Biometrics

The DOD has collected tens of thousands of DNA samples from suspects in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere as part of the GWOT... They are maintained in the Joint Federal Agencies Antiterrorism DNA Database. Additional biometric information is collected, including fingerprints, iris scans, etc. The intent is to use these for identification, access control, etc.

The GAO did a study (Ed note: pdf file) to look at the collection and sharing (e.g. with intelligence services, ICE, etc.) of this data, and found that although "... DOD has issued guidance specifying the biometrics data to be collected on individuals who are detained or allowed access to U.S. bases in Iraq..." it has "... not issued guidance specifying a standard set of data to be collected during field activities...", leaving the decision re if and what to collect to the commanders in the field. The GAO concluded that this is an issue, since it reduces the utility of the system (e.g. the commander in the field collects an iris scan, while the central database has a non-matching biometric marker e.g. a fingerprint) ...

To the moon...

Photo credit: ISAN

Following China's putting taikonauts in space (See 'Of great significance' and 'Alexi, Ed, Zhai...') India will be launching a lunar probe tomorrow...

Lunar Mission To Boost India In Asian Space Race
India to launch first unmanned moon mission
India will plant flag on the moon: ISRO chief
Countdown for Chandrayaan-1 begins

Profile

Lebanon's grand ayatollah a moderate with millions of followers
Grand Ayotollah Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah - Wikipedia
Sayyed Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah web site
Terrorist Organization Member Profile: Sheikh Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah

The earth in all its splendor...

Photo credit: Spiegel.de

"Normally new rivers, seas and mountains are born in slow motion. The Afar Triangle near the Horn of Africa is another story. A new ocean is forming there with staggering speed -- at least by geological standards. Africa will eventually lose its horn. Geologist Dereje Ayalew and his colleagues from Addis Ababa University were amazed -- and frightened. They had only just stepped out of their helicopter onto the desert plains of central Ethiopia when the ground began to shake under their feet. The pilot shouted for the scientists to get back to the helicopter. And then it happened: the Earth split open. Crevices began racing toward the researchers like a zipper opening up. After a few seconds, the ground stopped moving, and after they had recovered from their shock, Ayalew and his colleagues realized they had just witnessed history. For the first time ever, human beings were able to witness the first stages in the birth of an ocean..."

For the remainder, along with some amazing pictures, see 'A Continent Splits Apart.'

And from Scientific American on the same subject, 'Birth of an Ocean.' "... Africa is splitting apart at the seams—literally. From the southern tip of the Red Sea southward through Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, the continent is coming un­­stitched along a zone called the East African Rift. Like a shirtsleeve tearing under a bulging bicep, the earth’s crust rips apart as molten rock from deep down pushes up on the solid surface and stretches it thin—sometimes to its breaking point. Each new slit widens as lava fills the gap from below..."

More amazing pictures...

Photo credit: Eitan Haddock

Get the facts...

From a Ohio Democratic Party mailed flyer:

McCain claim: "Senator Obama's political career was launched at a fundraiser hosted at Bill Ayer's home."
The fact: 'Barack Obama began his political career at this Ramada Inn (Ed note: next to a picture of a Ramada), not at Bill Ayers's home."

McCain claim: "Obama and 1960s radical Bill Ayers "palled around" and have a meaningful relationship."
The fact: "Multiple, independent fact checkers and investigative reporters have concluded that the link between Obama and Ayers is "tenuous" and that there is no evidence of any relationship."

The first neatly sidesteps the fact that Obama did indeed have a fundraiser at Ayers' home... Some quotes are provided as "proof" of the second, including "There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now 'palling around,' or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years" [CNN 10/5/08] (note: my emphasis).

Get the facts, heh!

As expected...

Credit: HuffPo screen grab

Colin Powell endorses Obama for president - as expected/predicted, see 'The Powell rehabilitation project' from July 13th, 2008.

10 Questions That Should Have Been Asked of Powell..
The Bagman Cometh: Obama Embraces War Criminal's Endorsement
Powell, Obama, and Torture
Powell to the People cartoon

Single organism ecosystem

Photo credit: Environmental Stress Pathway Project

From harsh conditions in the depths of the earth (in water 2.8 miles underground in a South African gold mine - in total darkness, without oxygen, and at 140 degrees Fahrenheit) scientists have brought forth and gene-sequenced a single-celled bacterium. Desulforudis audaxviator (so named after a passage from a Jules Verne novel).

"... D. audaxviator survives in a habitat where it gets its energy not from the sun but from hydrogen and sulfate produced by the radioactive decay of uranium. Living alone, D. audaxviator must build its organic molecules by itself out of water, inorganic carbon, and nitrogen from ammonia in the surrounding rocks and fluid... D. audaxviator can get its carbon from a number of sources, depending on the local surroundings. It can digest sugars and amino acids, suggesting that one source of carbon might be the dead cells of other microbes in locations .... its genome also contains genes equipping the organism to get carbon from carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, bicarbonate, formate, and other nonbiological sources. Its nitrogen comes from ammonia released from rocks and dissolved in the fluid at level 104, but D. audaxviator also has a gene for a nitrogenase that could, if necessary, extract nitrogen from its surroundings after first converting it to ammonia – a gene that also appears to be shared with high-temperature archaea... traits as defense against viruses, but one system of self-protection is unique to D. audaxviator 's bacterial phylum, Firmicutes: the ability to form endospores, tough structures that shield DNA and RNA from drying out, and from heat, starvation, and chemical attack..."

This joins a long list of 'extremophile' forms of life which can survive under extraordinarily harsh conditions, including:

• Pyrolobus fumari, which survives temperatures of 113 degrees Celsius in hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean.
  
• Colwellia psychrerythrae, which possibly can survive cold down to negative 196 degrees Celsius
• Natronomonas pharaonis, which can survive alkaline conditions to a pH of twelve.
  
• Genus Picrophilus, which can survive acidic conditions to a pH of zero.

Given the presence of life in areas apparently so inhospitable to it, might not life exist elsewhere in the universe?

Goldmine bug DNA may be key to alien life
The Complete Genome of the Uncultivated Bacterium Desulforudis audaxviator
The most extreme life forms in the universe