Quote:Around 720-640 million years ago, much of the Earth's surface was covered in ice during a glaciation that lasted millions of years. Explosive underwater volcanoes were a major feature of this 'Snowball Earth', according to new research led by the University of Southampton.

Many aspects of this extreme glaciation remain uncertain, but it is widely thought that the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia resulted in increased river discharge into the ocean. This changed ocean chemistry and reduced atmospheric CO2 levels, which increased global ice coverage and propelled Earth into severe icehouse conditions.

Because the land surface was then largely covered in ice, continental weathering effectively ceased. This locked the planet into a 'Snowball Earth' state until carbon dioxide released from ongoing volcanic activity warmed the atmosphere sufficiently to rapidly melt the ice cover. 

This model does not, however, explain one of the most puzzling features of this rapid deglaciation; namely the global formation of hundreds of metres thick deposits known as 'cap carbonates', in warm waters after Snowball Earth events.

Quote:During the breakup of Rodinia, tens of thousands of kilometres of mid-ocean ridge were formed over tens of millions of years. The lava erupted explosively in shallow waters producing large volumes of a glassy pyroclastic rock called hyaloclastite. As these deposits piled up on the sea floor, rapid chemical changes released massive amounts of calcium, magnesium and phosphorus into the ocean.

Dr Gernon explained: "We calculated that, over the course of a Snowball glaciation, this chemical build-up is sufficient to explain the thick cap carbonates formed at the end of the Snowball event.

"This process also helps explain the unusually high oceanic phosphorus levels, thought to be the catalyst for the origin of animal life on Earth."

Yes you read that right
 Many College grads think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court

 

Quote:(CNN)Nearly 10% of college graduates surveyed in a poll believe Judith Sheindlin, aka "Judge Judy," serves on the Supreme Court.

Sheindlin is an American lawyer made popular as the judge on a court show by the name of "Judge Judy." The show features Sheindlin handling small disputes in a courtroom, but Sheindlin does not serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. 

The poll, conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni in August 2015 but released in January 2016, concluded from the 1,000 surveyed that college graduates "are alarmingly ignorant of America's history and heritage."

Quote:The survey also found 28.4% of college graduates correctly identify the father of the Constitution as James Madison.

 About 59% of college students surveyed believe the father of the Constitution was Thomas Jefferson, who was actually the principal writer for the Declaration of Independence.

Quote:It also found that almost 60% of college graduates couldn't correctly identify a requirement for ratifying a constitutional amendment and 40% of college graduates didn't know that Congress has the power to declare war.

Quote:Additionally, the poll revealed that less than 50% of college graduates surveyed know that presidential impeachments are tried before the U.S. Senate.

Quote:Armed with a Valyrian steel sword named Deal-Maker, Donald Trump embarks on a quest through Westeros to take care its border policies.

The Ancient Egyptian Underground Library

Quote:It can be easily considered as one of the greatest discoveries of Ancient Egypt, yet only a few know about the existence of the incredible underground Labyrinth of Egypt, believed to hold countless answers to history itself. Located less than 100 kilometers from Cairo, the ancient underground temple consists of over 3000 rooms that are believed to be carved with intricate hieroglyphs and paintings. Herodotus described this incredible ancient site: It has twelve courts covered in, with gates facing one another, six upon the North side and six upon the South, joining on one to another, and the same wall surrounds them all outside; and there are in it two kinds of chambers, the one kind below the ground and the other above upon these, three thousand in number, of each kind fifteen hundred. The upper set of chambers we ourselves saw.

Quote:The ancient metropolis of Teotihuacan was established around 100 BC and was considered as one of the most important ancient centers in the New World until its fall somewhere around the seventh or eighth centuries. According to archaeologists the advanced design of Teotihuacan suggests that ancient builders had knowledge, not only of architecture but of complex mathematical and astronomical sciences, and one of the things that are just incredibly amazing and different from all other ancient sites is the fact that from the air, Teotihuacan‘s city layout strangely resembles a computer circuit board with two large processor chips— the Sun Pyramid and the Moon Pyramid. Researchers have also found numerous and remarkable similarities to the Great Pyramids of Egypt. The Pyramid of the Sun is exactly half as tall as the Pyramid of Giza and the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the Moon, and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl are in the same layout as Orion’s Belt. The most impressive monuments and pyramids ever built in the New World are located in Teotihuacan. The name “Teotihuacan” is translated into “Birthplace of the Gods” or “Where Gods Were Born”, and no one knows built one of the most advanced ancient cities in Pre-Colombian America. The city was found in ruins by the Ancient Aztecs who gave it its present name.

I found this juicy little tidbit on my news feeds. It looks like California is openly admitting to getting under the Chembow!

Quote:Weather modification, geoengineering, chemtrails; these are all topics that if brought up in most circles today, would garner the speaker the telltale look that most Truthers have become all too familiar with. It is a look that has been ingrained into all who have opted to cast aside their critical thinking for their comforting daily lie. There is a herd mentality that has been established that causes even those on the fence or those interested in “outside the box” ideas, to fall in line while surrounded by the docile mass. So when the government recently released a “Notice of Intent” on page 11 of the Pasadena Star Classifieds, announcing their plan to carry out weather modification in Los Angeles County, it became clear that those blank stares should be turned inward, for some much needed self-reflection and re-evaluation.

SOURCE:

Quote:"The Chapman University Survey of American Fears, Wave 2 (2015) provides an unprecedented look into the fears of average Americans. In April of 2015, a random sample of 1,541 adults from across the United States were asked their level of fear about eighty-eight different fears across a huge variety of topics ranging from crime, the government, disasters, personal anxieties, technology and many others."

Quote:Crime Murder, rape, theft, burglary, fraud, identity theft
Daily Life Romantic rejection, ridicule, talking to strangers
Environment Global warming, overpopulation, pollution
Government Government corruption, Obamacare, drones, gun control, immigration issues
Judgment of others Appearance, weight, age, race
Man-Made Disasters Bio-warfare, terrorism, nuclear attacks
Natural Disasters Earthquakes, droughts, floods, hurricanes
Personal Anxieties Tight spaces, public speaking, clowns, vaccines
Personal Future Dying, illness, running out of money, unemployment
Technology Artificial intelligence, robots, cyber-terrorism
Top Fear Domains, 2015

Each fear question asks Americans to rate their level of fear on a scale ranging from 1 (not afraid) to 4 (very afraid). The average score for each domain of fear provides insight into what types of fear are of greatest concern to Americans in 2015.

On average, Americans expressed the highest levels of fear about man-made disasters, such as terrorist attacks, followed by fears about technology, including corporate and government tracing of personal data and fears about the government (such as government corruption and ObamaCare). The complete, ranked list of Domains of Fear follows:

Quote:Man-Made Disasters 2.15
Technology 2.07
Government 2.06
Environment 1.97
Personal Future 1.95
Natural Disasters 1.95
Crime 1.72
Personal Anxieties 1.63
Daily Life 1.51
Judgment of Others 1.31

Quote:Fear Fear Domain Afraid or Very Afraid
Corruption of Government Officials Government 58.0%
Cyber-terrorism Technology 44.8%
Corporate Tracking of Personal Information Technology 44.6%
Terrorist Attacks Man-Made Disasters 44.4%
Government Tracking of Personal Information Technology 41.4%
Bio-Warfare Man-Made Disasters 40.9%
Identity Theft Crime 39.6%
Economic Collapse Man-Made Disasters 39.2%
Running of out Money in the Future Personal Future 37.4%
Credit Card Fraud Crime 36.9%

Quote:Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) was ordered by a Missouri state jury to pay $72 million of damages to the family of a woman whose death from ovarian cancer was linked to her use of the company's talc-based Baby Powder and Shower to Shower for several decades.

In a verdict announced late Monday night, jurors in the circuit court of St. Louis awarded the family of Jacqueline Fox $10 million of actual damages and $62 million of punitive damages, according to the family's lawyers and court records.

The verdict is the first by a U.S. jury to award damages over the claims, the lawyers said.

Quote:Johnson & Johnson faces claims that it, in an effort to boost sales, failed for decades to warn consumers that its talc-based products could cause cancer. About 1,000 cases have been filed in Missouri state court, and another 200 in New Jersey.

Quote:Fox, who lived in Birmingham, Alabama, claimed she used Baby Powder and Shower to Shower for feminine hygiene for more than 35 years before being diagnosed three years ago with ovarian cancer. She died in October at age 62.

Jurors found Johnson & Johnson liable for fraud, negligence and conspiracy, the family's lawyers said. Deliberations lasted four hours, following a three-week trial.

Jere Beasley, a lawyer for Fox's family, said Johnson & Johnson "knew as far back as the 1980s of the risk," and yet resorted to "lying to the public, lying to the regulatory agencies." He spoke on a conference call with journalists.

Quote:In October 2013, a federal jury in Sioux Falls, South Dakota found that plaintiff Deane Berg's use of Johnson & Johnson's body powder products was a factor in her developing ovarian cancer. Nevertheless, it awarded no damages, court records show.

Quote:WASHINGTON — The federal Medicare program and private health insurers waste nearly $3 billion every year buying cancer medicines that are thrown out because many drug makers distribute the drugs only in vials that hold too much for most patients, a group of cancer researchers has found.

The expensive drugs are usually injected by nurses working in doctors’ offices and hospitals who carefully measure the amount needed for a particular patient and then, because of safety concerns, discard the rest.

If drug makers distributed vials containing smaller quantities, nurses could pick the right volume for a patient and minimize waste. Instead, many drug makers exclusively sell one-size-fits-all vials, ensuring that many smaller patients pay thousands of dollars for medicine they are never given, according to researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who published a study on Tuesday in BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal.

Some of these medicines are distributed in smaller vial sizes in Europe, where governments play a more active role than the United States does in drug pricing and distribution.

Quote:“Drug companies are quietly making billions forcing little old ladies to buy enough medicine to treat football players, and regulators have completely missed it,” said Dr. Peter B. Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering and a co-author of the study. “If we’re ever going to start saving money in health care, this is an obvious place to cut.”

The researchers analyzed the waste generated by the top 20 selling cancer medicines and concluded that insurers paid drug makers $1.8 billion annually on discarded quantities and then spent about $1 billion on markups to doctors and hospitals.

Quote:Some non-cancer drugs also generate considerable waste, including Remicade, an arthritis drug sold by Johnson & Johnson for which an estimated $500 million of the drug’s $4.3 billion in annual sales comes from quantities that are thrown away, researchers found. But such non-cancer drugs were not included in the study’s estimates of total waste.

Quote:In one example, the study said that in the United States Takeda Pharmaceuticals sells Velcade, a drug for the treatment of multiple myeloma and lymphoma, only in 3.5-milligram vials that sell for $1,034 and hold enough medicine to treat a person who is 6 feet 6 inches tall and who weighs 250 pounds. If a patient is smaller, then a quantity of the precious powder is thrown away.

Quote:Velcade is sold in Britain in both 1-milligram and 3.5-milligram vials.

Takeda is expected to earn $309 million this year on supplies of Velcade that are discarded, an amount that represents 30 percent of the drug’s overall sales in the United States, the cancer researchers estimated. If Takeda provided an additional vial size of 0.25 milligram, waste would be slashed by 84 percent, also reducing Velcade’s sales in the United States by $261 million annually, the researchers calculated.

“You have these incredibly expensive drugs, and you can only buy them in bulk,” said Dr. Leonard Saltz, who leads the pharmacy and therapeutics committee at Memorial Sloan Kettering and was a co-author of the study. “What’s really interesting is they’re selling these drugs in smaller vials in Europe, where regulators are clearly paying attention to this issue.”

Will have to admit, they took something sooooo simple and made something so useful with it

Remember these guys?





Well watch the video right here and see what can be done with them, besides clip papers together


Like a smart phone holder 




Or to help separate cords, all the while making it tidy




Yep, pretty clever......and simple!











.....

I was just reading another article about phthalate, a chemical used in plastic to make it soft/flexible,  as well as other uses 
This is not good, not good at all for kids...and parents 

Quote:A chemical that has been banned from use in children’s toys but is still used in medical devices, such as plastic IV tubes and catheters, has been linked to the development of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in critically ill children.

The devices contain a high level of plastic-softening chemicals called phthalates which circulate in the blood and can seep into the bloodstream, according to EU funded researchers.

Phthalates have long been banned in toys and other products, in both the US and EU, due to their potential toxic effects but there is no such prohibition for their use in medical devices.


Research carried out under Soren Verstraete, from Leuven, Belgium found a “clear match between previously hospitalized children’s long-term neurocognitive test results and their individual exposure to the phthalate DEHP during their stay in intensive care.” DEHP, is the most commonly used plastic softener in medical devices

Four hundred forty-nine children, ranging from newborns to age 16, who were treated in pediatric intensive care units and whose care involved between one and 12 medical tubes were tested. One hundred healthy children were also tested for comparison.


The researchers measured blood levels of DEHP metabolites, or byproducts, and found that levels were not detectable in the blood samples of healthy children but were “sky high” in children admitted with catheters.

These remained 18 times higher than levels in healthy children until they were discharged from the ICU.

The previously critically ill children underwent neurocognitive tests four years later and a strong association between high exposure to phthalates and development of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was noted.

Quote:The Food and Drug Administration previously recommended reducing exposure to phthalates in medical devices back in 2002.