Rainforest Mcnuggets, DU Sakharov & Pauling, Harpers & HIV, Pianka & Ebola, Tiktaalik

nytimes
7/04/2006 Greenpeace on Thursday said McDonald's was fueling Amazon rainforest destruction by using soybeans grown in the region as feed for chickens that end up served in the fast-food chain's European restaurants.
In a reported entitled, ''Eating up the Amazon,'' the environmental group said it has traced soy beans grown in illegally desforested areas of the rainforest to McDonald's Corp. restaurants, as well as other restaurant chains and supermarkets across Europe.
''Fast Food giants like McDonald's are trashing the Amazon for cheap meat. Every time you buy a Chicken McNugget you could be taking a bite out of the Amazon,''

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nukewatch Depleted Uranium DU

uranium ore contains 99.3% U-238, 0.7% U-235 and traces of U-234. DU metal is depleted of U-235 down to about 0.2%, hence the name. The rest is U-238 and traces of U-234. The combined radioactivity of DU is about 40% less than in the natural mix of uranium isotopes.

What the world needs now is protesters of the calibre of Sakharov and Linus Pauling
Sakharov left his position as CCCPs favourite bomb maker, and accepted demotion into internal exile, in the first instance because he calculated that nuclear radiation from tests would kill hundreds of thousands
Linus Pauling campaigned strongly against nuclear radiation, to the extent that his passport was confiscated.

I am concerned about the several thousand tons of DU that the USA is scattering around Iraq,Afghanistan,and Australia. How bad is it. Some say tens of thousands of Nagasaki bombs.
Even if its equivalent to merely hundreds of Nagasaki bombs, its a ghastly dust to scatter.
Thousands of years from now, nanobots will still be scurrying round the dirt, scavenging DU atom by atom. In the interim hundreds of thousands of birth defects and cancers will ensue. Cancers may well be curable, but birth defects will require unimaginable science to prevent - a nanobots must enter the oocyte nucleus and repair chromosomes, but chromosomes themselves are about as compact as information storage can get, so what will the nanobot carry as a "good" list. Its currently not possible to describe the mechanics of 'correcting' a coiled coiled coil of DNA. We must await sufficiently advanced magic. May not happen for centuries. Long after America and Iraq are barely remembered ancient empires, mutations will be harming people around the world

During the “Kosovo DU” scandal, U-236, plutonium, americum and other transuranic elements turned out to be in DU, contrary to industry specifications. Although these extremely toxic and radioactive substances were present only in trace quantities, their high power significantly increases the toxicity and radioactivity of the 30 mm DU bullets shot in Operation Allied Force.

DU left in Iraq in 2003 : 1.8E6kg DU radiation = 40% of natural
U in Nagasaki 10kg radiation 120x natural
Iraq/Nagasaki = 0.4 * 1.8E6/(10 * 120) = 600 so DU = 600 Nagasaki bombs
This ignores the prompt radiation during the fission event over Nagasaki.
My calculations may be out. Its clear that ingest alpha emitters are extremely dangerous. Uranium as a chemical is worse than Arsenic.
A good reason not to mine the stuff. But the USA has piles of the stuff, so they will probably continue making bullets and sabots until their empire fades.

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cjrdaily aidstruth
Harpers Magazine March06 "Out of Control: AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science," by Farber
AIDs denialists ride again. Seems dodgy, even if my favourite wacky scientist, Kary Mullins, joins in with the denialists. Mullins famously stopped his VW, and told his girlfriend "I've just had an idea which will win me a Nobel Prize" - the PCR idea of repeatedly doubling DNA - and it did. His slim book tells how he prefers women at 10,000 days (28 years). He used to spice up his lectures with slide of naked women. Not sure if he did this in Stockholm before the king. Anyway I'll repeat his Harper's quote later.

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Pianka "I actually think the world will be much better when there's only 10 or 20 percent of us left."
has taken a lot of flack. pandasthumb have sprung to his defence pandasthumb Transcripts of his lectures dont seem so horrible.
seguingazette

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Tiktaalik, yet another missing link. Which opens up a gap on either side, as pandasthumb points out.

Rainforest Mcnuggets DU Sakharov & Pauling Harpers & HIV Pianka & Ebola Tiktaalik