cwnl:
Multicellular Life Evolves in Laboratory
I think It’s time people started embracing evolution as a fact. An evolutionary transition that took several billion years to occur in nature has happened in a laboratory, and it needed just 60 days.
Under artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them.
“This is actually simple. It doesn’t need mystical complexity or a lot of the things that people have hypothesized — special genes, a huge genome, very unnatural conditions,” said evolutionary biologist Michael Travisano of the University of Minnesota, co-author of a study Jan. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity)
Ugh. Get rid of the homophobic red. Just click Here
Tumblr, get on it!
We just lost Washington and Florida
Get in and vote!
(Source: darrindipity)
Africa Begins to Rise Above Aid »
An increasing number of African countries are beginning to step away from aid dependency, as the domestic private sector becomes the engine of growth across much of Africa.
Currently, at least a third of African countries receive aid that is equivalent to less than 10 percent of their tax revenue. They include Algeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Libya. This is a significant change from years of high dependency on aid.
These are countries that have made the most progress towards replacing aid with domestically mobilised resources. On average, Africa has managed to raise an estimated 441 dollars in taxes per person per year while receiving 41 dollars per person per year in aid, according to a comprehensive look at African resource mobilisation by the African Economic Outlook 2011.
“What this means is that Africa as a whole receives aid that is less than 10 percent of collected taxes,” says Ken Mwai, a financial analyst and real estate investor in Kenya. “Although aid exceeds 10 percent of tax revenue in 34 countries, these countries have shown a progressively higher expansion of their tax base.
“They include countries such as Mozambique that have almost doubled their tax revenue, as well as Liberia which in the last decade has increased tax revenue from six percent to about 20 percent.”Botswana is another strong economy whose development is largely driven by domestically raised revenues. Although countries such as Rwanda raise more resources from donors, that east-central African nation also has a strong focus on foreign direct investment.
Mwai further explains that “development in Kenya is donor-driven, but aid has been useful in building sustainable infrastructure. As a result, Kenya has been able to build state of the art roads. For instance, the Thika Road super highway has made the real estate business in that region exponentially profitable.
“This has attracted private investors and will have a positive direct and indirect impact on taxes, as people establish and expand already existing businesses.”
New law is ‘repugnant to sensibilities’ of founding principles
When Congress adopted and Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, alarms were raised over the possibility that it would allow the indefinite and rights-free detention of those who are called “belligerents,” even if they are American citizens.
While the argument over those provisions rages, one state lawmaker in Rhode Island has jumped into action to protect the danger he sees for residents of his state, proposing a resolution to exempt his constituents from sections of the federal law.
Rep. Daniel P. Gordon Jr. today told WND he has drafted a resolution, which is being circulated among the lawmakers even now, to express opposition to the sections of the NDAA “that suspend habeas corpus and civil liberties.”
“Sections 1021 and 1022 of the act, signed into law on New Years Eve of 2011, provide for the indefinite detention of American citizens by the military on American soil, without charge, and without right to legal counsel and right to trial,” he explained.
“Given the fact that the constitutions of Rhode Island and that of the United States are replete with guarantees of individual liberties, right to habeas corpus, and right to freedom of speech, the offending sections of that law are repugnant to the sensibilities of anyone that has a basic understanding of the foundation of this country,” he said.
The opinions on the legislation signed by Obama vary. Commentator Chuck Baldwin, who himself has been the target of smears by the Department of Homeland Security-related apparatus, explained the law, “for all intents and purposes, completely nullifies a good portion of the Bill of Rights, turns the United States into a war zone, and places U.S. citizens under military rule.”
Never been prouder of my state <3333
(Source: socialuprooting, via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity)
