December 11, 2009–In the black depths of the frigid Arctic Ocean, scientists on a 2005 expedition found a splash of color: The brilliant, blood-red Crossota norvegica jellyfish (pictured). Read the full story

In September, ladymag Marieclaire ruffled some feathers when it published a piece about women who smoke weed. But its most interesting effect was not the “marijuana moms” chatter it unleashed, and instead the fact that it brought to the mainstream media a more open discussion of the fact that women can be avid tokers, too.

Public acceptance of pot is at an all-time high, and the fact that women have drastically changed their attitudes may be what is most fascinating about the sea change in public opinion — and policy — regarding marijuana. In 2005, only 32 percent of polled women told Gallup they approved legalizing pot, but this year 44 percent of them were for it, compared to 45 percent of men. In effect, women have narrowed what had been a 12-point gender gap. Read the full story

OMAHA, Neb. –  Creighton men’s basketball junior Wayne Runnels has been named the Missouri Valley Conference Newcomer of the Week.

A forward from Watonga, Okla., Runnels had 16 points, nine rebounds and two assists in 21 minutes off the bench at No. 21 Dayton. He made 6-of-7 shots from the floor and 4-of-6 attempts at the line. Twelve of his points came in the first half as Creighton built a 10-point first half edge.

His 16 points were by most in a Creighton debut since P’Allen Stinnett in 2007 and his nine rebounds were the most in a Creighton debut since Nick Porter in 2005.

Creighton (0-1) returns to the floor tomorrow night with a 7 pm home game against Florida A&M.

SAO PAULO, Brazil — A massive 2007 electrical blackout in Brazil has been newly blamed on computer hackers, but was actually the result of a utility company’s negligent maintenance of high voltage insulators on two transmission lines. That’s according to reports from government regulators and others who investigated the incident for more than a year.

In a broadcast Sunday night, the CBS newsmagazine “60 minutes” cited unnamed sources in making the extraordinary claim that a two-day outage in the Atlantic state of Espirito Santo was triggered by hackers targeting a utility company’s control systems. The blackout affected 3 million people. Hackers also caused another, smaller blackout north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005, the network claimed.

Brazilian government officials disputed the report over the weekend, and Raphael Mandarino Jr., director of the Homeland Security Information and Communication Directorate, told the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that he’s investigated the claims and found no evidence of hacker attacks, adding that Brazil’s electric control systems are not directly connected to the internet. Read the full story

The Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko has issued a statement strongly suggesting that the government is preparing to carry out mass forced vaccinations with the untested swine flu jab.

In a statement posted on the government website, Yushchenko announced a crack down on political protests and orders for the arrest of public health officials who have opposed mass “swine flu“ vaccinations and quarantines.

http://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/15609.html

“I instruct the Government and the Ministry of Health to immediately start preventive and promotional work in areas where there is no epidemic, targeting primarily the special risk groups,“ he said.

“This means that medical aid must be urgently reinforced by emergency, critical care treatment. It is generally known that the only way to prevent any infection is vaccination,“ he said. Read the full story

(PhysOrg.com) — In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.

Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world’s oceans, and the rift is indeed likely the beginning of a new sea.

The new study, published in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that the highly active volcanic boundaries along the edges of tectonic ocean plates may suddenly break apart in large sections, instead of little by little as has been predominantly believed. In addition, such sudden large-scale events on land pose a much more serious hazard to populations living near the rift than would several smaller events, says Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester and co-author of the study. Read the full story

Trafigura chartered the Probo Koala to take the waste to Africa. Photograph: Raigo Pajula/AFP

The British oil trader Trafigura has offered to pay out in a historic damages claim from 31,000 Africans injured by the dumping of toxic waste in one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history, the Guardian can reveal. Read the full story

(PhysOrg.com) — Last Wednesday, the Ad Astra Rocket Company tested what is currently the most powerful plasma rocket in the world. As the Webster, Texas, company announced, the VASIMR VX-200 engine ran at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time. The test also marks the first time that a small-scale prototype of the company’s VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket) rocket engine has been demonstrated at full power.

“It’s the most powerful plasma rocket in the world right now,” says Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra. The company has signed an agreement with NASA to test a 200-kilowatt VASIMR engine on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2013. The engine could provide periodic boosts to the ISS, which gradually drops in altitude due to atmospheric drag. ISS boosts are currently provided by spacecraft with conventional thrusters, which consume about 7.5 tonnes of propellant per year. By cutting this amount down to 0.3 tonnes, Chang-Diaz estimates that VASIMR could save NASA millions of dollars per year.

But Ad Astra has bigger plans for VASIMR, such as high-speed missions to Mars. A 10- to 20-megawatt VASIMR engine could propel human missions to Mars in just 39 days, whereas conventional rockets would take six months or more. The shorter the trip, the less time astronauts would be exposed to space radiation, which is a significant hurdle for Mars missions. VASIMR could also be adapted to handle the high payloads of robotic missions, though at slower speeds than lighter human missions.

Chang-Diaz has been working on the development of the VASIMR concept since 1979, before founding Ad Astra in 2005 to further develop the project. The technology uses radio waves to heat gases such as hydrogen, argon, and neon, creating hot plasma. Magnetic fields force the charged plasma out the back of the engine, producing thrust in the opposite direction. Due to the high velocity that this method achieves, less fuel is required than in conventional engines. In addition, VASIMR has no physical electrodes in contact with the plasma, prolonging the engine’s lifetime and enabling a higher power density than in other designs.

http://www.physorg.com/

COLUMN: Get used to losing during college football season
Luke Atkinson/The Daily
Tuesday, September 29, 2009

There is a new craze sweeping college football, and as much as it is hated by hardcore fans who live week-to-week depending how their team performs, it may be here to stay.

Read the full story

The ban on smoking in public places, such as bars and restaurants, has been one of the greatest public health debates of the early 21st century. Now, two large studies suggest that communities that pass laws to curb secondhand smoke get a big payoff—a drop in heart attacks.

Overall, American, Canadian, and European cities that have implemented smoking bans had an average of 17% fewer heart attacks in the first year, compared with communities who had not taken such measures. Then, each year after implementing smoking bans (at least for the first three years, the longest period studied), smoke-free communities have an average 26% decline in heart attacks, compared with those areas that still allow smokers to light up in public places. Read the full story

Paris : Criminal charges have been filed in France against the French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, the Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux and the Minister of Justice Madame Michèle Alliot-Marie for their role in preparing, in secret, a forced “swine flu” mass vaccination campaign starting in September 2009, and also for depriving the people of France of their fundamental civic rights by imposing martial law under the pretext of a pandemic emergency level 6 declaration issued by WHO.

Read the full story

Bryon Russell has a message for Michael Jordan: Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be waiting in California – in my basketball shorts.

“I’ll play his a— right now,” Russell told Yahoo! Sports. “This is a call-out for him to come play me. He can come out here in his private jet and come play. He’s got millions of dollars. He can pay for the jet. He can meet me at the Recreation Center in Calabasas. Read the full story

Morgan Stanley’s John Mack plans to step down as chief executive of the firm in January, marking the end of a tumultuous period in which the storied investment bank suffered both record losses and profits.

Mr. Mack, 64 years old, plans to stay at the firm as chairman. James Gorman, the firm’s co-president, is expected to take over as CEO, while the firm’s other co-president Walid Chammah will become chairman of Morgan Stanley International.

The move marks a significant shift for Morgan Stanley, which has scaled back from risky businesses such as proprietary trading but which has also found that making profits after the financial crisis has been difficult. Mr. Mack ramped up risk after returning to the firm in 2005 and 2006, but was unable to pull it back in time in 2007 and 2008 as the New York bank sustained significant losses.

In Mr. Mack’s tenure, which started in mid 2005, Morgan Stanley stock has fallen about 34%, while that of rival Goldman Sachs Group has risen 70%.

Mr. Gorman’s move to the corner office is a big statement for Morgan Stanley, a firm that has historically collected much of its revenues from investment banking and trading. Mr. Gorman came to Morgan Stanley in 2005 to boost its retail brokerage operation. The unit was seen as something of a backwater in the company created by Morgan’s merger with Dean Witter Discover & Co. Its underperformance even prompted some to suggest Morgan should sell it.

But Mr. Gorman turned it around, and last year amid the crisis, Mr. Mack decided to double down on the brokerage business by purchasing a controlling stake in Citigroup Inc.’s Smith Barney unit.

Mr. Mack, a onetime bond salesman known for his charismatic and fiery speeches, has been credited with keeping the firm alive during its difficult days in 2008, but has been criticized for pushing Morgan Stanley into borrowing more and pursuing a riskier business model along with many of its banking peers during the bull market.

Morgan Stanley stock plummeted last September and October, and the firm required billions in emergency investments from the U.S. government and Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in order to survive. Mr. Mack negotiated the Mitsubishi UFJ deal, convincing the Japanese bank to move ahead with the partnership even as Morgan’s future looked shaky. Since then, Morgan’s stock has rebounded sharply, to $28.64 Thursday from a low of $6.71 during the depths of the crisis.

Mr. Mack took no bonus in the previous two years, helping keep Morgan Stanley out of the spotlight that many banks were been drawn into when they paid rich pay packages to traders, bankers and some executives. Mr. Mack plans to stay on as chairman for up to two years, a person familiar with the matter said.

The appoinment of Mr. Gorman follows an 18 month succession search by the Morgan board of directors in which search firm Spencer Stuart provided a list of outside candidates for the job, but the board never proceeded far down that path, a person familiar with the search said. Walid Chammah, the co-president who is becoming chairman of Morgan’s international business, told the board he wanted to remain in London and therefore wasn’t a serious contender for the job, this person said.

That made Mr. Gorman the odds-on favorite, a standing that was enhanced by his closing the Smith Barney joint venture sooner than planned. Colm Kelleher, the firm’s chief financial officer, and investment-banking chief Paul Taubman were also considered, but Mr. Gorman was viewed as having more experience running large business units. Before working as an executive overseeing Merrill Lynch & Co’s brokerage force, Mr. Gorman had been a director at consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

The management transition, one of the more orderly on Wall Street in recent years, will keep Mr. Mack at the firm. A relentless networker who likes to visit clients on vacation, he also is credited with stabilizing morale at the firm after Mr. Purcell’s departure in 2005. The firm still lost lots of talent however over the years, and Mr. Mack recently looked to the outside to name a new bond trading chief instead of promoting from within.

Mr. Mack’s decision to leave comes almost a year to the day after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy, setting in motion the largest shock to hit the nation’s financial markets since the crash of 1929. Lehman’s collapse, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, cost Lehman Chief Richard Fuld Jr. his job and a few months later Merrill CEO John Thain was let go following a power struggle after his firm was bought by Bank of America. Soon, Goldman’s Lloyd Blankfein will be the only acting CEO who was also running a major Wall Street brokerage firm when Lehman collapsed.

“John Mack has seen enough during his many decades on Wall Street to know the importance of a seamless transition and the handoff to James Gorman should ensure that Morgan Stanley continues to emerge from one of the most challenging chapters in its history,” said Yale Law School professor and former Merrill Lynch & Co. president Gregory Fleming.

Write to Aaron Lucchetti at aaron.lucchetti@wsj.com

The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has just signed a decree granting vaccine makers total legal immunity from any lawsuits that result from any new “Swine Flu” vaccine. Moreover, the $7 billion US Government fast-track program to rush vaccines onto the market in time for the Autumn flu season is being done without even normal safety testing. Is there another agenda at work in the official WHO hysteria campaign to declare so-called H1N1 virus—which has yet to be rigorously scientifically isolated, characterized and photographed with an electron microscope—the scientifically accepted procedure—a global “pandemic” threat? Read the full story

SAO PAULO — The coach of a second-division soccer club in Brazil says armed men threatened players in the locker room after a loss.

Four men carrying guns confronted the players following a 2-1 home loss to Vila Nova on Tuesday, Portuguesa coach Rene Simoes said. The defeat extended the team’s winless streak to six games.

“What kind of football is this? What kind of world is this?” said Simoes, who coached Jamaica at the 1998 World Cup and also coached Brazil’s women’s national team. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my career. It’s unbelievable.” Read the full story

LOS ANGELES, California, September 1, 2009 (ENS) – The level of inorganic mercury in the blood of American women has been increasing since 1999 and it is now found in the blood of one in three women, according to a new analysis of government data for more than 6,000 American women.

“My study found compelling evidence that inorganic mercury deposition within the human body is a cumulative process, increasing with age and overall in the population over time,” said author Dan Laks, a neuroscience researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Read the full story