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By Janet Evans
Saturday, Oct 4 2008, 04:21 PM
EVERYONE knows I’m a Lost fan. And Lost wouldn’t be lost if it weren’t for aviation. Why, one of the main characters, who has been rescued from the island that was his home for several months, spends his weekends flying in hopes of repeating the crash that made him “lost” in the first place!
But Lost isn’t the only movie or show that features aviation that’s been a hit with me. How about the original Tarzan The Ape Man? The plane crashing in the jungle…with an infant onboard, raised by apes. He grows up to fall in love with the beautiful Jane. Not trying to make “apes” the feature, but you can’t forget that King Kong, while on top of the Empire State building was attacked by a plane.
And then there’s Top Gun, with Tom Cruise, or Cliff Hanger with Sylvester Stallone. Or Apocalypse Now with Marlon Brando, Memphis Belle or A Bridge Too Far.
Can’t forget Airplane!, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, or Home Alone.
I know, some of these movies have aviation touching them only for a short period of time, while others have them as the main focus. But it was important just the same. The movie wouldn’t have gotten where it was supposed to be without aviation. Just like we wouldn’t be where we are today without it.
Just think where we have come and how quickly since 1903 when the Wright Bros. had their first success.
Aviation.com recognizes that and has put together what they believe are the Great Innovations In Aviation....
Take a look…what do you think?
GREAT INNOVATIONS IN AVIATION
Also, check out the Famous Firsts in Aviation
View scenes from the movie Cliffhanger
HERE
Warning: Viewer discretion advised - language/violence.
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By Janet Evans
Tuesday, Sep 30 2008, 11:46 AM
Mug shot of Michael Jackson
Oh, not that type of artificial nose…too bad, Michael.
Actually, that's artificial noses for scientific purposes....to help mankind.
" Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists said Monday they have moved closer to creating "artificial noses," after finding a way to mass-produce smell receptors in a laboratory.
Artificial noses could one day replace dogs that sniff out drugs and explosives, and could have numerous medical applications including identifying diseases that have distinct odors, according to Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering and senior author of a study on the subject.
"Smell is perhaps one of the oldest and most primitive senses, but nobody really understands how it works," said Zhang.
"It still remains a tantalizing enigma."
In seeking to recreate smell, the MIT RealNose project seeks to recreate the most complex and least-understood of the five senses. "
Read the complete article HERE
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By Janet Evans
Friday, Sep 26 2008, 11:49 AM
The Best Science Images of 2008 have been announced by the National Science Foundation and the journal Science. The awards are given for “images that employ modern technology to visualize complex scientific topics."
Below is an Honorable Mention photo in all its glory…
Honorable Mention, Photography: "Squid Suckers: The Little Monsters That Feed the Beast"
Little Shop of Horrors fans may see a resemblance to the bloodthirsty plant from the 1986 movie in the above electron micrograph image.
Drexel University doctoral student Jessica Schiffman won an honorable mention in photography in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge for capturing what's actually an array of suckers found on the tentacles of a long-finned squid.
Each sucker--about 400 micrometers wide, or a little smaller than the width of a human hair--is surrounded with "fangs" of chitin, a hard organic material.
Squid use their powerful suckers to secure unwitting prey and feed their robust appetites--much like the horror-movie plant that inspired the image's color scheme. —Image courtesy Jessica D. Schiffman and Caroline L. Schauer; Drexel University/Science
You can view more images from 2008, along with winners from past years at National Geographic
HERE
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By Janet Evans
Tuesday, Sep 23 2008, 07:24 AM
U.S. Satellite Vanguard Photo U.S. Navy
Sometimes the path it takes to get somewhere can be long or short, bumpy or smooth…
On December 6, 1957, hot on the heels of Sputnik, the United States Navy readied the first American satellite, Vanguard, for launch. The grapefruit-sized device lofted 3 feet from Earth before it exploded. Press and public jeered, dubbing it “Flopnik.” (“The exact cause is classified,” says the crisp narrator in a vintage video [below] of the attempt.) A red-faced U.S. government redoubled their efforts. Within a year and a half, Vanguard’s replacement took the first measurements of Earth’s upper atmosphere and its successor, Vanguard II, the first scan of Earth’s clouds. Meanwhile, NASA, the agency charged with managing this new technology, was born.
"Oh, what a flopnik! The Vanguard rocket that held the satellite failed miserably, blowing up before take-off."
Spaceborne observation of the planet has come a long way since Flopnik. Today, 150 Earth-observation satellites are in orbit, capturing more than 10 terabytes of information per day. NASA operates, in whole or in part, about 20 of them. The legacy of NASA's first assignment has radically altered our concept of the planet. In the view from space, political boundaries dissolve, Earth’s parts become a whole, and its changes are made visible and real.
Continue at POP SCI HERE
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By Janet Evans
Monday, Sep 22 2008, 05:32 PM
Well, not really…
Biggest?
No…15 participants.
I call that a why bother? What’s going on, don’t have enough money for s study, huh? Or was this a middle school science fair project, because actually, any science fair student could have done a better job.
Best?
No…There isn’t anything special about this one. It’s actually laughable…and you’ll see why. A control and one good test item and one bad test item. Not the best study in my opinion when there were a ton of varieties of items that could have been tried out.
Because of the small scope of this study, it was totally predictable. Either the result they achieved was going to happen…or the 15 testers were going to throw up.
I sure hope no one was paid big bucks for this study….
I won’t spoil it for you…have a look for yourself…
HERE
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By Janet Evans
Saturday, Sep 20 2008, 02:00 PM
The science project that some feared might end the world has encountered some problems.
This Is Really Huge
Of course, problems were to be expected. But this will only fuel the fire for those who continue to worry about the approach of an impending doomsday.
The Hadron Collider will be shut down for two months after just opening .
The giant Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most expensive scientific experiment, will be shut down for at least two months, scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva said today.
The shutdown casts into doubt the hopes of CERN physicists to achieve high-energy collisions of protons in the machine before the end of the year.
“It’s too early to say whether we’ll still be having collisions this year,” James Gillies, head of communications for CERN, said in an e-mail message. The laboratory shuts down to save money on electricity during the winter.
A gala inauguration party scheduled for Oct. 21 will still take place, Dr. Gillies said.
A series of mishaps, including the failure of a 30-ton electrical transformer, have slowed progress since then. In the worst incident yet, on Friday, one of the giant superconducting magnets that guide the protons failed during a test. A large amount of helium, which is used to cool the magnets to within 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit of absolute zero, leaked into the collider tunnel.
Read the article HERE
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By Janet Evans
Friday, Sep 19 2008, 07:05 AM
I know, gas prices had been rising.
But then they tapered off.
If it hadn’t been for the hurricanes, they probably would have kept falling.
When I saw United Airlines was going to double its fee for a second checked bag to $50…I was shocked. That’s each way!
You know, you can mail a decent sized box of clothing to just about any state for $15, insured. Maybe that’s the way to go. If you can plan ahead for a trip, just pack up the wardrobe you need fro your vacation, and ship it off to your destination.
Extra bags or ones that weigh too much can add
hundreds of dollars to the price of flying. Kitchen/Getty
Extra bags or ones that weigh too much can add hundreds of dollars to the price of flying.
United has already made $700 million from the additional fees they have imposed. So it's not "irrational" for them to want to hike their fees more. They'll do it until passengers stop bringing the extra baggage and paying the higher fees.
Skyrocketing fuel prices prompted that trend, but on Thursday there was already one sign that competition may push it back: Air Canada said it would stop charging for a second checked bag. It had not added a fee for the first checked bag.
So if you want to do all you can to try and keep your luggage to one suitcase, what should you do?
Suitcase savvy
Battle those new luggage fees by adapting your packing habits.
1. Use soft-sided luggage or duffle bags. Some hardshell suitcases weigh up to 15 pounds when empty.
2. Select luggage that has multiple compartments, allowing suits to stay wrinkle-free and be kept separate from shoes and toiletries.
3. Instead of packing coordinated outfits that can be worn just once, choose clothing that can be mixed and matched to create multiple outfits.
4. Consider rolling jeans and T-shirts instead of folding them. This will save space and keep the clothes wrinkle-free.
5. Weigh your suitcase before leaving home. (Get on a scale with the bag, then without, then subtract.) If the bag is more than 50 pounds, remove a few items or use a second suitcase.
Checking a second bag is typically cheaper than the fee for overweight luggage.
Combat new airline luggage fees
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By Janet Evans
Sunday, Sep 14 2008, 08:26 PM
I know some things they may say.
Things like “The baby would have died eventually.”
Or, “Think about how many babies are being saved.”
Or, “This puts the parents through fewer traumas.”
Here is the question…
A heart stops beating in one baby. It is transplanted and restarted in another baby. But was the baby that the heart was taken from really dead?
It’s a harsh question. It shouldn’t have to be asked. But doctors are in a hurry. Medical technology and all…and someone has a baby waiting.
“Dead Donor Rule”…that comes in to play here…an ethical guideline stating that an organ donor must be declared dead before vital organs are prepared for transplantation. In past research, a heart has not restarted on its own more that 65 seconds after a person was taken off of a ventilator. Coroners are asked to wait between two and five minutes after the pulse stops to declare death. That is the general practice protocol of the dead donor rule.
A team of doctors at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Fla. preformed three heart transplants on babies. In the first transplant, the donor baby’s heart stopped 11.5 minutes after the baby was taken off of life support, with death being declared three minutes later and the transplant immediately following.
The next two transplants began 75 seconds after the donor’s pulse ceased. Each of the babies hearts stopped 27.5 and 16 minutes after each was taken off of life support. Because the team began the transplants after the shorter time period, and less time than the dead donor rule, it raised the question of whether the babies were in fact dead. Why did they do this? Because, as more time elapses between when circulation and the heart stop, and when transplantation begins, there can be more damage to the organ that is going to be donated.
I guess death is the vision of the physician...or should I say life....
"In another NEJM commentary, Robert Veatch, Ph.D., a biomedical ethicist at Georgetown University in Washington, opposed definitions of death that hinge on the impossibility of autoresuscitation.
"Anyone who had had a cardiac arrest lasting beyond the time at which autoresuscitation was possible would be legally deceased, even if the heart had been successfully restarted through external stimulation," he argued.
The third commentary, by two other medical ethicists, countered that the dead-donor rule should be reconsidered.
Robert D. Truog, M.D., of Children's Hospital Boston, and Franklin G. Miller, Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health, contended that death definitions based on brain function were also flawed.
"There have been persistent questions about whether patients with massive brain injury, apnea, and loss of brain-stem reflexes are really dead," they said.
Drs. Truog and Miller suggested replacing the dead-donor rule with a system that would allow some donations of hearts and other vital organs prior to a declaration of death, subject to clear criteria including informed consent.
"Whether death occurs as a result of ventilator withdrawal or organ procurement, the ethically relevant precondition is valid consent by the patient or surrogate," they wrote. "With such consent, there is no harm or wrong done in retrieving vital organs before death."
In an editorial, Dr. Drazen acknowledged the criticisms of the Denver transplant protocol and said the journal was publishing the paper "to foster discussion of donation after cardiocirculatory death in general and its application to infant heart transplantation in particular."
But they also appeared to side with Dr. Boucek and colleagues. "As a result of their investigational protocol, three babies are now alive; had the procedures not been performed, it is virtually certain that all six babies would be dead," Dr. Drazen and colleagues wrote.
Dr. Boucek and colleagues said they had not undertaken their protocol lightly.
"Before the trial was begun, an extensive period of education, discussion, and preparation was undertaken within our hospital and in programs already using donors who died from cardiocirculatory causes," they wrote. "After each transplantation involving these donors, there was extensive institutional debriefing and review by the ethics committee and the data and safety monitoring board."
Read the entire article HERE
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By Janet Evans
Saturday, Sep 13 2008, 09:03 PM
What can I say…I’m having a bit of a science day on both of my blogs…
In a Burst of Light Gamma rays produce flashes that are brighter than a billion suns yet last only a few milliseconds and have been simply too fast to catch... until now. The artist's concept above depicts the sequence of events as a black hole devours a neutron star, producing gamma-ray bursts as it does so. Using data from the Swift observatory, scientists have gleaned tantalizing evidence of a black hole eating a neutron star--first stretching the neutron star into a crescent, swallowing it, and then gulping up crumbs of the broken star in the minutes and hours that followed.
Image Credit: NASA/Dana Berry
"NASA's Swift satellite detected the explosion - formally named GRB 080319B - at 2:13 a.m. EDT and pinpointed its position in the constellation Bootes. The event, called a gamma-ray burst, became bright enough for human eyes to see. Observations of the event are giving astronomers the most detailed portrait of a burst ever recorded.
"Swift was designed to find unusual bursts," said Swift principal investigator Neil Gehrels at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We really hit the jackpot with this one."
[…]
In a paper to appear in Thursday's issue of Nature, Judith Racusin of Penn State University and a team of 92 coauthors report on observations across the spectrum that began 30 minutes before the explosion and followed its afterglow for months. The team concludes the burst's extraordinary brightness arose from a jet that shot material directly toward Earth at 99.99995 percent the speed of light.
At the same moment Swift saw the burst, the Russian KONUS instrument on NASA's Wind satellite also sensed the gamma rays and provided a wide view of their spectral structure. A robotic wide-field optical camera called "Pi of the Sky" in Chile simultaneously captured the burst's first visible light. The system is operated by institutions from Poland.
Within the next 15 seconds, the burst brightened enough to be visible in a dark sky to human eyes. It briefly crested at a magnitude of 5.3 on the astronomical brightness scale. Incredibly, the dying star was 7.5 billion light-years away."
Read more at NASA:
"Naked-Eye" Gamma-Ray Burst Was Aimed Squarely At Earth"
Okay...I'll get a little less scientific... after all, it is Saturday night...
Gamma Ray ~ Beck
Gamma Ray
If I could hold
Hold out for now
With these icecaps melting down
With the transistor sound
And my Chevrolet terraplane
Going around around around
Come on little gamma ray
Standing in a hurricane
Your brains are bored like a refugee from a house that's burning
And the heat wave's calling your name
She's got a cactus crown
With a dot dot dot on her brow
And she speaks inside a cloud
With her countenance turning around
It hit me like a gamma ray
Standing in a hurricane
I'm pulling out thorns
Smokestack lightning out my window
I want to know what I've lost today
Come on little gamma ray
Standing in a hurricane
Your body's bored
Like a refugee from a house that's burning
And the backwater's calling your name
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By Janet Evans
Friday, Sep 12 2008, 08:40 PM
 Cows may have a sixth magnetic sense photo: flickr
If you ever find yourself lost in a field or in the woods…and don’t have a compass, moss on a tree or your new GPS…don’t fear…
Look to the animals to point you in the correct direction...they are able to sense magnetic fields.
This is a pretty cool article…
Have you ever noticed that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?
Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction. Wild deer also display this behaviour - a phenomenon that has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for thousands of years. In the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say the Earth's magnetic fields may influence the behaviour of these animals. The Earth can be viewed as a huge magnet, with magnetic north and south situated close to the geographical poles. Many species - including birds and salmon - are known to use the Earth's magnetic fields in migration, rather like a natural GPS. A few studies have shown that some mammals - including bats - also use a "magnetic compass" to help their sense of direction.
Continued HERE
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By Janet Evans
Monday, Sep 8 2008, 06:50 AM
 Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complicated particle physics experiment ever seen,
will be turned on Wednesday, September 10th. It took almost 20 years and 7,000 scientists from 60 countries
to create this project. (Hadron Collider)
"Before the year is out, the LHC is projected to begin pumping out a tsunami of raw data equivalent to one DVD (five gigabytes) every five seconds. Its annual output of 15 petabytes (15 million gigabytes) will soon dwarf that of any other scientific experiment in history.The challenge is making that data accessible to a scientist anywhere in the world at the execution of a few commands on her laptop. The solution is a global computer network called the LHC Computing Grid, and with any luck, it may be giving us a glimpse of the Internet of the future. Once the LHC reaches full capacity sometime next year, it will be churning out snapshots of particle collisions by the hundreds every second, captured in four subterranean detectors standing from one and a half to eight stories tall. It is the grid's job to find the extremely rare events—a bit of missing energy here, a pattern of particles there—that could solve lingering mysteries such as the origin of mass or the nature of dark matter."
The Large Hadron Collider will be operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN. It is a circular underground tunnel, in which the partical beams ramp up to 99.99 percent of the speed of the light, are more than 300 feet below the earth. This is located at the foot of the Jura Mountains.
You can read more about the Hadron Collider HERE
and HERE
Hey, Professor....can someone explain this to me in Physics for Dummies terms?
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By Janet Evans
Thursday, Sep 4 2008, 07:43 PM
 Prairie Vole
While Edwards is a rat, and a vole is a rodent, we have to delve deeper. What do they have in common? Well, John Edwards is prone to infidelity….he is prone to being promiscuous. And guess what…so are voles. Actually, voles are highly promiscuous. Maybe Edwards is too.
Yes, this is another study.
“A man's tendency to be unfaithful may be influenced by his genes, research suggests. Men who inherit a genetic variant that affects an important attachment hormone are more likely than usual to have weaker relationships and marital problems, and less likely to be married, according to the research. Their wives and girlfriends are also more likely to be less satisfied with them as partners. While the study did not look directly at infidelity, the findings suggest that male monogamy might also be influenced by variations in a single gene. The study's authors cautioned that any effect would apply only on average, and that it was impossible to predict whether any individual would be unfaithful or a bad partner on the basis of his genes.
The gene in question affects the receptor for a hormone called vasopressin, which plays an important role in social behaviour, pair-bonding and sexual attachment. Its effects were first characterised by studies of different species of voles. Although the meadow and prairie voles are close cousins, their sexual behaviour is dramatically different. Like most mammals, male meadow voles are highly promiscuous, but male prairie voles are monogamous. When boy prairie vole meets girl, the two indulge in 24 to 36 hours of nearly continuous mating, which cements a bond that invariably lasts for life. When one partner dies, the survivor usually opts to remain celibate rather than find another mate. Male prairie vole brains contain much higher levels of vasopressin than those of meadow voles. There also genetic differences in the receptor for vasopressin in the two species. “
You've got to read the whole article...it's really interesting. Seriously.
Who knew?
You can find the complete article from Times Online HERE
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By Janet Evans
Wednesday, Sep 3 2008, 05:47 PM
If your ship is traveling in Canada’s northern arctic, that is…
More ice shelf has broken loose.
Global warming.
"A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday.
Large pieces of ice are seen drifting off the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf in this July file photo.
Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario, told The Associated Press that the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean.
"The Markham Ice Shelf was a big surprise because it suddenly disappeared. We went under cloud for a bit during our research and when the weather cleared up, all of a sudden there was no more ice shelf. It was a shocking event that underscores the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic," said Muller.
Muller also said that two large sections of ice detached from the Serson Ice Shelf, shrinking that ice feature by 47 square miles -- or 60 percent -- and that the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has also continued to break up, losing an additional eight square miles."
Continue the article HERE
Information from NASA
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By Janet Evans
Tuesday, Sep 2 2008, 06:40 AM
I love space!
Who doesn’t love looking at the stars on a clear night?
You have heard NASA is celebrating its 50th Anniversary, haven’t you?
You’ve just got to check out this cool animated tour of NASA from the 50s through the future.
Make sure you move your cursor over EVERYTHING!
The site’s out of this world!
Give yourself some time though.
There’s 50 years of interesting history to see!
So
10
09
08
07
06
05
04
03
02
01
Blast off!
Click on the image to go to NASA...and once you are there...click anywhere on the main page.
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By Janet Evans
Monday, Sep 1 2008, 09:46 AM
Do you take a lot of medication?
If it could change you life, would you consider taking three, four, five pills?
Many of you love to exercise...it’s a way of life.
It’s for your body, mind and soul.
But many of you detest it.
What if you could just take a pill so you don’t have to exercise?
One so you could get some of the same benefits from exercising.
Did you know there is one being created?
Along with other pills that could change your life….
Exercise Pill
 photo by the U.S. Federal government
"Why spend the time and money on a gym membership when you can just pop a pill? An obvious future bestseller (and possibly the final fulfillment of the American dream), the pill that mimics exercise has been under development for some time. Developed at the Salk Institute in California, the pill caused sedentary mice to burn fat no matter how lazy they were. This pill would be for more than vanity, though, as obesity has grown into one of America’s biggest public health problems. A pill like this could both help the healthcare system and get you the six pack abs you want without having to step foot in a gym."
In the not-so-distant future, these six drugs--already in the works--will change how we live, and even how we die "
See the other five pills in Pop-Sci's photo article
HERE
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By Janet Evans
Friday, Aug 22 2008, 11:52 AM
Those wisdom teeth….nothing but trouble for most people.
You wonder why they are there in the first place?
For most they end up being extracted.
Actually not everyone has them removed…I still have mine.
Maybe more people will decide to hang on to them if they have room for them in their mouths, but if not, that's okay too, since they can be frozen …
Frozen?
Why would we want to do that?
"Japanese scientists said Friday they had derived stem cells from wisdom teeth opening another way to study deadly diseases without the ethical controversy of using embryos.
Researchers at the government-backed National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology said they created stem cells of the type found in human embryos using the removed wisdom teeth of a 10-year-old girl.
"This is significant in two ways," team leader Hajime Ogushi told AFP. "One is that we can avoid the ethical issues of stem cells because wisdom teeth are destined to be thrown away anyway.
"Also, we used teeth that had been extracted three years ago and had been preserved in a freezer. That means that it's easy for us to stock this source of stem cells."
The announcement follows the groundbreaking discovery by US and Japanese scientists last year that they could produce stem cells from skin, a finding that was hailed by the Vatican and US President George W. Bush"
We hear about many different studies going on in the world, and some seem so useless. Every once in a while we get fantastic breakthroughs.
Read the article
HERE
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According to the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, approximately 50 million Americans will need to have their wisdom teeth removed before the age of 25.
The average mouth has thirty-two teeth, sixteen on top and sixteen on the bottom.
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The four 1st molars come in around age six and are called "six year molars". |
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The four 2nd molars come in around the age 12 and are called the "12 year molars". |
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The four 3rd molars come in around the age of 17 (age range of 15-25) when most individuals become adults thus they are called "wiser or wisdom teeth".
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By Janet Evans
Monday, Aug 18 2008, 06:45 AM
Well, who doesn’t like a pretty bird?
I spend a fortune feeding them, that’s how much I like them…Goldfinches in particular.
Are there any other bird lovers out there who can explain to me why the price of thistle seed/Nyjer seed doubled in price this year? Is it just because of shipping costs?
That said....
There really has been a new species of bird discovered. Considering how many species of insects and birds there are in the world, I suppose a new one popping up should be expected. But I find it interesting, expecially when it is as pretty as this little guy...
Image: Brian Schmidt
Welcome to a new species of an African Forest Robin from Gabon…Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus
"Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a new species of bird in Gabon, Africa, that was, until now, unknown to the scientific community. Their findings were published in the international science journal Zootaxa, Aug. 15.
The newly found olive-backed forest robin (Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus) was named by the scientists for its distinctive olive back and rump. Adult birds measure 4.5 inches in length and average 18 grams in weight. Males exhibit a fiery orange throat and breast, yellow belly, olive back and black feathers on the head. Females are similar, but less vibrant. Both sexes have a distinctive white dot on their face in front of each eye. "
Image: Brian Schmidt.
Brian Schmidt, an ornithologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History discovered he had found something new while researching and comparing several different specimens of birds to those already in the Smithsonian's bird collection.
"I suspected something when I found the first bird in Gabon since it didn't exactly match any of the species descriptions in the field guides," said Schmidt. "Once I was able to compare them side by side to other specimens in our collections it was clear that these birds were special. You, of course, have to be cautious, but I was still very excited at the prospect of possibly having found a new species of bird."
The new bird species was first seen in southwest Gabon in 2001during a biological survey of tropical rainforest species.
Smithsonian Scientists Discover New Bird Species
And in keeping with the theme, I’ll end with a very short clip from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, one of my favorite movies.
But I warn you ahead of time of a danger in this clip that was carried throughout the movie…
The main character, played by Tippi Hedren, smokes : ) Just thought I'd warn you since you don't often see that in movies anymore.
You can view four more clips HERE
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By Janet Evans
Sunday, Aug 17 2008, 08:12 AM
And with the higher gas prices, and the prices of practically everything going up, it’s tempting to believe those deals that sound too good to be true.
Some of them may have basic scientific fact behind them, like this one…
Run Your Car On Water
and Double Your Gas Mileage…
Water can be used to fuel a car when used as a supplement to gasoline. In fact, very little water is needed! only one quart of water provides over 1800 gallons of HHO gas which can literally last for months and significantly increase your vehicle's fuel efficiently, improve emissions quality, and save you money.
Thousands of successful water-conversions around the world are proof that this technology works and will soon catch on! Some industry insiders say its just a matter of time before this water-burning technology will be standard in new automobiles. One expert estimates most cars will be using this technology by 2012, but until the auto manufacturers catch up, you can use this technology for yourself today at a very reasonable set-up cost.
You can go to the ad's website by clicking HERE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course there are several things wrong with this picture...
They want you to convert your car to run with water and gas.
This does sound dangerous for the average person, even though they say it isn't.
And, it doesn't sound like it will work.
The Laws of Thermodynamics
Since you need to use electricity to separate the water into the "Brown's gas," doesn't that defeat the purpose of saving energy/money?
And aren't people too smart to fall for this anyway?
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By Janet Evans
Saturday, Aug 16 2008, 06:45 PM
For years the German’s have been protecting their highest peak, the Zugspitz, by spreading reflective foil tarps over the ski slopes. They believe this “sun screen” of sorts will fight against “global warming.”
"The cover keeps off the heat and channels away rainwater," said Manfred Haas, who manages a team that grooms the ski area with bulldozers and graders. "Every autumn we make note of where the glacier has melted the most and cover those places the following spring."
Only the ski area on the mountain is covered with tarps
The German’s believe covering up glacial areas can highly reduce melting. But they also know that this is not very practical Now they've come up wih a wind screen.
"Geographer Hans-Joachim Fuchs in the western German city Mainz has another idea. He wants to harness the power of cold mountain winds -- so-called kabatic winds, or streams of cold, dense air that flow downhill -- with windscreens. The screens would keep the cool air on top of the glaciers, perhaps preserving them for a little while longer.
Fuchs has been proposing this idea for years, and this week he's putting it to the test. On Monday, Fuchs and 27 students headed to the Rhone glacier in Switzerland to install a windscreen measuring 15 meters long (50 feet) and 3 meters high at an elevation of 2,300 meters (7,545 feet) on the leading edge of the glacier. He'll be measuring the effectiveness of the screen to see if it's a viable solution."
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