Aaron Roe(bot) Fulkerson Open source entrepreneur and digital viking.

New Scientist

A spectacular, luminous ring offers the best evidence yet that a nearby star is circled by a newly formed solar system.

The ring is composed of dust particles in orbit around Fomalhaut, a bright star located just 25 light years away in the constellation Pisces Australis – or the Southern Fish. A recent image captured with the Hubble Space Telescope – which makes the system look uncannily like the Great Eye of Sauron from the blockbusting Lord of the Rings trilogy – confirms that Fomalhaut’s ring is curiously offset with respect to the star.

NPR : Part 1, NPR : Part 2, NPR : Medical Schools and Drug Firm Dollars

Over the past few months, it has emerged that the company was aware for years that Vioxx might be dangerous. Now, new documents obtained by NPR suggest that even as Merck was making Vioxx into a bestseller, the company was putting pressure on independent doctors. The company’s apparent aim: to keep them from discussing evidence of Vioxx’s potential safety problems. The documents show that Merck exerted pressure not only on individual doctors, but also on several of the nation’s top medical schools.

Evidently NPR has dug up a bunch of documents that paint a pretty damning case against Merck in its systematic attempt to shut up doctors, academics, and researchers. Moreover, this series paints an awfully telling picture of how all Pharma Companies inject their dogma into Medical Universities to, in many cases, the detriment of society. As always, NPR sets the bar for journalism.