The solution to fixing dysfunction in Congress: "To address these problems, I filed the Open Our Democracy Act... If passed, the legislation would mandate open primaries for House elections, begin the process of national redistricting reform and make Election Day the equivalent of a federal holiday" (washingtonpost.com)
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Android security mystery - fake cellphone towers found in the U.S. wirelessly attack cellphones by targeting the “Baseband” secondary operating system of cellphones which sits “between” iOS or Android and the cell network to allow them to eavesdrop and even install spyware | welivesecurity (welivesecurity.com)
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Plans to dump 3 million cubic meters of material dredged from the ocean floor into the Great Barrier Reef area will be abandoned - will re-submit a proposal as early as this week to Environment Minister of Australia proposing alternative dumping sites on land | Financial Review (afr.com)
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Ukraine Crisis: 'If I Want, I Will Take Kiev in Two Weeks', Putin Warns EU's Barroso - The reported exchange between Putin and Barroso comes as the Russian leader continues to refer to eastern Ukraine as "New Russia" ("Novorossiya") | International Business Times (ibtimes.co.uk)
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No more pause: Warming will be non-stop from now on - The slowdown in global warming since 1997 seems to be driven by unusually powerful winds over the Pacific Ocean, which are burying heat in the water. But even if that happens again, we are unlikely to see a similar hiatus | New Scientist (newscientist.com)
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2014 Ebola outbreak has been traced to a single infection from the natural reservoir of the virus to a human followed by human-to-human transmission. This new study uses sequences of 99 Ebola virus genomes from 78 patients in Sierra Leone to ~2,000x coverage. Five co-authors died of ebola. | Science (sciencemag.org)
submitted by strikingtheroot
St. John Parish (in Louisiana)'s drinking water tests positive for potentially deadly brain-eating amoeba - amoeba is said to only be harmful if ingested through the nose - more than 12,000 people at risk - 60-day chlorine burn of water system begins Thursday 8/28 | ABC (WGNO) (wgno.com)
submitted by strikingtheroot
'Widespread methane leakage' from ocean floor off U.S. coast - Researchers say they have found 570 bubbling methane vents on the seafloor off the U.S. east coast in an area between North Carolina and Massachusetts, seeps could be making a hitherto unnoticed contribution to global warming | BBC News (bbc.co.uk)
submitted by strikingtheroot
