Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds - CNN.com

Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

By the CNN Wire Staff

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Dr. Andrew Wakefield says his work has been "grossly distorted"
• British journal BMJ accuses Wakefield of faking data for his 1998 paper
• "The damage to public health continues" as a result of the autism-vaccine claim
• The study was retracted and Wakefield lost his license in 2010

Editor's note: Watch Anderson Cooper's interview with the author of the discredited study, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, on "AC360°" at 10 p.m. ET tonight.

(CNN) -- A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.

"It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data."

Britain stripped Wakefield of his medical license in May. "Meanwhile, the damage to public health continues, fueled by unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals and the medical profession," BMJ states in an editorial accompanying the work.

Speaking to CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," Wakefield said his work has been "grossly distorted" and that he was the target of "a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns."

The now-discredited paper panicked many parents and led to a sharp drop in the number of children getting the vaccine that prevents measles, mumps and rubella. Vaccination rates dropped sharply in Britain after its publication, falling as low as 80% by 2004. Measles cases have gone up sharply in the ensuing years.

In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 90% of those infected had not been vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, the CDC reported.

"But perhaps as important as the scare's effect on infectious disease is the energy, emotion and money that have been diverted away from efforts to understand the real causes of autism and how to help children and families who live with it," the BMJ editorial states.

Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them. Most of his co-authors withdrew their names from the study in 2004 after learning he had had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers -- a serious conflict of interest he failed to disclose. After years on controversy, the Lancet, the prestigious journal that originally published the research, retracted Wakefield's paper last February.

The series of articles launched Wednesday are investigative journalism, not results of a clinical study. The writer, Brian Deer, said Wakefield "chiseled" the data before him, "falsifying medical histories of children and essentially concocting a picture, which was the picture he was contracted to find by lawyers hoping to sue vaccine manufacturers and to create a vaccine scare."

According to BMJ, Wakefield received more than 435,000 pounds ($674,000) from the lawyers. Godlee said the study shows that of the 12 cases Wakefield examined in his paper, five showed developmental problems before receiving the MMR vaccine and three never had autism.

"It's always hard to explain fraud and where it affects people to lie in science," Godlee said. "But it does seem a financial motive was underlying this, both in terms of payments by lawyers and through legal aid grants that he received but also through financial schemes that he hoped would benefit him through diagnostic and other tests for autism and MMR-related issues."

But Wakefield told CNN that claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism "came from the parents, not me," and that his paper had "nothing to do with the litigation."

Read autism coverage on "The Chart" blog.

"These children were seen on the basis of their clinical symptoms, for their clinical need, and they were seen by expert clinicians and their disease diagnosed by them, not by me," he said.

Wakefield dismissed Deer as "a hit man who has been brought into take me down" by pharmaceutical interests. Deer has signed a disclosure form stating that he has no financial interest in the business.

Dr. Max Wiznitzer, a pediatric neurologist at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, said the reporting "represents Wakefield as a person where the ends justified the means." But he said the latest news may have little effect on those families who still blame vaccines for their children's conditions.

"Unfortunately, his core group of supporters is not going to let the facts dissuade their beliefs that MMR causes autism," Wiznitzer said. "They need to be open-minded and examine the information as everybody else."

Wakefield's defenders include David Kirby, a journalist who has written extensively on autism. He told CNN that Wakefield not only has denied falsifying data, he has said he had no way to do so.

"I have known him for a number of years. He does not strike me as a charlatan or a liar," Kirby said. If the BMJ allegations are true, then Wakefield "did a terrible thing" -- but he added, "I personally find it hard to believe that he did that."

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen and Miriam Falco contributed to this report.

A Gene to Explain Depression - TIME Healthland

As powerful as genes are in exposing clues to diseases, not even the most passionate geneticist believes that complex conditions such as depression can be reduced to a tell-tale string of DNA.

But a new study confirms earlier evidence that a particular gene, involved in ferrying a brain chemical critical to mood known as serotonin, may play a role in triggering the mental disorder in some people.

Researchers led by Dr. Srijan Sen, a professor of psychiatry at University of Michigan, report in the Archives of General Psychiatry that individuals with a particular form of the serotonin transporter gene were more vulnerable to developing depression when faced with stressful life events such as having a serious medical illness or being a victim of childhood abuse. The form of the gene that these individuals inherit prevents the mood-regulating serotonin from being re-absorbed by nerve cells in the brain. Having such a low-functioning version of the transporter starting early in life appears to set these individuals up for developing depression later on, although the exact relationship between this gene, stress, and depression isn't clear yet. (More on Time.com: How to Win Friends: Have a Big Amygdala?)

Sen's results confirm those of a ground-breaking study in 2003, in which scientists for the first time confirmed the link between genes and environment in depression. In that study, which involved more than 800 subjects, individuals with the gene coding for the less functional serotonin transporter were more likely to develop depression following a stressful life event than those with the more functional form of the gene. But these findings were questioned by a 2009 analysis in which scientists pooled 14 studies investigating the relationship between the serotonin transporter gene, depression and stress, and found no heightened risk of depression among those with different versions of the gene.

Sen's group decided to put the continued controversy to rest by culling all of the available studies on the subject, 54 total, which included data from nearly 41,000 volunteers. Based on this broader analysis, the team concluded that the less functional form of the transporter gene does indeed confer a greater risk of depression when combined with stress. And to determine why the 2009 team found contradictory results, Sen also re-evaluated their data using his analytical model and found that when he limited his investigation to their 14 studies, he also found no relationship between the gene and depression. (More on Time.com: Placebos Work Even if You Know They're Fake: But How?)

“One of the hopes I have is that we can settle this story, and move on to looking more broadly across the genome for more factors related to depression,” he says. “Ideally we would like to find a panel of different genetic variations that go together to help us predict who is going to respond poorly to stress, and who might respond well to specific types of treatment as opposed to others.”

He believes that the 2009 findings do not contradict those from 2003, or the latest results, but rather reflect a difference in the way the study was conducted. In order to conduct a consistent analysis with similarly collected data, the 2009 analysis focused only on the 14 studies that included stressful life events, and did not incorporate other stressors, such as childhood abuse or medical illness. The more complete set of 54 studies, which folded in these stressors as well, showed a robust interaction between the serotonin gene, stress and depression.

Sen stresses, however, that this gene is only one player in the cast of genetic and environmental factors that contribute to depression. “All things considered, this [gene] is a relatively small factor, and for this finding to be clinically useful, we really need to find many, many more factors. Ultimately we may identify new pathways that are involved in depression to come up with new and better treatments.”

via healthland.time.com

ThinkProgress » Theater Audience Boos Tea Party Billionaire David Koch

Theater Audience Boos Tea Party Billionaire David Koch

David Koch masks his role as one of the top financiers of the Tea Party movement and pro-polluter front groups by loudly tacking his name to more laudable charities, like the New York city ballet. Koch, who has professed his devotion to “The Nutcracker” ballet performance by Alexei Ratmansky, made a matching grant of $2.5 million so that it could go on this season. At a special opening of the performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music shortly before Christmas, Koch made an appearance to talk about his donation. The Financial Times’ John Gapper was in the audience and witnessed a crowd of “harried Brooklyn moms and salivating balletomanes” erupting in boos at the sight of the Tea Party billionaire:

The excitement started even before the show when David H. Koch, the co-owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately-own industrial conglomerate in the US, came out on stage to talk about his $2.5m sponsorship of the production. Most people applauded but there were also boos from near where I sat in the balcony, followed by an angry debate in the row in front of me, with one of the booers declaring “he’s an evil man” and a couple next to her telling her to “shut up” and to leave the theatre. [...] Once Mr Koch had left the stage, the booing stopped and the ballet started.

David and his brother Charles are among the top ten richest men in America through their co-ownership of Koch Industries, the sprawling private conglomerate that includes oil refineries and pipelines, consumer goods, a financial derivatives practice, chemical interests, timber, shipping, and coal. Koch Industries, one of the worst air polluters in America, has lobbied to eviscerate the EPA, repeal health reform, and Koch front groups fight every day to cut government spending on programs for the poor and middle class. However, Koch says he “welcome[s]” taxpayer money for his ballet performances.

via thinkprogress.org

At least someone is paying attention!

Infographic: The average age of Social Network users

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Nikolas Kozloff: WikiLeaks: Governments Fear Environmentalists

Though WikiLeaks documents have illuminated the underhanded foreign policy shenanigans of governments world-wide, the cables also demonstrate that many states are intent on halting meaningful progress on the environment. Previously, I discussed how the U.S., as well as other emerging powers such as Brazil, sought to derail international climate change negotiations. In light of recent cables, however, it's clear that these revelations merely represent the beginning of larger disclosures. From the South Atlantic to the South Pacific, governments are paranoid about environmentalists and worry that activists might get in the way of inhumane or polluting industries.

Take, for example, cables relating to the Falkland Islands. A remote archipelago located in the South Atlantic, the Falklands, or Malvinas as the Argentines refer to the islands, has long been a disputed territory. When Argentina invaded the Falklands in 1982, the British fended off the attack in a brief but bloody war which cost 650 Argentine and 250 British lives. During the conflict, the U.S. backed Britain over the Argentine military junta. Since then, tensions have calmed but erupted again in early 2010 when Argentina protested imminent hydrocarbon development in territorial waters which Buenos Aires claimed fell squarely within its own legal jurisdiction. The exploration would be led by the British though an American company, Diamond Offshore Drilling, would also be involved in the effort.

According to WikiLeaks cables, the British had grown concerned about Argentine threats and were unsure how far the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner government might press its claims.

Speaking at the United Nations, Kirchner said that the Falklands still represented "a colonial enclave" in the south Atlantic. Chiming in, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a Kirchner ally, remarked "Get out of there, give the Malvinas back to the Argentine people. Enough already with the [British] empire." In an effort to ascertain how Argentina might react to oil exploration off the Falkland Islands, including possible military actions, Secretary of State Clinton wrote the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires in early 2010. Clinton was particularly concerned about possible Venezuelan military involvement in the Falklands imbroglio.

While the geopolitical and military intrigue was interesting, what particularly grabbed my attention in the Falklands cables was this particular line: "Their [the British] concern is over the shape of future sanctions on companies as well as threats and protests against energy companies operating in the Falklands by NGOs, including environmental activists[my italics]." The cables, then, shed rare insight onto the British perspective and suggest that the authorities were as concerned with environmental protest as they were with Argentine retaliation.

Just what are the environmental stakes in the Falklands, and why would the British be so concerned with local protest? The Falklands archipelago is an important part of the wildlife equation in the South Atlantic. South Jason, an island about four miles long, supports populations of black-browed albatross (also known as mollymawks), endangered rockhopper penguin, Magellanic penguin, and prions (a small white seabird similar to a petrel).

At the time of the Falklands confrontation, I wrote a rather lengthy piece about these vital issues, analyzing in particular the plight of the Magellanic penguin which spends half the year in and around the Falklands, Argentina and southern Chile. In recent years, there's been massive petroleum development in the Southern Atlantic including Patagonia, and scientists have grown increasingly concerned about oil pollution and its effects on the penguins. As they ingest oil from preening their feathers, the penguins' immune systems are put at risk and the animals become more prone to disease. What's more, the oil gives rise to lesions in the penguins' stomachs and as a result the animals have difficulty digesting food.

Needless to say, it is difficult to see how the longstanding territorial dispute between Britain and Argentina over the Falklands, which is now being exacerbated by oil rivalry, will increase environmental protection for local penguins. If the WikiLeaks cables are any indication, Britain is determined to get at offshore oil, even if that means antagonizing the environmental community. Such narrow mindedness is certainly deplorable, but perhaps not too surprising given that up to 60 billion barrels of oil may lie near the Falklands.

News of the WikiLeaks cables certainly doesn't come as any great consolation to groups like the Organization for the Conservation of Penguins or Falklands Conservation. Moreover, in the event that environmentalists launched a concerted campaign in the south Atlantic to halt oil exploration, the authorities could rely on a local airfield at Port Stanley which is equipped with Typhoon jets. In addition, the Royal Navy has deployed a submarine and other vessels to the area. What lengths would officials resort to in order to protect oil development? Hopefully, the Brits would not escalate like the French, who bombed and sunk the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in 1985 in an effort to deter protest over nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

As it turns out, making the connection between the South Atlantic and Pacific is not entirely unfounded. Other recent cables disclosed by WikiLeaks reveal that, to this day, scheming governments will stop at nothing when it comes to deterring environmental protest in remote areas of the globe. In 2009, the U.S. and Japanese governments discussed taking action to weaken the well known anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd. The activists, whose ships routinely confront whalers on the high seas, have long been a thorn in the side of the Japanese government. Seeking to appease Tokyo, the Americans discussed revoking Sea Shepherd's tax exempt status in the United States.

While it's unclear whether the U.S. government ever followed up on the matter, the mere fact that the two powers held high level discussions about Sea Shepherd will surely give pause to environmentalists. Indeed, if activists had any doubts about the true intentions of the world's most powerful governments, WikiLeaks documents have certainly laid any such uncertainty to rest. Far from demonstrating any regard for marine wildlife and protection, diplomats confer amongst themselves about the threat posed by environmentalists. In the final analysis, it may be the Magellanic penguins and South Pacific whales that pay the highest price for this cynical diplomacy.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave, 2008) and No Rain in the Amazon: How South America's Climate Change Affects the Entire Planet (Palgrave, 2010). Visit his website, www.nikolaskozloff.com

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Schumer: Health care foes should forgo coverage - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com

January 04, 2011

Schumer: Health care foes should forgo coverage

New York Senator Chuck Schumer is pushing Republican members of Congress who oppose last year's health care legislation to decline health coverage for themselves and their families. 

Democrats have been trying to cast Republican members' acceptance of federal health benefits as hypocritical, as they seek to repeal last year's health care legislation, and got a boost this morning from Rep.-elect Joe Walsh, an Illinois Freshman who told CNN this morning that he's keeping a promise not to accept health care benefits, despite his wife's pre-existing condition.

"It was a central value to us when we passed health care, and a central value to the American people, that members of Congress should get the same health care as eveyrone else," Schumer told POLITICO this morning. "It seems unfair that house Republicans want to deprive middle-class Americans of the same health care as members of Congress but to keep it for themselves."

"Will Eric Cantor urge every Republican who is going to be for repeal to not take government health care themselves and to drop their existing health care?" he asked.

Schumer called Walsh "a very good example."

"i don't agree with his views on health care, but at least he is being fair and consistent ," he said, adding that Walsh is evidently "not schooled in the ways of Washington.

A spokesman for Speaker John Boehner, Michael Steel, dismissed Schumer's call.

"This is 'junk food' political rhetoric: superficially appealing, but utterly empty. Members of Congress, including Sen. Schumer, get the same type of employer-sponsored health care coverage from private-sector companies as tens of millions of Americans. That has nothing to do with the Democrats' health care law, which is already destroying jobs, and will ultimately bankrupt our country," he said.

Walsh declined, in the CNN interview, to suggest his colleagues are hypocrites. His own decision appears to be independent of his opposition to the new federal law.

"This is my decision," he said. "I believe there are a couple of other freshman that feel the same way. i feel I was sent to Washington to be something different."

UPDATE: Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring emails:

“This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of health care in America, which isn’t shocking from people like Senator Schumer who are responsible for the ObamaCare disaster. But if Senator Schumer wants to operate in the world of the illogical, we assume that he, Leader Reid, and Rep. Pelosi will be giving up their own health care since it doesn’t include the public option. We also assume that all three will refuse to accept the extension of current tax rates and volunteer to pay higher taxes for the next two years.”

via politico.com

GOP Exempts Deficit Busting Policies From New Budget Rules | TPMDC

Republicans' deficit reduction platform, which may have helped catapult them into the majority, is about to run headlong into a hard reality: Many of their key policy goals will increase the deficit dramatically.

To get around this fact, they've included measures in their new rules package to exempt some of their biggest legislative priorities from deficit consideration. Among the exceptions, which the House is likely to consider in the 112th Congress, are the health care repeal bill (scheduled for a vote a week from Wednesday), the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, an AMT patch, extending the estate tax, and more.

You can read more about the health care repeal side of this here. And more about the GOP's Calvinball rules here.

The health care law, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will reduce the deficit by $143 billion through the end of the decade, and more so in the decade after that. Thus, repealing the law will blow a similarly sized hole in the deficit.

Republicans wave this off.

"No one believes that the job-killing health care law will lower costs, because it won't," Michael Steel, spokesman for incoming House Speaker John Boehner, told Politico. "That's why we've pledged to repeal it, and replace it with common-sense reforms that will actually work."

That statement echoes what Republicans have been saying for months now. But the CBO has said explicitly that repealing health care reform would cause the deficit to increase. The House GOP is set to ignore that warning when they hold their vote on repeal next week.

via tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com

Slate: How to Make Money in the Music Industry.

moneybox

Concerted Effort

The Dave Matthews Band shows how to make money in the music industry.

By Annie Lowrey
Posted Monday, Jan. 3, 2011, at 4:50 PM ET

---

As usual, the list of North America's top-grossing music tours of 2010 was heavy on AARP-eligible best-selling rockers: Bon Jovi, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, the Eagles, and Paul McCartney all figured in the top 10. But tucked among them, taking in $72.9 million, was the Dave Matthews Band, the '90s-era jam-loving college-town rockers known affectionately as DMB (and less affectionately as "the Dave Matthews Bland").

The band is nothing to sneeze at, of course. It has won a Grammy. Six of its seven studio albums have hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Still, compared with the other big touring acts of 2010, DMB is a featherweight—"Stay" is no "Livin' on a Prayer." Bon Jovi (who, to be fair, will not be eligible for AARP membership until 2012), Roger Waters, and Paul McCartney have helped sell 130 million, 200 million, and north of 1.3 billion records, respectively. In the course of its two-decade-long career, DMB has moved a more modest 30 million.

But in an industry busy having its foundations rocked, in a matter of speaking, it hardly matters. Analysts and executives have long lamented that the music industry is dying. That is not quite true—it is the record business that is clearly done for, and in its place, touring stands as the top moneymaker for many industry participants. DMB lives to tour, making them not just popular, but very, very profitable.

When I say DMB lives to tour, I do not jest: Every summer for the past two decades, the band has hit the road. In 2010, that meant playing 62 shows in 50 cities to 1,270,477 fans—more than any other artist touring in North America. The group also took trips to Europe and South America, and there was a Dave Matthews and guitarist Tim Reynolds mini-tour. And the year was hardly unusual. Since 1992, Dave Matthews Band in its various iterations has played a whopping 1,692 shows.

So the precipitous decline in record sales in the past decade has hardly hurt DMB's profitability: The band makes the bulk of its money touring anyway. And it makes a lot of money doing it. According to Billboard Boxscore, between 2000 and 2009, DMB sold more tickets to its shows than any other band on the planet, moving a staggering 11,230,696 tickets. (No other band sold more than 10 million tickets in the same time period.) In the aughts, DMB grossed more than $500 million from touring alone.

On top of that, of course, there are profits from merchandise, records, and other revenue streams. As long ago as 1998, DMB reportedly pulled in $200,000 a day in merchandise sales on tour. Plus, DMB has a reported 80,000 fans paying $35 a year for fan-club membership. And it benefits from a large catalog of cheap-to-produce live-show discs and DVDs. "Without any marketing or promotion, Live at Red Rocks debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and was instantly certified platinum," the band itself boasts of a 1998 album. "[It] provided fans with a high quality and reasonably priced alternative to the over-priced, ill produced, and illegal live DMB CDs."

Part of DMB's success undoubtedly comes from managing its tour so well—because gross ticket sales do not always translate into profitability. Lady Gaga, for instance, was also in the Top 10 for ­2010, grossing $51 million in North America, charging legions of fans about $100 a pop. But the shows proved enormously expensive to put on, what with the army of scantily clad backup dancers and dozens of fancy costumes—including a bra that shoots sparks, a feathered bird get-up, and an enormous wearable gyroscope nicknamed "the Orbit." Add in the fountain of fake blood and the price of flying such nonsense around the world, and extravagance cut into the bottom line. The tour actually lost money at first.

In contrast, DMB's tour seems downright humble. There is food. There is merchandise. There are video portions. But mostly, there are just the jams and the fans—and that's how DMB obsessives like it. Indeed, the band cultivates enthusiasts particularly well, a main secret of its success. It keeps ticket prices low in comparison with other big shows, an average of $58.79 compared with, say, $91.56 for arena-rockers Aerosmith. It offers a high proportion of plum tickets to fan-club members and offers them tons of freebies and special deals online. It also plays a stable roster of songs, but jams or improvises at each gig—meaning DMB fans tend to hit up the tour every year, often more than once. Thus, while even the biggest-selling artists front the occasional flopped tour, DMB never does.

If that sounds familiar—not the music, the strategy—it's because DMB is pulling an old trick, one pioneered by the Grateful Dead, a band beloved of business school professors and folk-lovers alike. As described in the delightful Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead, the famed jam band produced only a few well-known albums and songs. But they toured constantly—playing about 200 shows a year from 1965 to 1995. And they courted their fans, treating the concert like a service rather than a commodity, and their fans like members of a community rather purchasers of a product. Lo and behold, the Dead became one of the most successful bands of all time.

In many ways, DMB is their inheritor: a serious touring band that has caringly cultivated a devoted fan base and ended up becoming an industry anchor. Some analysts now believe touring will eventually anchor the whole music industry. In the past 10 years, as record sales have collapsed, the touring business has tripled in size to nearly $5 billion a year in total revenue. (That's mostly due to higher ticket prices, rather than more people attending more concerts.) The year 2010 proved somewhat lackluster: According to Pollstar, the top 50 tours netted $2.9 billion worldwide in ticket sales, down 12 percent from 2009. But the industry expects a stronger 2011, with consumer sentiment improving in the United States and huge acts, like U2, saddling back up.

For the first time in decades, though, DMB won't be there. "[We] wanted to let everyone know that after twenty years of consecutive touring, Dave Matthews Band will be taking 2011 off," the band wrote fans last year. "We feel lucky that our tours are a part of so many people's lives, and wanted to give everyone as much notice as possible." But, it noted, we "look forward to returning to the road in 2012."

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Annie Lowrey reports on economics and business for Slate. Previously, she worked as a staff writer for the Washington Independent and on the editorial staffs of Foreign Policy and The New Yorker. Her e-mail is annie.lowrey@slate.com.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2279757/

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Lincoln Mitchell: Issa's Investigations

In an alternate universe in which Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the new Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee were a rational person with his country's best interests at heart, the news that he was going to aggressively pursue investigations would be welcome. Issa is interested in investigating a range of issues including corruption in the war in Afghanistan, WikiLeaks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Food and Drug Administration. The American people deserve to know whether or to what extent corruption has become a problem in the war in Afghanistan, how a security lapse allowed WikiLeaks to get the documents it recently leaked and just how government agencies contributed to the mortgage and economic crises. This kind of accountability in essential to the functioning of a democracy; and investigations of this kind can be an important means of ensuring that accountability.

In this alternate universe, Issa's investigations would explore how the Democrats and Republicans together contributed to an economic crisis built on widespread deregulation, cutting corners and exploiting the hopes of ordinary Americans. We could learn how contracting processes in all areas of the federal government can become corrupt, leading to waste and cronyism. The lesson from these investigations would be clear for all Americans and would lead to meaningful reforms of our contracting process, regulatory agencies and financial system, partisan blame would be downplayed, as, in fairness to Issa, there are many Democrats who would love to place all the blame at the feet of former President George W. Bush and the Republican Party, and those seeking to cheat the American people would be chastened.

Unfortunately, there is little reason to believe that we live in that universe and even less evidence that Issa is either rational or has his country's best interests at heart. On the contrary, these investigations are almost certain to be little, if anything, more than further Republican assaults on President Obama and his administration. If Issa were serious about these investigations, or if it were possible to explore such serious issues in the current political context, the investigations would begin by recognizing that these are problems with roots at least as far back as the Bush administration and that Democrats and Republicans both share responsibility for them. This will not happen. Instead, the investigations will focus entirely on the Obama administration guaranteeing continued partisan fighting and no meaningful reforms or findings.

Rhetoric about smaller government, lower taxes and fiscal responsibility notwithstanding, the new Republican majority in Congress will continue to be drawn to the kind of partisan bickering that Issa is promising like moths to a flame. They will not be able to resist it as they confuse voter frustration with President Obama's inability to fix the country's economy quickly enough with desire, on the part of voters, for turning Congress into Ground Zero for partisan fighting and investigations offering nothing to ordinary Americans.

This may be a cynical interpretation of motives of the new leadership in the House of Representatives; and it may be somewhat unfair to judge this new leadership before it has had a chance to do anything, but there is some recent precedent to support this notion. The last time the Republicans controlled Congress while a Democratic president was in office was during the last six years of Bill Clinton's presidency. The Republicans spent a great deal of that time pursuing investigations, some legitimate and some less so. Much of the period from 1997-2000 was spent investigating the president's relationship with Monica Lewinsky, an issue that was of little, if any relevance, to most Americans, but on which the Republicans happily spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars. There is little reason to believe that this Republican Congress will be any less partisan or less interested in destroying the Democratic president than their party cohorts were in the late 1990s.

Significantly, the Republican strategy in the late 1990s was something of a disaster for that party. Bill Clinton, due to a strong economy, but also due to voter concern, overturning all of Washington over to the Republicans, was reelected easily in 1996. More tellingly, the Republicans lost seats in the House in the three elections following their victory in 1994. Thus, while this strategy was undoubtedly fun for some partisan Republicans, and a miserable experience for the Clinton administration, it was not a wise course of action for the Republican Party. In perhaps the first bit of political good news for the Democratic Party of the New Year, it appears as though the Republicans in the House of Representatives are poised to make similar mistakes in 2011 to what they did 15 or so years ago.

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Uncertain Democracy: U.S. Foreign Policy and Georgia's Rose Revolution
by Lincoln A. Mitchell

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TEDxSanAntonio Lawrence Lessig Citizens The Need and the Requirements

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WATCH THIS... And you'll understand how Washington DC works.

Alan Grayson, Leaving Congress, Criticizes Republicans and Democrats

ORLANDO, Fla. — He has zero faith in the incoming speaker of the House, John A. Boehner, whom he calls a “tool of special interest.”

He derides the Tea Party’s successes as “bought and paid for by the enormously rich and the selfish.”

And he can barely contain distaste for his Republican successor, whose views he sums up as “bizarre fundamentalist.”

Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida’s Eighth Congressional District, is leaving office on Wednesday much as he entered it two years ago — as the pugnaciously partisan, verbal-bomb-tossing, liberal folk hero of the 111th Congress.

But in a wide-ranging interview as his term drew to a close, he repeatedly aimed his artillery in an unexpected direction: toward his own party.

Not for overreaching, in this age of hand-wringing over big government and creeping “socialism,” or for ideological purism. Instead, while surveying the wreckage of the November elections that cost him his seat and looking to the Congressional term ahead, Mr. Grayson posits that many Democrats have not been acting Democratic enough.

Judging by the results of the midterm elections, it does not exactly seem to be a widespread sentiment.

But at a moment when centrism seems to be the party’s antidote to a redrawn political landscape, Mr. Grayson is setting forth a radically different playbook of sharp elbows and unapologetic liberalism.

During the long conversation, Mr. Grayson, a 52-year-old father of five, faulted Democrats for failing to deliver for some of their most potent constituencies, among them labor unions and antiwar voters.

“What did the environmentalists see over the last two years?” he asked. “A proposed monumental increase in subsidies for nuclear power industry and offshore drilling.”

As for gay voters, he said: “What they got to see was a judge order that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ no longer be enforced and a Democratic president appeal that decision. That is what that constituency saw before Nov. 2.” (The law was repealed in the final hours of the 111th Congress.)

By Election Day, Democratic voters in many districts felt that they had no real choice, Mr. Grayson said.

“If you want people to support you, then you have to support them,” he said. “You have to think long about what you did for people who voted for you, made phone calls for you, who went door to door for you.”

Mr. Grayson, of course, finds much to like within the Democratic Party. He offered a glowing assessment of the departing speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi of California, giving her an A “without reservation.”

And he considers the political right to be intolerable. He called the Republicans “a hopeless sellout party that will never do anything constructive for ordinary people in this country.”

“I don’t have to speculate about it anymore,” he said. “I worked with them for two years.”

But hanging over the interview was a lingering frustration with the Democratic Party.

He is annoyed with Democratic senators for waiting until now to challenge the procedural rules that, he said, allowed a determined group of Republicans to use filibusters to stymie much of the president’s agenda.

And he bemoaned what he said was President Obama’s reversal on a campaign pledge to let the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire.

“I try to keep my promises,” he said, adding that Mr. Obama’s evolving views on the matter “will not help his credibility.”

The remarks carry special weight because Mr. Grayson has become a darling of many on the left.

A Bronx native with a fondness for steel-toed cowboy boots (the better to kick Republicans with, he jokes), Mr. Grayson rose to prominence as a lawyer by successfully suing wayward military contractors who profited from the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

After losing his first bid for the House, he jolted Florida’s political establishment in 2008 by capturing a seat that had been held by Republicans for three decades.

In office, he quickly earned renown for colorful floor speeches and elaborate props. During the health care debate, he declared that the Republican plan was for Americans to “die quickly.”

To fight the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, he produced cardboard posters detailing how the richest 1 percent of Americans could spend their tax savings. “Buy 20,000 jars of their favorite mustard, Grey Poupon,” was one suggestion.

He even gave his legislation provocative names, like the “The War Is Making You Poor Act,” which sought to reduce taxes by requiring the Defense Department to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan within its relatively small annual budget. (It did not pass.)

Outside of politics, much about the congressman is also unorthodox. He bought a used white limousine to shuttle his young children around. “You can’t change a diaper in a van,” he explained at his home.

Republicans called him incendiary and over the top, or worse. When Mr. Grayson set up a Web site for himself called Congressman With Guts, a local Republican operative countered with a site called My Congressman Is Nuts.

Mr. Grayson said he had simply tried to put complex issues into accessible — and, yes, memorable — terms. “People say the same thing to me over and over again: ‘You say what I am thinking but nobody else will say,’ ” he said. He likes to boast that his YouTube channel is the most popular of any House member’s.

He would not rule out running for Congress again “if that’s what people want.”

For now, though, Mr. Grayson is committed to making up for lost family time — and maybe catching up on a bit of television. It was switched off during his bruising re-election campaign to avoid having his children glimpse advertisements that portrayed him as a bumbling clown.

“At least,” he recalled dryly, “we had Netflix.”

via nytimes.com

Joyce Appleby: The Urgency of a Senate Rule Change

Pundits, public figures and the politically-oriented have awakened to the fact that a Senate procedural rule is undermining democracy in Congress.

Only those who spend too much time with Roberts Rules of Order can follow the tortured route through which a principled respect for free and full debate led to a situation in which it takes agreement from 60% of the Senators to bring a bill to the floor, which in effect means that it takes a supermajority to pass all legislation, originating in the House or Senate.

Because of the compromise which gave states two senators regardless of their population, the notion has arisen that the Founders intended the Senate to be undemocratic. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison repeatedly reaffirmed the importance of majority vote in the Federalist Papers. The Constitution itself specifies the three instances in which a two-thirds vote is required.

The public weighed in to make the Senate more democratic when it passed the 17th amendment requiring the direct election of senators in 1913. This replaced the earlier provision that the state legislatures would name them.

With great gusto, the Republicans have used the so-called "invisible filibuster" 84 times since Obama was elected president, more than the total of all filibusters in the Congresses of the 1950s and 1960s.

This abuse has aroused those paying attention, but changing Rule 22 which introduced the painless filibuster will be like pulling an elephant out of hat. Too many senators on both sides of the aisle consider Senate traditions as holy writ, even though they've changed this rule three times. Much is made of the bad legislation super majorities have blocked without considering the many good laws that never get passed -- or how the difficulty of law-making in America feeds into voters' frustration and alienation.

Still the opening of the 112th Congress presents an opportunity for course correction, and some Senators are actually talking up reform proposals.

More than 300 historians, political scientists, and law profs from colleges and universities throughout the country have signed a petition calling upon their Senators "to restore majority rule to the United States Senate by revising the rules that now require the concurrence of 60 members before legislation can be brought to the floor."

Stay tuned. We'll know on January 5th whether the reformers can bring enough colleagues along to redeem democratic rule in the United States.

****

Dear colleague,

The sorry spectacle of one bill after another being defeated in the Senate despite having a majority of senators voting for it impels us to circulate this petition. We are asking our senators to change the rules that have empowered a minority of 41 senators and undermined the democratic principle of majority vote. An email message returned to appleby@history.ucla.edu will affirm your support, and your name, with affiliation, will be added to the petition which we intend to present to a group of senators when the new congress convenes in January.

Joyce Appleby, History, UCLA, retired
Katy Harriger, Political Science, Wake Forest University
Senator Gary Hart, University of Colorado, Denver
Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School
Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School
Peter Onuf, History, University of Virginia
Jack Rakove, History, Stanford University
David RePass, Political Science, University of Connecticut, retired
John K. White, Political Science, Catholic University

The Petition

We, the undersigned, American historians, political scientists, and legal scholars, call upon our senators to restore majority rule to the United States Senate by revising the rules that now require the concurrence of 60 members before legislation can be brought to the floor for debate and restoring majority vote for the passage of bills.

via huffingtonpost.com

Engineered Yeast Improves Biofuel Production : Discovery News

Scientists are one step closer to filling your car's tank with grass clippings and willow trees. A new genetically engineered strain of yeast can devour the tough parts of plants as readily as the sweet sugars.

The new yeast could allow production of large amounts of ethanol from fast growing grasses and trees, as well as residues from sugar cane and other crops. The yeast was engineered by researchers at the University of Illinois, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California and the energy company BP.

The tough parts of plants are made up of a sugar called cellulose. Cellulose is made up of smaller sugars, particularly glucose and xylose. Yeast love glucose, but most strains can't eat xylose. Those that can ferment the xylose do so slowly and only after the glucose is gone.

"It's like giving meat and broccoli to my kids. They usually eat the meat first and the broccoli later." said Yong-Su Jin of the University of Illinois and one of the researchers who developed the new yeast.

The new strain can ferment both glucose and xylose at the same time, which reduces reaction time by half. It also increases cellulose fermentation efficiency by at least 20 percent.

SEE ALSO: Termite Guts May Improve Renewable Fuel

To do this, the team made several changes to the DNA of the yeast.

First, they gave the yeast a cellobiose transporter. Cellobiose is a part of the plant's cell wall. In earlier forms of cellulose fermentation, an expensive enzyme had to be added to break the cellobiose down. Now the yeast sucks the cellobiose inside its cells and has its own enzyme to break the chemical down.

Since cellobiose is made up of two glucose molecules, it provides a rich energy source.

The biologists also added three genes from another species of yeast, Picchia stipitis. These genes allow the yeast to digest xylose.

Another feat of genetic engineering fixed a bottleneck in the xylose to ethanol production pathway. The scientists added an artificial enzyme to reduce byproduct production.

The researchers published their findings in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

Improving the industrial production of ethanol could have significant economic benefits.

"We don't have to do two separate fermentations," Jin said in a University of Illinois press release. "We can do it all in one pot. And the yield is even higher than the industry standard. We are pretty sure that this research can be commercialized very soon."

If it is commercialized soon, it could reduce our “pain at the pump.”

SEE ALSO: Alternative Fuels

Any car can run on a 10 percent ethanol (E10) mixture, even if it isn't a “FlexFuel” vehicle. Many cars can use even higher amounts. Improving ethanol production in the U.S. could lower fuel costs and emissions.

Brazil gets a large amount of its transport fuel from sugar cane ethanol. Fermenting cellulose would allow them to use the sugar cane left overs (bagasse) as well. It also makes the use of wood and grass more feasible.

Improving cellulosic ethanol production may allow the commercial scale fermentation of ethanol from agricultural left overs. But some scientists caution against the use of crop residues, like corn stalks and husks. Stalks and husks are too valuable in preventing erosion and improving soil quality to take them off the farm.

SEE ALSO: Cellulosic Ethanol Dealt a Blow

Some also worry that devoting more corn and sugar cane to ethanol production could cause food shortages. Though the food crisis of 2008 was largely caused by market speculation driving up prices, ethanol production received some of the blame for highly priced corn.

No one eats cellulose, so by producing more ethanol from cellulose, there is less conflict of interest.

Also, since much of the carbon in plant matter is absorbed from the air, when ethanol made from plants is burned there is a lower increase in net carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than when petroleum products are burned.

IMAGE 1: New Energy corporation's ethanol plant in South Bend, Indiana, CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons

via news.discovery.com

Doonesbury: In and Back Out

via doonesbury.com

Calvin & Hobbes: Meet the New Year

via images.ucomics.com

The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People | zen habits

The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People

“In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for contructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.” ~Rollo May

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter or identica.

Creativity is a nebulous, murky topic that fascinates me endlessly — how does it work? What habits to creative people do that makes them so successful at creativity?

I’ve reflected on my own creative habits, but decided I’d look at the habits that others consider important to their creativity. I picked a handful of creatives, almost at random — there are so many that picking the best would be impossible, so I just picked some that I admire, who came to mind when I thought of the word “creative”.

This was going to be a list of their creative habits … but in reviewing their lists, and my own habits, I found one that stood out. And it stands out if you review the habits and quotes from great creative people in history.

It’s the Most Important Habit when it comes to creativity.

After you read the No. 1 habit, please scroll down and read the No. 2 habit — they might seem contradictory but in my experience, you can’t really hit your creative stride until you find a way to balance both habits.

The No. 1 Creativity Habit

In a word: solitude.

Creativity flourishes in solitude. With quiet, you can hear your thoughts, you can reach deep within yourself, you can focus.

Of course, there are lots of ways to find this solitude. Let’s listen to a few of the creative people I talked to or researched:

Felicia Day – wonderful actress perhaps best known for her awesome awesome work on Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Guild.

I was thrilled when she replied to my email asking about her creative habits. One of the things she said: she makes “sure to be creative first thing in the morning, before doing anything for the outside world, really sets the day up for me. It makes it feel that CREATING is my job, not answering emails.”

Ali Edwards – an author, designer, and leading authority on scrapbooking.

I was honored with a response from Ali as well. One of her top habits wasn’t exactly solitude, but is related: “Do nothing. I have a habit of welcoming time away from my creative work. For me this is serious life-recharging time where my only responsibility is to just be Mom & Wife & Me. Doing nothing has a way of synthesizing what is really important in my life and in my work and inspires me beyond measure. When I come back to work I am better equipped to weed out the non-essential stuff and focus on the things I most want to express creatively.”

Chase Jarvis – an award-winning photographer.

Chase also kindly responded with several of his key creativity habits — see more great ones at the bottom of this post. But here’s one that I loved: “Find Quiet. Creativity sometimes washes over me during times of intense focus and craziness of work, but more often I get whacked by the creative stick when I’ve got time in my schedule. And since my schedule is a crazy one and almost always fills up if I’m just “living”, I tend to carve out little retreats for myself. I get some good thinking and re-charge time during vacations, or on airplanes, but the retreats are more focused on thinking about creative problems that I’m wanting to solve. That’s why I intentionally carve time out. I make room for creativity. Intentionally. The best example of what I mean by a retreat is a weekend at my family’s cabin. It’s a 90 minute drive from my house on the coast. There are few distractions. Just a rocky beach and a cabin from the 60’s with wood paneling and shag carpet. I go for walks, hikes, naps. I read. I did get an internet signal put in there to stay connected if I need it. But the gist is QUIET. Let there be space for creativity to fill your brain.”

Maciej Cegłowski – painter, programmer, excellent writer.

Maciej is one of my favorite bloggers, and responded to my email with a classically short answer that to me, embodies a beautiful way to find solitude.

What habit helps his creativity?

Maciej replied: “Running up hills!”

Leo Babauta: OK, I wasn’t going to talk about myself in this post, but I thought I should share some of my previous thoughts.

The best art is created in solitude, for good reason: it’s only when we are alone that we can reach into ourselves and find truth, beauty, soul. Some of the most famous philosophers took daily walks, and it was on these walks that they found their deepest thoughts.

My best writing, and in fact the best of anything I’ve done, was created in solitude.

Just a few of the benefits I’ve found from solitude:

• time for thought
• in being alone, we get to know ourselves
• we face our demons, and deal with them
• space to create
• space to unwind, and find peace
• time to reflect on what we’ve done, and learn from it
• isolation from the influences of other helps us to find our own voice
• quiet helps us to appreciate the smaller things that get lost in the roar

Read more: the lost art of solitude.

The Greats on Solitude

Of course, many other creative people have believed in the habit of solitude. I’ve collected a small but influential sample here. There are many more examples.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.

Mozart: “When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer–say, traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal or during the night when I cannot sleep–it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.”

Albert Einstein – theoretical physicist, philosopher and author who is widely regarded as one of the most influential and best known scientists and intellectuals of all time. He is often regarded as the father of modern physics.

Einstein: “On the other hand, although I have a regular work schedule, I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. If my work isn’t going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination.”

Franz Kafka – one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Novelist and writer of short stories whose works came to be regarded as one of the major achievements of 20th century literature.

Kafka: “You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

Nikola Tesla – inventor, one of the most important contributors to the birth of commercial electricity, best known for his many revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism.

Tesla: “The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.”

Joseph Haydn: A life-long resident of Austria, Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Hungarian aristocratic Esterházy family on their remote estate. Isolated from other composers and trends in music until the later part of his long life, he was, as he put it, “forced to become original”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – German writer and polymath. Goethe’s works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, philosophy, and science.

His magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust.

Goethe: “One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”

Pablo Picasso – Spanish painter best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortunes throughout his life, making him one of the best-known figures in twentieth century art.

Picasso: “Without great solitude no serious work is possible.”

Carl Sandburg – American writer and editor, best known for his poetry.

He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg “indubitably an American in every pulse-beat.”

Sandburg: “One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.”

Thomas Mann – German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual.

Mann: “Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous — to poetry.”

The No. 2 Creative Habit

While it might seem contradictory, the No. 2 habit when it comes to nurturing creativity: participation. This can come in many forms, but it requires connecting with others, being inspired by others, reading others, collaborating with others.

But how can you have both solitude and participation? They obviously have to come at different times. Finding the balance is key, of course, but it takes a conscious effort: this time is for solitude, and this time is for participation.

Why are they both important? We need inspiration from without, but we need creation from within.

A couple of the people I interviewed had habits that relate to this:

Chase Jarvis: “Devour Popular Culture. Consuming the works of others inspires me. And it’s not just museums and the “establishment”. I devour magazines, books, street art, performances, music, etc. All things that make me think critically (and whimsically) about the world. You get the picture. Inspiration can come from anywhere.”

Ali Edwards: “Participate. My creative spirit is interested in documenting the wonderful everyday details of our lives. To really get to the heart of the matter I need to be fully participating in my life, in the interactions with my kids and husband and family and friends. If I am just going through the motions or wishing away the present moment for “the next thing” I am missing the blessing of right now. My creativity requires the habit of active participation and daily attention to detail.”

Other Creative Habits

There are other habits than those top two, of course, that can nourish creativity. Some other good ones:

Felicia Day: “When I am most productive I am the most ruthless with my schedule. I will literally make a daily checklist with, “one hour gym”, “30 minutes of internet research,” and “drink 3 glasses of water” on it. For some reason being that disciplined creates a sense of control that I wouldn’t have otherwise, as a self-employed person, and I get the most out of the scheduled hours that I have for writing.”

Ali Edwards: “Take notes. I am a really good note-taker. It’s essential for me to write down my ideas when they come to mind…otherwise, poof, they disappear way too quickly as I move on to the next task (diaper changes, wiping noses, tending to the stuff of life). I use my phone, my computer, and a moleskine notebook to jot down thoughts and ideas and then I move them into Things every week or so.”

Chase Jarvis had a few more:

• Live a creative life everyday. I very much believe in doing creative stuff everyday. For one, I take photos and videos almost everyday. Doesn’t matter the camera. I use my iPhone everyday. Just taking photos keeps me in a creative headspace. Hell, I play with my food and draw and doodle.
• Moderate Expectations. Make it a habit not to judge yourself on your creative output. Sometimes your creativity is on fire. Great news. Other times, it’s not. It’s hard sometimes when you make art in a professional commercial capacity because you’re paid to be ‘ON’, but you’ll save yourself a lot of greif if you make it a habit to be cool to your psyche when your creative mojo isn’t firing on all pistons.
• Shake Your Tree. When I’m starting to feel stale, I make a habit of getting into adventures. Break molds. Drive home from work a different way. Stir up my routine. I get active and shake my tree.
• Find fun.  Doing what you love inspires you to be more creative.  Make time and space for having fun.  All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl.
• Lastly, being creative means living a creative life.  Expect yourself to have one.  Believe you are creative. Know that you are. Make that the most important habit of all.

For more on creativity, read my Little But Useful Guide to Creativity.

“Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea.” ~Lou Dorfsman

—
If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Thanks, my friends.

via zenhabits.net

Inspired by Insects: 10 Creepy-Crawly Biomimetic Designs | WebEcoist

Inspired by Insects: 10 Creepy-Crawly Biomimetic Designs

By Steph in Animals & Habitats, Art & Design, Science & Research

Buzzing, flapping, flying and crawling, insects and arachnids of all shapes and sizes surround us day and night in numbers that are almost too frightening to contemplate. But such creepy-crawlies not only have an important place in the world – they also provide an incredible source of inspiration for everything from the display screens on our e-readers to fog-collecting capabilities of sustainable buildings. These 10 biomimetic designs take cues from butterflies, beetles, dragonflies and bees to bring our own creations closer to the perfection of nature.

Mirasol Display Mimics a Butterfly Wing

(image via: businessweek)

A low-energy alternative to electronic ink for gadgets like cell phones, tablets and e-readers, the Mirasol low-voltage display screen takes a cue from butterfly wings, which are translucent membranes covered in  microscopic light-reflecting scales. As light passes through a butterfly wing and the wing flaps, sunlight refracts and different wavelengths, making a wing look iridescent. The Mirasol screen achieves a similar effect with two glass panels and tiny mirrors that reflect colors onto the screen. This means that the screen delivers bright color in strong light, making it easier to see in the sun, using natural light from the environment rather than artificial lighting.

Beetle-Inspired Water Bottle

(image via: inhabitat)

In water-starved areas of the world, nothing short of ingenuity will help ensure clean, safe drinking water for all – and one designer has an idea that could harvest water from fog. The design for the Dew Bank Bottle by Pak Kitae mimics the way the “fog beetle” collects dew droplets in ridges on its back. The bottle has a stainless steel dome that becomes cooler than the air in the morning, forming dew drops that slide down into a collection channel. The bottle can harvest about a cup of water at a time, which may not seem like much to us, but could mean the difference between life and death for some.

Water Theater Gathers Fog Like a Beetle

(image via: grimshaw architects)

It’s like the beetle water bottle, times a thousand: an amphitheater that pulls water in from the air in a seaside location, effectively distilling seawater. The Water Theater, designed specifically for the Las Palmas development in the Canary Islands, uses the same beetle for inspiration. The theater uses the fresh water that it produces to irrigate crops and provide cool relief in this hot desert climate.

Dragonfly Vertical Farm Concept

(images via: archdaily)

The metal and glass ‘wings’ of Vincent Callebaut’s stunning vertical farm concept for New York City were modeled directly on the exoskeleton of a dragonfly, housing plant and animal farms that make use of plentiful sunlight and air flow high in the sky. The 132-story complex, imagined for the south end of Roosevelt Island, also includes housing and work space.

Photonic Beetles Inspire Faster Computers

(image via: physorg

From any angle, despite their iridescence, the scales of the Brazilian beetle L. augustus always look like the same shade of green. That may not sound impressive, but for scientists engineering optical computer chips, it could be the key to a problem that’s been holding them back for years. The scales each contain a crystal with a honeycomb-like interior with a structure that could provide a model for the photonic crystals needed in optical computing.

Zimbabwe Building Modeled on Termite Mound

(image via: inhabitat)

How do you keep a mid-rise building in the middle of Zimbabwe cool without air conditioning or a big energy bill? By modeling it after self-cooling termite mounds. African termites maintain a steady temperature in their mounds by constantly opening and closing heating and cooling vents throughout the mound, sucking in air at the base and pulling it up the peak. Eastgate Centre has a ventilation system that operates in a similar way, providing a sustainable and cost-effective way to maintain a comfortable inside temperature.

Honeycomb Tires Can’t Go Flat

(image via: world car fans)

The tire of the future doesn’t need air, therefore it can’t go flat – which could be a real lifesaver for members of the military. Responding to the government’s need for tires that can support lots of weight, survive an IED attack and still speed away at up to 50mph, developers Resilient Technologies and Wisconsin-Madison’s Polymer Engineering Center realized that nothing was more perfect than Mother Nature’s design of the honeycomb. The series of hexagon shapes is extremely strong, and distributes weight evenly for a smooth ride.

Butterfly Wings Could Lead to Better Solar Panels

(image via: treehugger)

In 2009, scientists discovered that butterfly wings have scales that act as natural solar collectors, which absorb light in an ultra-efficient way. Using a natural butterfly wing as a template, researchers were able to improve light-harvesting in dye-sensitive solar cells, which have the highest light-conversion efficiencies among all solar cells. Best of all, this method of producing solar collectors is more cost-effective than others that were previously used.

Honeycomb Housing Complex in Slovenia

(images via: ofis)

Drawing inspiration from beehives, architecture firm Ofis designed this low-income housing complex in Slovenia for maximum privacy and visual interest. The staggered windows, with their colorful shades, also offer solar shading and ventilation. The overall ‘artificial honeycomb’ effect gives the building a much more interesting look  than would a conventional window layout.

Mondo Spider Electric Vehicle

(images via: mondospider.com)

There’s never any shortage of incredible art cars and other vehicles at the annual Burning Man festival, but one stands out for its biomimetic design: Mondo Spider. This eight-legged, one-man vehicle moves via hydraulics and though it won’t get the driver anywhere fast – it tops out at “brisk walking speed” – it’s fascinating to watch in action.

via webecoist.com

Network neutrality: A tangled web | The Economist

FOR a subject that arouses such strong passions, “network neutrality” is fiendishly difficult to pin down. Ask five geeks and you may well be given six definitions of it. The basic concept sounds simple enough: that the internet’s pipes should show no favours and blindly deliver packets of data from one place to another regardless of their origin, destination or contents. But the devil is in the detail. What happens for instance if some people want to pay for their data to go faster, or if others hog all the bandwidth? And it does not help that both political proponents and opponents of this undefinable thing claim they are fighting to defend free speech and innovation.

This debate is loudest in America, uncoincidentally the developed market with the least competitive market in internet access. Democrats, who are in favour of net-neutrality rules, insist regulation is needed to prevent network operators discriminating in favour of their own services. A cable-TV firm that sells both broadband internet access and television services over its cables might, for example, try to block internet-based video that competes with its own television packages. Republicans, meanwhile, worry that net neutrality will be used to justify a takeover of the internet by government bureaucrats, stifling innovation. (That the internet’s origins lie in a government-funded project is quietly passed over.)

From a consumer’s perspective, both sides are half right. Without some neutrality rules it is unclear how a network operator can be stopped from blocking particular sites or services. But overly prescriptive rules that fossilise the internet in its current form could indeed hamper innovation. Firms that come up with faster and fancier services should be able to charge a premium, just as delivery companies and airlines do.

So the fact that zealots on both sides are moaning about the new regime finally passed by America’s telecoms regulator on December 21st is on the whole a good sign. Two of the three new rules from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are relatively straightforward. One prevents network operators from blocking lawful traffic, subject to “reasonable network management” (an exception needed to ensure that spam or denial-of-service attacks can be stopped). The second requires network operators to be open about their network-management policies, so consumers and companies can see what might be blocked, and why.

The difficulty comes with the FCC’s third rule, prohibiting “unreasonable discrimination”. Discrimination, in this context, means letting some packets of data travel faster than others. To net-neutrality purists, any kind of discrimination is unacceptable: by allowing the “reasonable” sort the FCC has, in their view, left open a vast loophole. That seems overly conservative, to this newspaper. Why on earth shouldn’t a company be able to charge more for, say, faster delivery of video, or special broadband links that ensure snappy connections for video-gamers? Such “fast-tracking” is already widespread: if you pay a bit more, you can get a speedier connection or even a special “content delivery network” to hurry up the delivery of your data (as many large firms do). In some countries you can get connections optimised for gaming.

Sadly, there are two caveats and a huge omission. The first caveat is that the law is not clear. Despite allowing reasonable discrimination, the FCC says that “pay for priority” would “raise significant cause for concern”. In other words the FCC has not explicitly banned fast-tracking, but it does not seem disposed to allow it. So fast-tracking’s fate will be decided by the courts, to the annoyance of everyone except lawyers.

The other caveat with the FCC’s new rules is their leniency towards mobile operators, who will be allowed to block some kinds of traffic. Wireless firms point out, rightly, that their bandwidth is less abundant than the fixed-line sort and especially vulnerable to data hogs who use too much capacity. But the best way to deal with this, on both fixed and mobile networks, is to offer a monthly data limit and charge by the megabyte beyond it. Usage-based pricing, not a different regulatory regime, is all that is needed. Again, other countries do this.

The fundamental problem

These details are important, but the noise about them only makes the omission more startling: the failure in America to tackle the underlying lack of competition in the provision of internet access. In other rich countries it would not matter if some operators blocked some sites: consumers could switch to a rival provider. That is because the big telecoms firms with wires into people’s homes have to offer access to their networks on a wholesale basis, ensuring vigorous competition between dozens of providers, with lower prices and faster connections than are available in America. Getting America’s phone and cable companies to open up their networks to others would be a lot harder for politicians than prattling on about neutrality; but it would do far more to open up the net.

via economist.com