Science must be liberated from the paywalls of publishers

As a scientist and citizen I want to see the universal adoption of the open access model of academic publishing, because it will be better for science and better for society.

Open access, where costs are met upfront by the author and papers are free to readers, would improve science by making all published results and ideas easily accessible to researchers across the world and so fuel the engine of discovery. At present, far too much of our research is locked behind paywalls that restrict access and stall progress.

By shifting ownership of scientific literature away from commercial publishers, open access also provides a clear acknowledgement that the bulk of its value comes from publicly funded scientists and not from publishing companies. This is an overdue correction that will also facilitate the spread of scientific information beyond the research community and among the wider public who, through their taxes and donations to charity, have a moral right to its outputs.

China warns U.S. against an attack by Israel on Iran "invite devastating countermeasures"

While Germany is losing the debate over whether Günter Grass's reference to a threat to world peace by Israel is classified "anti-Semitic", China says a new stark warning of an attack on Iran. Chen Xiaodong, a senior member of the Chinese Foreign Ministry sent his message directly to Israel and the United States. Any military action would have a devastating counter-offensive result.

With incredible durability, the Western media is trying to convey the impression that Iran had occupied an isolated position relative to the rest of the world. Both Russian and the Chinese side with Iran, however, was already been safely supported several times. Last Friday, Chen Xiaodong reported again with a warning word. He is under the section of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which is in charge of West Asian and North African Affairs. In a clear message, he stated that any attack on Iran would "invite devastating countermeasures". The two countries have maintained excellent trade relations, and energy imports from Iran for the Chinese economy is of paramount importance.

The Scam of Haiti! The Kony Africa Jungle Con! + Not Taking the Bus!

A Too-Big-To-Fail Whale Tale, a Lousy Jobs Report, and CBS 60 Minutes Propagates "Greeks are Lazy" Mythology

Last week we told you about the "London Whale" - the London-based Bruno Iksil of JP Morgan Chase. He has reportedly amassed derivative positions so large that he's driving price moves in the $10 trillion market for credit derivative indexes. Is this yet another sign that too big to fail banks are taking outsized risks with federally insured money? Would they take this huge positions that have the ability to drive price movements in this fashion if they didn't know that their very existence was subsidized and that they had an implicit backstop from the central banks?

Two Kinds of Black Swans - John Azis

The black swan is probably the most widely misunderstood philosophical term of this century. I tend to find it being thrown around to refer to anything surprising and negative. But that’s not how Taleb defined it.

Taleb defined it very simply as any high impact surprise event. Of course, the definition of surprise is relative to the observer. To the lunatics at the NYT who push bilge about continuing American primacy, a meteoric decline in America’s standing (probably emerging from some of the fragilities I have identified in the global economic fabric) would be a black swan. It would also be a black swan to the sorry swathes of individuals who believe what they hear in the mainstream media, and from the lips of politicians (both Romney and Obama have recently paid lip service to the idea that America is far from decline). Such an event would not really be a black swan to me; I believe America and her allies will at best be a solid second in the global pecking order — behind the ASEAN group — by 2025, simply because ASEAN make a giant swathe of what we consume (and not vice verse), and producers have a historical tendency to assert authority over consumers.

COMEX we have a problem - by Allan Flynn

Two Simple Questions for Lawmakers

1. Is it lawful, as they advertise, for the Bank of International Settlements to undertake joint efforts to influence gold asset prices through intervention in the gold market? And
2. Is it acceptable, as they advertise, for the Bank of International Settlements to undertake joint efforts to influence gold asset prices by intervention in the gold market, where citizens and institutions otherwise are led to believe they are investing in free and fair markets?

During the third quarter of 2011, in the midst of the European banking crisis, with the Swiss Franc soaring to new safe haven heights, the Swiss National Bank came under increasing pressure to ease the burden of a too strong a currency on the swiss economy. Following ineffective actions in August, the SNB finally bit the bullet on September 6th, selling a reportedly 40-50 billion Euro to significantly devalue the Swiss Franc, which was otherwise becoming a much sought after alternative to the faltering Euro. Jeremy Cook, Chief Economist at currency brokers World First described the action on that calamatous day, in The Guardian, as:

the single largest foreign exchange move I have ever seen … The Swiss franc has lost close on 9% in the past 15 minutes. This dwarfs moves seen post-Lehman brothers, 7/7, and other major geo-political events in the past decade

German Prohibition: Nobel Prize-winner Gunter Grass has been declared persona non grata by Israel

A prominent German writer and Nobel Prize-winner Gunter Grass has been declared persona non grata by Israel following harsh criticism for his new poem published last week. In his latest work Germany's most famous living author accused Israel of endangering world peace in its standoff with Iran - his work was condemned at home and in Israel. Joining us now from Tel Aviv to discuss the scandal is Gideon Levy - who's a columnist for Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "Israel won't nuke Iran on the first attack." Source

Ten Minutes After the Titanic Struck the Iceberg - Charles Hugh Smith

We are like passengers on the Titanic ten minutes after its fatal encounter with the iceberg: the idea that the ship will sink is beyond belief.

As we all know, the "unsinkable" Titanic suffered a glancing collision with an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. Ten minutes after the iceberg had opened six of the ship's 16 watertight compartments, it was not at all apparent that the mighty vessel had been fatally wounded, as there was no evidence of damage topside. Indeed, some eyewitnesses reported that passengers playfully scattered the ice left on the foredeck by the encounter.

But some rudimentary calculations soon revealed the truth to the officers: the ship was designed to survive four watertight compartments being compromised, and could likely stay afloat if five were opened to the sea, but not if six compartments were flooded. Water would inevitably spill over into adjacent compartments in a domino-like fashion until the ship sank.

The Militarization of Police in America: Being Trained by Mossad + Operation Gladio

US police forces train with Israel's Mossad agents, treating peaceful American protesters like terrorists

GLOBAL SCREAMING REVOLUTION - MUSIC - X Art v the New World Order

Evolution at Sea: Long-Term Experiments Indicate Phytoplankton Can Adapt to Ocean Acidification

Fossil fuel derived carbon dioxide has a serious impact on global climate but also a disturbing effect on the oceans, know as the other CO₂problem. When CO₂ dissolves in seawater it forms carbonic acid and results in a drop in pH, the oceans acidify. A wealth of short-term experiments has shown that calcifying organisms, such as corals, clams and snails, but also micron size phytoplankton are affected by ocean acidification. The potential for organisms to cope with acidified oceanic conditions via evolutionary adaptations has so far been unresolved.

Scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR) have now for the first demonstrated the potential of the unicellular algaeEmiliania huxleyi to adapt to changing pH conditions and thereby at least partly to mitigate negative effects of ocean acidification. These results raised by the biologists Kai Lohbeck, Prof. Ulf Riebesell and Prof. Thorsten Reusch are published in the current issue of Nature Geoscience.

Experimental Emiliania huxleyistrains were isolated in Norwegian coastal waters and cultured in the laboratory under projected future ocean CO₂ conditions. After about one year, which translates into 500 generations in this rapidly reproducing species, the biologists detected adaptation to high CO₂ – adapted populations grew and calcified significantly better than non adapted control populations when tested under ocean acidification condition.

We Are Winning: How Pirate Parties Are Changing The World

Among all the bad laws being passed right now, change is coming. The Pirate Party’s plan for changing the world is proceeding much, much faster than expected. While the laws on the drawing board are still asinine, we’re at a tipping point where the net repressors are about to lose their influence on lawmaking.

After the Pirate Party’s political entry in the 2006 Swedish elections, we set out on a five-step plan to make sure that the offline civil liberties would carry over into the online world, against the wishes of the old guard. Each of these five steps would traditionally be impossible, and we’re done with the first two and are approaching the fourth: