94490
submission
Doc Ruby writes:
Welsh activists have released after an 8 year court battle a Russian study that shows increased cancer linked to eating Genetically Modified potatoes, supporting independent research by Arpad Pusztai:
Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and green campaigner, said: "These trials should be stopped. The research backs up the work of Arpad Pusztai and it shows that he was the victim of a smear campaign by the biotech industry. There has been a cover-up over these findings and the Government should not be a party to that."
Mr Simpson said the findings, which showed that lab rats developed tumours, were released by anti-GM campaigners in Wales. Dr Pusztai and a colleague used potatoes that had been genetically modified to produce a protein, lectin. They found cell damage in the rats' stomachs, and in parts of their intestines.
While the trials have flaws, those methodological defects seem to downplay an actually higher risk of cancer:
Half of the rats in the trial died, and results were taken from those that survived, in breach of normal scientific practice.
94478
submission
stedo writes:
A blogger who wrote his own blogging engine called Forest Blog recently noticed that none other than the MPAA was using his work, and had completely violated his linkware license by removing all links back to the Forest Blog site, and had not credited him in any way.
91170
submission
zentechno writes:
An audit conducted by the Inspector General, and reported at least on CNN has revealed the FBI has lost 10 (more) laptops, which doesn't bother me, but they contained classified information, which I find outrageous. This brings the total of lost FBI laptops to 160 in the 44 months ending in December 2005. Moreover, an audit says 300 laptops were stolen in the previous 28 months (along with an equal number of weapons, but I dare say the information on these laptops has far greater potential to be more dangerious than any weapon I'd atleast care to imagine our government would loose)!
First of all, don't these guys take greater precautions to not "loose" *anything*, and if so don't they take greater precautions to not loose data, and by loose I of course mean expose? I wonder how much time and money goes into reacting to the threat incurred by lost information — counter-counter intelligence, so to speak? As a long-time network-and-data security guy, it really bothers me how long it's taking to get anything approaching reasonable protection of DATA, ESPECIALLY from our government. As a follow-on question, how much of our perception of security and privacy is effected by the "almost good enough" data protection of the public sector? When will people demand better for/from their government if not for themselves?
