Physicians’ gag order regarding fracking to be re-evaluated

Amazing that such a law could be passed in the first place. From Alternet.

Challenges by Pennsylvania citizens and townships on provisions in the law that prohibit doctors from telling patients about health impacts related to fracking chemicals were sent back to Commonwealth Court for reevaluation. The “physician gag order” (or “ frack gag“) was recently challenged by a doctor who claimed it infringed on his First Amendment rights and his duties as a doctor, but his challenge was thrown out by a Pennsylvania court in October. The Supreme Court’s decision to send the Commonwealth Court’s decision back down for re-evaluation spells trouble for the gag order. Doctors have expressed concern over this rule in Pennsylvania and what it means for their patients — a report from Pennsylvania documented a range of health problems affecting residents living near natural gas operations, including skin rashes, headaches and chronic pain.

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Catching brown recluse spiders without chemical pesticides

We had been finding lots of spiders in our old brick house, and didn't think much of it. We stepped on some and captured others and took them outside. That was before 13 year old daughter Charlotte pointed out that these spiders appeared to be brown recluse spiders. We took macro photos of them and looked at them closely and, indeed, they mostly seemed to be brown recluse spiders. Our neighbor Joe is a pest control guy who talked about chemical pesticides, which we've never used because we don't want our children exposed to these. Therefore, Joe recommended sticky pads. You can buy a box of 50 for $20. Spiders walk on the pads and get stuck. We put 20 pads in various parts of the house and we were shocked at how many spiders we caught. Check out the photo above, a typical pad, which caught 10 big and small spiders in 3 days. We don't see any spiders any more other than those caught on the pads. Some of our pads have caught 25 spiders. I'm writing this in case anyone else is having problems with any kind of spider and wants to avoid chemical pesticides.brown recluse

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Ten counter-intuitive psychological studies

This Huffpo article presents ten important psychological studies, many of them counter-intuitive, at least to those of us who aren't yet familiar with these studies. Here are some defining traits of human animals:

We all have some capacity for evil. We don't notice what's right in front of us. Delaying gratification is hard -- but we're more successful when we do. We can experience deeply conflicting moral impulses. We're easily corrupted by power. We seek out loyalty to social groups and are easily drawn to intergroup conflict. We only need one thing to be happy. We thrive when we have strong self-esteem and social status. We constantly try to justify our experiences so that they make sense to us. We buy into stereotypes in a big way.

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Early street photographer discovered

From Web Burgr:

Perhaps the most important street photographer of the twentieth century was a nanny who kept everything to herself. Nobody had ever seen her work and she was a complete unknown until the time of her death. For decades Vivian’s work hid in the shadows until decades later (in 2007), historical hobbyist John Maloof bought a box full of never developed negatives at a local auction for $380.

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