The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

05:32 Apr 27 2009
Times Read: 839

I must admit the possible "swine flu" pandemic does worry me to a small degree. I'm not one to get upset over disease outbreaks but given they type of virus, the nations with confirmed cases and the speed it's traveled...it has me thinking.



As a member of the FAS it's not just nuclear sciences and non-proliferation that I come across it's also pretty much anything that threatens the security and peace of the global community. Now, this could be nothing and all be over in a week but there is a chance, albeit small, that it could be worse. Not to freak anyone out but we are *mathematically* overdue for a large flu outbreak. The good news is governments are acting swiftly and as I write this a vaccine IS being developed.



For a broader amount of info on this check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_outbreak



Yes I know Wiki is evil but, in this case, it has more information pooled together and easier to find than the WHO or CDC.



I would urge everyone to not panic or get to upset, seriously. The normal yearly flu infects millions each year and except in small instances people get over it just fine. This particular virus (H1N1) while there isn't a cure there are medications available that work rather well against it. Wash your hands, try to keep air travel down (especially to/from Mexico), and if you start to have flu like symptoms visit your doctor. I know beyond a doubt that we WILL know the course of the virus, good or bad, within a week. Although it may be a bit frightening to hear news reports, and even myself, talking about negative potentials people get infected with various strains of swine flu every year and nothing but short lived outbreaks occur, just like the common cold.



Centers for Disease Control -



http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/?s_cid=swineFlu_outbreak_internal_001



Human Swine Influenza Investigation -



http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/investigation.htm?s_cid=swineFlu_outbreak_internal_002



World Health Organisation - http://www.who.int/en/



Again, don't worry to much and if you have any questions or concerns feel free to talk to me.

00:33 Apr 26 2009
Times Read: 859

'Golden Girls' star Bea Arthur dies at 86



Associated Press LOS ANGELES - Beatrice Arthur, the tall, deep-voiced actress whose razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star in the hit shows "Maude" and "The Golden Girls" and who won a Tony Award for the musical "Mame," died Saturday. She was 86.



Arthur died peacefully at her Los Angeles home with her family at her side, family spokesman Dan Watt said. She had cancer, Watt said, declining to give further details.



"She was a brilliant and witty woman," said Watt, who was Arthur's personal assistant for six years. "Bea will always have a special place in my heart."



Arthur first appeared in the landmark comedy series "All in the Family" as Edith Bunker's loudly outspoken, liberal cousin, Maude Finley. She proved a perfect foil for blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), and their blistering exchanges were so entertaining that producer Norman Lear fashioned Arthur's own series.



In a 2008 interview with The Associated Press, Arthur said she was lucky to be discovered by TV after a long stage career, recalling with bemusement CBS executives asking about the new "girl."



"I was already 50 years old. I had done so much off-Broadway, on Broadway, but they said, 'Who is that girl? Let's give her her own series,'" Arthur said.



"Maude" scored with television viewers immediately on its CBS debut in September 1972, and Arthur won an Emmy Award for the role in 1977.



The comedy flowed from Maude's efforts to cast off the traditional restraints that women faced, but the series often had a serious base. Her husband Walter (Bill Macy) became an alcoholic, and she underwent an abortion, which drew a torrent of viewer protests. Maude became a standard bearer for the growing feminist movement in America.



The ratings of "Maude" in the early years approached those of its parent, "All in the Family," but by 1977 the audience started to dwindle. A major format change was planned, but in early 1978 Arthur announced she was quitting the show.



"It's been absolutely glorious; I've loved every minute of it," she said. "But it's been six years, and I think it's time to leave."



"Golden Girls" (1985-1992) was another groundbreaking comedy, finding surprising success in a television market increasingly skewed toward a younger, product-buying audience.



The series concerned three retirees — Arthur, Betty White and Rue McClanahan — and the mother of Arthur's character, Estelle Getty, who lived together in a Miami apartment. In contrast to the violent "Miami Vice," the comedy was nicknamed "Miami Nice."



As Dorothy Zbornak, Arthur seemed as caustic and domineering as Maude. She was unconcerned about the similarity of the two roles. "Look — I'm 5-feet-9, I have a deep voice and I have a way with a line," she told an interviewer. "What can I do about it? I can't stay home waiting for something different. I think it's a total waste of energy worrying about typecasting."



The interplay among the four women and their relations with men fueled the comedy, and the show amassed a big audience and 10 Emmys, including two as best comedy series and individual awards for each of the stars.



In 1992, Arthur announced she was leaving "Golden Girls." The three other stars returned in "The Golden Palace," but it lasted only one season.



Arthur was born Bernice Frankel in New York City in 1922. When she was 11, her family moved to Cambridge, Md., where her father opened a clothing store. At 12 she had grown to full height, and she dreamed of being a petite blond movie star like June Allyson. There was one advantage of being tall and deep-voiced: She was chosen for the male roles in school plays.



Bernice — she hated the name and adopted her mother's nickname of Bea — overcame shyness about her size by winning over her classmates with wisecracks. She was elected the wittiest girl in her class. After two years at a junior college in Virginia, she earned a degree as a medical lab technician, but she "loathed" doing lab work at a hospital.



Acting held more appeal, and she enrolled in a drama course at the New School of Social Research in New York City. To support herself, she sang in a night spot that required her to push drinks on customers.



During this time she had a brief marriage that provided her stage name of Beatrice Arthur. In 1950, she married again, to Broadway actor and future Tony-winning director Gene Saks.



After a few years in off-Broadway and stock company plays and television dramas, Arthur's career gathered momentum with her role as Lucy Brown in the 1955 production of "The Threepenny Opera."



In 2008, when Arthur was inducted in the TV Academy Hall of Fame, Arthur pointed to the role as the highlight of her long career.



"A lot of that had to do with the fact that I felt, 'Ah, yes, I belong here,'" Arthur said.



More plays and musicals followed, and she also sang in nightclubs and played small roles in TV comedy shows.



Then, in 1964, Harold Prince cast her as Yente the Matchmaker in the original company of "Fiddler on the Roof."



Arthur's biggest Broadway triumph came in 1966 as Vera Charles, Angela Lansbury's acerbic friend in the musical "Mame," directed by Saks. Richard Watts of the New York Post called her performance "a portrait in acid of a savagely witty, cynical and serpent-tongued woman."



She won the Tony as best supporting actress and repeated the role in the unsuccessful film version that also was directed by Saks, starring Lucille Ball as Mame. Arthur would play a variation of Vera Charles in "Maude" and "The Golden Girls."



"There was no one else like Bea," said "Mame" composer Jerry Herman. "She would make us laugh during 'Mame' rehearsals with a look or with a word. She didn't need dialogue. I don't know if I can say that about any other person I ever worked with."



In 1983, Arthur attempted another series, "Amanda's," an Americanized version of John Cleese's hilarious "Fawlty Towers." She was cast as owner of a small seaside hotel with a staff of eccentrics. It lasted a mere nine episodes.



Between series, Arthur remained active in films and theater. Among the movies: "That Kind of Woman" (1959), "Lovers and Other Strangers" (1970), Mel Brooks' "The History of the World: Part I" (1981), "For Better or Worse" (1995).



The plays included Woody Allen 's "The Floating Light Bulb" and "The Bermuda Avenue Triangle," written by and costarring Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna. During 2001 and 2002 she toured the country in a one-woman show of songs and stories, "... And Then There's Bea."



Arthur and Saks divorced in 1978 after 28 years. They had two sons, Matthew and Daniel. In his long career, Saks won Tonys for "I Love My Wife," "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Biloxi Blues." One of his Tony nominations was for "Mame."



In 1999, Arthur told an interviewer of the three influences in her career: "Sid Caesar taught me the outrageous; (method acting guru) Lee Strasberg taught me what I call reality; and ('Threepenny Opera' star) Lotte Lenya, whom I adored, taught me economy."



In recent years, Arthur made guest appearances on shows including "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Malcolm in the Middle." She was chairwoman of the Art Attack Foundation, a non-profit performing arts scholarship organization.



Arthur is survived by her sons and two granddaughters. No funeral services are planned.



http://omg.yahoo.com/news/golden-girls-star-bea-arthur-dies-at-86/21766?nc



I absolutely adored her and will definitely miss seeing her around.

Stephen Hawking hospitalized, reported very ill
17:55 Apr 20 2009
Times Read: 874


Stephen Hawking hospitalized



By ROBERT BARR, Associated Press Writer Robert Barr, Associated Press Writer –



LONDON – Famed mathematician Stephen Hawking was rushed to a hospital Monday and was seriously ill, Cambridge University said.



The university said Hawking has been fighting a chest infection for several weeks, and was being treated at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, the university city north of London.



"Professor Hawking is very ill," said Gregory Hayman, the university's head of communications. "He is undergoing tests. He has been unwell for a couple of weeks."



Later in the afternoon, Hayman said Hawking was "now comfortable but will be kept in hospital overnight."



Hawking, 67, gained renown for his work on black holes, and has remained active despite being diagnosed at 21 with ALS, (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), an incurable degenerative disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.



For some years, Hawking has been almost entirely paralyzed, and he communicates through an electronic voice synthesizer activated by his fingers.



Hawking was involved in the search for the great goal of physics — a "unified theory" — which would resolve contradictions between Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which describes the laws of gravity that govern the motion of large objects like planets, and the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, which deals with the world of subatomic particles.



"A complete, consistent unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence," he wrote in his best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time," published in 1988.



In a more accessible sequel "The Universe in a Nutshell," published in 2001, Hawking ventured into concepts like supergravity, naked singularities and the possibility of a universe with 11 dimensions.



He announced last year that he would step down from his post as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a title once held by the great 18th-century physicist Isaac Newton. However, the university said Hawking intended to continue working as Emeritus Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.



Hawking had canceled an appearance at Arizona State University on April 6 because of his illness.



"Professor Hawking is a remarkable colleague. We all hope he will be amongst us again soon," said Professor Peter Haynes, head of the university's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.



___



On the Net: http://www.hawking.org.uk



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090420/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_hawking

00:20 Apr 19 2009
Times Read: 887

*This may be of some particular interest to several of you*



Being a Christian, a member of The Federation of American Scientists, an ordained minister and on the board of 2 physics think tanks I am often asked "how is it that I can be both a Christian and scientist"? Many believe that science and religion have no role being together and for anyone to be a real scientist, or even intellectual, they cannot possibly have faith in such a "myth".



Through out many of my writings I try to show how science and religion can complement each other and in fact " Science, when it is real cognition, is never in contrast with the truth of the Christian faith." -- Pope Pius XI



So to back me up here is a list of members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, I'm sure you'll notice a name or two:



Regular Members



Werner Arber

David Baltimore

Antonio M. Battro

Gary Becker

Daniel A. Bekoe

Paul Berg

Enrico Berti

Günter Blobel

Aage Niels Bohr

Thierry Boon-Falleur

Nicola Cabibbo

Luís Angel Caffarelli

Luigi Cavalli-Sforza

Aaron Ciechanover

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

Bernardo M. Colombo

Suzanne Cory

Hector R. Croxatto

Paul J. Crutzen

Christian de Duve

Manfred Eigen

Albert Eschenmoser

Antonio García-Bellido

Paul Germain

Takashi Gojobori

Theodor Hänsch

Stephen Hawking

Michał Heller

Raymond Hide

Fotis C. Kafatos

Krishnaswami Kasturirangan

Vladimir Keilis-Borok

Har G. Khorana

Klaus von Klitzing

Nicole Marthe Le Douarin

Tsung-Dao Lee

Yuan Tseh Lee

Jean-Marie Lehn

Pierre J. Léna

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Félix Wa Kalenga Malu

Jurij Ivanovič Manin

Mambillikalathil Govind Kumar Menon

Beatrice Mintz

Jürgen Mittelstrass

Mario J. Molina

Marcos Moshinsky

Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer

Rudolf Muradian

Joseph Edward Murray

Marshall Warren Nirenberg

Sergej Petrovič Novikov

Ryoji Noyori

Czeslaw Olech

George Emil Palade

Crodowaldo Pavan

William D. Phillips

John Charles Polanyi

Ingo Potrykus

Frank Press

Yves Quéré

Veerabhadran Ramanathan

Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao

Peter H. Raven

Martin J. Rees

Alexander Rich

Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe

Carlo Rubbia

Vera Rubin

Roald Z. Sagdeev

Michael Sela

Maxine F. Singer

Wolf J. Singer

Govind Swarup

Andrzej Szczeklik

Walter E. Thirring

Charles Hard Townes

Hans Tuppy

Rafael Vicuña

Chen Ning Yang

Edward Witten

Ahmed H. Zewail

Antonino Zichichi



Nobel Prize Winners



Ernest Rutherford (Chemistry, 1908)

Guglielmo Marconi (Physics, 1909)

Alexis Carrel (Physiology, 1912)

Max von Laue (Physics, 1914)

Max Planck (Physics, 1918)

Niels Bohr (Physics, 1922)

Werner Heisenberg (Physics, 1932)

Paul Dirac (Physics, 1933)

Erwin Schrödinger (Physics, 1933)

Peter J.W. Debye (Chemistry, 1936)

Otto Hahn (Chemistry, 1944)

Sir Alexander Fleming (Physiology, 1945)

Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee (Physics, 1957)

Joshua Lederberg (Physiology, 1958)

Rudolf Mössbauer (Physics, 1961)

Max F. Perutz (Chemistry, 1962)

John Carew Eccles (Physiology, 1963)

Charles H. Townes (Physics, 1964)

Manfred Eigen and George Porter (Chemistry, 1967)

Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall W. Nirenberg (Physiology, 1968)

Christian de Duve (Physiology, 1974)

George Emil Palade (Physiology, 1974)

David Baltimore (Physiology, 1975)

Aage Bohr (Physics, 1975)

Abdus Salam (Physics, 1979)

Paul Berg (Chemistry, 1980)

Kai Siegbahn (Physics, 1981)

Sune Bergstrom (Physiology, 1982)

Carlo Rubbia (Physics, 1984)

Klaus von Klitzing (Physics, 1985)

Rita Levi-Montalcini (Physiology, 1986)

John C. Polanyi (Chemistry, 1986)

Yuan Tseh Lee (Chemistry, 1986)

Jean-Marie Lehn (Chemistry, 1987)

Joseph E. Murray (Physiology, 1990)

Gary S. Becker (Economics, 1992)

Paul J. Crutzen and Mario J. Molina (Chemistry, 1995)

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (Physics, 1997)

Ahmed H. Zewail (Chemistry, 1999)

Günter Blobel (Physiology, 1999)

Ryoji Noyori (Chemistry, 2001)

Aaron Ciechanover (Chemistry, 2004)



The Pontifical Academy of Sciences was founded by the Roman Catholic Church in 1936 however it's origins go back to Accademia dei Lincei ("Academy of Lynxes") established in Rome in 1603.



http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdscien/



Next time you question the validity of someone who claims to be both a person of faith and science think on this and do not forget that the only separation of the two come from the closed mind.

04:29 Apr 18 2009
Times Read: 909

It's safe to say that Wikipedia is the largest single source of public information available for free and to the general public, that isn't a government site and excluding search engines since they don't hold accessible data directly.



Let's say, for the purposes of demonstration, that all the information possibly available in the universe would fit in a "totalpedia" containing all knowledge. This totalpedia would be made up of single articles (one per person) written by every person on Earth for a total of 6.7 billion articles.



As of April 17, 2009 Wiki had a total of 2.84 million articles and there are about 9, 500,000 millionaires alone. That means that all the info held on Wiki would only hold the information of 1 millionaire out of 3 and only 1 article per 2,289 people total.



Now we know obviously that there is a huge amount of knowledge both known and yet to be discovered and that an article per person would only scratch the surface. So how can we think that the internet has any appreciable amount of info compared to that held in books, private computers, institutions, non-www media and so on?



This is one reason why I really don't like Wiki (or those who use it as a definitive resource) and why I don't pay much attention to including links for things I write or say.

03:30 Apr 18 2009
Times Read: 923

Perhaps someone could help me out here. I'm a pretty smart guy but I don't know everything especially when it deals with a subject where a lot of presuppositions, assumptions and poorly defined statistics act as the spine of said topic.



Let us first assume that everything we know or think we know about evolution and the history of our species is correct. If we evolved right along side with other animals, if we were the end product of natural selection and our intelligence and self awareness developed just as nature 'designed' if you will. Then that would mean our propensity for creation, art, adaption, use of tools (humans aren't the only ones to use tools or teach tool use either) etc is all part of the natural evolutionary process.



So, being that we are a naturally evolved species and that our abilities, good or bad, are also part of random natural selection... how is it that when any form of 'global warming' conversation comes up we're the strange and evil monster? How come humans are a cancer on Earth when all we are came about by natural selection? Cancer is caused by a malformation/mutation of genetic code not by natural interactions.



I understand that humans have a role to play in climate change but then again so do many other species and natural events, example volcanoes produce 12 billion tons of CO2 a day.



I'm not trying to be some apologist for unwise practices but I don't see how anything we do violates some sacred division of what is and isn't natural. So many times I've heard how people are a blight on nature, an aberration and so on and it really ticks me off to be honest. Yes we need to do what we can to clean up our environment but we don't need to look at ourselves as some rabid animal devouring the planet because somehow we evolved naturally but aren't apart of "mother earths" little utopian planet.



See what I'm trying to say? The animal kingdom (apart from us) and natural phenomenon produce more greenhouse gases than humans do and has been doing it for billions of years. Not to mention that current levels of gases and their projected rise not only have been matched in the past but far exceeded and during those times animal life flourished.



I don't want to see the ice caps melt (to bad with or without us they're going to anyway, end of an ice age people) nor do I want to see any animal species go extinct (although 99% of all life ever has gone extinct and well before we ever came on the scene) but acting like any change is bad in the long run and that we have "fault" in the matter is really a rather bold and self centred assertion.

14:58 Apr 16 2009
Times Read: 934








Black hole jet brightens mysteriously



A knot in a jet of matter streaming out of a nearby galaxy has brightened mysteriously over a period of several years, newly released Hubble Space Telescope images reveal. The bizarre behaviour may overturn theories of what causes other galaxies – which are too far away to study in such detail – to fluctuate in brightness.



The giant galaxy M87, which lies 54 million light years away, sports an extensive jet that spews out from its centre. The jet is made up of matter that was shot outwards by magnetic fields after spiralling towards the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's heart.



But the jet is not a smooth stream of matter - bright knots dot its length. One such knot, dubbed HST-1, has changed dramatically in the years since it was first spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1999, at one point brightening by a factor of 90.



Astronomers regularly observe the knot, which lies about 214 light years from M87's core, at a variety of wavelengths. Now, Juan Madrid at McMaster University in Canada has analysed seven years' worth of near-ultraviolet measurements taken by Hubble. They dovetail with observations made by other telescopes, such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory, revealing a knot that grew to outshine M87's bright core.



What could be causing this flaring? "We do not know for sure yet," says Madrid, adding that there are two broad possibilities.



Flowing stream

One is that material flowing down the jet is ramming into a cloud of dust or gas at the location of HST-1 and glowing. The other argues that the magnetic field lines that keep the jet focused in a beam may get squeezed together.



Researchers say that with either explanation, the jet can be thought of as a stream of water – an analogy first suggested by Dan Harris at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Sometimes the water runs into rocks and sometimes the stream is constricted, creating white water that researchers detect as bright knots.



The white water can churn even more furiously – and the knots glow more brightly – if the stream is swollen after a storm – that is, if more matter is flowing down the jet from the black hole.



Pinched together

If the jet's magnetic field lines are getting squeezed together, that would release a lot of energy, mimicking the process that creates solar flares. "The magnetic field lines in the sun get separated and then get close together, and when they touch, there's a big flare," says Madrid.



But what would cause the magnetic field lines to squeeze together at that spot? One possibility – previously suggested by Chi Cheung at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and his colleagues – is that the density of stars and gas within the galaxy changes significantly at that distance, thinning out beyond that point.



So after travelling outwards from the dense inner region of the galaxy, the jet "hits this discontinuity and it sort of recollimates; it sort of focuses the beam again," Cheung told New Scientist.



More observations at a range of wavelengths may help tease apart exactly what is causing HST-1 to fluctuate in brightness. Within a year, for example, Cheung hopes that high-resolution observations taken by an array of radio telescopes will provide a test of his team's idea that a change in the galaxy's density at HST-1's location is the culprit.



'Rosetta stone'

The findings could be a "Rosetta stone" to decode the mysteries of more distant galaxies that also fluctuate in brightness, says Cheung. Many of these galaxies, called blazars, lie too far away for telescopes to resolve knots such as HST-1 in their jets – flares from any such knots would appear to be coming from the centres of the galaxies instead.



"If M87 were at a greater distance, then one would be thinking the flaring is happening due to the black hole and not due to the jet," Madrid told New Scientist.



Previously, any changes in a blazar's brightness have been attributed to a change in how fast matter is falling into the galaxy's central black hole, he says.



But since HST-1 lies more than 200 light years away from M87's black hole, that suggests that some blazar flares may also arise in jets, Madrid says.



Eric Perlman, an astrophysicist at the Florida Institute of Technology who studies M87's jet, agrees: "This is telling us that some of these flares occur quite far out [from the black hole]."



http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16960-black-hole-jet-brightens-mysteriously.html

Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill
07:31 Apr 16 2009
Times Read: 941

COLBERT treadmill? NASA tips visor to Colbert Nation’s vote



The gravitas of the International Space Station is safe. The last US node, scheduled for launch in February 2010, will be called Tranquility, not Colbert.



The name honors the Apollo 11 landing site. But it’s appropriate for other reasons.



Among its amenities, the node sports a viewing port for contemplating the meaning of life, the universe, and everything as stunning views of the Earth pan by. (For those impatient for the answer to LU&E, it’s 42.)



And the node will host, among other “utilities,” the sanitary facilities — which on Earth probably would be well stocked with heavily thumbed Readers Digests.



But last night, NASA acknowledged Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert’s landslide win in the space agency’s online, vote-on-a-name contest for the node.



In a statement, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, noted that “we don’t typically name US space station hardware after living people.” And, well, technically, that remains true. But you can’t miss the acronym.



Hear ye, hear ye. All rise. The treadmill shall henceforth be known as the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill. NASA even offered up a “mission” patch (see above) for the treadmill. The big question: Will they sell that alongside other mission patches in NASA center gift shops? (I’m not holding my breath.)



It was a politic end to a corner the agency painted itself into by opening the contest to “write-in” names. You can read more about that here. Although the rules were clear about the kind of name NASA sought (invoking a spirit of exploration) and about its role as final arbiter regardless of the contest’s outcome, that got lost in the stampede citizens of Colbert Nation took part in to boost their man to the top of the list. Over at The Space Review, editor Jeff Foust points out odd results from another attempt by NASA to keep its missions in the public eye.



In this case, the agency was trying to pick up on collegiate basketball’s March Madness by pitting 64 missions — past, present, and future — against each other in NCAA-like brackets. Online visitors would vote for their favorite missions. The winners would be paired off against each other in the next set of brackets. The Mission Madness champ would be pegged as NASA’s “greatest mission.”



Among the “upsets”: After the first round ended, a NASA high-altitude balloon still under development beat out the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity 52-48. In fact it made the Final Four, blowing past Mars orbiters, the space station, and the new human-rated launch system NASA is developing.



Along the way to its perch among the Final Four, the still-to-be-launched Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter beat out the Hubble Space Telescope and Apollo 11, when humans first set foot on the moon. Go figure.



Oh yeah, the champ, the “greatest mission” NASA has ever undertaken to date? The still-under-development balloon.



And, Foust asks, in effect, where was the high-profile announcement of the winner? Uh, there wasn’t one.



How could it explain, with a straight face, that a little-known balloon project is considered to be the “greatest mission” in NASA’s 50-year history by the voting public, or at least among those people who voted, and voted frequently?



Excellent question!





By: Pete Spotts



http://features.csmonitor.com/discoveries/2009/04/15/colbert-treadmill-nasa-tips-visor-to-colbert-nations-vote/

13:05 Apr 15 2009
Times Read: 955

I was watching a show about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and I had a thought.



Terrorists (and others) claim that America is a horrible place, filled with infidels and corrupting their people. They blame us for prostitution, drugs, crime and pretty much everything else that's "wrong" with their society.



Here's my thought on all that.



America brought them money, electricity, technology, medicine, food, roads, in some cases defense, education, and a whole lot of other things.

Their precious ali-buba's are the ones who grew the drugs to sell to their people who took the drugs. Their holy woman are the ones who whored their bodies out for cable tv and SUV's and their holy men are the ones who paid to get their junk knocked around so they could go home and beat their wives for wanting to learn how to read.



All America did was help bring them into modern times and out of nomadic, camel dung filled life. We certainly didn't do it alone either, it was with the help and begging of the glorious and righteous governments/tribes of the region.



They call America "the Great Satan" all I have to say is, look around and count how many Muslims have their cocks in a 14 year old prostitute and then count how many American pimps they have over there. The simple answer is, not to many white folks and a hell of a lot of "gods people".



Yes we all know that Muslim extremists are whack and that not all Muslims are bad people. The point being is that it's rather funny when they blow up our buildings for being corrupted and yet they seem to forget that it's all of them who have the real problems. Ain't hypocrisy grand? :)



Like I said it was just a thought that popped in my head. I wonder if I'll get any death threats lol

07:53 Apr 01 2009
Times Read: 996

It is fairly accepted that there are around 10-30 million species currently living on Earth, although some estimates go as high as 200 million. Of those only about 1.5 million have been named and recorded. In fact we have a better grasp of the number of stars and galaxies in the entire known universe than the number of species on Earth.



One reason for this is because;



"A single square meter of temperate forest can hold 200,000 mites and tens of thousands of other invertebrates. A similar-sized plot from tropical grasslands can hold 32 million nematodes, and one gram of the same soil might hold 90 million bacteria and other microbes. How many species these communities contain is still anyone's guess." - World Resources Institute



It is also generally accepted that 99.9% of all life that has ever existed have gone extinct. If we place the avg. life span of single species at 4 million years (Mammals usually last for 1 million and others as long as 10 million) it can be very easy to determine that there have been hundreds of billions of species since life began.



Now life first appeared some 3.85-3.65 billion years ago. However, due to the extreme age of the Earth (4.6BY), massive geologic and meteorologic changes etc. it is almost impossible to even find a semi-detailed fossil record beyond 300 million years not to mention the fact that the chances of anything becoming fossilized is less than 1%.



"Our knowledge of the history of life can be put into perspective by a comparison with our knowledge of living organisms. About 1.5 million living species have been described by biologists, while paleontologists have catalogued only about 250,000 fossil species representing over 540 million years of Earth history". (Erwin, 1993)



There are many reasons for such a poor record and some of them I mentioned before.



I say all this because the only semi-solid evolutionary trees there are cover only small chunks of time spanning no more than a few million years and still containing many holes. Let us say that from the time of the dinosaurs (65MYA) to a random date of 5MYA there have been approx. 300 million species. Even if we had 250,000 species records for that time period (although we only have 250,000 for 540MY) that would work out to ONE recorded species out of 1200!



The point of all this is to say:



I do believe in evolution, in some form, but not the normal evolution taught in schools etc. You can clearly see that the numbers don't add up at all, nowhere near enough to "prove" or almost prove it, or to even provide much of a plausibility for it (as the current theory stands). So please don't just listen and blindly agree with what the Discovery Channel says or even your bio-chemistry professor. Ask questions and in the world of evolution NEVER say "this is" or "we know" and never just accept something. The majority of evolution is conjecture, assumptions and best guesses. No truly intelligent person would ever fully stand by evolution as it is without having reservations or a few thoughts and theories of their own.



Of course this is just part of the the numbers side of things and we all know, math is everything ;)



--DrX



Sources:

1.) http://www.astrobio.net/news/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=293



2.) http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/miller.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html



3.) ORG, Div of Biological Sciences Papers of Evolution 1997-2001



4). http://www.wri.org/