Weird Links

Research from a British university suggests a common preservative found in some soft drinks has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA. Sodium benzoate derives from benzoic acid. It occurs naturally in berries, but is used in large quantities to prevent mould.

"These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it.. The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it - as happens in a number if diseased states - then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA - Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing."

Israel should comply with the same demand being made of Iran, to cease its nuclear fuel-cycle and stop enriching uranium, Hans Blix, Chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC).

In recent months, Beijing has embarked on a series of initiatives designed to secure long-term raw materials sources in one of the planet's most endowed regions - Sub-Saharan Africa. No raw material has higher priority in Beijing at present than oil.

This oil-related Chinese diplomacy has led to the bizarre accusation from Washington that Beijing is trying to "secure oil at the sources", something Washington foreign policy has itself been preoccupied with for at least a century. No source of oil has been more the focus of China-US oil conflict of late than Sudan, home of Darfur.

..is a search engine:

We only crawl web sites that were bookmarked or voted for by people, in sites like del.icio.us, digg and reddit.
They link to sites with the best content, and it gives you the best quality search engine on the web.

..According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

Scientists will outline dramatic evidence this week that suggests a comet exploded over the Earth nearly 13,000 years ago, creating a hail of fireballs that set fire to most of the northern hemisphere.

Primitive Stone Age cultures were destroyed and populations of mammoths and other large land animals, such as the mastodon, were wiped out. The blast also caused a major bout of climatic cooling that lasted 1,000 years and seriously disrupted the development of the early human civilisations that were emerging in Europe and Asia.

Physics-based game in which you must shoot the target to reach the next level. A bit cerebral and something that'll prolly kill a few hours at work tomorrow. Thanks, me.

BTW here's a tip: just because you're falling, doesn't mean you have to stop shooting

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.

The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control significant parts of the country’s oil industry.

Opposition parties accused the Government of burying bad news and breaking the law today, after new figures revealed the ... cost of the controversial identity scheme has risen by at least £400 million in the last six months.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said the true rise was actually £640 million - to a staggering £5.55 billion over 10 years.

The Home Office was accused of breaking the law by publishing its compulsory twice-yearly update more than one month late, coinciding with the day Prime Minister Tony Blair announced his resignation.

Guantanamo has become a liability. The real and perceived injustices occurring there have given our enemies an easy example of our failures and alleged ill intent. The prison is so widely viewed as illegitimate, so plainly inconsistent with America's proud legal traditions; it has become a stinging symbol of our tarnished standing abroad.