ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

January 1, 2013 - Inhaling carbon nanotubes could be as harmful as breathing in asbestos, and its use should be regulated lest it lead to the same cancer and breathing problems that prompted a ban on the use of asbestos as insulation in buildings, according a new study posted online today by Nature Nanotechnology. During the study, led by the Queen's Medical Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh/MRC Center for Inflammation Research (CIR) in Scotland, scientists observed that long, thin carbon nanotubes look and behave like asbestos fibers, which have been shown to cause mesothelioma , a deadly cancer of the membrane lining the body's internal organs (in particular the lungs) that can take 30 to 40 years to appear following exposure. Asbestos fibers are especially harmful, because they are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs yet too long for the body's immune system to destroy. The researchers reached their conclusions after they exposed lab mice to

January 1, 2013 - A mobile phone that charges in your pocket, a flat-screen TV that needs no power cord, a car fueled by a cordless panel in the floor: In a nondescript building just outside Boston, these and other applications of wireless electricity signal a future with fewer snaking cables. WiTricity, a company spun off from research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), aims to redefine how people use energy, making it possible to power devices without ever plugging them into an outlet. In WiTricity's lab, various devices run on power transmitted via electric coils through the air. "It is not hard to imagine that in the next few years, you go to a coffee shop, sit down in a chair, sign into a power zone, and charge your phone or laptop," said Richard Martin, editorial director for Pike, a market research group that focuses on smart-energy solutions. "We predict this technology taking off in a similar fashion to how Wi-Fi got its start a decade o

Opinión Winston Churchill, según la pluma de Alan Moorehead ISAAC OTERO | 31 de diciembre de 2012 “Cree, llevado de su ingenuidad, que pertenece al círculo de los elegidos, de esos que opinan que un poder superior les ha entregado la vida de los mortales corrientes para que la utilicen como materia prima en la consecución de sus hazañas –escribió Herber George Wells–. Es un hombre fantasioso y poseído por sueños de grandeza. A este respecto sus fantasías oníricas son muy similares a las de d’Annunzio. Si éste hubiera sido inglés, se habría convertido en un Churchill; y si éste hubiera sido italiano, se habría convertido en un d’Annunzio… Churchill ansía por encima de todo un teatro del mundo repleto de rufianes y con un solo héroe: él”. Acerca de la vida y personalidad de Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill es insoslayable tener presente la obra Churchill, and his World –publicada en Londres por ‘Thames and Hudson’– y traducida del inglés al español por Pilar Bosque Sendra en Editorial ‘

En la localidad estadounidense de White Sulphur Springs, Virginia Occidental, en un frondoso valle al pie de las montañas Allegheni, se encuentra el pestigioso hotel de lujo The Greenbrier, bajo el que yace enterrado uno de los secretos mejor guardados de la Guerra Fría, el búnker concebido para refugiar a los congresistas y senadores de los Estados Unidos durante el transcurso de una emergencia nacional. La construcción del búnker comenzó a finales de la era Eisenhower, en 1959, y la instalación entró en funcionamiento en 1961. Durante más de 30 años fue mantenida plenamente operativa por un reducido grupo de empleados federales que trabajaban como técnicos para Forsythe Associates, una compañía tapadera del gobierno que prestaba servicios de mantenimiento de los televisores y sistemas audiovisuales del Greenbrier. Bautizado como Isla Griega (Greek Island), el proyecto fue parte del Programa para la Continuidad del Gobierno, la iniciativa federal dirigida a garantizar la supervivencia

Dec. 30, 2012 — Rare DNA faults in two genes have been strongly linked to bowel cancer by Oxford University researchers, who sequenced the genomes of people from families with a strong history of developing the disease. The researchers sequenced the entire DNA genomes of 20 people from families with a strong history of bowel cancer. Eight of the 20 people had developed bowel cancer, while the rest had a first-degree relative who had developed the disease. The findings are published in the journalNature Genetics. They found that everyone who had a faulty POLE or POLD1 gene developed bowel cancer or had a precancerous growth in the bowel. To confirm their findings they then looked for faults in these two genes in almost 4,000 people with bowel cancer, and 6,700 people without the disease. Neither of the genetic faults was found in people without bowel cancer. However, 12 people with a fault in the POLE gene were found in the bowel cancer group, and one person had a POLD1 gene fault. Th

December 30, 2012 - These days, there are few few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bare arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions. This will probably come as a total shock to most of my Western readers, but at one point, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. This was, of course, when we were free under the Tsar. Weapons, from swords and spears to pistols, rifles and shotguns were everywhere, common items. People carried them concealed, they carried them holstered. Fighting knives were a prominent part of many traditional attires and those little tubes criss crossing on the costumes of Cossacks and various Caucasian peoples? Well those are bullet holders for rifles. Various armies, such as the Poles, during the Смута ( Times of Troubles), or Napoleon, or the Germans even as the Tsarist state collapsed under the weight of WW1 and Wall

At least 10 people have been killed and 46 injured in a series of explosions across Iraq on Monday At least 10 people have been killed in a series of attacks across Iraq. According to police, the explosions on Monday also left 46 wounded, and killed seven members of an Iraqi family near their home in Mussayab, south of the capital Baghdad. Al Jazeera’s Osama Mohammed, reporting from Baghdad, said that unknown gunmen assaulted the house of Kalid Luhaibi, National Reconciliation adviser near Baquba city, west of Baghdad killing a security guard and wounding two. Three consecutive road side bombs were set off early on Monday targeting a police vehicle and the house of a prominent tribal sheikh leader in Balad Rouz town, east of Baquba city, killing one policeman and injuring four. The head of the Babel provincial council’s convoy was also targeted with a car bomb parked in front of the provincial building killing one civilian and injuring five.

Al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen offer $160,000 in gold for killing the US ambassador, three months after the envoy to Libya was murdered. Motorcycle hit in drone strike in Yemen Al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen offer $160,000 in gold for killing the US ambassador, three months after the US envoy to Libya was murdered. The US State Dept. presumably will take the matter more seriously than it did when senior officials ignored events leading up to the brutal killing of Christopher Stevens on September 11. The al-Malahem terrorist website also offered $23,000 to anyone who murders an American soldier, but the offer is valid for only six months. The website posting followed a US drone strike in Yemen that killed three AQ terrorists, including a senior Al Qaeda member, Saleh Mohammed al-Ameri. The bounties were set to "inspire and encourage our Muslim nation for jihad," the statement said. A day earlier, five others were killed, and the US army carried our four drone strikes during t