A 55,000-year-old skull has been discovered in a cave in western Galilee, one that’s going by the name “Manot.” According to a study published this week in Nature, this is the oldest representation of human life in a place and time in which Neanderthals are known to have lived. This skull shows features found in both European Neaderthals and humans … Continue reading

According to Thomas Steinbeck, his Nobel-winning father, John Steinbeck, would turn in his grave if he knew his fictional character, Lennie Small, helped Texas courts decide who qualifies for the death penalty. Lennie, from Of Mice and Men, is an enormous, ungainly, mentally defective man who loves to pet dead mice. Invoking Lennie as its benchmark, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals announced rules that fail to protect persons with intellectual disability from execution. Because of these unscientific and fictional standards, Robert Ladd, a man who has an IQ of 67, faces the death chamber this Thursday.

Under the federal Constitution, if a defendant has intellectual disability he or she cannot be executed. But the Court of Criminal Appeals — the highest court in Texas for criminal cases — has dodged this simple rule by applying its own stereotypes, rather than science, to craft a definition of intellectual disability. In doing so, the court announced that it would not provide protections for persons who are less disabled than Lennie Small without more direction from the Texas legislature.

There are clear, long established clinical definitions for determining intellectual disability. Developed by mental health organizations, these standards are used to evaluate intellectual disability for school, social services, social security, or — in other states — eligibility for execution. Indeed, the Court of Criminal Appeals acknowledges there is a known scientific definition of intellectual disability but then adds its own guidelines — the so-called “Briseno factors.” These factors have never been endorsed by any scientific or medical association. Indeed, the scientific andmedical communities have rejected the Brisino factors as patently invalid.

For Robert Ladd, the Texas Criminal Court’s fictional standard may well be lethal. With his IQ of 67, he clearly meets the first part of the widely accepted definition of intellectual disability. The evidence also shows he satisfies the second and third parts of the definition — significant adaptive deficits and onset by age 18.

In 1970, when Robert Ladd was 13 years old, a psychiatrist working for the State of Texas concluded that he was “fairly obviously retarded.” As an adult, Mr. Ladd received services at the Andrews Center, a non-profit comprehensive mental health and mental retardation center. There, he worked a job in which he was paid less than minimum wage, because there is an exemption from the minimum for people who are intellectually disabled. He had a case manager who drove him to work and helped with his shopping, because he could not manage his money or pick out clothes of the right size.

For a mental health professional utilizing accepted clinical standards, the diagnosis is clear and straightforward: Robert Ladd has intellectual disability. He is not Lennie, but as Thomas Steinbeck puts it: “the character of Lennie was never intended to be used to diagnose a medical condition like intellectual disability.” By requiring that a person match a character in a novella in order to be afforded the protections of the Constitution, Texas has strangely, and tragically, turned fiction into fact.

In a new video released on Tuesday, the Islamic State group threatened to execute two hostages within 24 hours unless Jordan releases a female failed suicide bomber who’s been on death row in the country since 2006.

Tuesday’s video appeared to show Japanese reporter Kenji Goto, who has been held by the Islamic State group since the fall. The images were accompanied by audio in which a man who sounded like Goto said he had 24 hours to live unless Jordan released Sajida al-Rishawi. Goto added that the life of Muath al-Kasaesbeh, a Jordanian pilot who was captured by the extremists after his plane crashed in Syria in December, was also in imminent danger.

Al-Rishawi received the death penalty in Jordan in 2006 for her role in al Qaeda attacks on three luxury hotels in the Jordanian capital of Amman in November 2005. The bombings left more than 60 people dead and were some of the deadliest in Jordan’s history.

This image made from television shows Iraqi Sajida Mubarek Atrous al-Rishawi opening her jacket and showing an explosive belt on Jordanian state-run television. (AP Photo/Jordanian TV)

Al-Rishawi, originally from the Iraqi city of Ramadi, traveled to Jordan with her husband Ali Hussein al-Shumari in the fall of 2005. On Nov. 9, the couple walked into the ballroom of the Radisson SAS hotel, where a wedding was taking place, each wearing a suicide vest. Al-Shumari blew himself up in one corner of the room. Al-Rishawi’s vest didn’t explode.

Al-Rishawi was able to flee the hotel in the chaos that ensued after the attack, but was later captured in the safe house she and her husband had rented with two other terrorists. She recounted the details of the attack in a three-minute televised confession aired on Jordanian state television.

Al-Rishawi was sentenced to death for her role in the bombings in 2006, yet Jordan issued a moratorium on the death penalty that same year. That moratorium has recently been lifted.

Jordanian soldiers and policemen stand guard outside the courtroom where Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi was sentenced to death by a Jordanian military court in Amman on Sept. 21, 2006. (KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images)

Jordanian investigators told the New York Times in 2005 that al-Rishawi said the deaths of three of her brothers in American operations in Iraq had motivated her to take part in the attack. One of the brothers was reportedly a senior aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al Qaeda in Iraq, predecessor of the Islamic State group. Al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the Amman attacks.

At her trial in 2006, however, al-Rishawi changed her version of events and claimed she was forced to take part in the assault and never planned to detonate her bomb.

The Associated Press noted that al-Rishawi’s release would be a major victory for the Islamic State militants on two fronts:

Securing the release of al-Rishawi would be a major propaganda coup for the Islamic State, following months of battlefield setbacks — most recently in the northern Syrian town of Kobani where Kurdish fighters on Monday managed to drive out the extremists after months-long fighting and hundreds of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.

It would also allow the group to reaffirm its links to Al Qaeda in Iraq, which battled U.S. troops and claimed the Jordan attack. The Islamic State group had a brutal falling out with Al Qaeda’s central leadership, but still reveres the global terror network’s onetime Iraqi affiliate and its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in 2006.

On Wednesday, Amman appeared willing to consider al-Rishawi’s release and a member of Jordan’s parliament said the government was engaged in indirect talks with the militants. Jordan’s willingness to negotiate with the Islamic State is against the policy of the United States. Both countries are part of the international coalition to fight the Islamic State group.

This image made from Jordan television on April 24, 2006, shows Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi. (AP Photo/Jordan Television)

With only 180 seconds left before the minute hand strikes midnight, the four horsemen and the apocalypse may soon be before us. That’s according to the symbolic doomsday clock which inched two minutes closer towards midnight last week.

Announcing the shift, Kennette Benedict, the executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warned:

“Today, unchecked climate change and a nuclear arms race pose an extraordinary and undeniable threat to the continued existence of humanity. And, world leaders have failed to act with the speed and the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures in leadership endanger every person on earth.”

Sounding the alarm on the gravest threat to mankind since the nuclear stand off between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the symbolic clock was originally created in 1947 in response to the Cold War.

But, now the gathering storm of nuclear proliferation, and global warming have pushed the minute hand even closer towards the apocalypse.

The news comes one week after scientists confirmed that 2014 shattered warm weather records across the entire globe. That means that nine of the 10 hottest years in history have all taken place this century.

So far, owing to the unprecedented burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal, world temperatures have risen by around 0.8 degrees Celsius, with most of that warming taking place over the last three decades.

And, according to a blockbuster climate report produced by the UN last year, our world is only going to get hotter, much hotter. It says that our planet may warm by more than two degrees celsius within the next thirty years.

The head of the World Bank says that such a temperature rise will push millions of people into poverty as basic resources such as food and water slip out of reach.

As I’ve written before, “That means that children being born today will become the victims of life on a much hotter planet by the time they reach young adulthood.”

That’s why NASA’s former top climate scientist James Hansen describes the 2C target as “a prescription for long term disaster.” He says that man made climate change is a huge a “moral failing” on par with slavery.

But, however grim the situation may seem, Benedict did stress that the situation is not helpless: “There is still time to act, but it will have to come soon, very soon, in order to avert catastrophe.”

Eleven months before heads of state gather in Paris for make or break UN climate talks, let there be no illusions: our current generation of leaders have a huge responsibility to act. And, we as the people, have a grave moral duty to make sure that they do.

In the words of actor Leonardo DiCaprio as he addressed heads of state at the United Nations last September: “You can make history, or be vilified by it.”

After all, although we are the first generation to bear witness to the destructive impacts of global warming, we are the only generation that can actually fight climate change.

That’s because carbon emissions remain trapped in our atmosphere for decades if not centuries, meaning that even if all greenhouse gases stopped tomorrow, our planet would still be locked in for a certain amount of warming.

Five years ago, world leaders promised to limit the warming of our planet to two degrees Celsius. And, in order to stand by that vow, they will have to strike an ambitious deal to radically curb their carbon emissions by the time they gather in Paris this December.

As the U.S., China and India are the world’s three largest emitters of greenhouse gases, any hope of saving our climate will depend on the commitment of these superpowers.

Last November, Washington and Beijing lead the charge by announcing a landmark deal to reduce their emissions.

As I’ve noted, “President Barack Obama vowed that America will cut its carbon pollution by over a quarter over the next ten years. And, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping pledged that his nation’s greenhouse gases will peak by 2030.”

Obama’s charm offensive is now aimed at India. If the world’s third largest polluter also enters the fray, it could trigger a domino effect, forcing developing and developed nations to also get on board.

According to a recent roadmap presented to the UN, in order to limit the warming of our planet to 2C, the world’s 15 largest economies will all have to step up to the plate.

The UN says that three quarters of existing fossil fuel reserves will need to stay in the ground.

At last year’s climate talks in Lima, some delegates suggested phasing out oil, gas and coal within the next 35 years. Such a proposal raised the rancor of oil producing nations such as Saudi Arabia.

But, according to a new report published in Nature, 260 billion barrels of Middle Eastern oil will have to remain buried in order to meet the 2C target. That’s the equivalent of Saudi Arabia’s entire oil reserves.

A system of financial compensation for fossil fuel producing nations is thus key to striking a strong accord in Paris this year. As Michael Jakob from the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change notes: “If you really want to convince developing countries to leave their coal in the ground, you have to offer something else and I don’t think the Saudis will leave that oil in the ground if they get nothing for it.”

According to Carbon Tracker, a London based think tank, if world governments commit to an ambitious Paris treaty this December, oil, gas and coal companies could see billions of dollars wiped off their balance sheets.

As I’ve written before, last November, the former head of UK oil giant BP, Lord Browne urged “he urged energy companies to reform, or face redundancy in the face of the ‘existential threat’ posed by climate change.” A few weeks later, the Bank of England expressed its concerns over the risks that fossil fuel assets may pose to the financial system.

But, even though a sea change is certainly palpable, the more pressing question is: will it be fast enough. After all, our window for opportunity is rapidly closing, and all life on earth hangs in the balance.

In the words of Albert Einstein: “Those with the privilege to know have a duty to act.” Standing at this fork in the road, with only three minutes left before the clock strikes midnight, may 2015 be remembered as the year that we all rose up to take climate action.

Standing desks are popular, but choosing a good one is no easy task. You could go with a motorized, whole desk replacement, or DIY a simple solution. You could even buy an adjustable attachment to go on top of your existing desk. Let’s talk about what you may need in a standing desk, what you can get for your budget, and how to choose what’s best for your needs.

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