David Samuels: The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange

Julian Assange and Pfc Bradley Manning have done a huge public service by making hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents available on Wikileaks -- and, predictably, no one is grateful. Manning, a former army intelligence analyst in Iraq, faces up to 52 years in prison. He is currently being held in solitary confinement at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, where he is not allowed to see his parents or other outside visitors.

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Chris Hedges: Happy as a Hangman

Innocence, as defined by law, makes us complicit with the crimes of the state. To do nothing, to be judged by the state as an innocent, is to be guilty. It is to sanction, through passivity and obedience, the array of crimes carried out by the state.

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Low vitamin D status associated with cognitive decline: Study

Inadequate dietary intake of vitamin D is associated with higher levels of cognitive impairment; however it remains unclear if the link is causal, according to a new study.

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Polluted Air Increases Obesity Risk in Young Animals

Animals exposed to the fine-particulate air pollution had larger and more fat cells in their abdominal area and higher blood sugar levels than did animals eating the same diet but breathing clean air.

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Reports summarize diet and nutrition research from University of Tokyo

"Vitamin D receptor (VDR) is a nuclear receptor that regulates the expression of genes involved in calcium homeostasis. Activation of VDR is thought to be a promising drug target for osteoporosis," scientists in Tokyo, Japan report (see also Diet and Nutrition).

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Chris Arsenault: A Scramble for the Arctic

With one fifth of the world's oil and gas at stake, countries are struggling to control the once-frozen arctic.

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Long-Term Exposure to Pesticides May Be Linked to Dementia

Long term exposure to pesticides may be linked to the development of dementia, suggests research published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The authors base their findings on 614 vineyard workers in South West France whose intellectual capacity was monitored for up to six years as part of the PHYTONER study. This aims to track the impact of pesticides on the cognitive abilities of people in their 40s and 50s who have worked for at least 20 years in the agricultural sector.

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Robert Reich: The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn’t Telling It

Quiz: What’s responsible for the lousy economy most Americans continue to wallow in? [President Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner. "Unless the President and Democrats explain why the economy still stinks for most Americans and offer a plan to fix it, the Republican explanation and solution – it’s big government’s fault, and all we need do is shrink it – will prevail," argues Robert Reich.]President Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner. "Unless the President and Democrats explain why the economy still stinks for most Americans and offer a plan to fix it, the Republican explanation and solution – it’s big government’s fault, and all we need do is shrink it – will prevail," argues Robert Reich.

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Andy Kroll: The New American Oligarchy -- Creating a Country of the Rich, by the Rich, and for the Rich

There is a war underway. I'm not talking about Washington’s bloody misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, but a war within our own borders. It’s a war fought on the airwaves, on television and radio and over the Internet, a war of words and images, of half-truth, innuendo, and raging lies. I'm talking about a political war, pitting liberals against conservatives, Democrats against Republicans. I'm talking about a spending war, fueled by stealthy front groups and deep-pocketed anonymous donors. It’s a war that's poised to topple what's left of American democracy.

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Robert Scheer: Hillary Gets Wiki-Served

Hillary Clinton should cut out the whining about what the Obama administration derides as “stolen cables” and confront the unpleasant truths they reveal about the contradictions of U.S. foreign policy and her own troubling performance. As with the earlier batch of WikiLeaks, in this latest release the corruption of our partners in Iraq and Afghanistan stands in full relief, and the net effect of nearly a decade of warfare is recognized as a strengthening of Iran’s influence throughout the region.

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