B1, B2 Murdered

Can This Fruit Be Saved?

Popular Science: LINK
(Thank You, Jacki bringing this plight to my knowledge)
The banana as we know it is on a crash course toward extinction. For scientists, the battle to resuscitate the world’s favorite fruit has begun—a race against time that just may be too late to win. The bearded botanist and I are traipsing through one of the world´s most unusual banana plantations, moving down row after row of towering plants and ducking into the shade of broad leaves in an attempt to avoid the Central American midday heat. In an area about the size of a U.S. shopping mall, Aguilar, 46, is growing more than 300 banana varieties. Most commercial growing facilities handle just a single banana type-the one we Americans slice into our morning cereal.

The diversity of fruit in Aguilar´s field is astonishing. Some of the bananas are thick and over a foot long; others are slender and pinky-size. Some are meant to be eaten raw and sweet and some function more like potatoes, meant for boiling and baking or frying into snack chips. But Aguilar´s admonition is aimed squarely at our northern lunch boxes and breakfast tables.

For nearly everyone in the U.S., Canada and Europe, a banana is a banana: yellow and sweet, uniformly sized, firmly textured, always seedless. Our banana, called the Cavendish, is one variety Aguilar doesn´t grow here. And for you, says the chief banana breeder for the Honduran Foundation for Agricultural Investigation (FHIA), the Cavendish is the banana.

The Cavendish-as the slogan of Chiquita, the globe´s largest banana producer, declares-is â€quite possibly the world´s perfect food. Bananas are nutritious and convenient; they´re cheap and consistently available. Americans eat more bananas than any other kind of fresh fruit, averaging about 26.2 pounds of them per year, per person (apples are a distant second, at 16.7 pounds). It also turns out that the 100 billion Cavendish bananas consumed annually worldwide are perfect from a genetic standpoint, every single one a duplicate of every other. It doesn´t matter if it comes from Honduras or Thailand, Jamaica or the Canary Islands-each Cavendish is an identical twin to one first found in Southeast Asia, brought to a Caribbean botanic garden in the early part of the 20th century, and put into commercial production about 50 years ago.

That sameness is the banana´s paradox. After 15,000 years of human cultivation, the banana is too perfect, lacking the genetic diversity that is key to species health. What can ail one banana can ail all. A fungus or bacterial disease that infects one plantation could march around the globe and destroy millions of bunches, leaving supermarket shelves empty…

“Every Citizen is a Reporter”

Wikipedia: LINK
Oh My News: LINK
Oh My News (In English): LINK

OhmyNews (hangul:오마이뉴스) is a South Korean online newspaper with the motto “Every Citizen is a Reporter”. It was founded by Oh Yeon Ho on February 22, 2000.

It is the first of its kind in the world to accept, edit and publish articles from its readers, in an open source style of news reporting. About 20% of the site’s content is written by the 55-person staff while the majority of articles are written by other freelance contributors who are mostly ordinary citizens.

OhmyNews was influential in determining the outcome of the South Korean presidential elections in December 2002 with the election of Roh Moo Hyun. After being elected, Roh granted his first interview to OhmyNews.

OhmyNews International is an English language online newspaper that features “citizen reporter” articles written by contributors from all over the globe. Its content is almost 100% citizen reporter.

On February 22, 2006, OhmyNews and Japanese firm Softbank signed an investment contract valued at US$11 million. In 2006 OhmyNews started to build a Japan-based citizen-participatory journalism site called OhmyNews Japan, launched on August 28 with a famous Japanese journalist and 22 other employees working under ten reporters. These journalists’ articles were the object of much criticism, on Nov. 17, 2006, the newspaper ended the citizen-participation aspect of the paper. The South Korean newspaper admitted that OhmyNews Japan had failed.[1]

The 2nd Citizen Reporters’ Forum was held by OhmyNews in Seoul, Korea from July 12 to 15, 2006.

The 3rd International Citizen Reporters Forum was held by OhmyNews in Seoul from June 27 to 29 in 2007.

On November 24, 2007, OhmyNews opened a “citizen journalism school.” Located 90 minutes from Seoul, the building is a refurbished elementary school that will serve as a “collaborative knowledge center” for classes in journalism, digital cameras and photojournalism. The faculty will include OhmyNews editors and other journalists from print, radio and television. There is in-school lodging and dining capacity for 50 guests.

His Goal: Furnished Apartment, a Car, and $2,500 in Savings.

Homeless: Can you build a life from $25?
Christian Science Monitor: LINK

Alone on a dark gritty street, Adam Shepard searched for a homeless shelter. He had a gym bag, $25, and little else. A former college athlete with a bachelor’s degree, Mr. Shepard had left a comfortable life with supportive parents in Raleigh, N.C. Now he was an outsider on the wrong side of the tracks in Charles­ton, S.C.

But Shepard’s descent into poverty in the summer of 2006 was no accident. Shortly after graduating from Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., he intentionally left his parents’ home to test the vivacity of the American Dream. His goal: to have a furnished apartment, a car, and $2,500 in savings within a year.

To make his quest even more challenging, he decided not to use any of his previous contacts or mention his education.

During his first 70 days in Charleston, Shepard lived in a shelter and received food stamps. He also made new friends, finding work as a day laborer, which led to a steady job with a moving company.

Ten months into the experiment, he decided to quit after learning of an illness in his family. But by then he had moved into an apartment, bought a pickup truck, and had saved close to $5,000.

The effort, he says, was inspired after reading “Nickel and Dimed,” in which author Barbara Ehrenreich takes on a series of low-paying jobs. Unlike Ms. Ehrenreich, who chronicled the difficulty of advancing beyond the ranks of the working poor, Shepard found he was able to successfully climb out of his self-imposed poverty.

He tells his story in “Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream.” The book, he says, is a testament to what ordinary Americans can achieve. On a recent trip to the Boston, he spoke about his experience:

Becoming a mover and living in a homeless shelter – that hadn’t been part of your life before. How much did your lifestyle actually change?

Shepard: It changed dramatically. There were simple luxuries that I didn’t afford myself. I had to make sacrifices to achieve the goals that I set out. One of those was eating out. I didn’t have a cellphone. Especially in this day and age, that was a dramatic change for me…. I was getting by on chicken and Rice-A-Roni dinner and was happy. That’s what I learned … we lived [simply], but still we were happy.

But surely your background – you’re privileged; you have an education and a family – made it much easier for you to achieve.

I didn’t use my college education, credit history, or contacts [while in South Carolina]. But in real life, I had these lessons that I had learned. I don’t think that played to my advantage. How much of a college education do you need to budget your money to a point that you’re not spending frivolously, but you’re instead putting your money in the bank?

Do you need a college education? I don’t think so. To be honest with you, I think I was disadvantaged, because my thinking was inside of a box. I have the way that I lived [in North Carolina] – and to enter into this totally new world and acclimate to a different lifestyle, that was the challenge for me.

Still, there was that safety net. Were you ever tempted to tap your past work, education, or family networks?

I was never tempted. I had a credit card in my back pocket in case of an emergency. The rule was if I used the credit card then, “The project’s over, I’m going home.”

So what did you tell people when they asked what you were doing?

That was the only touchy part of my story. I had this great back story on how I was escaping my druggy mom and going to live with my alcoholic dad. Things just fell apart, and there I was at the homeless shelter. I really embellished this fabricated story and told it to anyone who would listen.

The interesting thing is that nobody really cared…. It wasn’t so much as where we were coming from, it was where we were going…

Odd of Dying Ignition or Melting of Nightwear: 538,523 to 1

National Safety Council: LINK

The odds of dying from…

The National Safety Council has been compiling and reporting on injury data every year since the 1920s. The table below was prepared in response to frequent inquiries to the Council concerning the odds of dying from or being killed by a specific incident or occurrence such as a lightning strike or a plane crash.

The odds given below are statistical averages over the whole U.S. population and do not necessarily reflect the chances of death for a particular person from a particular external cause. Any individual’s odds of dying from various external causes are affected by the activities in which they participate, where they live and drive, what kind of work they do, and other factors.

The table has four columns. The first column gives the manner of injury such as motor-vehicle crash, fall, fire, etc. The second column gives the total number of deaths nationwide due to the manner of injury in 2004 (the latest year for which data are available). The third column gives the odds of dying in one year due to the manner of injury. The fourth column gives the lifetime odds of dying from the manner of injury.

Statements about the odds or chances of dying from a given cause of death may be made as follows:

* The odds of dying from (manner of injury) in 2004 were 1 in (value given in the one-year odds column).
* The life-time odds of dying from (manner of injury) for a person born in 2004 were 1 in (value given in the lifetime odds column).

For example, referring to the first line of the table below:

* The odds of dying from an injury in 2004 were 1 in 1,756.
* The lifetime odds of dying from an injury for a person born in 2004 were 1 in 23.

Source: National Safety Council estimates based on data from National Center for Health Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau. Deaths are classified on the basis of the Tenth Revision of the World Health Organization’s “The International Classification of Diseases” (ICD). Numbers following titles refer to External Cause of Morbidity and Mortality classifications in ICD-10. One year odds are approximated by dividing the 2004 population (293,656,842) by the number of deaths. Lifetime odds are approximated by dividing the one-year odds by the life expectancy of a person born in 2004 (77.9 years)…

DJ Hero

Trademork: LINK

On February 8, 2008, video game developer/publisher Activision Publishing filed to protect the trademark DJ Hero in relation to “computer game software and related instruction manual sold together as a unit; interactive video game programs; computer game discs; downloadable software for use in connection with computer games; video game controllers; interactive video game comprised of a CD or DVD sold as a unit with a video game controller”.

Other than a custom Guitar Hero turntable mod reported by Gizmodo (and GameTrailers.com), and some wishful thinking by gamers, this trademark filing is the first indication of Activision’s future plans for the franchise, as well as peripherals beyond guitars.

While you wait for DJ Hero to arrive, Mork suggests you take a look at the DJ Dictionary. You might have your baby scratch technique down. But you’re gonna need to know how to crossfade your bubble scratch hamster style to avoid that GAME OVER train wreck.

Cool Website Ideas

Cool Website Ideas: LINK
Finally, a site that is made to display cool new websites. I mean, I won’t need any of these sites ever. but it helps to know Where a Sex Offender might live. Also good to know there are customizable chairs out there.

Here’s a look at some Hott Titles:
Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians
Wedding Speech Generator Website
Medication Prompt – Text-Message Reminder for Pills
LunchSpark helps people find new lunch buddies.
Sex Offender Notification Service

Fallout Shelter, Nezahualcoyotl and Casulo

Fallout Shelter Book – Flickr Set: LINK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nezahualcoyotl – Deputy Dog: LINK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Casulo – Geekologie: LINK

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Stick Honey! Not AIDS Vaccine.

Honey Drop – Non-Sticky Honey
Junk Food Blog: LINK

Island Abbey Foods Ltd, of Montague, Prince Edward Island, is asking people if they ever held a dollop of pure honey in their hand. Probably not, considering how sticky and messy it is.

So now they’ve come up with 100% pure honey, that you can hold in your hand, without the stickiness. They call it, “Honey Drop”. I’m not sure what the “Honibe” brand name is about, but in any case, they’ve named it “Honey Drop”.

The company claims that other competing products all have some kind of additive, sweetener, or binding agent to remove the stickiness. But meanwhile, Honey Drop contains no other additives, it’s all honey, 100%.

Each drop is equivalent to one teaspoon (5gm) of pure honey. They don’t actually tell you how they managed to make it non-sticky; I think they just dehydrated it under a controlled environment.

The Honey Drop comes in two flavors: pure honey and pure honey and lemon (so much for no additives!), and has a shelf life of one year.

Visit Honey Drop online at…
http://www.NoStickyFingers.com

Symbolic Birth Certificates

A Move for Birth Certificates for Stillborn Babies
The New York Times: LINK

The sudden shift from what she called “a perfectly wonderful healthy pregnancy” to delivering a dead infant was unfathomably painful, said Ms. Edber, 27, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Daniel.

“The experience of giving birth and death at the exact same time is something you don’t understand unless you’ve gone through it,” Ms. Edber said. “The day before I was released from the hospital, the doctor came in with the paperwork for a fetal death certificate, and said, ‘I’m sorry, but this is the only document you’ll receive.’ In my heart, it didn’t make sense. I was in labor. I pushed, I had stitches, my breast milk came in, just like any other mother. And we deserved more than a death certificate.”

So Ms. Edber joined with others who had experienced stillbirth to push California legislators to pass a bill allowing parents to receive a certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth.

In the last six years, 19 states, including New Jersey, have enacted laws allowing parents who have had stillbirths to get such certificates. Similar legislation is under consideration in several more, among them New York. More than 25,000 pregnancies a year end in stillbirth, generally defined as a naturally occurring, unintentional intrauterine death after more than 20 weeks of gestation. A cause for the death is usually not determined.

To thousands of parents who have experienced stillbirth, getting a birth certificate is passionately important, albeit symbolic.

“It’s dignity and validation,” said Joanne Cacciatore, an Arizona woman who started the movement after her daughter, Cheyenne, was stillborn 13 years ago. “It’s the same reason why we want things like marriage licenses and baptismal certificates.”

But politically, the birth-certificate laws, often referred to as “Missing Angels” bills, occupy uncertain territory, skirting the abortion debate while implicitly raising the question of fetal personhood.

Many antiabortion groups say the laws fill a need for parents. But some abortion rights supporters see the push for these laws as a barely disguised political move to undermine abortion rights…

Caffeinated Candy Bar

Junk Food Blog: LINK

Snickers has been doing the limited edition thing for a while (Dark Chocolate, Xtreme, Nut ‘n’ Butter and the upcoming Adventure Bar). Today they announced their newest bar, the SNICKERS Charged (TM) bar that provides additional B-vitamins and the stimulants caffeine and taurine.

To meet consumer needs and help millions of Americans take back their energy-zapped afternoons, SNICKERS(R) Brand is proclaiming the post-lunch, pre-dinner hour between two and three p.m. the SNICKERS Charged(TM) Re-Power Hour.

SNICKERS Charged(TM) contains 60 milligrams of caffeine. This compares to the caffeine content of other products:

• 8-ounce soft drink contains 20-40 milligrams
• 8-ounce regular coffee contains 65-120 milligrams
• 8-ounce energy drink contains 72-80 milligrams

More at Snickers.com

UPDATE: I got a hold of some to taste test. It’s a little smaller than a regular Snickers, tastes pretty much the same but there’s a slight bitter aftertaste. Still, less expensive than a cup of coffee most places!