Read 'Em and Weep

Effect Measure on bird flu in Gaza:

The Israelis may rue the day they purposely destroyed the Palestinian civil infrastructure, including its health services (and continue to do so by withholding money they got by taxing Palestinians). And they will surely rue the day they bankrupted themselves and crippled their own infrastructure along with it by waging perpetual war, just as the US and its perpetual war has seriously weakened its own civil society....The virus is indifferent to this stupidity. From its point of view a Muslim or Christian Palestinian looks exactly the same as a Jewish Israeli. Same human cells. Same respiratory tract. Same immune systems. Same genetic machinery it can commandeer to make more copies of itself. It doesn't ask what superstition addles the brain of its new host. Superstition can't hurt this virus.

Let me ask: who's smartest, a Palestinian, an Israeli or this little virus?

Peak Energy on biofuels:

Malayasia might as well be a big wad of toilet paper for Westerners. Use once, call it "green" and throw away a functioning forest ecosystem for 100,000 years.

Delusion is not acceptable. Bio-Fuels are not acceptable. They will persist only as long as abundant energy allows.

Strategic Security Project Blog on new Russian warheads:

Will any nations observe the NPT in five to ten years from now? And how many non-nuclear states will produce their own weapons in that time period? Their efforts to become part of the nuclear club appear to be speeding up. The Soviet Union’s breakup - without a doubt the best thing that could have happened to that nation’s people – continues to have critical unintended consequences on a global scale.

Mike the Mad Biologist on restaurant toilet-water versus restaurant ice:

Jasmine Roberts, 7th-grade student:
"My hypothesis was that the fast food restaurants’ ice would contain more bacteria that the fast food restaurants’ toilet water."

We Make Money Not Art on chickens with teeth:

The team have...managed to induce teeth growth in normal chickens – activating genes that have lain dormant for 80 million years.

Last, Zone Interdite is compiling data on restricted areas all over the world. They're also working on 3D site reconstructions, so you can take a virtual walkthrough. The image above is a screenshot from their tour of Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay.