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China is one of those rare modern societies that is notracially mixed?the presence of different races in thepopulation, which is second nature to us, doesn’t occurthere. Despite the popularity of U.S. media in China (andall over the world), even Caucasian Westerners who visitChina often find themselves stared at in amazement, while tous, seeing faces with Asian features is normal. DuringSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent visit to China,she was attacked with the kind of racial slurs that haven’tbeen seen in the U.S. press since the inception of theCivil Rights movement. This was done despite the fact that theChinese regularlydenounce theUnited States as being racist for treating black peoplebadly.
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New Scientist reports that German atmospheric researcherRuprecht Jaenicke took air samples from Germany, Siberia,the Amazon rainforest, the Atlantic ocean and from bubblesin Greenland ice. When he analyzed the particles he found inthese samples, he found that 25% of them were organicdetritus, such as dandruff, hair, sloughed off skin cells,etc. He estimates that around a billion tons of theseparticles enter the atmosphere, from both humans andanimals, every year, which is 20 times the previousestimates for this kind of air pollution. This is enough toabsorb sunlight and encourage cloud formation, which couldchange the climate.

Art credit: http://www.freeimages.co.uk
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Where are the Salmon? More than 200,000 salmon should haveshown up in the Columbia river to spawn by now, but only afew hundred have been seen. The absence of the wild Chinooksalmon is a disturbing environmental mystery. The best casescenario is that they’re being kept away by low water andhigh sediment levels due to the drought in the PacificNorthwest. The worst is that there has been a shortage ofthe krill that is essential to their diet, and they havestarved while wintering out at sea. This means we’re going to see only farmed salmon in our grocery stores thisyear, although it may be designated as “wild” (Keep readingand we’ll tell you all about that).
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There’s been an unsubstantiated rumor flying around theinternet that “gonzo” journalist Hunter S. Thompson waswriting an article on the collapse of the World Trade Centerwhen he killed himself, implying that there remains asecretabout what made those towers collapse when planes wereflown into them on September 11, 2001.

Will Knight writes in New Scientist that a new federalreport shows that the towers collapsed because ofineffective fireproofing and a shortage of staircases. Whenthe towers were built, starting in 1966, they were a radicalnew design. This study is likely to have a major impact onhow skyscrapers are built in the future.
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