United States President Barack Obama has signed a bill into law that was written in part by the very billion-dollar corporation that will benefit directly from the legislation.
On Tuesday, Pres. Obama inked his name to H.R. 933, a continuing resolution spending bill approved in Congress days earlier. Buried 78 pages within the bill exists a provision that grossly protects biotech corporations such as the California-based Monsanto Company from litigation.
Obama signs 'Monsanto Protection Act' written by Monsanto-sponsored senator
Scientists unravel genetic causes of prostate, breast and ovarian cancer
A national screening programme for prostate cancer could be introduced by the NHS following an international effort by more than 1,000 scientists to unravel the genetic causes of prostate, breast and ovarian cancer.
The study, the largest to look for the faulty DNA that drives the cancers, revealed scores of genetic markers that can identify people most likely to develop the diseases.
Undocumented workers' grim reality: speak out on abuse and risk deportation
Millions of workers like Zavala toil in industries like construction, casual day labour, agriculture or the food industry across America and, as Zavala and many others have found, standing up and complaining can result in an employer reporting them to the immigration authorities.
Experts point out that some employers are all too eager to take on undocumented workers and exploit them for their willingness to work long hours for low pay. If no one complains, questions about immigration papers are rarely asked. But if problems do arise – such as being injured on the job or workers demanding better pay or access to a union – a swift phone call to the police or ICE will result in the difficult employees being deported.
New Study Exposes How Natural Gas Isn't the Clean Fossil Fuel It's Hyped up to Be
st week, investigators studying methane leakage levels in Manhattan reported alarming preliminary findings. The gas industry and Con Edison estimate 2.2% leakage in its distribution systems, and at leakage above 3.2%, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, natural gas ceases to have any climate advantage over other fossil fuels.
But the study found an average cumulative leakage of over 5% in natural gas production and delivery. At these levels, natural gas—93% of which is methane—has a far more potent greenhouse gas impact than burned coal or oil, the authors stated.
Iraqi oil: Once seen as U.S. boon, now it’s mostly China’s
Ten years after the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, the country’s oil industry is poised to boom and make the troubled nation the No.2 oil exporter in the world. But the nation that’s moving to take advantage of Iraq’s riches isn’t the United States. It’s China.
America, with its own homegrown energy bonanza, isn’t going after the petroleum that lies beneath Iraq’s sands nearly as aggressively as is China, a country hungry to fuel its rise as an economic power.
Congress Saves Busted $380 Million Missile Program the Pentagon Won't Buy
Conservatives are throwing a hissy fit about a few hundred thousand dollars spent on a scientific study about duck sex, but over at the Pentagon, Congress is spending $380 million on a missile program that has no funding authorization, doesn't work, and the Department of Defense doesn't plan on buying.
So why are we still paying for it? Because Germany and Italy are making the US feel awkward, and when you back out of a defense contract, you have to sell your first-born child. Also, jobs.
Pesticide makes bees forget the scent for food, new study finds
Widely used pesticides have been found in new research to block a part of the brain that bees use for learning, rendering some of them unable to perform the essential task of associating scents with food. Bees exposed to two kinds of pesticide were slower to learn or completely forgot links between floral scents and nectar.
These effects could make it harder for bees to forage among flowers for food, thereby threatening their survival and reducing the pollination of crops and wild plants. The findings add to existing research that neonicotinoid pesticides are contributing to the decline in bee populations.
5.7 Oklahoma earthquake linked to oil extraction wastewater
Scientists have linked the underground injection of oil-drilling wastewater to a magnitude-5.7 earthquake in 2011 that struck the US state of Oklahoma. Wastewater injection from drilling operations has been linked to seismic events in the past, but these have typically been much smaller quakes.
They also have tended to occur in the first weeks or months of injection. The study in Geology suggests that "induced seismicity" can occur years after wastewater injection begins.
EPA: Most U.S. waters polluted
More than half of U.S. rivers, streams and other waterways are in too poor of a condition for aquatic life, the Environmental Protection Agency said. The EPA said most the nation's streams, rivers and other waters were in poor health.
EPA analysis said that 27 percent of the nation's waterways have high levels of nitrogen and 40 percent have high levels of phosphorus. Those chemicals lead to algae blooms that can deprive water of oxygen.
Page 363 of 1156
