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Evolution tracks predictable ways of being

Evolution tracks predictable ways of being

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Ed Yong writes: Most people go to Hawaii for the golden beaches, the turquoise seas, or the stunning weather. Rosemary Gillespie went for the spiders. Situated around 2,400 miles from the nearest continent, the Hawaiian Islands are about as remote as it’s possible for islands to be. In the last 5 million years, they’ve been repeatedly colonized by far-traveling animals, which then diversified into dozens of new species. Honeycreeper birds, fruit flies, carnivorous caterpillars … all of these creatures reached…

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Why we need to figure out a theory of consciousness

Why we need to figure out a theory of consciousness

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All in the mind. Shutterstock By Adam Barrett, University of Sussex Understanding the biology behind consciousness (or self-awareness) is considered by some to be the final frontier of science. And over the last decade, a fledgling community of “consciousness scientists” have gathered some interesting information about the differences between conscious and unconscious brain activity. But there remains disagreement about whether or not we have a theory that actually explains what is special about the brain activity which produces our miraculous…

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Putin may have given Israeli PM Netanyahu the green light to wipe out Iran in Syria in a massive air war

Putin may have given Israeli PM Netanyahu the green light to wipe out Iran in Syria in a massive air war

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Business Insider reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Moscow’s Victory Day parade on Wednesday. Hours later, a massive air war broke out in which, Israel says, it destroyed dozens of Iranian sites in Syria. Statements from Netanyahu suggest that Putin may have given the green light before the attack. Netanyahu left Russia saying that “there is a need to ensure the continuation of military coordination between the Russian military and the Israel Defence…

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Who ordered Black Cube’s dirty tricks?

Who ordered Black Cube’s dirty tricks?

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Trita Parsi writes: I had no reason to be suspicious. I receive dozens of media requests a week and this one was no different. Last summer, I received an email from someone who said that he was a journalist—from an outlet I hadn’t heard of before—and that he wanted to ask a few questions about the Iran nuclear deal. At the time, my book on the subject, Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy, had just appeared….

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Costa Rica to ban fossil fuels and become world’s first decarbonised society

Costa Rica to ban fossil fuels and become world’s first decarbonised society

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The Independent reports: Costa Rica’s new president has announced a plan to ban fossil fuels and become the first fully decarbonised country in the world. Carlos Alvarado, a 38-year-old former journalist, made the announcement to a crowd of thousands during his inauguration on Wednesday. “Decarbonisation is the great task of our generation and Costa Rica must be one of the first countries in the world to accomplish it, if not the first,” Mr Alvarado said. “We have the titanic and…

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Climate denial is a form of American exceptionalism

Climate denial is a form of American exceptionalism

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Brian Kahn writes: America is already great, my friends, at least when it comes to climate denial. New research published this week in Nature Climate Change shows the U.S. is without peers when it comes to denying the basic science of climate change. Scientists surveyed people in 25 countries around the world, and found there’s no country quite like the U.S, where climate denial is much more closely tied to one’s political persuasion than any other country. The researchers say…

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Look, a federal agency is pushing for urgent climate action

Look, a federal agency is pushing for urgent climate action

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Eric Holthaus writes: It’s well-understood at this point that the Trump Administration is no friend to science-based governance. But there’s one federal agency bucking that trend. The Bureau of Reclamation, a division of the Department of Interior, raised fresh alarm in a press release this week about the dire drought in the Southwest. “We need action and we need it now,” said Trump appointee Brenda Burman, who runs the bureau, in the release. “We can’t afford to wait for a…

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Leaving the Iran nuclear deal ‘is a crisis of Trump’s own making,’ say nuclear experts

Leaving the Iran nuclear deal ‘is a crisis of Trump’s own making,’ say nuclear experts

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Motherboard reports: President Trump has pulled America out of the Iran nuclear deal, the Obama-era treaty aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. “If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” Trump said in a televised statement. “It’s clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and root structure of the current arrangement.” The Iran Deal eased economic sanctions on Iran in…

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For Netanyahu, vindication and new risk after Trump’s Iran decision

For Netanyahu, vindication and new risk after Trump’s Iran decision

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The New York Times reports: Netanyahu waged an Ahab-like struggle against the nuclear pact from before its inception during the Obama administration. Now, President Trump has adopted his point of view — not only about the agreement’s flaws but also about Israeli evidence that Mr. Trump said “conclusively” showed Iran had lied when entering into it. Mr. Trump also aligned with Israel on the need to increase pressure on Iran in hopes of curtailing its expansionism in the Middle East….

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Iranian forces fire missiles towards Israeli military outposts in the Golan Heights, says Israeli army

Iranian forces fire missiles towards Israeli military outposts in the Golan Heights, says Israeli army

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Haaretz reports: A barrage of 20 rockets was fired Wednesday night from Syria towards Israeli military outposts in the Golan Heights. No injuries were reported. Several rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. The Israeli army is attributing the attack to members of the Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The rocket fire struck near the border with Syria. The military said intelligence assessments earlier in the week anticipated that after U.S. President Donald Trump announced…

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Iran may step up nuclear program, supreme leader says

Iran may step up nuclear program, supreme leader says

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The New York Times reports: Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday hinted that his country might step up its nuclear program, signaling a possible escalation in an already volatile relationship with Washington after President Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of the 2015 nuclear deal. Mr. Trump said on Tuesday that the United States would leave the agreement under which Iran agreed to strict limits for 15 years on its development of nuclear fuel. The deal was intended…

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Khamenei lambasts Trump as Iranian hardliners rejoice over U.S. nuclear deal exit

Khamenei lambasts Trump as Iranian hardliners rejoice over U.S. nuclear deal exit

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The Guardian reports: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has lambasted Donald Trump over his decision to unilaterally pull the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal, saying that his statement was “ludicrous and shallow”, as hardliners rejoiced at the US exit. “I say it on behalf of Iranian people, Mr Trump, you can’t do a damn thing,” said Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran, a day after the US president broke with European allies over what he said…

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Trump’s dumb decision to withdraw from the deal gave Iran the advantage

Trump’s dumb decision to withdraw from the deal gave Iran the advantage

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Aaron Stein writes: President Donald Trump’s decision to stop abiding by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has undercut American interests and has positioned the United States to fail. The debate in Washington about “fixing or nixing” the deal was never anything more than a euphemism for American abrogation of an international commitment. The discussion has ignored how isolated the United States now is and how its options to deal with Iran are far worse than they were before…

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