964 edition of the Denton Record Chronicle.

The story read, in part:

“Two techniques originated by the petroleum industry for its own uses are expected to solve a major problem in the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The problem is the disposal of dangerous, sometimes deadly, radioactive waste by-products.”

“Researchers at Halliburton Co’s. Technical Center here working with Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists, have combined the oil well cementing technique with the hydraulic fracturing production stimulation technique to entomb radioactive wastes in an impermeable shale formation a thousand feet underground.”

“The method used at Oak Ridge begins by mixing the waste with a cement slurry, pumping the mixture down a hole drilled into the Conasuaga shale and then fracturing the shale to create a horizontal crack. The crack fills with the mixture to form a thin, horizontal sheet several hundred feet across. The mix sets to permanently hold the radioactive waste in the formation.”

“Union Carbide Corp., which operates facilities at Oak Ridge for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, and Halliburton, which provides specialized oil field services such as cementing fracturing worldwide, have collaborated on the project since 1960.”

The mix remained liquid for 48 hours before it was supposed to permanently set and remain there, entombed, forever.

The articles make clear that the Atomic Energy Commission was preparing to use fracking as a means of disposing of nuclear wastes at additional facilities, with Oak Ridge being simply one of the largest, and the first to publicly disclose these out-of-sight disposal procedures:

“Oak Ridge has a radioactive waste disposal problem typical of the nation’s nuclear sites. Each year about four million gallons of waste, including such fission products as strontium 90, cesium 137 and ruthenium 103, are generated at Oak Ridge.”

“Among the disposal methods already tried have been dumping concrete-encased barrels of waste in the ocean or burying the waste in lead-lined containers. These are considered either too dangerous or too expensive or both.”

Unfortunately, the ocean has been used as a giant trashcan not only by the nuclear industry, but municipal garbage and landfill companies and many other entities as well, without any real concern about its significant effects on the food supply and larger ecosystem of the planet.

“If this process is successful for disposal of Oak Ridge National Laboratory intermediate-level wastes, it has potential application at other atomic energy sites where suitable geological conditions exist,” the Atomic Energy Commission says.”

The slightly different version in the San Antonio Express News added these details:

“A couple of techniques used by oilmen when they have hopes of production may soon be used by the Atomic Energy Commission for – of all things – radioactive garbage disposal.”

“Final tests are now under way at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, in trying a combination of oil well cementing plus hydraulic fracturing to entomb radioactive wastes in an impermeable shale formation a thousand feet underground.”

Meanwhile, the Great Bend Tribune added information about the Halliburton executives involved in the plan in their caption for a photo which shows businessmen looking at a diagram explaining how nuclear waste like strontium 90 is mixed with cement and injected into shale formations:

“Halliburton engineer Mack Stogner, left, reviews the project with Harry P. Conroy, senior vice president and general manager of the oil field service firm, and W.D. Owsley, senior vice president.”

The process includes remote controlled operation of the hydraulic fracturing drill in order to shield workers from the “medium level” radioactive substances being dumped into the earth’s crust, as the Warren Times Mirror in Pennsylvania notes in the caption:

“Disposing of Waste – Working behind shielding and wearing film badges, Halliburton Company personnel use demounted oil field service units to dispose of radioactive waste generated at the Oak Ridge, Tenn. nuclear site.”

How often this procedure has been used at other facilities since then is not entirely clear, though we know from reports discussed below that the practice continued and there is no indication that it ever stopped.

Five years later, the October 22, 1969 edition of the San Bernardino County Sun carried a report titled, “3 Ways to Manage Radioactive Waste.”

It discussed the ongoing and growing problems with nuclear waste, naming three principle strategies for managing the toxic stuff, summed up as “(1) delay and decay, (2) concentrate and confine and (3) dilute and disperse,” discussing how materials with lower half lives can supposedly be safely sequestered and later dumped, while other materials can be simply diluted and poured into existing groundwater supplies and systems.

The UPI story originating out of Oak Ridge states, in part,

“Since the start of the atomic era in the 1940s, nuclear reactors around the nation have produced 75 million gallons of hazardous high level radioactive waste materials.”

“And scientists here and elsewhere around the nation still are wrestling with the problems of what to do with this material, which promises to become even more plentiful as more and more commercial nuclear reactors go into power production.”

Oak Ridge proclaims that it found a solution to dealing with high level nuclear wastes, which has thus far been to keep it,

“…buried a few feet underground in storage tanks – tanks which must be periodically replaced because of the natural deterioration of the steel and other materials of which they are fabricated.”

“It is in this area of confining the high level wastes, whose radioactive half life ranges up to 30 to 50 years, that the Atomic Energy Commission is pushing dramatic new concepts.”

“One disposal system, involving materials in the medium range of radioactivity, is the hydraulic fracturing procedures. This system is now being used at Oak Ridge and involves mixing the liquid radioactive waste with concrete to form a grout which is pumped into shale formations 500 to 800 feet underground.”

Note, this article cites a shallower depth, at levels as shallow as 500 feet, after the 1964 articles claimed a further removed depth of 1,000 feet to 5,000. The even “higher level wastes” were disposed of in abandoned salt mines, according to Oak Ridge.

Nuclear Waste ‘Safely Flushed Away’ into the Water Supply

The 1969 article states that “low level waste” is “material which can safely be flushed away into rivers and lakes or released into the atmosphere because the level of radioactivity is so low that is presents no hazard when diluted and flushed into man’s natural environment. The more difficult problem is involved in the high level, liquid and solid wastes which are produced in the reprocessing of used fuel elements from nuclear reactor cores.”

The idea that the waste dumped into water supplies was so “low level” as to be completely harmless is likely dubious and hopeful at best. Fluoride, a by-product of the nuclear power industry, was one of those constituents, and was transformed from being known as a rat poison to being known as a dental benefit by the original spin doctor and propagandist, Edward Bernays.

In his book “The Fluoride Deception,” author Christopher Bryson revealed how the nuclear industry also used fluoridation of the public water supply as a means of secretly dumping industrial waste after fluoride was a major by-product in the uranium enrichment process for building the atomic bomb. Bryson told Democracy Now:

The Manhattan Project needed fluoride to enrich uranium. That’s how they did it. The biggest industrial building in the world, for a time, was the fluoride gaseous diffusion plant in Tennessee the Manhattan Project and Dr. Hodge as the senior toxicologist for the Manhattan Project, were scared stiff less that workers would realize that the fluoride they were going to be breathing inside these plants was going to injury them and that the Manhattan Project, the key — the key of U.S. Strategic power in the Cold War Era, would be jeopardized because the Manhattan Project and the industrial contractors making the atomic bomb would be facing all these lawsuits from workers, all these lawsuits from farmers living around these industrial plants and so Harold Hodge assures us that fluoride is safe and good for children.

More recently, an Associated Press investigation found in 2011 that 48 of 65 nuclear sites in the United States were leaking tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, into groundwater supplies via corroded pipes and tunnels. AP found at least 37 locations were in direct violation of federal drinking water standards for tritium, in some cases hundreds of times over.

Fracking Nuclear Waste ‘Safe for Millions of Years’… Unless It Leaks

Some 30 trillion gallons of toxic waste has been kept out of sight, out of mind by U.S. industries that have injected it hundreds and thousands of feet underground into wells since the 1960s.

Scientists who work for these corporations have used computer modeling to assure the Environmental Protection Agency that this waste poses no threat to our aquifers and that layers of rock deep within the Earth would safely store this stuff like Tupperware for millenia.

Already, several incidents have proven that scientific computer models are no match for reality.

It is clear from a December 21, 1973 article that disposal of nuclear waste via fracking continued, along with promises that it would be safe for millions of years to come.

The Dixon Evening Telegraph wrote in “Geologists look at energy crunch”:

“The U.S. Government is disposing of approximately 250,000 gallons of intermediate-level wastes each year using a technique called hydraulic fracturing. Liquids are pumped into impervious shales 1,000 to 5,000 feet below the surface. High pressure is applied causing the rocks to fracture and the liquid moves out laterally. Because the rock and radioactive wastes it contains will not be exposed to the biosphere for millions of years, this method should be safe unless leakage into an overlying aquifer occurs.”

That is, as the article points out, unless there are leaks.

As we found in research, leakage is exactly what has happened time and again throughout the years, including at disposal sites for Oak Ridge National Laboratories, according to reports in the following cases.

Via ProPublica:

In April, 1967 pesticide waste injected by a chemical plant at Denver’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal destabilized a seismic fault, causing a magnitude 5.0 earthquake — strong enough to shatter windows and close schools — and jolting scientists with newfound risks of injection, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A year later, a corroded hazardous waste well for pulping liquor at the Hammermill Paper Co., in Erie, Pa., ruptured. Five miles away, according to an EPA report, “a noxious black liquid seeped from an abandoned gas well” in Presque Isle State Park.

In 1975 in Beaumont, Texas, dioxin and a highly acidic herbicide injected underground by the Velsicol Chemical Corp. burned a hole through its well casing, sending as much as five million gallons of the waste into a nearby drinking water aquifer.

And these are hardly the only examples… in fact, it is just scratching the surface of an issue that is almost as incomprehensible as it is unfathomable.

Then in August 1984 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., radioactive waste was turned up by water monitoring near a deep injection well at a government nuclear facility.

Bingo…

There it is. The infallible, permanent, and “impermeable” deep injection wells that Halliburton and the Atomic Energy Commission considered as a solution to nuclear waste for eons to come were found turning up radioactive nuclear waste at the very Oak Ridge site where these 1960s disposal projects were taking place.

Subterranean Waste Disposal a ‘Cornerstone of the Nation’s Economy’

Those cemented wells, filled with injected disposal substances may be safely secured for a few years or even decades, but that is no guarantee for the years down the road and its certainly not the millenia as promised by Halliburton and others in the industry. In fact, many of the wells have been forgotten, abandoned, and are lost to the record books.
As ProPublica reports:

There are upwards of 2 million abandoned and plugged oil and gas wells in the U.S., more than 100,000 of which may not appear in regulators’ records. Sometimes they are just broken off tubes of steel, buried or sticking out of the ground. Many are supposed to be sealed shut with cement, but studies show that cement breaks down over time, allowing seepage up the well structure.

And many of these are injection wells, where all kinds of unwanted, toxic substances are dumped in order to be forgotten… though not necessarily gone.

Not only are these practices taking place, they are widespread… and widely defended, even with the known failures and safety issues.

Many scientists and regulators say the alternatives to the injection process — burning waste, treating wastewater, recycling, or disposing of waste on the surface — are far more expensive or bring additional environmental risks.

Subterranean waste disposal, they point out, is a cornerstone of the nation’s economy, relied on by the pharmaceutical, agricultural and chemical industries. It’s also critical to a future less dependent on foreign oil: Hydraulic fracturing, “clean coal” technologies, nuclear fuel production and carbon storage (the keystone of the strategy to address climate change) all count on pushing waste into rock formations below the earth’s surface. (source)

Sure, maybe it’s better than dumping it directly into the waterways, but still. This isn’t just playing with fire, this is playing with the lives of everyone in the nation for generations to come.

Please read ProPublica’s full series of reports on this, starting here. Things have to change.

These people should not have started messing with something they did not know how to fully and safely manage.

How long can this madness continue until it winds up tainting every drinking glass in America?

Engineer Mario Salazar, who worked as a technical expert for 25 years with the EPA’s underground injection program in Washington, told ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten something that should give us all pause about how radioactive nuclear waste and industrial pollutants in general are being handled, and where they may ultimately end up:

“In 10 to 100 years we are going to find out that most of our groundwater is polluted. A lot of people are going to get sick, and a lot of people may die.”

Sustainability on Steroids: Organic Farmer Grosses $100K an Acre

2015-03-05T06:10:00.000-05:00

Natural Society | Mar 4, 2015 | Christina Sarich

Could he have found the most effective way to grow food?

We need GMOs to feed the world like a fish needs dry land. A controversial farmer in California is proving that a veritable bumper crop can be had using new farming methods that don’t require GMO pesticides, herbicides, or even weeding, and require 10 times less water than the average farm. The best part – he earned $100K per acre last season without even harvesting all of his land.

What kind of super-fertilizer allows Paul Kaiser to grow so much food on a mere 8 acres? Lot’s of rotten food scraps and rotten plants – otherwise known as compost. And he uses loads of it.

He uses farming practices both old, and cutting-edge-new so well that agricultural specialists from University of California at Davis who have tested his top soil can drive a four-foot steel pole all the way through his fields. This, as opposed to most parts of California, where it would hit infertile hard-pan in less than 12 inches.

Last year, Kaiser’s farm located in Sonoma Valley, CA grossed more than $100,000 an acre, too. This is ten times the average for most farmers of this area, even in lucrative wine-country.

His farm is no mega-farm, either. At just under 8 acres, he is beating even other large organic farms because the soil is still so damaged in other conventional and organic farms alike. He is certainly out-performing Big Ag methods of farming as his unique farming practices have turned the soil into a goldmine.

Kaiser also doesn’t plow his fields (which means a lot less work) and he uses around 10 times less water than his peers. His neighbors still run sprinklers, but he waters for about an hour a week, using almost exclusively drip irrigation. This means that while California is still recovering from a drought, most farmers are watering the air – since most of the water is lost to evaporation. Kaiser is watering – how novel an idea – just his plants.

Read: Russians Prove Small-Scale Organic CAN Feed the World

Kaiser uses a thick, acrylic blanket to
keep both soil and compost piles
covered. Most farmers, if the cover
soil at all, us immense plastic
sheets, which end up each
year in the landfill. “These
blankets last me 10 years!”

Many California farmers recently spent millions tanking in water to try to save their crops, while Kaiser just made a healthy annual salary for even most high-paid lawyers. Water was being sold on the black market for ridiculous prices, but you can bet Kaiser wasn’t paying them.

Kaiser is a bit of a mad genius, and a dreamer, too. He rattles off statistics at local talks he gives about exactly how he grows so sustainably, often including surprising facts. For example, he leaves his roots in the ground after harvest to feed the worms. He sounds a bit like a Martin Luther King for growing green:

“Sustainable farming methods are just one corner,” he said. “Economic sustainability is another, and social sustainability is the third.”

During a recent Sunday farmers’ market, representatives of several different agricultural organizations approached Kaiser, each asking him for advice. Now, when billed for talks, he often packs the house.

Kaiser envisions small farms near every city around the globe, even in the most dry, arid climates, and with the proof of his own sweat, and soil, I believe his dream is possible.

Additional Sources:

Article images from Craftsmanship.net

Unnaturally Surreal | The Darkest Of Days February 2015 (1)

2015-03-05T06:09:00.001-05:00

HawkkeyDavisChannel | Mar 4, 2015

Oklahoma’s earthquake problem is getting worse

2015-03-05T06:09:00.000-05:00

The Extinction Protocol | Feb 6, 2015

February 2015 – OKLAHOMA - A lawsuit claims that Oklahoma’s great increase in earthquake activity has been caused by pumping waste from drilling operations back underground. The suit involves the largest measured quake in the history of the state, a 5.6 tremor that happened in Prague, east of Oklahoma City in November 2011. As the volume of drilling waste pumped underground has grown, the number of earthquakes with magnitude 3 or higher has increased. In particular, as the drilling has intensified along the northern border, the quakes have followed. The Prague 5.6 magnitude quake in 2011 had one 4.8 magnitude foreshock and one 4.8 magnitude aftershock.

The Prague 5.6 magnitude quake had one 4.8 magnitude foreshock and one 4.8 magnitude aftershock. Altogether there were 63 quakes of magnitude 3 or higher, concentrated mostly in the center of the state, where the 860 million barrels of waste pumping was centered. Drilling activity increased in northern Oklahoma but the 34 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater remained concentrated in the center of the state. Waste pumping increased to more than 1.2 billion barrels, with a big increase in the north. Earthquakes surged with 106 magnitude 3 or greater, including a string of quakes in the north of the state, where waste pumping also increased as the statewide volume rose to more than 1.5 billion barrels. The rate of quakes multiplied with 567 jolts at least magnitude 3 with the heaviest concentration in the northern end of the state. Waste-pumping data for 2014 is not yet available. –Washington Post

Industrial Vs Organic Farming Myths Busted

2015-03-04T07:48:00.000-05:00

Natural Blaze | Mar 3, 2015

How can we feed the world—today and tomorrow?

The biggest players in the food industry—from pesticide pushers to fertilizer makers to food processors and manufacturers—spend billions of dollars every year not selling food, but selling the idea that we need their products to feed the world. But, do we really need industrial agriculture to feed the world? Can sustainably grown food deliver the quantity and quality we need—today and in the future? Our first Food MythBusters film takes on these questions in under seven minutes. So next time you hear them, you can too.

Visit Food Myths

DOUBLE BARREL M-CLASS SOLAR FLARES - March 2, 2015

2015-03-03T06:24:00.000-05:00

Solar Watcher | Mar 2, 2015

Departing active region 12290 prior to turning off the solar disk unleashed two moderate M-Class Solar Flares this evening. An M3.7 eruption at 15:28 UTC and M4.1 at 19:31 UTC. A spectacular Halo Coronal Mass Ejection followed spewing safely out into space and will not have any earth directed component due to the proximity of the blast site being at right angles or 90 degrees to the earth.

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