Multiple drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria seen under an electron microscope. Photo: CDC By flooding our environment with antibiotics, people may alter a little-appreciated but profound aspect of bacterial evolution: the very pace at which it occurs. Bacteria may evolve more rapidly and more radically than just a few decades ago. This proposition is still a hypothesis, but it’s an intriguing one. While drug resistance is a well-known consequence of antibiotic use, a global acceleration of bacterial mutability could make drug resistance more common and shape pathogens in unpredictable ways. “Human activities might be altering the fundamental tempo of bacterial evolution,” write geneticists Michael Gillings of Australia’s Macquarie University and Hatch Stokes of the University of Technology in a June Trends in Ecology and Evolution paper. ... Continue reading →

Can an airline boot a passenger for wearing a T-shirt it deems "offensive"? That's apparently what happened to one woman wearing a pro-choice T-shirt on an American Airlines flight out of Washington this week, RH Reality Check reports. The woman boarded her first flight just fine, wearing a T-shirt that read, "If I wanted the government in my womb, I'd fuck a senator." (The shirt was made in response to a sign that an Oklahoma lawmaker made earlier this year to protest a proposed law granting rights to fertilized eggs.) But as the woman was about to deboard to switch to her next flight, a flight attendant approached her and told her that she needed to talk to the captain because her T-shirt was "offensive." ... Continue reading →

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll gets ready to take out Osama bin Laden. The F-35 fighter jet's first missile floated wide. The second found its target, and an explosion brought the bogey down. "Yes! Got him! Woo!" exclaimed the pilot, Jennifer Carroll, a 52-year-old former Navy officer and airplane mechanic. But it's Carroll's current job—lieutenant governor of Florida—that explains why her simulator flight was being closely watched by about two dozen members of the Florida League of Defense Contractors at an industry gathering in Tallahassee on a drizzly morning in mid-February. Next, with a technician from Lockheed Martin furiously pointing at indicators and whispering commands over her shoulder, Carroll nosed the simulator down to take on a ground target. "Three, two, one…blam!" she exclaimed, to laughter. ... Continue reading →

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website. Recent months have seen a flurry of headlines about cuts (often called "threats") to the US defense budget. Last week, lawmakers in the House of Representatives even passed a bill that was meant to spare national security spending from future cuts by reducing school-lunch funding and other social programs. Here, then, is a simple question that, for some curious reason, no one bothers to ask, no less answer: How much are we spending on national security these days? With major wars winding down, has Washington already cut such spending so close to the bone that further reductions would be perilous to our safety? In fact, with projected cuts added in, the national security budget in fiscal 2013 ... Continue reading →

Original image by Diana Walker for Time. Continue reading →

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Drilling a horizontal shale gas well. WikipediaIf the world can be seen in a grain of sand, watch out. As Wisconsinites are learning, there's money (and misery) in sand—and if you've got the right kind, an oil company may soon be at your doorstep. March in Wisconsin used to mean snow on the ground, temperatures so cold that farmers worried about their cows freezing to death. But as I traveled around rural townships and villages in early March to interview people about frac-sand mining, a little-known cousin of hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," daytime temperatures soared to nearly 80 degrees—bizarre weather that seemed to be sending a meteorological message. In this troubling spring, Wisconsin's prairies and farmland fanned out to undulating hills that cradled the land ... Continue reading →

This story first appeard on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It was an odd choice of icon for the ultra-conservative Heartland Institute. But there he was in round glasses, beard, and halo of curls staring out from T-shirts and coffee mugs at their gathering of climate change contrarians this week, the scientist whose internet sting set Heartland on its current course of collapse. Heartland's seventh climate conference, which runs until Wednesday, was a much diminished event, compared to earlier lavish gatherings which spilled out over several floors of a hotel in New York City's Times Square and attracted up to 800 followers.The tables were set for 270 at this year's gala, featuring the Czech president and ... Continue reading →

Facing criticisms from some within his own party, notably Newark mayor Cory Booker and former auto czar Steve Rattner, about a new ad from the Obama campaign that accuses Romney and Bain of closing down a Kansas steel mill and ruthlessly abandoning its workers to their fate, Obama used the press conference to defend the focus on Bain. Asked by Hans Nichols, of Bloomberg News, about the comments from Booker and Rattner, and about his view of private equity more generally. Obama gave a lengthy reply that is worth reading (or watching) in full. Here it is: Well, first of all, I think Corey Booker is an outstanding mayor. He’s doing great work in Newark and obviously helping to turn that city around. And I ... Continue reading →