Don't Read Their Lips: Website Ranks Lawmakers' Words
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
It's a database of words that no lawmaker can talk their way out of. "We just want lawmakers to be a little bit more transparent and accountable," said Tom Lee, with the non-profit Washington, D.C. organization the Sunlight Foundation. On Monday, it announced a retooled and beefed up website, capitolwords.org, that tracks every word uttered on the floor of the U.S. House and Senate, going back 15 years. "It's not only something that's fun," Lee said, "but it's also a serious tool. It can be used to show deliberate ways in which language is used to manipulate the public.
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Watchdog knocks Obama administration on transparency
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
Watchdog knocks Obama administration on transparencyBy Gautham Nagesh - 03/27/11 03:44 PM ET More than two years after he took office the success of President Obama's open government directive is still very much in doubt, according to a prominent government transparency watchdog. Sunlight Foundation executive director Ellen Miller called 2010 "tremendously disappointing" for open government advocates and said little has happened in 2011 to change her view that the Obama administration has failed to deliver on transparency. "It seems like there's been more promises made than reality delivered and we're disappointed," Miller told The Hill this week. Miller said the...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Vitamin D Is Essential To The Modern Indoor Lifestyle
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
Vitamin D Is Essential To The Modern Indoor Lifestyle By Michael Holick October 23rd, 2010; Vol.178 #9 (p. 32) Every cell in the body has a vitamin D receptor protein. It's estimated that upwards of 2,000 genes are directly or indirectly regulated by vitamin D.It’s known that vitamin D is necessary for proper bone formation and maintenance. But recent decades have seen a torrent of studies suggesting that vitamin D can also affect many other aspects of health; some scientists have come to consider the daily recommended intake of 400 international units of vitamin D far too low. Michael Holick...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
University must release Palin contract
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
California State University at Stanislaus and its private foundation violated public records laws and will have to release the speakers contract with Sarah Palin they had tried to keep secret, a judge has ruled. The details of Palin's contract to speak at a June 25 fundraiser for the foundation became national news last spring after foundation officials refused to tell state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, how much Palin would be paid. Yee has been trying to change a state law that shields campus foundations from public scrutiny. The Palin story grew more bizarre in April after students found discarded...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Virginia Commonwealth University participates in Earth Hour, turns out the lights
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Dining Services Earth Hour Event: On Saturday, March 27, at 8:30 p.m. Shafer Court Dining Center and Jonah’s will take part in Earth Hour — the world’s largest climate change event. By simply turning out all nonessential lighting for one hour, Dining Services will join tens of millions of concerned citizens through...out the world in calling for action to save the planet. The locations will remain open, but with limited lighting during this hour. For more information about the VCU event, contact tmhighsmith@vcu.edu.
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Broken Promises — to Voters and the New York Times
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
[snip] At this point, only one of 39 bills that the president has signed has been posted for five days in advance. (The DTV Delay Act was actually not held five days after formal presentment, but the White House posted it after the final version had passed Congress.) Twenty-four other bills have been held at the White House five days or more before the President has signed them. They just haven’t been posted.
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Vitamin D May Not Be The Answer To Feeling SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
A lack of Vitamin D, due to reduced sunlight, has been linked to depression and the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but research by the University of Warwick shows there is no clear link between the levels of vitamin D in the blood and depression. Exposure to sunlight stimulates vitamin D in the skin and a shortage of sunlight in the winter has been put forward as one possible cause of SAD. However Warwick Medical School researchers, led by Dr Oscar Franco, have discovered low levels of vitamin D in the blood may not be connected to depression. The...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Can Vitamin D Save Your Life?
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
Can Vitamin D Save Your Life?New studies highlight the importance of the forgotten vitamin. by Mariana Gosnell For years doctors believed that vitamin D, sometimes called the “sunshine vitamin” because sunlight triggers the body to produce it, was important primarily in preventing rickets (a softening of the bones) in children. Once milk became fortified with vitamin D, rickets pretty much disappeared, and the problem of vitamin D deficiency seemed to have been solved. But according to Michael F. Holick, director of the Vitamin D, Skin, and Bone Research Laboratory at Boston University Medical Center, who has spent 30 years studying...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Exposure To Sunlight May Decrease Risk Of Advanced Breast Cancer By Half
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
Exposure To Sunlight May Decrease Risk Of Advanced Breast Cancer By Half ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2007) — A research team from the Northern California Cancer Center, the University of Southern California, and Wake Forest University School of Medicine has found that increased exposure to sunlight -- which increases levels of vitamin D in the body -- may decrease the risk of advanced breast cancer. In a study reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the researchers found that women with high sun exposure had half the risk of developing advanced breast cancer, which is cancer that has spread beyond the...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Haze Dynasty (pollution in China reducing sunlight at surface)
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
China has darkened over the past half-century. Where has all the sunshine gone? The usual suspect, at least to a climatologist, would be cloud cover. But in the most comprehensive study to date of overcast versus cloud-free days in China, a team led by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, reporting in the current advance online issue of Geophysical Research Letters, has found that cloud cover has been decreasing for the past 50 years. Eliminating clouds from the dimming equation now leaves little doubt that human activity, in the form of a nine-fold increase in fossil fuel emissions...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Scientists Say Sunshine May Prevent Cancer
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
Scientists are excited about a vitamin again. But unlike fads that sizzled and fizzled, the evidence this time is strong and keeps growing. If it bears out, it will challenge one of medicine's most fundamental beliefs: that people need to coat themselves with sunscreen whenever they're in the sun. Doing that may actually contribute to far more cancer deaths than it prevents, some researchers think. The vitamin is D, nicknamed the "sunshine vitamin" because the skin makes it from ultraviolet rays. Sunscreen blocks its production, but dermatologists and health agencies have long preached that such lotions are needed to prevent...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Sunlight Is Increasing On Earth
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
Sunlight is increasing on Earth By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent (Filed: 06/05/2005) More sunlight is reaching the Earth's surface than it was 15 years ago, scientists reveal today. American researchers say there has been a four per cent rise in the amount of solar radiation reaching the planet's surface since 1990. Several studies have shown that up until the late 1980s, four to six per cent less sunlight penetrated the atmosphere than during the 1950s. Researchers believe the shift could be explained by the varying quantity and composition of aerosols, tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in the air. Other...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Babies born in May 'most likely to develop MS'
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
LONDON (Reuters) - People born in May in the northern hemisphere have a higher than average risk of developing multiple sclerosis, researchers said on Tuesday. An analysis of data from studies of more than 42,000 people in Canada, Britain, Denmark and Sweden showed that May babies have a 13 percent increased chance of suffering from the illness later in life, but that having a November birthday decreased the average odds by 19 percent. "If you are born in May, your risk is higher than any other month and if you are born in November your risk is lower than any...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
Sun and hydrogen 'to fuel future'(hydrogen fuel cell)
Posted by admin / Under Sunlight Solar Energy
Sun and hydrogen 'to fuel future' By Jo Twist BBC News Online science and technology staff Turning sunlight into hydrogen could be the future Capturing sunlight to make enough hydrogen fuel to power cars and buildings has been brought a step closer by a British research company. Hydrogen Solar says it has managed to convert more than 8% of sunlight directly into hydrogen with fuel cell technology it has specially developed. For an energy source to be commercially viable, it must reach an efficiency of 10%, which is an industry standard. Hydrogen power, a renewable energy, has the potential...
Published on Monday 6th of February 2012 02:05:12 AM
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