Pollution Causes Homosexuality in Birds, Study Suggests

Um... what?

The nature versus nurture debate just took an unexpected turn -- thanks to pollution.

Increased exposure to the toxic chemical mercury can affect sexual preference in certain species of birds -- inducing homosexuality, a new study has revealed.

Peter Frederick, an ecologist from the University of Florida, and Nilmini Jayasena from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka found that male American white ibises that consumed methylmercury, the most toxic and easily digested form of mercury found in the environment, were more likely to pair with other males. In wild ibis populations with no mercury exposure, same-sex pairing is non-existent.

"We knew that mercury was likely to affect reproductive hormones from an earlier study," Frederick told FoxNews.com, "so we suspected some aspect of reproduction would be affected, like whether the birds came into reproductive condition or whether they were too aggressive to pair." See the rest HERE

Unmanned US Spacecraft Returns After 7-Month Trip

Now... I want to know what it's cargo and mission was... and why it dissapeared for a bit while it was up there.


Force's secrecy-shrouded X-37B unmanned spaceplane returned to Earth early Friday after more than seven months in orbit on a classified mission, officials said.

The winged craft autonomously landed at at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles, Vandenburg spokesman Jeremy Eggers said.

"It's very exciting," Eggers said of the 1:16 a.m. PST landing.

The X-37B was launched by an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 22, with a maximum mission duration of 270 days. See the rest HERE


'Hacktivist' Jester Claims Responsibility for WikiLeaks Attack

This guy reminds me of J.C. Hutchins character Killroy from the 7th son novels (which are great by the way, check them out on http://www.podiobooks.com or at http://jchutchins.net/and you can follow J.C. Hutchins on twitter  @jchutchins

The 'hacktiviest' is on twitter @th335t3jr and at his/her/their blog at http://th3j35t3r.wordpress.com/ and if you happen to see this Jester... keep it up, you are a hero.

 

What goes around comes around: Someone is hacking the hacktivist. And it may be none other than the hacktivist himself.

A self-described patriotic hacktivist known as “The Jester” — who has garnered a reputation for taking down jihadist websites and is believed by those familiar with his work to be responsible for taking WikiLeaks offline during its recent dump of State Department cables — is claiming to be the victim himself of an online impostor trying to cash in on his name.

But that's hardly all there is to the story. See the rest HERE

 

 

Camera in Skull Is 'Uncomfortable For Sure,' NYU Professor Says

This is awesome, but at the same time a bit silly, a bit absurd, and sounds just rather annoying and/or painful.

 

Implanting a camera in the back of his head as part of an art project may have granted a New York University (NYU) photography professor, Wafaa Bilal, a certain notoriety in the last several weeks, but it has robbed him of something else: dinner-party invitations, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Concerned about the intrusion of his head-camera, which is rigged to broadcast online a live stream of images snapped automatically at one-minute intervals, some of Bilal's acquaintances have removed him from their guest lists, he said in his first interview about the project.

But he is not offended: "If people don't accept it, then I don't want the invitation," Bilal said. "It's part of me, and that's the idea." See the rest HERE

 

WikiLeaks’ Internal E-Mails Revealed: Show Intent To Bring Down The U.S. Government And Possible Connections to George Soros

I'm really getting tired of hearing about wiki leaks, for one they didn't do anything wrong... they simply published something someone else gave them. The crime was stealing it and giving it to them, not them publishing it. Second, instead of shitting a brick and wanting to attack wiki leaks, the government should learn from this lesson and change the way they handle secrets. Millions of people had access to SIPRnet and the majority, if not all, of the computers had usb ports you could hook removable storage up to!

 

 

"Today is the day that WikiLeaks is going to get a taste of its own medicine. Thanks to an early participant in WikiLeaks‘ operations dating back to 2006 and the beginning of 2007, who became so disgruntled with its leader’s outsized ego, lies and deceitful methods that he quit, we have a treasure trove of internal Wikileaks e-mails. I am including a portion of them here (with typos and all). The image above was WikiLeak’s original design for its logo, presumably to show a mole in action.

Mr. John Young, the disenchanted ex-WikiLeaker who runs his own website Cryptome.org and has posted these e-mails, removed the names of the authors and addressees on most of them. However, there is little doubt in my mind, judging from their tone and context, that the main voice of Wikileaks coming through in these e-mails is most likely none other than its founder Julian Assange, who is now being hunted by Interpol under a warrant for sex crimes that he allegedly committed in Sweden."

See the rest HERE

Starbucks Causing More Traffic Accidents Than Cell Phonesous? Does religion play a role? Is it all just a

Hell for that matter, I bet McDonalds, or even children, cause more accidents than cell phones!

 

"There’s been a push of late to ban cell phone use, be it texting or talking, in vehicles. States and communities all over the nation have either passed bans or are considering them despite statistics that show a steady decline in traffic accidents and traffic fatalities despite the rise in cell phone use. Oprah has gotten into the mix with a high profile campaign against cell phone use in cars, and Obama’s Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has called for national legislation banning the use of cell phones in cars.

But according to the NHTSA, the vast majority of traffic accidents in America are caused by a different sort of distraction in the car: Eating and drinking while driving:" See the rest HERE