divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/41220?ns=guardianpageName=Comment+is+free%3A+America%2C+cowering+to+an+imaginary+enemy%2C+is+not+the+country+I+once+knewch=Comment+is+freec3=The+Guardianc4=US+news%2CAl-Qaida+%28News%29%2CTerrorism+-+international%2CObama+White+House+%28News%29%2CUS+foreign+policy%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Electionsc6=Simon+Jenkinsc7=2008_12_05c8=1129131c9=articlec10=GUc11=Comment+is+freec12=blogc13=c14=Comment+is+freeh2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" //divpAmerica seems much in need of Roosevelt's maxim to stop fearing fear itself. Virtually all comment on the Mumbai massacre has mentioned 9/11 and al-Qaida, and thus invited citizens to continue feeling afraid. No matter that Mumbai appears to have been primarily about Kashmir and the status of India's Muslims. No matter that Osama bin Laden has no dog in that fight. Any stick will do to elevate al-Qaida as America's enemy number one./ppLast week, the CIA warned of a terrorist threat that "might be unleashed" during the presidential transition, a threat that George Bush described as "dangerously real". On Wednesday Barack Obama was formally told by a congressional inquiry that "it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction, either nuclear or biological, will be used in a terrorist attack" in his first year of office. The inquiry demanded that an official must be appointed "to oversee efforts to prevent such an attack", as if millions of Americans in and out of uniform were not doing that already. /ppThen London added its pennyworth, with a Home Office minister, Lord West, telling of "another great plot building up again" and a "huge threat" from al-Qaida. The purpose of all this scaremongering remains a mystery./ppReactions to Mumbai have seemed to suggest Americans are still seeking fellowship in their 9/11 pain, as after the London and Madrid bombings. Gone are the days when Americans would tell Britons to shrug off IRA terrorist attacks (many instigated from America) and grow up. Any explosion anywhere now abets the extraordinary 9/11 iconography, underpinning the politics of fear that has been the leitmotif of the Bush presidency./ppDebating this presidency in New York on Tuesday night, I found myself pitted against Bush's impresario of fear, Karl Rove. Nothing in his master's glorious reign quite matched his "victory" over terror. The sense of unreality was equalled by Rove's supporters, to whom all who did not fear the "Islamofascists" were "liberal upper-east side elitists", an apparently crushing epithet. One assured me that Afghanistan would soon be won by merely "moving the surge" to Kabul. The whole evening was like the scene in Gone with the Wind where Southern gallants out-boast each other in predicting victory over the Yankees. /ppRove was undeniably a master manipulator of fear politics, like Tony Blair's Alastair Campbell, who called him a "kindred spirit". Both Bush and Blair were led to portray al-Qaida in its Tora Bora cave as they had Saddam Hussein, as a threat to their respective realms. It was what the sociologist Ulrich Beck described as an exaggerated risk "exploited as an elixir to an ailing leader". On this the two leaders built a culture of self-validating counter-terrorism, where both the absence of any threat and the presence of one can be made equally supportive. /ppThe media's fondness for describing any explosion as "al-Qaeda-linked" has turned what was a tiny, if efficient, cabal of fanatics into a global menace, ridiculously on a par with Hitler and postwar communism. Whoever said the political brain has advanced over time was mad./ppOn every visit to America I am stunned by the pervasiveness of fear. Terrified officials pounce on the slightest deviation from security rules. Americans must strip almost to their underwear to board even the shortest domestic flights. IDs are scanned in the meanest office blocks. Computers must be dismantled. National guardsmen troop out at dawn to protect New York installations "against the terrorist threat". /ppThe repressive Patriot Act - mocking a patriotism that was once built on courage and the rule of law - remains in operation. Getting through American immigration with a brown face is an indignity that many Indians and Arabs of my acquaintance now simply refuse to endure. I had trouble even with a Baghdad visa in my passport./ppBarack Obama, who is pledged to close Guantaacute;namo Bay, is being challenged to say what he will do with what the conservative Weekly Standard asserts are "250 participants in the most devastating terrorist attacks in history" from "an enemy unlike any other this nation has ever faced". Britons should not smile at this hyperbole. The same madness afflicts Jacqui Smith's Home Office./ppIn the 1960s Richard Hofstadter, the American political scientist, puzzled over the anti-intellectualism of much of American public life, echoing the remark of the Puritan, John Cotton, in 1642 that "the more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan". Listening to the debate on Tuesday I realised how deep is that strand, how strong the line of descent to the war on terror from previous generations who likewise puffed up the mafia and home-grown communism. /ppThe 1950s Kefauver commission on organised crime sought a foe to demonise as foreign, sinister and ubiquitous. The inquiry found that there was no national "mafia" worthy of the name, or of their attention, just disparate bunches of local hoodlums. Kefauver and the FBI, whose burgeoning empire depended on him, were furious. They had come to need the mafia and its menace to justify their budget, effort and status. /ppThe same synthetic sense of fear enveloped the McCarthy hearings on communism. A grain of truth was exaggerated to boost McCarthy's standing as a defender of the people against a real and present danger, that of reds under every bed. Communism had to be erected as an internal weapon of mass destruction, and much cruelty resulted./ppAt least organised crime and communism posed genuine threats to American liberties. Al-Qaida does not, yet it has become the ruling obsession of Bush's courtiers. They see al-Qaida fiends on every side, bearded mullahs, caches of bombs, ricin and anthrax. The precautionary principle has become fanaticised. By treating the unknown as an enemy, we ensure that the unknown becomes one. /ppMost of the outrages committed by graduates of the Pakistan terrorism camps are locally motivated, and will continue as long as such motivation survives. A network of criminal suicide squads with no coherent programme has no conceivable hope of undermining western democracy. It can just set off bombs, and will always do so if front-line policing is weak and constantly overruled by a grand "counterterrorism" bureaucracy. /ppJust when America had won a real victory in the century-old combat with communism, it allowed itself to be terrified by a band of fanatics who, in part through America's negligence, "got lucky once" and pulled off a coup on 9/11. For seven years its behaviour at home and image abroad have been dogged by the reaction to it. The challenge to Obama, here as elsewhere, is immense. /ppThe attractive feature of the America in which I once lived was its bold self-confidence. To find the survivors of the Bush presidency still cowering in a mental bunker afraid of a bunch of Arabs - and with British ministers for company - strips western democracy of a leadership that should be both heroic and sensible. It is surely an un-American activity./ppa href="mailto:simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk"simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk/a/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/alqaida"Al-Qaida/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/terrorism"Global terrorism/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-white-house"Obama White House/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usforeignpolicy"US foreign policy/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/jAwPo33e1p2W35OTVycr8aQ0Iko/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/jAwPo33e1p2W35OTVycr8aQ0Iko/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

a href="http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/bringing-back-the-dead-1208"Raising the Dead./a When scientist Mark Roth's one-year-old daughter died after heart surgery, Roth obsessed clinically first about immortality, then about a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended_animation"suspended animation/a, when all life processes temporarily cease. His a href="http://labs.fhcrc.org/roth/" subsequent research work/a -- placing yeast, nematodes, drosophila, frogs, and zebrafish into suspended animation (clinical death) for up to 24 hours, then reviving them unharmed -- earned him a a href="http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.2913825/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id=%7B901B69E7-3C10-41E9-AEE1-D7C6B61A2C1B%7Dnotoc=1"MacArthur Fellowship/a and a a href="http://www.fhcrc.org/about/pubs/center_news/weekly/2007_0813_br3_darpa.html"Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/a (DARPA) Award. br / Roth's research quot;offers the possibility of important new clinical strategies for treating trauma, stroke, cancer, and a host of other conditions where temporary reduction in metabolism would provide much-needed time for physicians to address underlying problems.quot;

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/58623?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Canada+suspends+parliament+in+reprieve+for+under-fire+PMch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Canada+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CNorth+America+Travelc6=Mark+Tranc7=2008_12_04c8=1129067c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Canadac13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FCanada" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Canadian government won a reprieve today when the governor general agreed to suspend parliament until late January, putting off a no-confidence vote that the prime minister was expected to lose./ppIn a controversial decision, Michaëlle Jean agreed to the suspension request from the prime minister, Stephen Harper, who is trying to cling to power less than two months after winning re-election./ppJean, the representative of the Queen as Canada's head of state, holds a mostly ceremonial position as governor general, but she has the power to accept or reject any request from Harper to suspend parliament. /ppBefore today's meeting between Harper and Jean, the opposition said a suspension of parliament would only delay what they saw as Harper's inevitable defeat. /ppIn a televised address yesterday, Harper condemned the opposition plan to gain power through a no-confidence vote as undemocratic and vowed to use "every legal means" to stop the attempt to unseat his minority Conservative government./ppA Canadian government has never been thrown out by a no-confidence vote to be replaced without an election. /ppHarper will now work on a budget that includes a stimulus package amid criticism from the opposition liberal leader, Stephane Dion, that the government has no plan to respond to the shocks from the global economic slowdown./ppThree opposition parties have banded together in an attempt to unseat the government. The coalition, which has promised to fast-track billions in dollars in spending as the country heads into recession, has the backing of Canada's beleaguered car and forestry sectors./ppCanadians are split on whom to support. According to an Angus Reid poll for Canadian TV, 64% do not support Dion becoming prime minister in a coalition government, but 53% oppose the Conservatives' current economic policy. Some 57% are concerned about the separatist Bloc Quebecois's role in the coalition. /ppAnalysts say Canada's political paralysis is unprecedented. A Canadian governor general has never before refused a request by the prime minister to temporarily suspend parliament, but such a move had never been requested to delay a no-confidence vote when it was clear the government lacked the confidence of a majority of MPs./pp"There is no precedent whatsoever in Canada and probably in the Commonwealth," said Ned Franks, a constitutional scholar and political scientist. "We are in uncharted territory."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/canada"Canada/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/1-n6fWMUqwHAmQ6adBsfMCGAxYc/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/1-n6fWMUqwHAmQ6adBsfMCGAxYc/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Le site New Scientist présente une nouvelle technique de création de cheveux réalistes notamment utilisée sur le dernier clip de l'artiste Björk

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/90555?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Canadian+PM+fights+to+stay+in+powerch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Canada+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CNorth+America+Travelc6=Mark+Tranc7=2008_12_04c8=1128964c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Canadac13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FCanada" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, is expected to try to suspend parliament today in an attempt to hang on to power, less than two months after he won re-election./ppHarper will holds talks with the governor general to try to avoid an opposition no-confidence vote next week that the government would probably lose. /ppThe governor general, Michaelle Jean - the representative of the Queen as Canada's head of state - holds a mostly ceremonial position, but has the power to accept or reject any request Harper might make to suspend parliament. /ppIn a televised address yesterday, Harper, condemned the opposition plan to gain power as undemocratic. He vowed to use "every legal means" to stop the no-confidence vote to unseat his minority Conservative government and replace it with an opposition-led coalition./ppIf the coalition succeeds, it would be the first time a Canadian government has been thrown out by a no-confidence vote and replaced without an election./ppA cabinet minister has suggested that Harper would ask Jean to suspend parliament until next month, giving him time to present a budget that includes a stimulus package. /ppThe opposition liberal leader, Stephane Dion, has accused the government of having no plan to deal with recession and said that a suspension of parliament would only delay Harper's inevitable defeat. /ppCanada's political crisis stems from the government's response to the global economic crisis. Three opposition parties have united against the government's handling of the economy, accusing it of failing to come up with a suitable response to the crisis./ppCanada's beleaguered car and forestry sectors are backing the coalition, as it has promised to fast-track billions in dollars in spending as the country heads into a recession./ppCanadians are split on who to support. According to an Angus Reid poll for Canadian TV, 64% do not support Dion becoming prime minister in a coalition government, but 53% oppose the Conservatives' current economic policy./pp57% are also concerned about the separatist Bloc Quebecois's role in the coalition. Analysts say Canada's political paralysis is unprecedented./ppCanada's governor general has never refused a request by the prime minister to temporarily suspend parliament, but nor has one been asked to suspend parliament to delay a no confidence vote when it was clear the government lacked the confidence of a majority of MPs./pp"There is no precedent whatsoever in Canada and probably in the Commonwealth," said Ned Franks, a constitutional scholar and political scientist. "We are in uncharted territory."/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/canada"Canada/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/unvBe_owKcwhhk6rlqXnYQmbeBU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/unvBe_owKcwhhk6rlqXnYQmbeBU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Salim sez, "Studley was an 1800s organ and piano maker, as well as a carpenter and mason, who worked for the Smith Organ Co. He built this amazing tool-chest which packs in just about every device and instrument an organ tuner might need on location."' Studley Toolchest, ideal for the inventor or scientist (Thanks, Salim!)...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=5141bb05ccef9723ad65f01c04daea1dp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=5141bb05ccef9723ad65f01c04daea1dp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=5141bb05ccef9723ad65f01c04daea1d" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

Salim sez, Studley was an 1800s organ and piano maker, as well as a carpenter and mason, who worked for the Smith Organ Co. He built this amazing tool-chest which packs in just about every device and instrument an organ tuner might need on location. Studley Toolchest, ideal for the inventor or scientist (Thanks, Salim!)...br style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=5141bb05ccef9723ad65f01c04daea1dp=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=5141bb05ccef9723ad65f01c04daea1dp=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=5141bb05ccef9723ad65f01c04daea1d style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/studleytoolchest.jpg" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="494" height="553" style="display:block;" / Sometimes, things as mundane as tool kits can look like great works of art. This piano repair box, perfected by Henry Studley, does a great job of fixing up instruments, but it's careful placement of knicknacks also makes it beautiful./p pStudley was an organ and piano maker, as well as a carpenter and mason, who worked for the Smith Organ Co. at the turn of the 20th century. His tool chest was loaned by his grandson to an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, until a private collector bought it./p pWhen closed, it's dimensions are roughly 39-inches x 20-inches x 9-inches. When opened though, it widens out to 40 x 40. [a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Facriacao.com%2F2008%2F12%2F03%2Fstudley-toolchest-ideal-for-the-inventor-or-scientist%2Fhl=enie=UTF-8sl=pttl=en"acriacao/a]/p pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/studleytoolchest2.jpg" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="494" height="405" style="display:block;" //p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c341bf6be149b2585c9c3a4703c001fap=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c341bf6be149b2585c9c3a4703c001fap=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c341bf6be149b2585c9c3a4703c001fa" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=crP2G7ik"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=iYMbg6za"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=v8pDWbJx"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=v8pDWbJx" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=kIO01hYY"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=kIO01hYY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/mNke19BOGyQ" height="1" width="1"/

Scientist seem to be worried that technology is rewiring our brains. Wait, rewiring it in a good way or a bad way?

What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate better to emoticons than to real people? These sound like concerns from worried parents. But they're coming from brain scientists.

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Anthropologist finds that high testosterone makes women tougher, more competitive -- and also puts more fat on waist.

Les gars de chez Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories ont utilisé un laser à dioxyde de carbone pour marquer le logo Apple sur le dessus de cette tarte aux pommes (soufflé aux pommes). Après avoir tapissé de pâte un moule carré puis lavoir garni de pommes,