The Beer Barrel

August is slow around Washington, so we figured it’d be high time to toss around the idea of kicking Alaska out of the union—or the state leaving on its own accord.
A New York Times report from today points to the reason why: Alaskan politicians love to slam Washington for its over-the-top taxes, spending, and regulation of the state’s hefty...

The rich have more money but the poor are rich in heart: study
August 18, 2010

(PhysOrg.com) -- The world could one day be an economically equal place, if the lower-income population have anything to do with it. In an interesting yet disheartening series of socioeconomic experiments, led by a team of UC Berkeley researchers, the findings are...

'Zombie ants' controlled by parasitic fungus for 48m years
Earliest evidence of fungus that takes over ants' behaviour for its own ends found by scientists



A carpenter ant (Camponotus leonardi) whose body has been consumed by the fungus Ophiocordyceps. Photograph: David P Hughes
The oldest evidence of a fungus that turns ants into zombies...

Open The Borders

Unchecked immigration will solve all of our problems.

Michael Maiello, 11.09.09, 12:01 AM EST

There are too many houses and too many unleased offices, empty...

Mars explorers could use complicated mechanical systems to produce oxygen and filter waste, and eat food carried from Earth. Or they could just save a lot of hassle and plant crops.

A model of Martian gravity’s effects on water flow, nutrient dynamics and root-feeding microbes suggests it’s possible to farm in the Red Planet’s soil.

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