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A DNA cutting tool that can manipulate human genomic DNA could ultimately find applications in gene therapy, say Japanese scientists.Makoto Komiyama, Narumi Shigi and colleagues at the University of Tokyo recently made the DNA cutter - ARCUT - and used it to cut bacterial DNA at one target site. Now they have shown that it can be tuned to cut human genomic DNA selectively and also to repair it."ARCUT's selectivity meant that the Tokyo team was able to use the cutter to target one site in human genomic DNA" ARCUT consists of a cerium(IV) complex which cuts the DNA and...

Plan could be used to prevent parents from learning what their kids are told - A new proposal in the U.S. Congress would allow children in public schools across the nation to be disciplined for "bullying" if someone else "perceives" a slight over someone's sexual orientation or gender identity, and in one case where such a program already has been implemented, it is being used to exclude parents from any input into what their children are taught about homosexuality and bisexuality. The proposal is H.R. 2262, which was introduced in May by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., just about the same...

Venezuela's Marxist president-dictator Hugo Chavez addressed an influential university in Moscow stating that America's influence in the world is "dying," and will be replaced in "the next decades" by a "multi-polar" world in which Russia plays a leading role. Chavez wants to "accelerate" the process, a sentiment which receives support from the Moscow elite. During his Sept. 9-10 2009 visit,Chavez received an enthusiastic reception from about 1,000 students at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba Peoples Friendship University, an institution founded in 1960 as a KGB training ground for communist revolutionaries and pro-Soviet activists. The university's namesake was a prime minister of the...

VisitDenmark, the country's tourism agency, has removed an advert from YouTube following complaints it promoted promiscuity.The three minute video clip features a young, blonde woman holding a baby called 'August' saying he is the result of a fling with a foreign tourist. Speaking English in the clip, the woman says she is "trying to find August's father" through the video sharing website. In the advert she says: "I'm doing this video because I'm trying to find August's father, so if you're out there and see this, this is for you. We met one night a year ago when you...

TEL AVIV – There is no moral concern regarding cloning human beings since human embryos, which develop into a baby, are "only a handful of cells," argued President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein. "If scientists will be using and cloning embryos only at a very early stage when they are just a handful of cells (say, before they are four days old), there is no good reason for a ban (on cloning)," wrote Sunstein, who was confirmed by the Senate last week as administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. "It is silly to...

SEE THE LATEST ACORN STING VIDEO HERE!

WASHINGTON - No sooner than the Senate Finance Committee's chairman released his long-awaited health care bill today than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it's not good enough for Nevada. Reid is concerned about the cash-poor state's inability to boost Medicaid spending as would be required under the bill.

JERUSALEM – It is "desirable" to redistribute America's wealth to poorer nations, argued President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein. According to Sunstein, global climate change is primarily the fault of U.S. environmental behavior and can, therefore, be used as a mechanism to redistribute the country's wealth. The argument bears striking resemblance to comments made by Obama's former environmental adviser, Van Jones. WND reported Jones used a major environmental convention to argue for spreading America's wealth. Now WND has learned Sunstein made similar, more extensive arguments. The Obama czar penned a 2007 University of Chicago Law School paper –...

Health costs to rise again Insurers to boost rates about 10%; Shift of expenses to workers likely. The state’s major health insurers plan to raise premiums by about 10 percent next year, prompting many employers to reduce benefits and shift additional costs to workers.Increases will range from 7 to 12 percent, capping a decade of consecutive double-digit premium increases, according to a Globe survey of the state’s top health insurers.

CINCINNATI — Police say a woman has been arrested for allegedly spanking another person's 2-year-old son in a Cincinnati store. . . . Cincinnati police say the toddler said something that apparently annoyed Ballard inside a Salvation Army store on Tuesday. Police say she then told the boy's mother she didn't know how to take care of her son, put him over her knee, and spanked him three times.

Algae, paper and salt-water are the key components of thin and flexible new batteries, report Swedish researchers. Cellulose obtained from the bright green Cladophora algae proved to be key to the project, as it boasts a unique nanostructure with a high surface area. Although the batteries have lower voltage and power density than conventional batteries, their low cost and flexibility hold great promise for applications where metal-based batteries are impractical. The research is the product of a collaboration between two teams at Uppsala University in Sweden: Maria Strømme's group, who identified the potential of the algal cellulose, and Leif Nyholm's group, who...

The bad old Axis of Evil is back in the news. That's not because President Barack Obama has resurrected the label, but because he's now planning to hold direct talks with its two surviving charter members, Iran and North Korea. It's one of many signs of change (if not hope) that the phrase itself, "axis of evil," has become less welcome in Washington's diplomatic calculus than envoys of that axis itself. Even before Obama scrapped the entire concept, President George W. Bush during his second term had abandoned the formulation. ... If the term "evil" has now been written out...

The Community Reinvestment Act, first passed in 1977 under Jimmy Carter, was intended to increase minority homeownership. It grew out of charges that banks were "redlining" entire inner-city neighborhoods as bad credit risks. Banks now were forced to perform outreach to these areas. In the '70s and '80s, banks could show that they were trying to do that by advertising in minority newspapers and having representatives sit on the boards of local groups. In other words, they were rated on the effort made and not on the results achieved. Creditworthiness still mattered. In 1995, as Howard Husock pointed out eight...

MANSFIELD, Ohio -- At the Richland County Animal Shelter workers carefully watch cats placed in isolation. "Most of them have the upper respiratory infection," Shelter Supervisor Melissa Houghton says. And Some of them like these up here, have the thinning hair from the fleas," she said attracting our attention to two cats in another cage. The animals are among the survivors taken from a Mansfield home on Wednesday. Responding to a complaint, humane society officials say they found 32 living cats inside the two story home in which the woman who had them had moved only eight weeks earlier. What...

Bertha Lewis Media Blitz: Video of her tonight on CNN w/Blitzer and MSNBC w/Schultz claiming ACORN will 'go after' O'Keefe, Giles and Fox. Click link to watch.

We would probably laugh out loud if a participant in a formal debate contest accused the other team of being racist. Why? Because it would be a clear indication the participant had no viable counter to the other team - a sure sign of defeat - and was using the charge at a hail mary attempt at humor. Yet I watch aghast at the spectacle of no less than Jimmy Carter accusing all people who have oppositions to Obama's policies of being racist. Of course Carter is not alone; he is in the company of many other Democratic politicians, columnists,...

One of the key attorneys working on the challenges to Barack Obama's eligibility to be president – and the first to actually obtain a trial date in federal court on the question – says doubters should be questioning Obama, not her. Various accusations have been cluttering the blogosphere in recent weeks, and today Orly Taitz, an attorney working on a number of cases brought to challenge Obama's eligibility under the U.S. Constitution's requirements that the president be a "natural born" citizen, addressed them on her her blog. "Please don't listen to vicious rumors," Taitz wrote. "I am getting close to...

DETROIT -- Ernie Harwell has said a goodbye of sorts to the Detroit Tigers' fans. The longtime radio play-by-play man humbly waved to the crowd at Comerica Park on Wednesday night after thanking them for their "devotion, support, loyalty and love." Harwell was the voice of the Tigers for more than 40 years. He spoke halfway through the third inning of a game against the Kansas City Royals. Harwell drew loud ovations before and after he came to the batter's box to speak. The 91-year-old Harwell recently was diagnosed with inoperable cancer of the bile duct. He came to Detroit...

September 16, 2009 Funeral Dress: Best Friend Keeps Promise To Private Kevin Elliott Lindsay McIntosh Barry Delaney weeps for Private Elliott. The men made a pact to wear a dress at the funeral of whoever died first It was a promise neither man would have wanted to keep. Yesterday the funeral of a Black Watch soldier killed in Afghanistan took a bizarre turn when his best friend arrived in a bright green dress and pink leg warmers to honour a pact that the two of them had made. [Pic in URL] Private Kevin Elliott and his friend, Barry Delaney, had...

Democrats in the Senate had hoped to get a fig leaf of bipartisanship from Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins (R-ME) once Max Baucus rolled out his supposedly moderate bill for overhauling the American health-care system.  Yesterday, Snowe rejected the bill, leaving Democrats isolated and divided on the bill, just days after Obama demanded action on the effort: Senate Democrats are going to have to move forward on healthcare without a single Republican supporter after Sen. Olympia Snowe said Tuesday she could not back the Finance Committee’s bill.Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) failed to win any Republican backer despite weeks of intense...