We've discovered evidence of just about every gas imaginable out in space, but one we'd never seen was molecular oxygen, the stuff we breathe everyday. Now, thanks to powerful infrared telescopes, we've found the very first traces of space oxygen.
While individual oxygen atoms are found throughout space, that's not what we breathe. Instead, we inhale O2, which is a molecule composed of two oxygen atoms bonded together. This particular gas is very common on Earth - it accounts for about 20% of the air around us - but we had never found molecular oxygen in space... until now.
Oxygen molecules discovered in space for the very first time
Judge blocks Kansas' Planned Parenthood de-funding plan
What flies with the Kansas Legislature doesn’t always fly in federal court. For the second time in a month, a federal judge has temporarily halted a law aimed at abortion clinics.
U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten issued a preliminary injunction Monday that blocks Kansas from stripping federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood. He ordered the state to start distributing the money to the agency.
Welcome to the Tea Party's Austerity Recession
On Monday, the House finally passed a deal to raise the debt limit after weeks of wrangling with a cadre of reactionary, Tea Party-endorsed lawmakers. The measure, which will force some serious cuts to public spending, is expected to easily pass in the Senate. When it does, a painful second "dip" into recession becomes far more likely -- all the conditions are there.
Last week, a depressing report on economic growth caught many observers by surprise. The take-away was that gross domestic product (GDP) – the measure of economic activity within our borders – has been growing at a snail's pace in the first half of this year -- far slower than analysts had predicted. Researchers at the Federal Reserve tell us that since 1947, about half of the times we've had six months of growth as weak as we've seen in 2011, the economy sank into recession in the following year.
Study: Deunionization A Leading Factor Behind Increasing Income Inequality
Deunionization is worsening the income inequality gap, accounting for nearly a third and a fifth of wage inequality among men and women, respectively. According to a study by Bruce Western of Harvard University, data proves “the role of unions as an equalizing force in the labor market“:
“From 1973 to 2007, wage inequality in the private sector increased by more than 40 percent among men, and by about 50 percent among women. [...] deunionization—the decline in the percentage of the labor force that is unionized—and educational stratification each explain about 33 percent of the rise in within-group wage inequality among men. Among women, deunionization explains about 20 percent of the increase in wage inequality, whereas education explains more than 40 percent.
Osama Bin Laden: mission was to shoot to kill from the start
The raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan was a mission to kill him, and there was “never any question” he would be captured alive, one of those directly involved has claimed.
The most detailed account so far of the assassination of the world’s most wanted man describes the May 1 operation in Abbottabad as a “covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden”.
Arrest Warrant Sought for CIA Lawyer
Clive Stafford Smith, a human-rights advocate, is trying to get a former CIA lawyer charged with murder, and he is turning to Pakistani officials for help. Smith says he read about the lawyer, John Rizzo, in a Newsweek article, “Inside the Killing Machine,” that described his role in a government program to kill terrorists with unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.
In a telephone interview from his home in Dorset, England, Smith said he had been surprised at Rizzo’s cavalier manner during the interview, as Rizzo discussed CIA-directed killings with me over wine and steak in a Washington restaurant. “The Côtes du Rhône—that’s what really offends people,” says Smith.
David Koch's Americans for Prosperity Plays Dirty Trick In WI: Mails Absentee Ballots To Dems With Wrong Election Date
Americans for Prosperity is sending absentee ballots to Democrats in at least two Wisconsin state Senate recall districts with instructions to return the paperwork after the election date. The fliers, obtained by POLITICO, ask solidly Democratic voters to return ballots for the Aug. 9 election to the city clerk "before Aug. 11."
A Democrat on the ground in Wisconsin said the fliers were discovered to be hitting doors in District 2 and District 10 over the weekend.
Insurers must cover birth control with no copays
- Health insurance plans must cover birth control as preventive care for women, with no copays, the Obama administration said Monday in a decision with far-reaching implications for health care as well as social mores.
The requirement is part of a broad expansion of coverage for women's preventive care under President Barack Obama's health care law. Also to be covered without copays are breast pumps for nursing mothers, an annual "well-woman" physical, screening for the virus that causes cervical cancer and for diabetes during pregnancy, counseling on domestic violence, and other services.
Cancer-stricken WTC worker gets $0 settlement check
Cancer-stricken Ground Zero worker Edgar Galvis has finally received a compensation check -- for zero dollars.
The 51-year-old Queens man, who suffered sinus problems and then throat cancer after months of removing toxic debris from the World Financial Center, was relieved to get a check in the mail for his court settlement with Merrill Lynch, whose offices he had cleaned.
But he was stunned when he saw the amount: $0.00.
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