Remarks of President Obama to the People of Laos

To the government and the people of Laos, thank you so much for the kind welcome that you’ve extended to me and my delegation.  I am very honored to be the first American president to visit Laos.  (Applause.)  Thank you. I am told that this hall is where you come together for the national singing …

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I dropped cluster bombs on Laos in US ‘secret war.’ Ukraine shouldn’t want this nightmare. (Mike Burton)

Ukrainian leaders in Kyiv and members of the Republican Party who’ve asked the Biden administration to release cluster munitions for use in Ukraine should beware of what they ask for. The results will be deadly and disastrous and will haunt the United States and the people of Ukraine for decades. I participated in the extensive bombing of Laos during America’s “secret …

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The Food Timeline

Ever wonder how the ancient Romans fed their armies? What the pioneers cooked along the Oregon Trail? Who invented the potato chip…and why? So do we!!! Food history presents a fascinating buffet of popular lore and contradictory facts. Some experts say it’s impossible to express this topic in exact timeline format. They are correct. Most …

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Broader perspective on ecosystem sustainability: Consequences for decision making (Roy C. Sydle, William H. Benson, John F. Carriger, and Toshitaka Kamai)

Although the concept of ecosystem sustainability has a long-term focus, it is often viewed from a static system perspective. Because most ecosystems are dynamic, we explore sustainability assessments from three additional perspectives: resilient systems; systems where tipping points occur; and systems subject to episodic resetting. Whereas foundations of ecosystem resilience originated in ecology, recent discussions …

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Rise and fall of competitiveness in individualistic and collectivistic societies (Andreas Leibbrandt, Uri Gneezy, and John A. List)

Competitiveness pervades life: plants compete for sunlight and water, animals for territory and food, and humans for mates and income. Herein we investigate human competitiveness with a natural experiment and a set of behavioral experiments. We compare competitiveness in traditional fishing societies where local natural forces determine whether fishermen work in isolation or in collectives. …

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Political ideology affects energy-efficiency attitudes and choices (Dena M. Gromet, Howard Kunreuther, and Richard P. Larrick)

This research demonstrates how promoting the environment can negatively affect adoption of energy efficiency in the United States because of the political polarization surrounding environmental issues. Study 1 demonstrated that more politically conservative individuals were less in favor of investment in energy-efficient technology than were those who were more politically liberal. This finding was driven …

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Interplay of physics and evolution in the likely origin of protein biochemical function (Jeffrey Skolnick and Mu Gao)

The intrinsic ability of protein structures to exhibit the geometric and sequence properties required for ligand binding without evolutionary selection is shown by the coincidence of the properties of pockets in native, single domain proteins with those in computationally generated, compact homopolypeptide, artificial (ART) structures. The library of native pockets is covered by a remarkably …

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Early Human Diets

The old saying “You are what you eat” takes on new significance in the most comprehensive analysis to date of early human teeth from Africa. Prior to about 3.5 million years ago, early humans dined almost exclusively on leaves and fruits from trees, shrubs, and herbs—similar to modern-day gorillas and chimpanzees.   However, about 3.5 million …

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