From a purely libertarian perspective, Social Security would have to be curtailed -- probably not immediately but surely in stages. So would Medicare, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, unemployment insurance, compulsory laws about workers' compensation, most public safety laws, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Communications Comm

I've long since thrown out our dog food bowls, I feed mostly raw anyway. But after reading BrainWork for Smart Dogs I've decided never to just give my dogs a free meal ever again.Yesterday I poured two cups of premium dry food (not one of the recall list foods) into an empty 2 litre plastic milk bottle with the lid off (see safety tip in comm

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, long a champion of mobile payments, has inked a deal with the fast food chain McDonald’s to enable its subscribers to buy food at the restaurant by using their mobile phone. The ¥300 million joint venture is largely (70 percent) funded by McDonald’s, which will install terminals in their stores that interact with near-field comm

Food irradiation is the process of exposing food to ionizing radiation in order to destroy microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, or insects that might be present in the food. Further applications include sprout inhibition, delay of ripening, increase of juice yield, and improvement of re-hydration. Irradiation is a more general term of deliberate exposure of materials to radiation to achieve a technical goal (in this context 'ionizing radiation' is implied). As such it is also used on non-food items, such as medical hardware, plastics, tubes for gas-pipelines, hoses for floor-heating, shrink-foils for food packaging, automobile parts, wires and cables (isolation), tires, and even gemstones. Compared to the amount of food irradiated, the volume of those every-day applications is huge but not noticed by the consumer.The genuine effect of processing food by ionizing radiation relates to damages to the DNA, the basic genetic information for life. Microorganisms can no longer proliferate and continue their malignant or pathogen activities. Spoilage causing micro-organisms cannot continue their activities. Insects do not survive or become incapable of proliferation. Plants cannot continue the natural ripening or aging process. All these effects are beneficial to the consumer and the food industry, likewise.It should be noted that the amount of energy imparted for effective food irradiation is low compared to cooking the same; even at a typical dose of 10 kGy most food, which is (with regard to warming) physically equivalent to water, would warm by only about 2.5 °C.The speciality of processing food by ionizing radiation is the fact, that the energy density per atomic transition is very high, it can cleave molecules and induce ionization (hence the name) which cannot be achieved by mere heating. This is the reason for new beneficial effects, however at the same time, for new concerns. The treatment of solid food by ionizing radiation can provide an effect similar to heat pasteurization of liquids, such as milk. However, the use of the term, cold pasteurization, to describe irradiated foods is controversial, because pasteurization and irradiation are fundamentally different processes, although the intended end results can in some cases be similar.Food irradiation is currently permitted by over 40 countries and volumes are estimated to exceed 500 000 metric tons annually world wide.