US climate scientists pressured on climate change

US scientists were pressured to tailor their reports on global warming to fit the Bush administration's climate change scepticism, a congressional committee heard on Tuesday 30 January. In some cases, this occurred at the request of a former oil-industry lobbyist.

"High-quality science [is] struggling to get out," Francesca Grifo, of the watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists, told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. A UCS survey found that 150 climate scientists personally experienced political interference in the past five years in a total of at least 435 incidents.

reposted from: New Scientist
my highlights / emphasis / edits

"Nearly half of all respondents perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words 'climate change', 'global warming' or other similar terms from a variety of communications," Grifo said.

Rick Piltz, a former US government scientist, told the committee that former White House official Phil Cooney took an active role in casting doubt on the consequences of global climate change. Piltz said he resigned in 2005 as a result of pressure to soft-pedal findings on global warming.

Cooney, who was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before becoming chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, also resigned in 2005. He went on to work for oil giant ExxonMobil, which was recently accused of spending $16 million on supporting climate sceptics.

"Speculative musing"

Documents on global climate change required Cooney's review and approval, Piltz said, adding that "If you know what you are writing has to go through a White House clearance before it is to be published, […] an anticipatory kind of self-censorship sets in."

He added: "[Cooney's] edits of programme reports, which had been drafted and approved by career science programme managers, had the cumulative effect of adding an enhanced sense of scientific uncertainty about global warming and minimising its likely consequences."

According to The Guardian newspaper, Piltz described how Cooney had personally edited out a key section of an Environmental Protection Agency report to Congress on the dangers of climate change, calling it "speculative musing".

Seeking answers

Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the oversight committee, complained that the White House has balked at supplying documents requested over six months to investigate these allegations.

"The committee isn't trying to obtain state secrets or documents that could affect our immediate national security," Waxman said. "We are simply seeking answers to whether the White House's political staff is inappropriately censoring impartial government scientists."

Kristen Hellmer, of the Council on Environmental Quality, part of the Executive Office of the US President, said the CEQ had been cooperating with Congress. When asked about allegations of political interference in scientific documents, she said: "We do have in place a very transparent system in science reporting."

Spate of accusations

Reporting on the hearing, the New York Times says that even Republicans had little good to say of the Bush administration's handling of climate change science. Almost all the Republicans on the panel began by stating that global warming was happening and that greenhouse gases from human activities were largely to blame.

The Bush administration has suffered a spate of accusations of muzzling climate scientists in recent years. In January 2006, James Hansen, director of the US space agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered their staff to review his lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard website and requests for media interviews (see Top climatologist accuses US of trying to gag him).

In February 2006, the topic was brought up in the House Committee on Science, and New Scientist reported that scientists at another government agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were also upset about the situation.

The UCS issued its first accusations in February 2004, followed closely by more finger pointing in July of that year.

Mandatory limits

President George W Bush's position on global warming has evolved over his presidency, from open scepticism about the reality of the phenomenon to acknowledgment at a global summit in 2006 that climate change is occurring and that human activities speed it up.

In his 2007 State of the Union address, Bush called climate change "a serious challenge" that should be addressed by technology and greater use of alternative sources of energy. But he stopped short of calling for mandatory limits on US emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed in part for global warming.

The congressional discussions come in the run-up to the release of a major United Nations report on climate change, scheduled for Friday in Paris, France.

Leaked drafts of the report suggest it will state that "there is a 90% chance humans are responsible for climate change", mostly due to the burning of fossil fuels. That contrasts with the last version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report, issued in 2001, which concluded there was a 66% chance that humans were responsible for rising temperatures.

Retailers to stop trans-fat use

Some margarines contain trans-fats

Major UK retailers plan to stop adding harmful trans-fats to their own-brand products by the end of the year. Trans fats at Wikipedia.

The move was announced by British Retail Consortium members Asda, Boots, Co-op, Iceland, Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose.

It is hoped the move could help cut rates of heart disease and obesity.

reposted from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6314753.stm
my highlights / edits

Cholesterol-raising trans-fats, in the form of hydrogenated oils, are often added to bakery and dairy products to extend shelf-life and improve texture.

TRANS-FATS They are partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, turning oily foods into semi-solid foods Used to extend shelf life of products Put into pastries, cakes, margarine and some fast foods Can raise levels of "bad" cholesterol Even a small reduction in consumption can cut heart disease They have no nutritional benefit

They are also used by the fast-food industry.

But they have no nutritional value, and like saturated fats, they raise blood cholesterol levels which increase the risk of coronary heart disease.

Health authorities around the world have recommended their consumption be slashed.

A BRC spokesman said about 5,000 own-brand products would be affected by the decision.

'Major change'

He said it took time to remove the fats, as retailers had to ensure their products remained appealing to consumers in their re-formulated form.

Several leading retailers have already committed to reducing trans-fat levels, but the latest announcement represents a marked acceleration of the process.

Andrew Opie, BRC food policy director, said the decision by its leading members showed that they were prepared to act to achieve major change must faster than any legislation could do.

He said: "This is the latest in a string of healthy food initiatives and shows that BRC members, responding to customer concerns, are willingly delivering a scale and pace of change way beyond anything retailers or manufacturers are doing anywhere else in Europe."

Alex Callaghan, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "It's good to see companies making moves towards reducing and removing trans-fats from their own-brand products.

"Currently, it isn't easy for shoppers to know how much trans-fats are in the food they eat, and it can be confusing.

"The BHF calls for manufacturers and retailers to work towards elimination of trans-fats from products.

"In the meantime, trans-fats should be clearly labelled food packaging so that people can make informed decisions about their diet."

In Denmark, trans-fats in the form of partially hydrogenated oils were effectively banned four years ago.

The European Union is encouraging retailers to reduce or stop adding trans-fats.

However, it is also taking action against the Danish authorities, on the grounds that their ban is a block on free trade with other member states.

Chemically, trans fats are made of the same building blocks as non-trans fats, but have a different shape. In trans fat molecules, the double bonds between carbon atoms (characteristic of all unsaturated fats) are in the trans rather than the cis configuration, resulting in a straighter, rather than a kinked shape. As a result, trans fats are less fluid and have a higher melting point than the corresponding cis fats. (source: Wikipedia)

Basic Concepts: Arguements

As my first contribution to the growing list of basic terms and concepts, I'm going to explain a few things no one asked about when I opened the request line. But, these are ideas that are crucial building blocks for things people actually did ask about, like falsifiability and critical thinking, so there will be a payoff here.

reposted from: Adventures in Ethics & Science
my highlights / edits

Philosophers talk a lot about arguments. What do they mean?

An argument is a set of claims. One of those claims is the conclusion which the other claims are supposed to support. While logicians, geometers, and that crowd customarily give you the conclusion as the last claim in the argument, arguments in novels and op-ed pieces may give you the conclusion at the very start of the argument.

The non-conclusion claims in the argument are generally referred to as premises or assumptions. These claims are the reasons being offered to support the conclusion of the argument. Note that some of the claims labeled as "assumptions" feel like certainties.

The point of an argument is to give good reasons for accepting the conclusion. An argument is something stronger and more persuasive than a mere opinion. What makes an argument more persuasive is that it makes its assumptions clear and then shows how these assumptions lead logically to the conclusion.

A valid argument is one where the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. In other words, if your argument is valid, someone who accepts your premises as true will have to accept your conclusion or else embrace a logical contradiction.

Do you like Ps and Qs (and upside down As and backward Es)? If so, you'll find a wide selection of symbolic logic textbooks that set out a dizzying array of valid patterns of inference. Many philosophers manage to set out arguments without talking in Ps and Qs and upside down As and backward Es, though. There are some patterns of inference that careful thinkers will recognize as valid (even if they can't whip out the old school name of the syllogism) and others that they will recognize as not guaranteeing a true conclusion even if the premises are true.

Here's an example of an invalid argument:

1. If my battery is dead, my car won't start. (premise)
2. My car won't start. (premise)
3. Thus, my battery must be dead. (conclusion)

It's perfectly possible for both premises to be true, yet for the conclusion to be false (because something else is wrong with my car that is keeping it from starting). In other words, we shouldn't take (1) and (2) as sufficient reasons for accepting (3).

Here's an example of a valid argument:

1. Britney Spears is from Mars. (premise)
2. Martians have astounding vocal range and are great dancers. (premise)
3. Hence, Britney Spears has astounding vocal range and is a great dancer. (conclusion)

If claims (1) and (2) were true here, there is no way that claim (3) could fail to be true. Accepting the assumptions commits you to the conclusion -- unless, of course, you choose to opt out of the shared rules of valid inference we've been trained to accept. That's always an option, but it's not one that puts you in a very good place to engage with others who accept those rules (which is something you'd want to do to persuade them to accept some of your conclusions)!

Valid or not, most of you are not accepting my argument's conclusion, that Britney Spears has astounding vocal range and is a great dancer. Why not? Perhaps because you reject my premise that Britney Spears is from Mars and/or my premise that Martians have astounding vocal range and are great dancers. Even if the logical connections between my premises and my conclusion are good, if any of my assumptions are false, you're entitled to reject my argument as giving good reasons to believe the conclusion. (By the way, even people who accept the truth of the claim that Britney Spears has astounding vocal range and is a great dancer will reject the argument offered here in favor of that conclusion -- they won't want to endorse the false premises about Martians.)

An argument that is valid and whose premises are true is a sound argument. Not only does it have the right kind of logical connections between the conclusion and the reasons offered to support the conclusion, but all those reasons are true claims. The challenge, of course, is in being sure of the truth of your premises. "All men are mortal" sure sounds like a true claim, but given that there are scads of people who haven't yet demonstrated their mortality by kicking off, can we be certain that one of them won't turn out to be immortal?

Don't go whipping out data on all the humans who have dies so far, thus proving themselves to be mortal and making it a good bet that we are all mortal, too. The argument:

1. Guy 1 died.
2. Guy 2 died.
3. Guy 3 died.
4. Guy 4 died.
5. Guy 5 died. ...

Thus, we're all going to die eventually.

looks like an appealing argument, but it is not a valid argument -- at least, there's no guarantee that the truth of the conclusion follows from the truth of the premises. Rather than being a deductive argument, it's an inductive argument.

Inductive inference can be plenty useful, but as any broker -- or any kid who plays a lot of Duck Duck Goose -- will tell you, there is a real danger in inferring future outcomes from past performance. More about this when we take up "falsifiability".

Human metabolism recreated in lab

Scientists can use the virtual model instead of working on real cells

US researchers say they have created a "virtual" model of all the biochemical reactions that occur in human cells.

They hope the computer model will allow scientists to tinker with metabolic processes to find new treatments for conditions such as high cholesterol.

It could also be used to individually tailor diet for weight control, the University of California team claimed.

Their development is reported in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A team of six bioengineering researchers at the University of California analysed the human genome to see what genes corresponded to metabolic processes, such as those responsible for the production of enzymes.

They spent a year manually going through 1,500 books, review papers and scientific reports from the past 50 years before constructing a database of 3,300 metabolic reactions.

The information was then used to create a network of metabolic processes in the cell, similar to a traffic network.

You could make a metabolic model for an individual person which is a tantalising prospect Professor Bernhard Palsson

Study leader Professor Bernhard Palsson said the network could be used to see what would happen if a drug was used to target a specific metabolic reaction, such as the synthesis of cholesterol.

Or it could be used to predict what would happen if you interfere with a metabolic reaction in a specific type of cell, such as a blood or heart cell.

And eventually it could even be used to create an individual network for a person.

"The new tool we've created allows scientists to tinker with a virtual metabolic system in ways that were, until now, impossible, and to test the modelling predictions in real cells," said Mr Palsson, who is professor of bioengineering and medicine.

"You can take a drug target and you can make the flow through that reaction more and more restrictive or you can calculate all the reactions that you have to go through to make a certain product."

Metabolism

Metabolic reactions in cells include those which convert food sources, such as fats, protein and carbohydrate into energy and to make other molecules used by the body.

There are hundreds of human disorders which are a result of problems with metabolism.

One example is haemolytic anaemia, a condition where red blood cells are broken down too rapidly.

To test the computer model, the team ran 288 different simulations, such as the synthesis of hormones, testosterone and oestrogen, and the metabolism of fat from the diet.

"We all have natural variation in the capacity of these pathways, for example in our ability to make cholesterol, so you could make a metabolic model for an individual person which is a tantalising prospect."

Keith Frayn, professor of human metabolism at the University of Oxford, said the model would allow scientists to spot potential problems with targeting certain reactions early on in their research.

"It's increasingly recognised there are these networks of metabolism and we need to know if we target something how that will spread out and this is potentially a way of dealing with that."

Dr Anthony Wierzbicki, consultant in specialist laboratory medicine at St Thomas's hospital, has done a lot of work on the role of cholesterol in heart disease.

"This is a potentially interesting tool for investigating metabolism of which cholesterol biochemistry forms a part," he said.

But he added that the model would have to be "sophisticated" enough to predict what happens in the production and breakdown of cholesterol as well how it is absorbed from the gut as the two were closely linked.

reposted from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6310075.stm
my highlights / edits

Climate Change - UK temperatures to 2080

World's largest climate change experiment.

UK temperature change

How will the UK’s temperature change over the course of this century?

Compare average temperatures for summer, winter, spring and autumn around the UK.

Watch hypothetical weather forecasts from 2020, 2050 and 2080.

Find out how changes in temperature will affect you.

reposted from: BBC
my highlights / edits

12 Books that changed the world by Melvyn Bragg

Introduction

Begins Sunday 28th Jan at 5.45pm on ITV1 When people think of things that have changed the world, they tend to think of events – natural disasters, assassinations, wars and scientific breakthroughs. What tends to get overlooked is the powerful, transforming ideas that are communicated in the apparently unassuming pages of books. 12 Books That Changed The World is presented, written and edited by Melvyn Bragg. In this series we look at 12 of the most exciting and powerful books ever written in the English language, all penned by British authors, without which the world would be a very different place. The result is a fascinating celebration of the power of the printed word. The 12 books Every week, Melvyn Bragg reveals the names of three of the most significant books of all time. Episode One Principia Mathematica, Sir Isaac Newton (1687) Married Love, Marie Stopes (1918) The First Rule Book of the Football Association (1863) Episode Two The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1859) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) Speech to the House of Commons, William Wilberforce (12th May 1789) Episode Three The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1776) The King James Bible (1611) Magna Carta (1215) Episode Four Experimental Research in Electricity, Michael Faraday (1855) Patent Specification for Arkwright's Spinning Machine (1769) William Shakespeare's First Folio (1623)

Introduction to Windows Vista

Personal Computer World review.

Analyst dismisses Second Life as a 'pyramid scheme'

An article claiming that the economic system in Second Life is a "pyramid selling scheme" has created a furore of debate about the way business is conducted in the virtual community.

The article was written by financial analyst Randolph Harrison and published in the Capitalism 2.0 blog.

Harrison claims in the article that the economic system in Second Life has become a " Ponzi scheme" that promises monetary gains for everyone, but ultimately benefits only a select few.

The analyst said that cons and cheats in monetary deals are rampant, that virtual banks routinely spring up and disappear over night, and that Second Life 'residents' are quick to take each others' money and run.

Harrison claimed that the markets in the game, in which people exchange virtual 'Linden Dollars' for real-life money, is "virtually rigged" to yield the least amount of money to players looking to cash in their virtual currency.

"Second Life is not a dramatic taste of our future in which markets are virtual, currency is free from government control, taxes are non-existent, and normal people can become real millionaires simply by clicking their mouse a few times," he said.

"Second Life is a classic pyramid scheme. Or, more of an Amway-like pyramid: partially legitimate, partially Ponzi."

Harrison acknowledged that the system works fine for recreational users who visit the online world strictly for entertainment.

But the claim that Second Life is an emerging economy ripe for the picking by everyday people turned entrepreneurs is, by and large, a scam, according to the analyst.

Supporters and residents of Second Life were quick to criticise Harrison's article. Blogger Tateru Nino suggested that the assertion was like comparing "Buicks to boysenberries".

"There are truths in there certainly, but very deceptively phrased ones, and chunks of the material are apparently no longer current or accurate," said Nino.

Nino claimed that Harrison's observations on the exchange market were not based on Second Life creator Linden Lab's own Lindex exchange system, but on smaller private exchange markets operated by users.

The rates in Harrison's exchange study were inflated because such a large amount of money was being traded, artificially creating a low rate, according to Nino.

"By his own figures, Harrison tried to cash out more than three per cent of the then total currency in motion at once, and was distressed when supply and demand worked the way supply and demand does," he wrote.

John Zdanowski, chief financial officer at Linden Lab, told vnunet.com that the Lindex exchange system is not wholly dependent on supply and demand.

"While the exchange is based on a floating rate, Linden Lab maintains some indirect means with which to maintain price stability, including control over the stipend that is offered to users and the pricing of various Linden Dollar 'sinks'," he said.

Linden Dollar 'sinks' are the price of uploading images, for example, or posting classified ads.

Wagner James Au has worked as an 'embedded' journalist in Second Life since 2003, and currently runs the New World Notes blog which chronicles the virtual community.

Au told vnunet.com that users looking to "get rich quick" in Second Life will, like their real-world counterparts, often fall victim to con artists and scams.

"If you are looking for a quick buck you are probably going to lose your money," said Au. "The people who are successful, in my observations, are the ones who establish themselves, build a trust network and build their businesses. "

The revelation of a grand scheme being run by wealthy users to con new residents out of their money is an extremely rare occurrence, according to Au.

"What will happen is you have someone who started out and something will happen; they will run out of time in their real life or they will get annoyed with the people they are working with and leave," he said.

Among those who invest substantial amounts of time and money, however, a merchant's reputation can make or break a Second Life business.

"What [Harrison] is missing is the day-to-day in-world social activity," said Au, noting that residents have even gone so far as to establish a Second Life chamber of commerce.

"There is this tight social network of content creators who are watching after each other," he said.

Au explained that most users will spend several months in the Second Life community before attempting to establish a business.

At that point, he said, players have grown much more savvy to the way the market works, and the amount of time and currency invested in the virtual business makes users less likely to try and cash out all their Linden Dollars at once and experiencing the sort of inflation noted by Harrison.

"For the serious content developers, it is in their interest not to take out a lot of money at once," Au said. "What the most successful people do is take out their money slowly."

reposted from: vnunet.com
my highlights / edits

Basics: Logic, aka "It's illogical to call Mr. Spock logical"

This is another great basics topic, and it's also one of my pet peeves. In general, I'm a big science fiction fan, and I grew up in a house where every saturday at 6pm, we all gathered in front of the TV to watch Star Trek. But one thing which Star Trek contributed to our vocabulary, for which I will never forgive Gene Rodenberry, is "Logic". As in, Mr. Spock saying "But that would not be logical.".

The reason that this bugs me so much is because it's taught a huge number of people that "logical" means the same thing as "reasonable". Almost every time I hear anyone say that something is logical, they don't mean that it's logical - in fact, they mean something almost exactly opposite - that it seems correct based on intuition and common sense.

If you're being strict about the definition, then saying that something is logical by itself is an almost meaningless statement. Because what it means for some statement to be "logical" is really that that statement is inferable from a set of axioms in some formal reasoning system. If you don't know what formal system, and you don't know what axioms, then the statement that something is logical is absolutely meaningless. And even if you do know what system and what axioms you're talking about, the things that people often call "logical" are not things that are actually inferable from the axioms.

Logic, in the sense that we generally talk about it, isn't really one thing. Logic is a name for the general family of formal proof systems with inference rules. There are many logics, and a statement that is a valid inference (is logical) in one system may not be valid in another. To give you a very simple example, most people are familiar with the fact that in logic, if you have a statement "A", then either the statement "A or not A" must be true. In the most common simple logic, called propositional logic, that's a tautology - that is, a statement which is always true by definition. But in another common and useful logic - intuitionistic logic - "A or not A" is not necessarily true. You cannot infer anything about whether it's true or false without proving whether A is true or false.

More....

So when someone says, a la Mr. Spock, that something is logical, the correct thing to do is to whack them in the head with a logic textbook for saying something nonsensical.

reposted from: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/01/basics_logic_aka_its_illogical_1.php
my highlights / edits

How Intel shrank processors to 45nm without taking a leak

Pictured left is a die shot of one of Intel's new 45nm Penryn processors, which the company claims represent the biggest breakthough since the sixties. Its development forced Intel to address one of the biggest problems of miniaturisation: leakage current.

A standard transistor of the type used in processors consists of source and drain electrodes sitting in a silicon substrate with a tiny gap between them. Above this gap is a thin layer of insulator, or dielectric; and sitting on that is the gate electrode (click image at right for pop-up diagram). Toggling the voltage at the gate toggles the charge distribution across the gap, and thus its ability to pass current.

This solid-state switch is never quite perfect because there are tiny current flows even in the off state. Most important is the "leakage" across the insulating layer under the gate. This layer is made of silicon dioxide (SiO2) in current designs and when it becomes only a few atoms thick, as it does as processor transistors get smaller, leakage becomes prohibitively high.

So why not have thicker insulation? The problem is that the thinner the layer, the higher is the capacitance of the structure - the amount of charge it can hold. The higher the capacitance, the better the current flow in the on state, and the faster the switching. In other words if you thicken the insulation to reduce leakage, you slow the transistor down.

What Intel has done is to replace the SiO2 with a 'high K dielectric', based on the element Hafnium, which allows a thicker (and thus less leaky) layer of insulation without reducing the capacitance.

Intel has also replaced the usual silicon gate with what it vaguely refers to as a mix of metals. Kaizad Mistry, product manager for Intel's 45nm logic technology development, said Intel was keeping this secret as the precise proportions of these and hafnium are critical.

The overall effect is to boost current flow in the on state, providing fast switching, and cutting leakage in the off state.

Intel claims that relative to 65nm technology the Penryn chips will pack twice as many transistors in a given area, with a 30 percent reduction in switching power, 20 percent faster switching, and a tenfold reduction in leakage across the gate dielectric. It also claims a fivefold reduction in current leaking between the source and drain.

reposted from: http://labs.pcw.co.uk/2007/01/how_intel_shran.html

my highlights / edits

Doggy treadmill gets your pup in shape

For those of you out there whipping your offspring into shape by utilizing the Step2Play middleman, and burning your own fair share of calories on the GameRunner, it's about time Rover joined the fray, eh? The Dog Walker treadmill helps prevent doggy obesity and apparently relieves the dog's stress, all while helping it to exert all that pent-up energy from being cramped up in the house all day. Aside from sporting a smaller, dog-friendly design, casters to enable easy transport, and two side shields to prevent minor tumbling disasters, the machine also sports a safety leash which prevents the pup from sliding off the rear (or giving up on the goal) and a devilish remote control to vary the speed from 0 to 5-kilometers per hour (3.1 mph). So if you're tired of Fido's stomach dragging the ground while crawling around in misery, you can pick up its very own treadmill (to go along with that recently-purchased pedometer) for ¥15,800 ($131).

reposted from: Engadget
my highlights / edits

Intel shows off next generation transistors

Computers the world over are about to get a makeover. Intel, the world's largest computer chip maker, announced on Saturday that its next generation transistors will have metal - not silicon - gate electrodes. They will also have insulating walls made of a "high-K" hafnium (wikipedia) compound, which is transparent to electric fields, instead of silicon dioxide.

reposted from: NewScientist.com news service
my highlights / edits

The changes mean that the 45-nanometre transistors on Intel's next suite of computer processors will not only be faster and smaller than today's 65-nanometre ones, they will also be more power efficient. That combination has been difficult to achieve in the past.

"The implementation of high-k and metal materials marks the biggest change in transistor technology since the introduction of polysilicon gate transistors in the late 1960s," says Intel co-founder Gordon Moore.

The new transistors will make their way into Intel's next generation products, currently codenamed "Penryn", which include the Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Xeon processors. These will run Windows Vista, Mac OS X, Windows XP and Linux.

Leaky materials

Intel first announced that it would start using the new materials at the end of 2003 (see Intel claims plug for leaky chips). But on Saturday it announced that manufacturing will begin later in 2007, with the first products available in 2008.

"It's no longer a research project, it's real," says Dan Hutcheson, an analyst with VLSI Research in California, US. "This is a really big breakthrough."

A transistor consists of an electrode that switches the current on and off within a "channel" using an electric field. In the past, to make the transistor switch faster, and thereby up its performance, chip makers shortened the electrode and thinned the insulating wall that separates it from the channel.

This is far from ideal, as thinning the wall causes current to leak from the channel into the electrode, wasting heat and electricity. Furthermore, it means more current leakage than the transistor could handle.

Switching speed

Now, in an effort to continue shrinking and speeding up its transistors, Intel has come up with an insulator that transmits a fast-switching electric field even at a relatively large size. The exact composition of this "high-k" material is a secret, but Intel says that it contains hafnium. It is claimed to increase transistor switching speed by 20% and leak five times less current.

In 2003, Intel also had to tweak its process to start making 90 nanometre transistors. Its secret then was to use "strained silicon" in its transistors (see Secret of strained silicon chips revealed). This increased the speed at which current flowed, although Hutcheson says that advance was "a walk in the park" compared with achieving today's leap to high-k insulators.

The change in insulator has also led to a change in the gate electrode material. When high-k materials are deposited next to an electrode made of polysilicon, defects normally arise at the boundary. But this effect disappears when a metal gate is used instead.

Using the new 45 nanometre transistors, dual-core processors will contain 400 million transistors, while quad-core will contain 800 million.

Intel chips push through nano-barrier

New materials have had to be developed to shrink the transistors. TINY TRANSISTORS on this Intel silicon wafer contain the element hafnium, which will necessitate new manufacturing tricks.

The next milestone in the relentless pursuit of smaller, higher performance microchips has been unveiled.

Chip-maker Intel has announced that it will start manufacturing processors using transistors just 45 nanometres (billionths of a metre) wide (wikipedia).

Shrinking the basic building blocks of microchips will make them faster and more efficient.

reposted from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6299147.stm
my highlights / edits

Computer giant IBM has also signalled its intention to start production of chips using the tiny components.

"Big Blue", which developed the transistor technology with partners Toshiba, Sony and AMD, intends to incorporate them into its chips in 2008.

Intel said it would start commercial fabrication of processors at three factories later this year.

Critical leaks

The development means the fundamental "law" that underpins the development of all microchips, known as Moore's Law, remains intact.

The proposition, articulated by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, states that the number of transistors on a chip could double every 24 months.

After more than 10 years of effort, we now have a way forward Tze-chiang Chen, IBM

The new Intel processors, codenamed Penryn, will pack more than four hundred million transistors into a chip half the size of a postage stamp.

Like current processors, they will come in dual-core and quad-core versions, meaning they will have two or four separate processors on each chip. The company has not said how fast the new devices will run.

The production of 45nm technology has been the goal of chip manufacturers ever since they conquered 65nm transistors.

A transistor is a basic electronic switch. Every chip needs a certain number of them, and the more there are and the faster they can switch, the more calculations chips can do.

For more than 45 years, chip manufacturers have managed to keep up with Moore's Law, shrinking transistor size and packing more and more of them on to chips.

However, past the 65nm barrier the silicon used to manufacture critical elements of the switches known as gate dielectrics no longer performs as it does at larger scales.

As a result, currents passing through the transistors leak and reduce the effectiveness of the chip.

To prevent this, researchers have had to develop new materials to contain the current at such small scales. The class of silicon substitutes are known as high-k metals.

Same 'tools'

Their development and integration into working components was described by Gordon Moore as "the biggest change in transistor technology" since the late 1960s.

The first working chips to incorporate 45nm devices were demonstrated last year by Intel, but they have never been incorporated into commercial products.

Dr Tze-chiang Chen, vice president of science and technology at IBM Research, said: "Until now, the chip industry was facing a major roadblock in terms of how far we could push current technology.

"After more than 10 years of effort, we now have a way forward."

The exact recipes for the different high-k metals used by Intel and IBM have not been disclosed, but importantly both firms have said that they could be incorporated into current production technology with minimal effort.

Braces 'may not boost happiness'

Braces may not be beneficial for minor teeth problems

Having braces to correct crooked teeth as a child does not improve mental well-being or quality of life in adulthood, a UK study suggests.

reposted from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6295727.stm
my highlights / edits

A 20-year study found that orthodontic treatment had little positive impact on future psychological health.

The researchers said more funding was needed for children with severe teeth problems instead of focusing on those with minor irregularities.

The study is published in the British Journal of Health Psychology.

The researchers said there was a widespread belief in the dental profession that orthodontics improved self-esteem and psychological well-being but evidence was lacking.

Before your child starts treatment there should be a careful discussion about whether there's any benefit. It shouldn't just be an automatic thing Professor Bill Shaw

Around 1,000 Welsh schoolchildren were followed from 1981, when they were 10 or 11 years old to 2001, when they were in their 30s.

Those who had received treatment such as braces had better tooth alignment and were happier with their teeth, but this had not had an impact on their self-esteem or emotional health compared with those who hadn't had any work done, the study concluded.

Lack of treatment in children who would have qualified did not lead to psychological difficulties in later life, the study reported.

Previous research published by the same team found that not having orthodontic work done as a child did not have an adverse effect on future dental health.

Strict criteria

Thousands of children have orthodontic work done each year.

Study leader Professor Bill Shaw, professor of orthodontics at the University of Manchester dental schoo,l said the dental profession had been getting more strict about which children should have treatment.

"The findings confirm early work that has influenced British orthodontics in recent years."

He said hospital orthodontists had been working to a 10-point scale for the past decade to decide whether children needed braces to correct their teeth for dental health or cosmetic reasons.

However, it has only recently become mandatory for dentists and orthodontists working in the community to stick to the same scale for NHS work.

It has been estimated that around 15% fewer children will now have braces on the NHS.

"Before your child starts treatment there should be a careful discussion about whether there's any benefit. It shouldn't just be an automatic thing," he said.

He said more funding was needed because in some areas of the country children with severe teeth problems did not have access to orthodontists.

"It's about making sure it's available and done well and not squandering money the NHS doesn't have on treatments that are marginal."

Iain Hathorn, chair of the British Orthodontic Society, said that the results of the study had contributed to the dental profession's understanding of orthodontics on the well-being of patients.

But he added: "What must be taken into account, however, is that we live in a very different era; attitudes to beauty have changed and orthodontic techniques and materials have improved; so has patients' willingness to wear retainers to maintain the benefits of treatment.

"If the survey was under way today, the picture would perhaps be very different."

"There are patients around the UK clamouring for treatment who would find it very hard to believe that orthodontics did not impart a psychological health gain," Mr Hathorn said.

Technorati - tracking 63 million blogs

Currently tracking 63 million blogs

Technorati is the recognized authority on what's happening on the World Live Web, right now. The Live Web is the dynamic and always-updating portion of the Web. We search, surface, and organize blogs and the other forms of independent, user-generated content (photos, videos, voting, etc.) increasingly referred to as “citizen media.”

But it all started with blogs. A blog, or weblog, is a regularly updated journal published on the web. Some blogs are intended for a small audience; others vie for readership with national newspapers. Blogs are influential, personal, or both, and they reflect as many topics and opinions as there are people writing them.

Blogs are powerful because they allow millions of people to easily publish and share their ideas, and millions more to read and respond. They engage the writer and reader in an open conversation, and are shifting the Internet paradigm as we know it.

On the World Live Web, bloggers frequently link to and comment on other blogs, creating the type of immediate connection one would have in a conversation. Technorati tracks these links, and thus the relative relevance of blogs, photos, videos etc. We rapidly index tens of thousands of updates every hour, and so we monitor these live communities and the conversations they foster.

The World Live Web is incredibly active, and according to Technorati data, there are over 175,000 new blogs (that’s just blogs) every day. Bloggers update their blogs regularly to the tune of over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second.

Technorati. Who's saying what. Right now.

What does do these figures mean?

Rank: 753,005 means that the number of blogs, plus one, that have more than 5 blogs linking to them

7 links: the number of links pointing at this URL in the last 180 days

5 blogs: the number of distinct blogs pointing at this URL in the last 180 days

6 links: the total number of links we found pointing at this blog, ever.

Grief Without God

I'm an atheist. I'll just say that up front, so there's no confusion. I suffered a horrible tragedy, and continue to endure lasting effects. My grief process is something I will go through for the rest of my life. And I will do it without the aid of religion, a belief in God, a church support group, or prayer.

reposted from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,576,n,n

America may be the land of religious freedom (though some might debate the accuracy of that) but I have discovered that it is not a land of freedom from no religion. The writer and scientist Richard Dawkins lists numerous examples of discrimination against and prejudice towards atheists in his recent book The God Delusion. There are many more of us than most people realize, partly because American atheists stay in the closet. What do you think the chances are of an atheist becoming a member of Congress? But no where is there more shock and disbelief concerning atheism than when someone is dying.

In October of 2000, my test pilot husband of 20 years was in a fatal plane crash. I lived by Eric's side in the burn center of the hospital for 36 days before he died. I didn't know what 4th degree burns were until I saw them covering almost half of my husband's body, mostly on his face and hands. The experience left me with a terrifying fear of fires, compulsive behaviors about the safety of my children, and insomnia.
Eric was an amazing person, full of love and kindness and strong ethics. He possessed several degrees and pondered deep philosophical questions. He lived his life with a strong sense of responsibility for his own actions: no blaming, no excuses, no whining. He was a good friend, an outstanding husband, a loving patient father. He was also an atheist.

Before I arrived at the hospital just hours after the accident, Eric had been given the last rites by a Catholic priest. On whose authority? During the entire time I lived at the hospital I heard the following comments over and over: "God has a plan", "God never gives us more than we can handle", "Put your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." One respiratory therapist even told me that unless I prayed for Eric, he would die. She'd seen it happen before, she repeated. When the family doesn't pray, the patient dies. Almost without exception, every single person who visited, called, or sent cards said the same thing "I'm praying for your husband."

After Eric died I heard the same statements but with a new even more infuriating one thrown in: "He's in a better place." What place? He was dead! I can assure everyone that Eric loved life, his family, his job. There was no better place for him than right here. And what of God's plan? Did these people really believe that their God was watching Eric, out of all the beings in the universe? If so, why didn't he answer the prayers of more than half the city of Wichita? If there is a God and he has a plan, maybe this is what he was thinking:
Gee, I think I'll cause a really great guy to crash on takeoff. He's a test pilot who tries to make the skies safe for everyone, but just for fun I'll cause the jet to stall, plow into the runway, and catch fire. Then, just to torture the wife, I'll make her watch the test pilot suffer horrible injuries and burns for 36 days. Then as the final blow, I'll make sure the small children are present at the moment of death so their lives will be screwed up forever. I will ignore their pleas not to let their Daddy die because hey, I'm God and I can do whatever I want.

A plan? I certainly hope not.

So how can we avoid all these painful religious comments spoken to people already enduring an unbelievable amount of torture? How about listening? People are being thoughtless in thinking that everyone is comforted by these kinds of statements. I repeatedly asked people not to pray (though I understand that sometimes people don't know what to say, so responding they'll pray seems like a safe comment). I threw the priest out of Eric's room, and I refused any more rites or prayers to be mumbled over him. People still didn't get it. They thought perhaps Eric would change his mind about not believing in God, that I would too. I'd suddenly come out of the atheist closet. What was the point now? I was going to make sure Eric got the funeral he wanted, and I knew he didn't want people praying over him.

Eric's service was held in a hangar with various memorabilia and awards lovingly displayed under the outstretched wings of his favorite test plane. There were no pews; no religious leader conducted the service. There were no prayers, no reading of scripture. Fellow pilots wore their flight suits, speeches were given honoring Eric's life, and a microphone was passed around. It was a moving tribute to a man who had dedicated his life to aviation.

My mother, a strict Catholic who had once enrolled in a convent, said to me afterwards, "Well, that was a nice, well whatever it was. I guess it wasn't really a service, but I guess it was nice." Many of the hundreds present seemed to be confused about the lack of religious content of the service, but the closet atheists were all too obvious─and there seemed to be more than a few. They were the ones who were most obviously overwhelmed. From them I heard comments like "I never knew a service could be so beautiful", or "It's the most moving service I've ever attended", or "I couldn't have imagined a better tribute to Eric." They didn't say "Eric is in a better place."

During the years since Eric's death, I have been told repeatedly to "put yourself in the Lord's hands and he will help you." But I learned that if there was any helping and healing to do, I'm the one who has to do it. Does God really help you get better? Does he make the grief go away? Even the little happy pills known as antidepressants didn't make it go away. The psychiatrists hurt more than they helped, the counselors made no difference, and though the family tried, they really couldn't do anything. Listening to me talk about Eric did help somewhat, but in the end, it was me who had to deal with the grief. Not God.

An important part of my recovery process has been in honoring Eric and in keeping my promise to him that the world would know who he was. I donated the entire sum of money given to me from The Challenger Fund to Eric's favorite museum─the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. Every year a full scholarship is awarded to a deserving high school student to attend the Future Astronaut Training Program. A magnificent display has been set up to honor Eric.

Additional money has been donated to Eric's alma mater, where another display has been erected in his memory. I set up a program at the burn center where Eric was a patient. The Eric Basket Program is designed to help burn victims and their families. I have given several speeches in honor of burn patients and survivors.

I have tried to heal myself by performing various charity works in my own little town: Meals on Wheels, wildlife rehabilitating, conservation work, donating money and items for homeless people. One of the ways I have found to fight grief is by helping others.

I have spent many years of my life writing a book about Eric, his life, my experience at the hospital, and our incredible love. I continue to edit and polish the work. I am even going back to school to acquire better writing skills, so that I can better accomplish my goals.

I still miss Eric every day and maybe it would be easier to believe that he is safe and happy in a beautiful garden with a kind God and pretty angels. But it would be a lie. I try to be thankful that I had the love and support of such an amazing man as Eric, even if it was for such a short time. Maybe I was actually one of the lucky ones. I had the kind of love that people dream about. It was real and tangible, not a dream about some other world

Get a (second) life

Why are some people so worked up about virtual online worlds such as Second Life? They are just a delightful bit of fun.

January 27, 2007 08:50 AM |

reposted from: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk & view Readers comments
my highlights / edits

I have an alternate identity. Some evenings I am Misty Trilling, a girl who likes nothing better than to put on her pink fluffy bunny slippers and fly over chimney tops looking for mischief. Yes, I am a Second Lifer, one of the growing network of users of the online virtual world currently attracting a whirlwind of attention. Believe some commentators and it's all about making money, whether by big corporations with imaginary offices or the lurid trade in virtual sex. To others it is a disengagement from reality, heralding another nail in the coffin for society, and the rest find it so tedious they can't imagine why anyone but the gawkiest of geeks would bother.

Well I bother, and here's why. It's fun. I've jumped off the Eiffel Tower, tangoed the night away, got a pet kitten, and tried to steal a Harrier jump jet. I've got into fights, refused to pole dance, and worn a coot on my head like a hat. I've even borrowed my friend's login and gambled all her money away at virtual poker while she was cleaning the bathroom, but no one's supposed to know about that.

I've met loads of people along the way. Mostly cybergoths, dominatixes and small furry-tailed animals wearing trousers and deck shoes. But who am I to judge? That's the beauty of it. I can dress as ludicrously as I want and other residents have no idea who is at the other end of the computer.

It would be easy to imagine that the anonymity this brings would encourage us to break free from normal social constraints but that's not necessarily the case. Second Life residents spend a lot of time and money perfecting their avatars, and they attach real feelings and emotions to them. It's not hard to see why. A friend once phoned me in a blind panic because she had arranged to meet a colleague within Second Life. Upon logging in, however, she realised she had taken her avatar's clothes off when feeling a bit tipsy and experimental on Christmas day and couldn't work out how to put them back on again. It may be far removed from actually being caught without your undercrackers on by your boss but it conjures up similar emotions. It's the same logic that made me turn down the chance to pole dance for money. I felt that somehow it was degrading to my pixelated self, so she and I remain poor but virtuous. Real life principles still apply.

I've had my run ins with the darker side of Life. Exploring a wasteland one day we spied a pair of flag-waving skinheads in the distance. Suddenly one was in front of me, all tight jeans, tattoos and bovver boots, face pressed up close to mine, typing "u see this baseball bat? I'm gonna smash yr face in with it". It was an absurd situation, especially when you consider that avatars in Second Life are unable to lift their arms without a specially written script and are even less able to inflict damage on one another. He didn't seem overly taken with me pointing this out, however, and accused me of having "no arse" - which confused me as I wasn't sure if he meant me or my avatar. The whole sorry escapade only came to an end when a sympathetic bystander dropped a yacht on his head and he teleported away. I sometimes wonder what sort of spotty 13-year-old would sit at home in their bedroom thinking it might be a good idea to pretend to be a skinhead on the internet, but I'd rather they played out their fantasies there than went out to bother the rabbits at the local pets' corner. That's the thing about virtual worlds, they allow us to play out roles in a safe, limited environment that we can just switch off when we've had enough.

And I do switch it off. I confess that I'm a fairly heavy internet user. I share my thoughts, photos, videos and choice of bunny slippers with people across the world. I've made friends online, met boyfriends, even made enemies that way, and all the while managed to lead what resembles a perfectly normal real life. I have a job, lovely friends and my bathroom is as clean as it's ever going to be, even should I have an epiphany and throw my overworked laptop out the window. Second Life is just another delightful opportunity to muck about. Anyone who claims otherwise gets a yacht dropped on their head.

Climate Change. Big business speaks

2007/01/27 - Big business

from Today

BBC Radio 4: The Today Progamme 0810 interview. Should big businesses being taking serious action against climate change? Are they to blame for global warming?

mySociety.org

mySociety builds websites which give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. For more info on our aims, click here. The founder of mySociety is Tom Steinberg.

Our Main Sites

TheyWorkForYou

http://www.PledgeBank.com/ - Want to help a cause, but worried that your effort will make no difference? For all the development pages see PledgeBank

http://www.WriteToThem.com/ - Write to any of your elected representatives in the UK. For the development pages see FaxYourRepresentative (which was the old name).

http://www.HearFromYourMP.com/ - Get email from your MP: Discuss it with your MP and other local people - Development details at YourConstituencyMailingList

FAQ (edited by Chris Street)

mySociety.org - What's it all about then, eh?

Q. What is mySociety.org?
A. mySociety has two missions. The first is to be a charitable project which builds websites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. The second is to teach the public and voluntary sectors, through demonstration, how to most efficiently use the internet to improve lives.

Q. How do I get in contact with you in person?
A. Email Tom Steinberg or call 07811 082158.

Q. What exactly are you doing?
A. We are supporting and improving our launch projects.

Q. Can you give us any examples of the types of project you're on about?
A. TheyWorkForYou.com, WriteToThem (which used to be called FaxYourMP) and PledgeBank are all examples of the type of service which we aim to foster. But it is exactly the rarity of such really useful, effective, cheap civic sites that led to mySociety's creation

Q. What have you been doing for the last three years?
A. mySociety was founded in September 2003. We spent the first year raising money, getting a substantial grant from a Government department called ODPM, in partnership with West Sussex County Council. The money actually arrived in September 2004. We raced along for a year, building all of our launch projects. Since then we've been improving our existing projects, and starting new ones, some described in this post on our developers' blog. We're getting money from various foundations and bits of government.

Q. Who are you lot?
A. Tom Steinberg is the project's founder, a Westminster policy wonk and technology aficionado. He's joined by three full time developers, Francis Irving, Chris Lightfoot and Matthew Somerville, who've all started projects making mySociety style websites in the past. A whole bunch of super fine volunteers build and improve mySociety websites for fun. They're credited on the individual websites. You can be one too. Lots of other volunteers help run mySociety in other ways. For example, by being on our advisory panel. You can never thank someone enough for doing VAT registration for you, you know who you are James.

Q. Can I help?
A. Yes! We are looking for help of all kinds. Anything from marketing, to fund raising, to graphic design, to programming, human computer interface work, anything. If you're interested, please check volunteer tasks page, and/or join our public developer mailing list.

Q. Are you a registered charity?
A. mySociety is the project of a registered charity. The charity is called UK Citizens Online Democracy and is charity number 1076346. UKCOD doesn't do much else these days, so don't worry if you get confused between the two. We do as well!

Q. Where did the idea come from?
A. mySociety represents the crystallisation of a lot of widely shared thoughts and concerns about the problems facing democracy, government and technology in the UK at the moment. James Crabtree first gave the idea formal shape in an OpenDemocracy article. Then Tom took the idea, gave it a polish, and set up mySociety.

Q. So you're an incubator?
A. Not really, although we'd love to work with more partners. mySociety is keen to build sites which embody certain core principles, such as cheap scalability, really tangible outputs, and high usability. We're not a web agency, and won't build anything we don't believe is worthwhile, but if you have an idea and you think we might be able to help, please get in touch.

Q. Do end users pay for services?
A. No. There would have to be a very unusual and compelling basis for charging to become part of a project's structure. Sometimes partners who want to syndicate our sites will be asked to contribute.

Q. Do the full time people get paid?
A. Yes. We believe that in order to deliver polished, highly usable social tools, developers need at least a short period of financially stable full time employment. We pay rates which are living wages, but which well below the market rate, especially for people of the talent we employ. The gratitude of the director (Tom Steinberg) and all the project's Trustees goes to the developers for working on these terms.

Q. I'm not in Britain - does any of this matter to me?
A. Yes! Whilst our home country is the UK, we do not see ourselves as limited to it in any way. We gladly speak to and work with people from outside the UK. People around the world can use and adopt our open source tools and services for use in their own countries. PledgeBank, for example, is a truly international project. We will consider developing projects based in other countries, if appropriate funding can be found.

Q. Do you have a political agenda?
A. No, we are not party political, and this project is neither left or right-wing. It is about building useful digital tools for anyone who wants to use them.

Q. Who built this website, www.mysociety.org?
A. Tomski and Jason Kitcat hacked together the first version in a real hurry a few years ago. We've been rebuilding it ever since.

Q. How can I be kept up to date with the projects?
A. Please join our mailing list. All normal no-moronic-spamming policies apply. If you use RSS, you can subscribe to our news or developers blogs.

Q. How can I contact you?
A. See our contact page.

HearFromYourMP - Get email from your MP - Discuss it with your MP and other local people

examples

Latest messages

• John Redwood's Reading Evening Post Article, by John Redwood MP, Wokingham

Latest replies

• Joe Middleton at 21:01, Friday

If you enter your details, we'll add you to a queue of other people in your constituency. When enough have signed up, your MP will get sent an email. It'll say "25 of your constituents would like to hear what you're up to. Hit reply to let them know". If they don't reply, nothing will happen, until your MP gets a further email which says there are now 50, then 75, 100, 150 — until it is nonsensical not to reply and start talking.

When your MP sends you mail it won't be one-way spam, and it won't be an inbox-filling free-for-all. Instead, each email comes with a link at the bottom, which takes you straight to a web page containing a copy of the email your MP wrote, along with any comments by other constituents. To leave your thoughts, you just enter your text and hit enter. There's no tiresome login — you can just start talking about what they've said. Safe, easy and democratic.

29092 people have signed up in all 646 constituencies — League table

WriteToThem.com

via WriteToThem.com contact your Councillors, MP, MEPs, MSPs, or Northern Ireland, Welsh and London AMs for free

I can Write To Them:

• 2 District Councillors
• my County Councillor
• my MP
• 10 local MEPs
  
• any Lord.

TheyWorkForYou - Everything about your MP, the Lords, Hansard

TheyWorkForYou.com is a non-partisan website run by a charity which aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their elected and unelected representatives in Parliament, and other assemblies.


About your MP / All MPs
What has been the voting record of you local MP? What are his interests?
eg: Desmond Swayne MP (Conservative MP for New Forest West)

Lords - All eg: Lord Bragg (Melyvn Bragg) and his voting record

House of Lords Debates
eg: Road Safety - Mobile phones

House of Commons Debates
eg: point of order - Iraq and the wider Middle East

Hansard
eg: Commons debates, Lords debates, written answers, written ministerial statements

Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion" book - Pledge to send to your MP

Received this email today. Pledge to send Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion" to your MP. sign up: http://www.pledgebank.com/church-and-state Number of signers 97 / 645 (15.0% of target) at 26/1/07 9.10am Estimated signers by deadline 984 (152.6% of target) if signup rate continues as in last week

January 25, 2007 Dear Readers, A pledge has been organized by J Christie to send copies of The God Delusion to all MPs. Please see below. Thanks, Josh Timonen. www.richarddawkins.net ----------------------- Reposted from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,565,Send-The-God-Delusion-to-your-MP,J-Christie-PledgeBankcom and http://www.pledgebank.com/church-and-state "I will Arrange my MP to receive a copy of Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" but only if 645 other people (one per UK constituency) will do the same for other MPs." — J Christie Deadline to sign up by: 31st March 2007 Country: United Kingdom More details The head of the UK Catholic Church has today (23 January 2007) has asked the UK parliament to exempt Catholic adoption agencies from being forced to consider equally, applications from homosexual couples. I do not believe the church should be given special status. Catholics, like everyone else in the country, should play by the rules. Faith should not exempt one from being guilty of discrimination. Richard Dawkins, as Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, is best placed to make this argument, and his book "The God Delusion" (costing 11 pounds online) does it convincingly. I will buy a copy, and have it delivered to my own MP. Should this pledge gain momentum, I additionally undertake to maintain a simple online list of MP's (and their addresses) for whom pledges have been received, to eliminate duplication of effort. Sign up at: http://www.pledgebank.com/church-and-state Promotional Flyer: http://www.pledgebank.com/church-and-state/flyers