A species of faceless, mouthless so-called zombie worm makes its home in the bones of whale skeletons on the ocean floor. According to Discovery.com, these worms use acid to bore into the bones, where they mate and feed on the nutrients inside. Osedax worms, which are the subject of a study…
Jeff Merkley courts GOP support on ENDA
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., says that he’s been having talks with Republicans about potential support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act – including with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Wis., who recently became the first Republican senator to back marriage equality.Merkley co-sponsored the bill, which would ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, with Republican Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Susan Collins of Maine.”I’ve had an initial conversation with [Portman] and told him I’d be following up as we filed the bill,” Merkley told The Huffington Post. “But I can tell you I’ve sat down with a number of Republicans who have not come out publicly yet. They’re still mulling over what they’re going to do, but I think there’s a very good chance they’re going to be supporting this bill. Whether that comes in a co-sponsorship or an affirmative vote when we are on the floor is yet to be seen. But I think that our numbers will be increasing both in sponsorship and in a floor vote than where we would have been had we had a floor vote even two years ago or four years ago.”Continue Reading… … Read More
Don’t stop believin’: Do atheists need a church?
One Sunday early this month, several hundred heathens gathered outside a deconsecrated church in East London. Most were twenty-something. The girls wore long, crinkled hair and silver rings: the boys, beards and last night’s suit jackets. It was uncommonly sunny, for England.Distracted by the weather, perhaps, or by the sight of so many young things lining up for Sunday worship, a passing car rear-ended the vehicle ahead. The crowd groaned and jeered. “Don’t worry,” a young woman called out, between tender sips of Red Bull. “You’ve got, like, a hundred witnesses!” The crowd laughed and turned inwards, leaving two piqued drivers to the earthly task of exchanging insurance information.Soon enough, the doors opened and we shuffled inside. Near the entrance to the foyer, several church ladies had set a table with biscuits and a few iced cakes.At our final destination, the sanctuary, we were greeted by bare walls and dull paint; presumably, everything of grandeur had been stripped away when the church was rendered unsacred. (The Nave, on St. Paul’s Road, is now an “arts and performance space.”) Almost instantly, the rows of plastic chairs arranged before the altar were filled, and congregants began competing for floor space. A screen above their heads displayed the words “Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More.” And then, our high priest arrived.Continue Reading… … Read More
The Tsarnaevs and me
I started getting facials from Zubeidat Tsarnaeva (pronounced Zu-bey-da) six years ago when I was 17 at a spa in the Boston area. She soon after left the spa and contacted my mom to have us start coming to her house, at 410 Norfolk St., right on the line of Cambridge and Somerville. All throughout my senior year of high school and four years of college I went to her house about three times a year. The last time I went to the house was in December and January of 2011/2012.The first few years the third-floor apartment was often crowded with her two sons, now identified as the alleged Boston Bombers, and her two daughters, one of whom was around my age. It was definitely not a glamorous place to get a facial, as the “spa” was set up in her living room, and during these years the family expanded. The staircase was crowded with their shoes, the house filled with noises of arguing, cooking, etc. She would often apologize for this. Her daughters and Dzhokhar, the younger son, always struck me as perfectly nice and normal kids about my age. As far as I knew the daughters also attended Rindge (the local public high school) along with their brother. She gave a damn good facial, often working on my skin for two or three hours, and this is why my sister, mom and I continued to go back to her home for years.Continue Reading… … Read More
Connecticut sen. lashes out at NRA: What kind of liberty did Newtown kids have?
Connecticut Sen. Chris Brown (D) on Wednesday made an emotion plea on the Senate floor for lawmakers to come to an agreement and pass new gun control legislation following last year’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. “This country has gotten so callously used to…
Mega Man reboot was scrapped after just six months of development
It’s not often that we get to take a look at a potential game that ultimately wound up on the cutting room floor. What’s more, when the game in question was to be a reboot of an iconic franchise from 25 years ago… … Read More
EFF and ACLU team up against CISPA
As noted here previously, a revamped version of CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act), which is just as bad in terms of privacy protections as its first failed iteration, is in the “mark up” stage in the House. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU are working together to rally opposition to the bill, which would see entails companies potentially handing over users’ private information and browsing histories to the government.Representatives from the two groups took to Reddit Monday to answer questions about CISPA and their campaign to stop the bill’s progression into law. EFF’s Mark Jaycox explained the current state of CISPA bill H.R. 624:CISPA is currently at the “markup” stage. This means that the bill has been introduced and will be discussed by the full committee at a meeting. The committee will vote on amendments, edit (ie, “markup”) the bill, and vote on a final version of the bill. Once the final version is voted “out of committee,” it will be ready for a full floor vote where the entire House can vote on it.Continue Reading… … Read More
