Insects are the most speciose group of animals, but the phylogenetic relationships of many major lineages remain unresolved. We inferred the phylogeny of insects from 1478 protein-coding genes. Phylogenomic analyses of nucleotide and amino acid sequences, with site-specific nucleotide or domain-specific amino acid substitution models, produced statistically robust and congruent results resolving previously controversial phylogenetic relations hips. We dated the origin of insects to the Early Ordovician [~479 million years ago (Ma)], of insect flight to the Early Devonian (~406 Ma), of major extant lineages to the Mississippian (~345 Ma), and the major diversification of holometabolous insects to the Early Cretaceous. Our phylogenomic study provides a comprehensive reliable scaffold for future comparative analyses of evolutionary innovations among insects.

See AAAS... http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6210.cover-expansion?utm_source=eloqua

Picture above by Gus: a citrus stink-bug. Insects can be beneficial to our crops though the ones we call "bugs" are often destructive. Our way to deal with this "problem" is often destructive as well. Poisons, insecticides and herbicides often degrade our environment, contrary to the glossy advertising that tell us that this or this spray kills 99.9 per cent of insects with added 100 per cent natural ingredient. This latter information is misleading: ONE OF THE INGREDIENT is 100 per cent natural, while the other active ingredients are not. Beware. The "localised" destruction of some insects can lead to a reduction in bird population and to reduction in pollination on a large scale.

Turdy Tony is the pissant of Australian politics:

Australia is resisting a last-ditch push by the US, France and other European countries for G20 leaders at next week’s meeting in Brisbane to back contributions to the Green Climate Fund.

The prime minister has previously rejected the fund as a “Bob Brown bank on an international scale” – referring to the former leader of the Australian Greens.

The Green Climate Fund aims to help poorer countries cut their emissions and prepare for the impact of climate change, and is seen as critical to securing developing-nation support for a successful deal on reducing emissions at the United Nations meeting in Paris next year.

The US and European Union nations are also lobbying for G20 leaders to promise that post-2020 greenhouse emission reduction targets will be unveiled early, to improve the chances of a deal in Paris, but Australia is also understood to be resisting this.

As reported by Guardian Australia, Australia has reluctantly conceded the final G20 communique should include climate change as a single paragraph, acknowledging that it should be addressed by UN processes. Australia’s original position was that the meeting should focus solely on “economic issues”.

The text that has so far made it through the G20’s closed-door, consensus-driven process is very general, and reads as follows:

“We support strong and effective action to address climate change, consistent with sustainable economic growth and certainty for business and investment. We reaffirm our resolve to adopt a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that is applicable to all parties at the 21st Conference of the Parties in Paris in 2015.”

Australia had previously insisted the G20 should discuss climate-related issues only as part of its deliberations on energy efficiency, but the energy efficiency action plan to be agreed at the meeting, revealed by Guardian Australia, does not require G20 leaders to commit to any actual action.

Instead it asks them to “consider” making promises next year to reduce the energy used by smartphones and computers and to develop tougher standards for car emissions.

read more; http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/07/g20-australia-resists-international-call-supporting-climate-change-fund

The Australian government has cited controversial cuts to unemployment benefits as one of the key structural reforms that will increase economic activity by 2 per cent, according to a draft of its growth strategy to be submitted to the G20 leaders' summit.

The reference to the jobless reforms – which include a measure preventing unemployed people under 30 from accessing welfare payments for up to six months – comes even though the changes have been blocked in the Senate.

The objective of boosting economic growth by 2 per cent "above what is currently expected" during the next five years is the main goal of the G20 meeting, to be held in Brisbane at the weekend.

We live in a world dominated by capitalism — yet capitalism itself is quite clearly not working well in its current form; Herman Royce suggests using its innate proclivities and talents to design its own replacement.

IT’S QUITE AN UNDERACHIEVEMENT. It hasn’t just been happening recently, though, it’s been going on for at least decades in one form or another. The Budget still being fought over with tenacity and ill-feeling, months after its announcement, and despite military distractions, is just a recent glaring example. But given the game rules, the dominance of monetary concerns should hardly be surprising.

I explained previously why an economic system built around the notion of profit guarantees instability,  because for someone to profit now, someone else must lose — now or later.

A side effect, however, is that game players inevitably find endless reasons for territorial disputes over entitlements, imagined or otherwise. Indeed, with the possibility of profit urging us on, with enough no longer ever enough and even more barely sufficient, the prospect of less – for whatever reason, whether justified or not – can only be highly objectionable.

Of course, the starting point for threats of less is always the claim that there’s not enough to go round, so we need to tighten our belts, cut back, pull our weight, and a host of other hoary clichés. Mind you, too often, the most cliché-ridden exhorters place little or no demand for sacrifice on themselves, only on those doing less well. But surely this is exactly what a competition of unequals must unleash, with some players more suited to the game by disposition, inheritance, luck, lack of empathy, and/or much else. Competition for profits, after all, is supported and motivated by the pursuit of self-interest, which is sanctified by the game rules.

So, no wonder winners expect losers to pay — or, to use an example frequently reported by Independent Australia, why too much of the media often pedals interests and opinions as news and tries to influence the public and even elections (by shamelessly barracking for one candidate or party and deriding others), as to do otherwise would be to not pursue self-interest.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/designing-capitalisms-successor,7079

http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2014/nov/12/banks-fined-foreign-exchange-rigging-probe-fca-boe-live

Gus: if I steal an egg from the grocery store, should I be found out, I'll be castigated, fined and possibly sent to prison (depending on the size of the egg, bike or clothe I stole)... Here people have deliberately stolen billions from the punters and no-one is going to prison... All the banks have is to pay a fine that you will have to pay eventually...

As mentioned before those who created the Global Financial Crisis were actually placed in charged of "fixing it" by giving cash to the banks... Gangsters, banksters, wankers...

The Science of Political Economy is a lie, — wholly and to the very root (as hithero taught). It is also the damnedest, that is to say the most Utterly and to the Lowest Pit condemned of God and His Angels, that the Devil, or Betrayer of Men, has yet invented, except his (the Devil's) theory of Sanctification. To this "science" and to this alone (the Professed and organised pursuit of Money) is owing All the Evil of modern days. I say All. The Monastic theory is at an end. It is now the Money theory which corrupts the church, corrupts the household life, destroys honour, beauty, and life throughout the universe. It is the Death incarnate of Modernism, and the so-called science of its pursuit is the most cretinous, speechless, paralysing plague that has yet touched the brains of mankind...

John Ruskin, 1862

Hummmm....

FIFTY years ago this month, the Irish physicist John Stewart Bell submitted a short, quirky article to a fly-by-night journal titled Physics, Physique, Fizika. He had been too shy to ask his American hosts, whom he was visiting during a sabbatical, to cover the steep page charges at a mainstream journal, the Physical Review. Though the journal he selected folded a few years later, his paper became a blockbuster. Today it is among the most frequently cited physics articles of all time.

Bell’s paper made important claims about quantum entanglement, one of those captivating features of quantum theory that depart strongly from our common sense. Entanglement concerns the behavior of tiny particles, such as electrons, that have interacted in the past and then moved apart. Tickle one particle here, by measuring one of its properties — its position, momentum or “spin” — and its partner should dance, instantaneously, no matter how far away the second particle has traveled.

The key word is “instantaneously.” The entangled particles could be separated across the galaxy, and somehow, according to quantum theory, measurements on one particle should affect the behavior of the far-off twin faster than light could have traveled between them.

Entanglement insults our intuitions about how the world could possibly work. Albert Einstein sneered that if the equations of quantum theory predicted such nonsense, so much the worse for quantum theory. “Spooky actions at a distance,” he huffed to a colleague in 1948.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/opinion/sunday/is-quantum-entanglement-real.html

Gus: the key definition here is "twin" or partner particles. 

read also: on the pursuit of wealth...

Neuroscientist Lyn Beazley has been named Western Australia's Australian of the Year.

Professor Beazley has spent more than 30 years in the field of neuroscience, researching brain damage recovery and changing clinical practice in the treatment of infants at risk from pre-term delivery.

She was also WA's chief scientist from 2006 to 2013, advising the State Government on science, innovation and technology.

She helped set up a nationwide hotline for laboratory technicians in schools, worked for healthier waterways across the state by establishing Dolphin Watch, and was involved in the negotiations for the Square Kilometre Array, a radio telescope project.

WA's Senior Australian of the Year is Graham Mabury, OAM, who established Lifeline in WA, a 24-hour counselling service used by people in need.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-15/neuroscientist-lyn-beazley-is-was-australian-of-the-year/5894122

Lyn Beazley is passionate about encouraging children to embrace science as a career. (ABC News)

Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin is doing its best to shatter my favourite science cliche.

"Nuclear fusion is just 30 years away - and always will be."

The advanced projects team at Lockheed, known as Skunk Works, has unveiled a plan to develop a compact, magnetic fusion device in less than a decade.

OK, Skunk Works has a history of developing secret military aircraft over the past 70 years, but nuclear fusion?

What have they been smoking, you might say.

The team believe they have found a new way of squeezing atoms together so they fuse and generate energy, in a small-scale magnetic device.

As a result, they aim to build a reactor a 10th the size of current approaches.

They argue that their device, which would fit on the back of a truck, could produce 100 megawatts (MW) of power and use just 25kg of fuel in a year.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29710811

Gus Leonisky's Team of brainiacs has only been one year off from solving the problem of hot nuclear fusion, for the last 50 years... May be what has been missing so far is the magnetic ingredient which as usual seems to demand more power than the power produced, unless the Lockheed people have cracked it — by using refrigeration to near 0 Kelvin for super-fluidity, super-conductivity and super-magnetic results...

Other research by the GLT is on photosynthesis differential of strong alkaline plant leaves (such as agaves) "coupled" with acid plant sap or acidified sugar (vinegar). It provides electricity experimentally on a small scale.

Pope Francis has warned that planet Earth will not forgive the abuse of its resources for profit, urging the world's leaders to rein in their greed and help the hungry.

He said if action was not taken the world risked a doomsday scenario in which nature would exact revenge.

"God always forgives, but the earth does not," the Argentine Pope told representatives from 190 countries gathered for the Second International Conference on Nutrition in Rome.

"Take care of the earth so it does not respond with destruction."

Pope Francis, a staunch defender of the poor, said the world "paid too little heed to those who are hungry".

While the number of undernourished people dropped by over half in the past 20 years, some 805 million people were still affected in 2014.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-21/doomsday-pope-warns-greed-will-destroy-world/5908034

These stink bugs are different from the one at top... These have two sharp prongs on the body that can pierce the toughest skin of predators... or gardener's gloves... Nature's book is amazing and full of weirdoes... Sometimes one wonders why some insects do not destroy a whole plant of such. The answer is simple: a fruit that is half-eaten can still give rise to a new plant. A fruit that is fully eaten is worthless to the future — except some plants seeds survive digestion of birds for example and propagate by using birds and insect to carry seeds away from the mother plant... But even then the seed is "protected/coated" from being destroyed.  Do insect know this? Not in such terms but in the term that there is balance. More fruit or seeds destroyed, the less food left for insects on their next batch. less insects. Mono-culture tends to upset this balance and has to have "insecticides" to stop crop destruction... In the process we destroy nature, often beyond repair.

See also  of spiders' webs...

Australia's main ski resorts are hoping for a change in the weather, with a lack of recent snow falls limiting their operations just as school holidays loom in NSW and Victoria.

Alpine regions have received little in the way of snow since a strong cold front brought good falls in time for the official opening of the ski season earlier this month.

While some snow showers may arrive over the next day or so, falls may be restricted to about 2cm and reach only down to 1600-1800 metres, according to Anthony Duke, a meteorologist for Weatherzone. 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/australian-snow-fields-anxious-for-some-good-falls-as-holidays-beckon-20150624-ghw1t6

Pakistan's PM Nawaz Sharif has called for emergency measures as the death toll from a heatwave in southern Sindh province reached nearly 700.

The army is now being deployed to help set up heat stroke centres, with temperatures reaching 45C (113F).

Officials have been criticised for not doing enough to tackle the crisis.

There is anger among local residents at the authorities because power cuts have restricted the use of air-conditioning units and fans, correspondents say.

Matters have been made worse by the widespread abstention from water during daylight hours during the fasting month of Ramadan

read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33236067

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Good rain across much of New South Wales in recent weeks may have improved the seasonal outlook but threatening that prospect is a developing El Nino.

It's not necessarily all doom and gloom though according to independent weather forecaster Don White.

Mr White said not every El Nino event spells disaster for agriculture.

"It does mean the chances of moisture coming in from the tropical south pacific into south east Australia decreases," he said.

"If the chances of that moisture decrease then the areas that depend on that moisture will have more of a struggle to reach average rainfall."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-23/weather-forecaster-says-el-nino-misunderstood/6566230

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This article is part of Climate for Change, a Fairfax Media series on global warming. Full coverage here. Follow our coverage on Facebook.

The biggest boost to public health this century could come from the same actions needed to tackle climate change, such as shutting down coal-fired power plants and designing better cities.

British medical journal The Lancet – one of the most prestigious in the world – has drawn together a team of more than 40 health experts from Europe and China to produce a major assessment of what harm climate change will cause to human health.

The review, the first The Lancet has commissioned since 2009, finds climate change represents a "potentially catastrophic" risk to human health that threatens to undo 50 years of medical gains.

But the 2015 assessment also tries to paint an optimistic picture that action to halt climate change, and to prepare for its impacts, presents a significant opportunity to improve the health of people around the world.

"Given the potential of climate change to reverse the health gains from economic development, and the health co-benefits that accrue from actions for a sustainable economy, tackling climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity of this century," the report says.

While the exact magnitude of climate change's hit to human health is hard to predict with precision, The Lancet's report says it will be pervasive. Later the report says on current emissions trends there could be serious population health impacts in every region of the world within 50 years.

The report points to conservative World Health Organisation estimates that well understood climate change impacts alone could lead to an additional 250,000 deaths between 2030 and 2050.

There are a number of ways climate change is expected to harm human health.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference/saving-the-planet-will-make-us-healthier-major-medical-assessment-finds-20150623-ghuu3w

See also: on close examination, doctor shelby bonzer made an astonishing revolutionary discovery...

Read stuff from top.

The Met Office has lost the contract it has held for close to a century to provide weather forecasts to the BBC.

The weather service said it was disappointed by the BBC’s decision to tender the contract – which has been in place since the corporation’s first radio weather bulletin on 14 November 1922 – to outside competition.

The broadcaster said it was legally required to open up the contract to outside competition to secure the best value for licence fee payers.

Steve Noyes, Met Office operations and customer services director, said: “Nobody knows Britain’s weather better and, during our long relationship with the BBC, we’ve revolutionised weather communication to make it an integral part of British daily life.

“This is disappointing news, but we will be working to make sure that vital Met Office advice continues to be a part of BBC output. Ranked number one in the world for forecast accuracy, people trust our forecasts and warnings.”

A new provider is expected to take over in the next year. Dutch and New Zealand firms are said to be in the running for the contract, which is believed to make up a sizeable share of the £32.5m the Met Office receives annually from commercial organisations, according to the Mail on Sunday.

The Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen told the newspaper: “Everybody understands the BBC has to cut costs. But the public will need to be convinced the new forecaster can accurately predict the fickleness of the British weather, especially if it’s a foreign provider.”

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/23/met-office-loses-bbc-weather-forecasting-contract

So the weather will be analysed by the MET office, given to a provider to on-sell it cheap to the BBC. Have I seen something more ludicrous? Yes but this one is high on the scale of stupid.