DIRE WARNING

Now this is four-alarm scary.

The vast amount of radioactive waste that is the legacy of Russia’s nuclear-powered submarines has been known to be a looming environmental disaster - now it can be far worse.

Research now indicates that the enormous tanks holding discarded submarine fuel rods in the Andreeva Bay may explode at any time, creating a nuclear nightmare for Northern Europe.

Norway and other Western authorities have argued for years that the stockpile of highly radioactive nuclear waste on the Kola peninsula poses an environmental hazard to the local population and for Norway.

A new report from Rosatom, the Russian government’s highest nuclear authority, shows that there is a grave danger that the stockpile can explode. For Norway the consequences could exceed the fallout from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and no one knows how imminent the danger is - if it is a question of years - or hours. Article

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CLIMATE CHANGE

Pull the string on the Sen. Brownback action figure and it says “Thinking’s hard!” There cannot be any such thing as “atheistic theology” — a nonsensical and jejune construction — that’s what that leading ‘a’ means - an absence of theology. It’s excatly like speaking of an ‘asymmetrical symmetry,’ or and atypical typlicality,’ or an ‘immature maturity,’ or a non-round sphere. It is a billboard advertising idiocy.

Woebegone G. Walker administration policy? Still the same: Delay, deflect, and toos the hot potato to the next administration.

But even the woebegone and obstructionist G. Walker administration is not distancing, but running at warp speed away from the politically-appointed head of NASA’s bizarre interpretation and comments.

More:

Griffin’s own agency put out a news release yesterday about a research paper written by nearly 50 NASA and Columbia University scientists and published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The paper shows how “human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth’s climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet.”

Jerry Mahlman, a former top scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said Griffin’s remarks showed he was either “totally clueless” or “a deep anti-global warming ideologue”. Article

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A truly auspicious day. Wow.

Surgeons at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago performed a groundbreaking robotic pancreatectomy in a 39-year-old man to relieve him of debilitating pain. They also performed an autologous islet cell transplant to prevent him from developing surgical diabetes.

[snip]

During surgery, physicians inserted the laparoscope and robotic arms of the da Vinci surgical system through five small incisions in the patient’s abdomen. The pancreas was then removed through a two-inch incision.

“Removing a chronically inflamed pancreas in a patient with chronic pancreatitis is a very difficult operation, even with a large incision,” Oberholzer said. “We were surprised to experience that doing this surgery with the robotic system made it almost easier than doing the case via a large incision with the open technique.”

Oberholzer said the robotic surgery allowed him to carefully preserve the spleen, which is usually removed during a pancreatectomy.

Robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery provides a level of dexterity not possible with traditional laparoscopic instruments. While seated at a surgical console, physicians view the operating field in 3-D and use computerized controls to precisely manipulate instruments inside the patient, with 360-degree range of motion. Article

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POLO PREQUEL

“Human remains found in a 1,400-year-old Chinese tomb belonged to a man of European origin, DNA evidence shows” Article

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USE IT OR LOSE IT

In some parts of Germany, devolving giant generalist monopolies to take advantage of local mean and needs.

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AVERSION TO WONDERMENT

Thought-provoking thesis: “Why Do Some People Resist Science?” Article