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New research into inheritance shows we can alter family traits for better or for worse. Jonathan Leake reports For Beatrix Zwart being young means having fun. She works hard, and out of hours she plays hard — including plenty of nights on the town with her friends. “I lead a similar lifestyle to a lot of young professionals in Britain and I don’t intend to have any children until I’m well into my thirties,� said Zwart, a 25-year-old Belgian who lives in London. “I’ve never really thought my lifestyle now could have any effect on my future children or grandchildren.�...

Al Gore today called for replacing all carbon based electric power generation with alternative forms, primarily wind, solar, and geothermal in the next ten years...I pulled up these Intellicast wind maps a few hours after he delivered his speech. They cover the entire eastern portion of the country at 10PM EDT. Seems to be a problem. It’s night (no solar) and there’s no wind. It happens!

Here's something unlikely to make the cover of Time. From the Science & Public Policy Institute: WASHINGTON (7-15-08) — Mathematical proof that there is no "climate crisis" appears today in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 10,000-strong American Physical Society, SPPI reports. Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, demonstrates via 30 equations that computer models used by the UN's climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is "climate sensitivity" (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2's effect on...

CAIR’s Medical School Grievance Theater   By Patrick PooleFrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, July 17, 2008 When Iram Qureshi of Dublin, Ohio was dismissed from the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine last month after having to repeat her first year and then failing two “systems” in her second year after she stopped attending classes, she did what any normal American Muslim woman would seem to do these days – she called the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and sued.Tragically, perhaps fatally one day for one of her future patients, a Kanawha County Circuit Court judge has granted her a...

Researchers say industry manipulates the ingredient to recruit new generation of users Tobacco companies are manipulating menthol levels in cigarettes to appeal to newer, younger smokers, part of a deliberate strategy to get younger people, particularly African-Americans, hooked, a new study contends. Menthol makes cigarettes more palatable to the novice smoker. "If anything, menthol is being used as a candy to help the toxin go down," said Dr. Gregory Connolly, senior author of a paper being published in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health. "If we let the industry go ahead and willy-nilly design the product...

It was supposed to be a healthy snack. But a bunch of cut-price supermarket grapes became poisonous after they were infested by a pair of false widow spiders. Ceri and Rose Williams suffered numbness, head aches and high blood pressure after eating the fruit they purchased in Tesco. Mr Williams, 52, and his 45-year-old wife had already started munching on the two £1 bags of fruit when they noticed that something was moving inside. A quick rummage revealed that two spiders, one alive and one dead, had already made a meal out of the Moroccan-grown grapes. Mr Williams also spotted...

While others criticized the Bush administration's inaction on greenhouse gases, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe warned Friday that it has put in place a scenario that will bankrupt the U.S. economy. A key player in the years-long debate over climate change, the Oklahoma Republican agreed that using the Clean Air Act to put new regulations in place would be an unprecedented expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency's authority that would impact every household. "Obviously the concept of regulating carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act is flawed and the act must be amended by Congress," Inhofe said. "Today's notice should concern...

July 08, 2008, 6:00 a.m. WikipropagandaSpinning green. By Lawrence Solomon Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get away with their claim of a “scientific consensus� confirming their doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works. As you (or your kids) probably know, Wikipedia is now the most widely used and influential reference source on the Internet and therefore in the world, with more than 50 million unique visitors a month. In theory Wikipedia is a “people’s encyclopedia� written and edited...

Imagine what life would be like floating around the world on a giant island capable of holding 50,000 people and completely sustaining itself. Well, welcome to "Lilypad City." Designed like a lily pad, the innovation by award-winning Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut could be used as a permanent refuge for those whose homes have been covered by water in the future. "I think trying to accommodate the millions of people left homeless by environmental changes will prove to be one of the great challenges of the 21st century," he told the Daily Mail. "Some countries spend billions of pounds working on...

All new vehicles on sale in California will soon have to display their green credentials. This is a new scheme implemented by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). From January 1, 2009, stickers like the one seen here will carry information about the environmental performance of every vehicle they’re pasted into. There will be a ‘Global Warming Score’ (based on greenhouse gas emissions from driving and fuel production) and a ‘Smog Score’ (pretty much self-explanatory), both rated on a one-to-ten scale, with ten being the cleanest. And, similar to warnings on cigarette packets, they will say: ‘Protect the environment, choose...

White House Blocks EPA Emissions Draft Document Outlines Keys To Regulating Greenhouse Gases By IAN TALLEY and SIOBHAN HUGHES June 30, 2008 WASHINGTON -- The White House is trying to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from publishing a document that could become the legal roadmap for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S., said people close to the matter. The fight over the document is the latest development in a long-running conflict between the EPA and the White House over climate-change policy. It will likely intensify ongoing Congressional investigations into the Bush administration's involvement in the agency's policymaking. The draft document,...

The chief practical argument coming from those who oppose opening our continental shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling is that it will take ten years to get the oil so it will not have any impact on current oil prices. The response is that is factual and analytical hogwash, insofar as the whole point of futures markets is to discount the impact of changes in future supply. It is also, by the way, reasoning that many on the left would not want applied to their own pet project: My response to those who say that increased drilling...

As gay couples race to the altar in California this week, scientists may have found an answer to the so-called gay paradox. Studies suggest that homosexuality is at least partly genetic. And although homosexuals have far fewer children than heterosexuals, so-called gay genes apparently survive in the population. A new study bolsters support for an intriguing idea: These same genes may increase fertility in women. Despite some tantalizing leads over the past 2 decades, researchers have yet to isolate any genes directly linked to homosexuality. Nevertheless, a number of studies have shown that male homosexuals have more gay male relatives...

Almost every day a news report comes out linking something to climate change – obesity, food riots or a century of wildfires. Some of the claims seem especially outlandish. Sometimes they are. On June 18, CBS.com posted a story claiming that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago because of global warming. The story had no byline, but was attributed to the Associated Press. The story was identical to a June 17 Market Wire press release attributed to Tom Chalko, the scientist that made the claim of the earthquake/global...

Boulder, Colo. -- The Earth has about 16.2 million square miles of forests but scientists say research is needed to understand the forests' impact on climate change. "As politicians and the general public become more aware of climate change, there will be greater interest in legislative policies to mitigate global warming," said atmospheric scientist Gordon Bonan of the National Science Foundation's National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "Forests have been proposed as a possible solution, so it is imperative that we understand fully how forests influence climate." The complex relationships within forests both add and subtract from the...

MT BEST, AUSTRALIA--(Marketwire - June 17, 2008) - New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago. The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue, unless the problem of "global warming" is comprehensively and urgently addressed. The analysis of more than 386,000 earthquakes between 1973 and 2007 recorded on the US Geological Survey database proved that the global annual energy of earthquakes on Earth began increasing very...

The pesticide report that nobody read No major media picked up the story, even though it demolished every health and environmental claim devised by scaremongersBy Terence CorcoranWelcome to the 10th Annual FP Comment Junk Science Week event, which begins today with a somewhat tedious and dry look at a classic, the pesticide scare. For more than a decade, the likes of Greenpeace, the Ontario College of Family Physicians, The Globe and Mail and scores of activists and city politicians have waged a relentless campaign against pesticide use. It’s easy to generate a junk science scare. You make stuff up, exaggerate...

In Charles Krauthammer's May 30 must-read column, "Carbon Chastity," he rightly lambastes environmentalists as resurrected communists/socialists who have latched on to the environment and climate change as a means to advance their anti-people social agenda. The specific occasion for his justifiable outrage is a recent proposal by a British parliamentary committee to institute a personal carbon ration card for every citizen. The plan would place limits on food and energy consumption in the form of credits not to be exceeded — except through the potential for heavy-carbon users, often the wealthy, to purchase credits from lower-carbon users, often the less...

The deniers of global warming are about to latch on to a new argument. The world is cooling. And they are right - well, slightly. Globally, this year is likely to be the coolest for some time - back to the average of the early 90s, according to some unpublished forecasts. This is no refutation of man-made global warming. It is the inevitable consequence of one of nature's climatic cycles. The La Niña, the cold phase of the El Niño cycle in the Pacific, has sent average global temperatures plunging this year. And there is more. Longer term climate cycles...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Could "green" become a new watchword in TV programming? While the media companies have long been touting everything they're doing behind the scenes to become more environment-friendly, the message increasingly is seeping into their programming. On Wednesday, Discovery Communications launches the first 24/7 eco-friendly network, Planet Green, which will take over the space occupied by Discovery Home Channel. That follows NBC Universal's second companywide "Green Week" in April -- featuring 100 hours of green-themed content airing across 42 NBC Universal brands and 28 Web sites -- with two more already planned for November and April....

WASHINGTON - The Senate began what is expected to be a weeklong, contentious debate Monday over legislation to combat global warming by mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Senators voted 74-14 to proceed to the bill, but immediately it became clear Republican opponents were not going to make it easy. A request by Democrats to begin considering substantive changes in the bill was blocked by GOP opponents until Wednesday at the earliest. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada promised a thorough debate that will probably last through the week, if not longer. He said it's clear...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Each April, weather wizard William Gray emerges from his burrow deep in the Rocky Mountains to offer his forecast for the six-month hurricane season that starts June 1. And the news media are there, breathlessly awaiting his every word. It's a lot like Groundhog Day -- and the results are worth just about as much. ''The hairs on the back of my neck don't stand up,'' ho-hums Craig Fugate, director of emergency management for Florida, the state that got raked by four hurricanes -- three of them ''major'' -- in 2004. When it comes to preparing, he...

If there indeed is a second Great Depression to come, this will be the government measure that guarantees it arrives with a devastating gut punch. The U.S. Senate returns to session this week and will take up something deceptively labeled "America's Climate Security Act of 2008." It's a bill designed to combat man-made global warming. But anybody with a brain should be able to understand that the only thing this bill would "secure" would be our national demise. Not only is it one of those sadly classic bureaucratic "solutions" in search of a problem, it is a sad exercise...

A bill going to the U.S. Senate next week seeking deep cuts in U.S. greenhouse gases by 2050 is a "first step" but not enough to avert damaging climate change, the head of the U.N. Climate Panel said on Friday. Rajendra Pachauri also said that even tougher plans by some other developed nations to rein in emissions were insufficient to head off some projected impacts of global warming, ranging from more heatwaves and droughts to rising seas. The U.S. bill, sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent and Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican, seeks to cut U.S. emissions...

Climate scientists Robert Allen and Steven Sherwood from Yale Universitry have used a new technique to show temperatures changes in the upper troposphere (7.5-10 miles up) since 1970 are clearly in sync with most of the climate change models in showing a general warming of 0.65 degrees celsius per decade. Over the past two decades, temperature data directly gathered by satellites and balloons had showed little or no increase in upper troposheric temperature during that period, but researchers suspected these discontinuities with the model projections were due to unknown changes in instrumentation and data processing. By tracking radiosondes attached to...

May 28, 2008 Posted By Marc Morano – 3:33 PM EST – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov New York Times Makes Factual Blunder Paper erroneously claims Senate last voted on global warming bill in 2003 A New York Times editorial today arguing in favor of the Senate’s upcoming mandatory global warming cap-and-trade legislation committed a blatant factual error. The May 28 Times editorial incorrectly claimed, “The Senate last addressed climate change in 2003 when it cast 43 votes in favor of a bill sponsored by Mr. McCain and Mr. Lieberman.” (LINK) In their apparently hasty Google search of Senate history, the editors at the...

The global warming debate arrives in the Senate next week, and it's about time. Finally, the Members will have to vote on something real, as opposed to their buck-passing to courts and regulators, and their easy trashing of President Bush. The vehicle is a bill that principal sponsors Joe Lieberman and John Warner are calling "landmark legislation." They're too modest. Warner-Lieberman would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s. Thankfully, the American system makes it hard for colossal tax and regulatory burdens to foxtrot into law without scrutiny. So we hope our politicians will...

Washington, May 27 : A new study by scientists has suggested that the melting of the Antarctic glaciers might be leading to the release of large amounts of the banned pesticide DDT, which is contaminating the environment in Antarctica. In the study, scientist Heidi N. Geisz and colleagues estimate that up to 2.0 - 8.8 pounds of DDT are released into coastal waters annually along the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet from glacial meltwater. The researchers point out that DDT reaches Antarctica by long-range atmospheric transport in snow, and then gets concentrated in the food chain. DDT has been banned in...

May 27, 2008 -- The polar bears are doing just fine, thank you very much. So says Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who announced last week that her state would sue to block Washington from listing the animals as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. And it's a good thing, too - because the new bear-population protections mask what may be the most serious threat to American economic might in decades. Yes, polar bears. The polar bear, you see, marks the first species on the "threatened" list whose supposed predicament is linked directly to global warming. The current Alaskan polar-bear population...

32,000 deniers That's the number of scientists who are outraged by the Kyoto Protocol's corruption of scienceQuestion: How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming? The quest to establish that the science is not settled on climate change began before most people had even heard of global warming. The year was 1992 and the United Nations was about to hold its Earth Summit in Rio. It was billed as -- and was -- the greatest environmental and political assemblage in human history. Delegations came from 178 nations -- virtually every nation...

The Grandiose Socialist Scheme Written by Bridget Geegan Blanton Europe is in midst of a period of enlightenment ... .... as reflected by recent election results where voters revolted against the shackles of Socialism. They’re throwing the Socialists out of office along with their burdensome multicultural policies. The European economy is quickly being run into the ground due to excessive entitlements and a Third World Immigration that guarantees welfare without the requirement of assimilation. Once again, Socialism has proven to be unsustainable in the long term. While an increasing amount of economies throughout the world are embracing Capitalism, America is...

Republicans Discount Global Warming McCain, Bush At Odds With Most Of Party POSTED: 2:15 pm EDT May 15, 2008 UPDATED: 2:46 pm EDT May 15, 2008 The proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. That puts most Republicans at odds with their standard-bearer, President George W. Bush, and with GOP presidential contender Sen. John McCain. Both men said this week global warming is real and must be addressed. Republicans are increasingly skeptical that...

Global warming is causing significant changes to the Earth's natural systems and it is highly unlikely that any force but man-made climate change can be blamed . Researchers who analysed 30,000 academic studies dating back to 1970 said man was responsible for changes that ranged from the loss of ice sheets to the collapse in numbers of many species of wildlife. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems," said Cynthia Rosenzweig, at the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The effects on living things include the...

(CNN) -- Kicking off a week-long push seen as outreach to independent and Democratic voters in crucial swing states, John McCain on Monday will deliver a speech outlining his vision for combating global warming. "We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great," McCain will say in Portland, Oregon, according to prepared remarks. "The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge." McCain's commitment to fight global warming puts him at odds with some Republicans in Congress and with the Bush administration, which...

When Al Gore and his global warming alarmists take over, one of the first citizens they’ll slap in a prison and charge with crimes against the (green) state will be Steven J. Milloy, founder and publisher of the popular Web site JunkScience.com. For 12 years, JunkScience.com has worked to debunk the bad science that has been used to advance the harmful or merely silly political and social agendas of environmentalists that have led to things such as bans on DDT and incandescent light bulbs.

Curbing a notorious form of industrial pollution may ironically harm Amazonia, one of the world's natural treasures and a key buffer against global warming, a study released Wednesday has found. Its authors see a strong link between a decrease in sulphur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and a rise in sea temperature in the northern Atlantic that was blamed for wreaking a devastating drought in western Amazonia in 2005. University of Exeter professor Peter Cox and colleagues created a computer model to simulate the impact of aerosols -- airborne particles that, like sulphur dioxide, are also spewed out by...

Here are a few facts: Over 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. Without the greenhouse effect, Earth's average temperature would be zero degrees Fahrenheit. Most climate change is a result of the orbital eccentricities of Earth and variations in the sun's output. On top of that, natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.

Fast-Food Liver Damage Can Be Reversed, Experts SayDiets high in fast food can be highly toxic to the liver and other internal organs, but that damage can be reversed, says one of the country's leading experts on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, who offers four steps to undo the effects of a 'super-size me' diet. (Credit: iStockphoto/Marketa Ebert) ScienceDaily (May 2, 2008) — Diets high in fast food can be highly toxic to the liver and other internal organs, but that damage can be reversed, says one of the country’s leading experts on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, who offers four steps...

The Global Warming Hoax-a-thon By Bridget Geegan Blanton Beware the pandering politician. Where there are votes to be won, the truth will be spun. Listening to politicians out on the stump, you’d think we were in midst of the apocalypse. Frankly, I’m weary of candidates avoiding a real discussion on tough issues. Why don’t they just spare us the insult of those televised debates? Where’s the actual debate? It’s predictable and boring as the main stream media poses questions that are simply spring boards for carefully crafted commentary. Talk about compelling television, how about a real debate on our energy...

White Americans are both genetically weaker and less diverse than their black compatriots, a Cornell University-led study finds. Researchers analyzed the genetic makeup of 20 Americans of European ancestry and 15 African-Americans. The Europeans showed much less variation among 10,000 tested genes than did the Africans, which was expected, but also that Europeans had many more possibly harmful mutations than did African, which was not.

It goes without saying that climate realists around the world believe Nobel Laureate Al Gore used false information throughout his schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" in order to generate global warming hysteria. On Friday, it was revealed by ABC News that one of the famous shots of supposed Antarctic ice shelves in the film was actually a computer-generated image from the 2004 science fiction blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow."

So much for global warming. Earth Day festivities went ahead despite the blast of frigid weather yesterday. Vendors and presenters from various eco-friendly groups, including Bullfrog Power, CO2 Reduction Edmonton and the local solar energy society, crammed into a lone tent in Hawrelak Park after a blizzard forced them to abandon their original locations. Organizers crammed over 40 groups in a space that would normally be occupied by half that number. Presenters' booths were initially planned to have been spread out between at least five tents, with far larger displays. A lemonade vendor towards the front might as well not...

The truth is finally out there about the new "X-Files" movie title. The second big-screen spinoff of the paranormal TV adventure will be called "The X-Files: I Want to Believe," Chris Carter, the series' creator and the movie's director and co-writer, told The Associated Press. Distributor 20th Century Fox signed off on the title Wednesday. The title is a familiar phrase for fans of the series that starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents chasing after aliens and supernatural happenings. "I Want to Believe" was the slogan on a poster Duchovny's UFO-obsessed agent Fox Mulder had hanging in...

Realtor Complains Lack of Global Warming Hurting Business Photo of Noel Sheppard. By Noel Sheppard | April 16, 2008 - 15:12 ET Imagine for a moment you're an upscale realtor in the exclusive southeastern part of France called "Provence" driving around with a couple of well-healed prospective buyers hoping to see gorgeous vistas on a sunny, April day only to get caught in a snow storm. What would you do? Well, the manager of a British real estate company called VEF, whose office is in Haute Provence, was so angered by this that he wrote a complaint letter to the...

Pelosi Statement on President’s Announcement on Climate Change Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today ahead of President Bush’s expected announcement this afternoon of Administration efforts on climate change: “After seven years of denying the seriousness of the climate crisis and delaying tough action to save the planet, President Bush finally will discuss the subject this afternoon. With just nine months left in his term, the White House has already made clear that the President’s announcement today will not reverse his record on global warming before he leaves office. “The President should encourage the efforts of...

Darwinism is a specific evolutionary theory that excludes everything but material processes in the design of all life forms. No Intelligent Design allowed. "What's driving it is Darwinism is a foundational principle – scientific validation of secularism, atheism, liberalism – and that it strikes at the core of who they are," said Mathis. "Secondarily, these scientists are the high priests of the biggest question ever asked. They have all the authority, knowledge, power, funding," continued Mathis. "This is ground they own exclusively. They look down their elitist noses at the unwashed ignorant religious masses and scoff. That's why they respond...

Temperatures are rising over the delay in deciding whether to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. "The polar bear cannot wait much longer," said Kassie Siegel, climate program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the three litigants. "As our greenhouse emissions increase and the Arctic sea ice melts, the window of opportunity to save the polar [bear] is closing rapidly." The problem, say Bush administration officials, is that the polar bear is no longer just a shaggy, white mammal with a taste for seal. The species has become a proxy for the debate on...

Genes trigger phobias in kids and teens 21:00 07 April 2008 NewScientist.com news service Jim Giles Our response to the things that scare us, from threatening men on dark streets to hairy spiders in the bath, is programmed to become active at different times in our lives, suggest two studies on the genetics of fear. Scientists already know that fears and phobias are shaped in part by genes. Identical twins, for example, are more likely to develop phobias for the same objects, such as snakes or rats, than non-identical twins. But less is known about when the genes involved act...

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Power companies in just five EU nations could reap windfall profits of up to 71 billion euros over five years thanks to Europe's emissions trading scheme, the green group WWF claimed Monday. The environmental group, which released the findings of a sector study, said the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) gives no incentive to move away from the most polluting coal-fired power stations and warned that Poland and other eastern European members were lobbying against a planned overhaul of the system after 2012. At the root of WWF's gripe is the free distribution of polluting permits to...

Snow fell across London on Sunday before an Olympic torch relay through the capital that is expected to attract anti-China protests. About 80 athletes and celebrities will carry the torch by foot, bike, boat and bus during a 31-mile (50-km) journey starting at Wembley Stadium and ending in Greenwich. The 2008 Games take place in Beijing from August 8 to 24. The next Summer Olympics are in London in 2012. Anti-China protesters are set to appear at key points along the route. Police have said they will be dealt with firmly if they try to disrupt the torch's journey. The...