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"Lawyers for two men on death row in Oklahoma say the state has informed them it has a new execution protocol that would allow it to choose from any of five lethal injections. The change comes days after the state revealed that it had been unable to obtain the chemicals for its existing protocol: pentobarbital and vecuronium — prompting a court to delay the executions of convicted murderers Charles Warner and Clayton Lockett for a month. In the revised protocol given to the men's defense team, prison officials outline five possible one-drug and three-drug injections it could use to kill...

Subway said today it is removing a chemical used in yoga mats and shoe soles from the bread of it its popular sandwiches after a food blogger got more than 50,000 signatures in a petition drive. "The complete conversion to have this product out of the bread will be done soon," Subway said in a statement. The company said the move had nothing to do with the protest and that it was "already in the process of removing azodicarbonamide as part of our bread improvement efforts." But Vani Hari, the activist blogger who takes credit for the removal of yellow...

GM Debate Not Settled, Say European Scientists Controversy erupts after World Food Prize awarded to Monsanto By Justina Reichel, Epoch Times | October 24, 2013 In the wake of biotech giants Monsanto and Syngenta being awarded the World Food Prize, a European coalition of scientists is challenging claims that the debate around genetically modified foods is settled and that GM foods are safe. The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility, which consists of more than 90 scientists, academics, and physicians, released a statement Monday in response to “sweeping claims” that GM products are safe. “We strongly reject...

Terrorist planned attack on nuclear warhead stockpile By Philip Delves Broughton November 17 2002 The Sun-Herald An Al Qaeda terrorist has confessed that he planned to drive a giant explosive device into a United States air force bunker in Belgium believed to contain nuclear warheads. News of the plot came as the US warned that a broadcast thought to contain the words of Osama bin Laden foreshadowed a likely attack. The FBI said national landmarks and the aviation, oil and nuclear industries were all possible targets. In an interview with a Belgian radio station, Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi, 31, a former...

Diesel pollution makes it harder for honeybees to find flowers by changing the chemical make-up of their scent, scientists have found. Honeybees use floral odors to find flowers that will give the best yields of pollen and nectar, but diesel fumes can affect their ability to locate and recognize the plants, potentially affecting pollination and ultimately global food security. British researchers took eight chemicals found in the odor of oilseed rape flowers and mixed them both with clean air, which had no impact on the scent, and air containing diesel fumes. When mixed with diesel fumes, six of the eight...

President Obama has released the text of the resolution he will send to Congress, asking them to rubber stamp his already-made decision to bomb Syria. The full text of the resolution is below, but here are the key paragraphs:

NIH scientists identify possible treatment target for type 2 diabetesResearchers at the National Institutes of Health have clarified in rodent and test tube experiments the role that inflammation plays in type 2 diabetes, and revealed a possible molecular target for treating the disease. The researchers say some natural messenger chemicals in the body are involved in an inflammatory chain that can kill cells in the pancreas, which produces insulin. A report of the finding appears online in Nature Medicine.“This study is a significant milestone in an ongoing exploration of the endocannabinoid system’s role in the metabolic complications of obesity,” says...

Because there are apparently not enough studies to convince the Food and Drug Administration that controversial chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) should not be used in just about every form of food packaging, yet another study has been published linking BPA to childhood obesity. Meanwhile, a separate study released today showed a possible connection between a widely used plasticizer and diabetes. Both studies are to be published in the September 2013 edition of the journal Pediatrics and are currently available for free online. The first study [PDF] investigated the relationship between levels of BPA in urine and subjects’ body mass index (BMI),...

The petrochemical business long operated below the radar, trying not to draw attention as it rode the boom and bust cycles of the industry. But that’s changing as shale gas has promised a steady supply of low-cost natural gas, which provides both fuel and feedstock for the chemical industry. Chemical companies have become both economic players — an expansion estimated at more than $15 billion is under way at chemical plants along the Texas Gulf coast — and supplicants on the labor market. “It’s super challenging right now,” said Greg Wagner, vice president of human resources at Chevron Phillips Chemical...

The bill would give the EPA authority to ban or restrict the use of chemicals if the agency finds that they pose unacceptable risks, a process that is now all but impossible. Under current law, the government couldn't even ban asbestos, a well-documented carcinogen that has killed thousands of people who suffered devastating lung diseases. "Every parent wants to know that the chemicals used in everyday products have been proven safe, but our current chemical laws fail to give parents that peace of mind," said Lautenberg, who has been pushing for reform since 2005. "Our bipartisan bill would fix the...

Whoever said the days of American manufacturing were over spoke too soon. America's manufacturing days may have stalled for a period, but they are far from over. I see many good days ahead for our nation and manufacturing, but it will take work and the cooperation of government and business to make it happen. Advances in shale development have changed the picture. Today, supplies of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquid (NGL) from shale, once thought unobtainable, have led to record-breaking volumes of fuel and raw materials that will rewrite our future. While attention has primarily focused on the...

It’s being billed as “the largest global event of the decade to focus on the health and empowerment of girls and women.” But it is also very obviously a conference designed to reduce populations of developing nations by promoting a Western-style sexual revolution via chemical contraceptives, access to abortion-on-demand including, the promotion of the chemical abortifacient misoprostol in countries where abortion is illegal, and sex education for youth. On Tuesday more than 4,000 delegates from 145 countries attended the launch of the third Women Deliver conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Featured speakers over the three-day event include Melinda Gates, of...

A new study from researchers in Europe claims that the average IQ in Western nations dropped by a staggering 14.1 points over the past century. "We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study," the researchers wrote in the study, which was published online in the journal Intelligence on Thursday. "Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence and are considered elementary measures of cognition."-snip- The results were measured using data from 1889 to 2004 and were analyzed by Michael...

CHATSWORTH, GA (WRCB) - Hundreds of people in one north Georgia town are not allowed to drink their water. The water treatment plant in Ramhurst is temporarily shut down after someone broke in and changed the chemical settings. It's affecting about 400 Murray County residents. Local, state and federal officials are investigating who's to blame. Officials with Chatsworth Water Works say the source of the problems is at the Carter's Lake Water Treatment Plant in the Ramhurst area. Saturday workers noticed someone had changed some chemical settings. First, officials issued a "boil advisory" but the Environmental Protection Department bumped it...

SEATTLE -- A chemical threat lies hidden in millions of American homes, and top government scientists believe it could be killing cats. Right now in the special session of the state legislature, lawmakers are fighting powerful interests to ban versions of the chemical. Dr. Dennis Wackerbarth is a top expert on hyperthyroidsim, and he said countless numbers of cats die from the disease each year.

U.S. Senators said on Thursday it was time to intervene in Syria, after the United States said for the first time that Syria had likely used chemical weapons against rebel forces. Sen. Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement that President Bashar Al-Assad had “crossed a red line” and that the international community should act to ensure his fall. "The situation in Syria is clearly deteriorating. The Assad regime has crossed a red line by using chemical weapons, which forces us to consider all options as to how we act to influence the balance...

We all saw it coming and now it’s happening — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is going to announce an official ban on styrofoam containers in his State of the City address today. Just to clarify once again, uppercase Styrofam is a trademarked product used in insulation, while what we all know as styrofoam is really extruded polystyrene. Moving on! The ban on styrofoam is part of a larger program the mayor has planned for his last year in office, which will also include more recycling, a curbside food-composting pilot program and more electric vehicles cruising the city streets. His...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has fought against smoking, big sugary drinks and salty food during his tenure, is setting his sights on a new foe: Styrofoam. Bloomberg plans to use part of his Thursday State of the City address to push for a ban on Styrofoam food packaging. He also will call for initiatives that would increase the number of parking spaces for electric cars and begin recycling more plastics and food waste "One product that is virtually impossible to recycle and never bio-degrades is Styrofoam ... something that we know is environmentally destructive and that may...

Obscure al-Qaida Chemist Worries Experts By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent 7 minutes ago He's a mystery in a red beard, with a strange alias and a degree in chemical engineering. In the hands of this alleged al-Qaida operative, it's a specialty that summons visions of poison gas and mass terror. Al-Qaida is "wedded to the spectacular," notes U.S. counterterrorism analyst Donald Van Duyn, and elusive Egyptian chemist Midhat Mursi was said to be exploring such possibilities when last seen, brewing up deadly compounds and gassing dogs in Afghanistan. Van Duyn's FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough...

NBC reporter Dana Lewis reporting live video from newly discovered PLO terrorist training camp that was discovered in Iraq. It has obstacle course, shooting range, pretty much looks like one of the familiar AlQaeda terrorist training camps. Dana Lewis also reports that this camp is close to the infamous pesticide site and that there are some of the same French pesticide drums (not the others suspected of containing the CW "Cocktail" mixture) at the PLO camp along with gas masks and chemical suits. They're not sure what to make of it and the officer in charge was hesitant to say...