Lo Que Al Mundo Le Importa

Green deal home insulation programme 'unlikely to deliver promises' Jan 27th 2013, 19:04 Experts say promises to save money for poorer households and rescue many from fuel poverty cannot be guaranteed The government's flagship "green deal" home insulation programme provides no guarantee of saving money for cash-strapped households, and is unlikely to rescue many from fuel poverty, experts warned ahead of its formal launch on Monday. There was also criticism of the interest rate to be offered for the green deal loans, which is set at just under 7%. The sense of doubt and confusion surrounding the policy was reinforced by a warning from a surveyors' trade body that taking out a green deal loan could cost more than other ways of making home energy efficiency improvements. Green deal loans can be used by households to pay for improvements such as solid wall insulation. The loans are repaid over a period of years through additions to energy bills, and the res

Comment on the Next Generation Science Standards [Greg Laden's Blog] Jan 26th 2013, 17:04 From the NCSE: The Next Generation Science Standards represent a tremendous opportunity to strengthen science education in the United States, but also a tremendous risk. Dozens of states have signed up to consider replacing their existing standards with these new ones. NGSS could revolutionize the US science curriculum, doing great good if they live up to their promise: if evolution and climate change are covered accurately, if they are integrated throughout the curriculum and across grade levels, if the nature of science is presented honestly and incorporated throughout the curriculum, and if the standards are adopted widely by the states. If the standards undercut or skimp on evolution and climate change, or inadvertently include language that can be abused by creationists or climate change deniers, they will pose a great danger to science education for decades to come. The National Ce

Sylvia Plath: 50 years later and the same bitter arguments rage on | Hadley Freeman Jan 22nd 2013, 16:41 Half a century after her death, the debate over the poet burns with ever-greater fervour, but it need not follow that if one is pro-Plath one is anti-Hughes Last week I referred to the upcoming 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan's influential study The Feminine Mystique. As it happens, another half-century anniversary will take place next month, one also involving an American woman, but of a much sadder shade: on 11 February it will be 50 years since Sylvia Plath took her life and gained immortality. As her widower, Ted Hughes, wrote in his skin-pricklingly beautiful 1998 collection Birthday Letters: "Fame cannot be avoided. And when it comes / You will have paid for it with your happiness, / Your husband and your life." Suicide attracts speculation and prurience like flies to rotting food. Most writers who have killed themselves – Ernest Hemingway, David Foster Wal

Taliban retaliate after Prince Harry compares fighting to a video game Jan 22nd 2013, 18:03 Afghan militants scornful of Queen's grandson, saying helicopter co-pilot 'doesn't have the brain to know there is a war here' Prince Harry's remarks that his job as a co-pilot in an Apache attack helicopter required him to "take a life to save a life" may have disconcerted some squeamish westerners. But it was Captain Wales's somewhat blasé attitude to fighting the hardline rebels that has most riled the Taliban. An indignant Taliban spokesman said the young prince was a coward who ran away from fighting the mujahideen, or "holy warriors", as the militants like to call themselves. "I don't believe that he participated in the fighting," said Zabiullah Mujahid. "Maybe he has seen the mujahideen in a movie, but that's it." The young prince's comparing his job as co-pilot gunner to a game on a video console in his int

El hombre que era incapaz de generar nuevos recuerdos Hay películas que ha profundizado en cómo los recuerdos, en suma, configuran lo que somos, como Total Recall o Memento, así que imaginaos cómo sería la vida para alguien que fuera incapaz de generar nuevos recuerdos. Es el caso de un hombre conocido por las siglas H. M., que, a causa de los ataques de epilepsia particularmente fuertes e intensos que sufría, fue intervenido a finales de verano de 1953 en un quirófano del Hartford Hospital, Connecticut, por un neurocirujano llamado William B. Scoville. La operación consistió en succionarle a H. M. un buen puñado de materia de su cerebro, en concreto: la mayor parte del hipocampo, el giro parahipocámpico, el córtex entorhinal y perirhinal y la amígdala. H. M. fue curado de su epilepsia, pero el tributo que debió pagar por ello consistió en convertirse en Dori, el pez incapaz de acordarse de nada en Buscando a Nemo. La condición general de Henry Molaison ha sido descrita como una a

Andy Warhol's unseen early drawings unveiled next week Jan 20th 2013, 16:31 The 300 drawings from the 1950s show a skilled and sensitive side to the artist – more Egon Schiele than pop art When the gallerist Daniel Blau met the gatekeeper of the Andy Warhol foundation in New York and asked if there was any more of the artist's unseen work that could be had, he was not hugely optimistic. He could scarcely believe his eyes when forgotten and unpublished early drawings locked away for more than 20 years were brought out. "It was unbelievable … just unbelievable," Blau told the Guardian. "The Warhol Foundation storage at Crozier is like a hospital – a huge bare room with these metal trestle tables in the middle and big metal doors, so you sit there and wait for what comes. They bring them in and open them up and I just gasped … Wow! I just never expected anything like that to be still there. "It was like someone opened a trunk of your favourite toys that yo

RBS awaits hefty fines for Libor rigging Jan 20th 2013, 17:33 Stephen Hester lays groundwork for penalties expected to be £500m or more It sounds like such fun. A Royal Bank of Scotland trader quips "hahaha" in a series of jovial electronic exchanges as he goes about his work. But it will soon become clear that however much fun the trader felt he was having, the repercussions for the bailed-out bank will be anything but when it is hit with a staggering £500m or so in fines for manipulating Libor. Ever since Barclays was fined £290m in June for rigging the benchmark interest rate, Stephen Hester, the RBS chief executive, has been softening the ground for the bailed-out bank to suffer a similar – or worse – humiliation by regulators on both sides on Atlantic. Hester's counterpart at Barclays, Bob Diamond, was forced out within days of the Libor fine being announced in June but the RBS chief executive will be hoping to secure the support of regulators even though the f

Rev John Graham, aka Araucaria: "Crosswords are a way of life" Jan 18th 2013, 17:22 John Graham has been setting crosswords for half a century. Last week, he used one to reveal he has cancer. Here talks about the art of setting and what makes his solvers so loyal Just over a week ago, thousands of people turned to the Guardian cryptic crossword, saw it was by Araucaria, and settled in for a quiet hour of pleasurable frustration, but soon found themselves assailed by a growing sense of foreboding. "For me, there was chutzpah in making that 18 Down easy for regular solvers," wrote a puzzle reviewer, a few days later. "The rubric sends your eye down to that clue, you run through the six-letter signs of the zodiac, and before even writing it in, your stomach has lurched." A colleague, who did the crossword with her daughter, said: "It was like watching a photograph slowly appearing out of developing fluid." And her daughter turned to her in shock,

Time Warner Licenses Animated Shows And 'Dallas' To Netflix Jan 14th 2013, 17:06 This is the second licensing deal the entertainment giant has cut with Netflix over the last week. In the latest one, beginning on March 30 the streaming service lands all past seasons of Cartoon Network‘s Adventure Time, Ben 10, Regular Show, and Johnny Bravo, as well as Warner Bros Animation’s Green Lantern. It also will have Adult Swim shows Robot Chicken and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sony Pictures Television’s The Boondocks and Warner Bros Television’s Studio 2.0′s Childrens Hospital. Subscribers have to wait a year, to January 2014, before Netflix begins its exclusive streaming run of the first two seasons of TNT’s Dallas. The companies didn’t disclose financial terms. The addition of children’s shows to Time Warner‘s deal with Netflix may revive the debate over whether the streaming service is cutting into ratings for ad-supported kids shows on TV. That was a big concern last year when rat

‘Where Are We Now?’ puede considerarse el mayor éxito comercial de la carrera de David Bowie en Reino Unido desde que en 1986 fuera top 2 con ‘Absolute Beginners’. El primer single de ‘The Next Day’ alcanza el top 6 en las listas británicas en su primera semana, tras haberse situado en el número 1 de iTunes durante 48 horas. La canción ha estado a punto de ser descalificada de las listas oficiales por regalarse también con la descarga del pre-pedido del álbum (como en su momento sucedió a ‘Paradise’ de Coldplay o ‘Gimme All Your Luvin” de Madonna), pero finalmente la Official Charts Company ha reconsiderado su decisión. Así queda su lista oficial de singles desde 1969, según el foro de expertos Buzzjack. 1969 05 Space Oddity 1972 10 Starman 1972 12 John, I’m Only Dancing 1972 02 The Jean Genie 1973 03 Drive-In Saturday 1973 03 Life On Mars 1973 06 The Laughing Gnome 1973 03 Sorrow 1974 05 Rebel Rebel 1974 22 Rock And Roll Suicide 1974 21 Diamond Dogs 1974 10 Knock On Wood 1975 18 You

'Bucket list' teeenager Alice Pyne dies after battle with cancer Jan 13th 2013, 17:55 Seventeen-year-old became famous after writing blog with a wish list of things to do before she died A teenager who gained nationwide fame after writing a "bucket list" of dreams to do before she died, has lost her battle with cancer. Alice Pyne, 17, from Ulverston, Cumbria, managed to complete most of her list, which became an internet sensation after writing about her wishes on an online blog telling of her cancer fight. Alice was feted by celebrities and politicians as the nation rallied to help fulfil her dreams. The teenager, who lived with her parents, Simon and Vicky, and younger sister, Milly, achieved many of her wishes, including going whale watching and meeting Take That before she died on Saturday, after battling the illness for the past six years. In a post on her blog, her mother Vicky gave the sad news. "Our darling girl, Alice, gained her angel wings today

Género pertenece a la familia de las Rubiáceas (Rubiaceae), que tiene alrededor de 500 géneros y más de 6000 especies, la mayoría árboles y arbustos. Son principalmente de origen tropical, y de una amplia distribución, a ella pertenecen plantas medicinales como la ipecacuana (Psichoria ipecacuanha), o la Cinchona spp., de la cual se extrae la quinina. Taxonómicamente, todas estas plantas se clasifican como del género Coffea, y se caracterizan por una hendidura en la parte central de la semilla. Se encuentran desde pequeños arbustos hasta árboles de más de 10 m.; sus hojas, que son simples, opuestas y con estípulas, varían tanto en tamaño como en textura; sus flores son completas (en la misma flor se encuentran todos los órganos) blancas y tubulares; y los frutos, son unas drupas de diferentes formas, colores y tamaños, dentro de las cuales se encuentran la semillas, normalmente dos por fruto. La primera descripción de una planta de café fue hecha en 1592 por Prospero Alpini y, un sig