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John Pilger
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Friday, 03 July 2009
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Reflecting on the idea of a journey, John Pilger wonders if the unsuspected and tragic can change everything.
Sydney, NSW, AUS. T. S. Eliot wrote that the point of any journey was to find out where you came from. As I bore my bulging canvas bag to the wharf at Circular Quay, not far from where my Irish great-great-grandparents had landed in leg irons, I hoped the point of my journey would become clearer once my ship had sailed. The Bretagne was my ship; it was white with blue stripes along the side and had a graceful bow, having been built in Saint-Nazaire as a modest version of the mighty Normandie.
Alas, long veins of rust showed, and the crew looked morose. A Greek company now owned it, and the previous day had decanted 600 Greek brides.
The brides had been married “by proxy” in Greece to men in Australia they had never met. It worked this way. Young Greek (and Italian) men emigrated to Australia in the post-war years to work in the outback or at night in factories. When the authorities realised an entire gender was missing, they encouraged young women in Greece to write to their bereft male compatriots on the other side of the world. This often resulted in a wedding with the groom present only in a photograph pinned to the wedding cake. When a bride ship docked, anxious men and women would hold up photographs to identify the wife or husband they had never laid eyes on. Unfortunately, some hearts would change during the month-long voyage, producing a certain anarchy on arrival.
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 TS-Si News Service Friday, 03 July 2009
Fairfax, VA, USA. Current research shows that both human and salamander tissues retain the a kind of "memory" when they regenerate. With few exceptions, the new regenerated tissue is the same type as the original.
Salamander regeneration is legendary: the creatures are able to replace lost limbs, damaged lungs, sliced spinal cord — even bits of brain. It had been assumed that "pluripotent" cells, like human embryonic stem cells, were the soure of an have the uncanny |
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 TS-Si News Service Thursday, 02 July 2009
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Scientists have shown a high rate of chromosomal abnormalities following conception that may explain comparatively low fertility rates in humans.
Researchers showed for the first time that such abnormalities are present in more than 90% of embryos, even those produced by young, fertile couples, often lost through miscarriage.
Genetic variations are expected among humans: animals subject to evolutionary pressures and quality control issues that affect manufac |
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 Pamela M. Prah Wednesday, 01 July 2009
Washington, DC, USA. The financial crisis has led to an unprecedented number of states trying to close budget gaps as a new fiscal year starts today (July 1). Ten states tried Tuesday to close billions of dollars in budget shortfalls and approve new spending plans to avoid reducing government services or cutting off payments.
Only one — Indiana — was successful as lawmakers sent a $27.8 billion spending plan to Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), who signed it Tuesday night. The state had been p |
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Science & Medicine
 TS-Si News Service Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Los Angeles, CA, USA. Research shows that chronic grief activates pleasure areas of the brain, findings that could change how health professionals treat the disorder.
Grief is universal, and most ... |
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 TS-Si News Service Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Researchers have found the first evidence that a process of inactivating the X chromosome during embryo development and implantation, which was known to occur in mice but... |
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Living
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TS-Si News Service
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Wednesday, 01 July 2009
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Bloomington, IN, USA. Most vibrators are kept around the house under assumed identities (e.g., as a relaxer for back cramps). However, two parallel studies conducted among nationally representative samples of adult American...
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TS-Si News Service
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Sunday, 28 June 2009
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Winston-Salem, NC, USA. It shouldn't come as a surprise that men, as a group, achive much greater consensus about whom they find attractive than do women. The surprising part of a new study is the degree to which such perce...
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Stephen C. Fehr
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Saturday, 27 June 2009
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Washington, DC, USA. From the minute President Obama declared that the $787 billion federal economic stimulus package would save or create 3.5 million jobs, state officials have been confused about how to count those jobs. ...
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Rob Silverblatt
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Friday, 26 June 2009
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Washington, DC, USA. Even as the recession chips away at mental health services across the country, Georgia’s around-the-clock psychiatric hotline is finding a way to weather the storm — and other states are watching cl...
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Opinion
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Lisa Jain Thompson
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Tuesday, 30 June 2009
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Fairfax, VA, USA. Like many women out of the public eye [N1], what most women born transsexual want more than anything else is not to be noticed, at least no more so than any other woman [N2].
Women learn early that, in o...
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Peter Sellick
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Monday, 29 June 2009
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Subiaco, WA, AUS. The climbing frames in the park at the end of my street, to which I take my grandchildren, are so safe our four-year-old is bored. There is a old steam roller that may be climbed upon which the council thr...
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Neal Peirce
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Monday, 29 June 2009
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Washington, DC, USA. For at least a half century, “silos” and borders have been tripping up effective governance in America.
The silos loom highest at the federal level, where massive departments from Transportation to...
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Lisa Jain Thompson
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Saturday, 27 June 2009
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Fairfax, VA, USA. Most sexually reproducing species spend most of their evolutionary history punctuated into an equilibria equally divided into male and female. Very few of us ever check the “other” box. Boy or Girl, Gi...
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The Nation
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