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2007-02-14T19:43:00.000+08:00

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2007-02-14T19:20:00.000+08:00

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2007-02-12T21:41:00.000+08:00

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Standard of Ur – A Standard or A Musical Sound Box?

2007-01-05T15:46:00.000+08:00

When the archaeologist Leonard Woolley excavated the Mesopotamia city of Ur, he thought that this curious object was part of a standard/symbol representing the army of Mesopotamia. It was found in one of the royal cemeteries at Ur and is made of shell, lapis lazuli and bitumen.

However, it is now thought that this object is more likely to be a sound box for a musical instrument (harp). One side of the panel shows soldiers, chariots and the King waiting to mount his chariot. The other side shows a more peaceful scene as the king is at a party surrounded by his officials and friends, there are also scenes of trade and farming.

New near Earth space weather cause found

2006-12-13T16:11:00.000+08:00

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University`s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., and the Air Force Research Laboratory in Massachusetts, say the aurora and other near-Earth space weather are driven by the rate at which the Earth`s and sun`s magnetic fields connect, or merge.

The researchers say that merging occurs between the Earth and sun, approximately 40,000 miles above the planet`s surface and appears fundamental to the circulation of particles and magnetic fields throughout near-Earth space.

New near Earth space weather cause found

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2006-11-21T00:44:00.000+08:00

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2006-11-18T22:42:00.000+08:00

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2006-11-16T21:49:00.000+08:00

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Home Remedies for Cold Sores and Fever Blister

2006-11-04T00:21:00.000+08:00

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Home Remedies for Cold Sores and Fever Blister

New Glowing Mushrooms Found in Brazil

2006-11-03T10:24:00.000+08:00

Like a black light poster come to life, a group of bioluminescent fungi collected from Ribeira Valley Tourist State Park near São Paulo, Brazil, emanates a soft green glow when the lights go out.

The mushrooms are part of the genus Mycena, a group that includes about 500 species worldwide. Of these only 33 are known to be bioluminescent—capable of producing light through a chemical reaction.

Since 2002 Cassius Stevani, professor of chemistry at the University of São Paulo; Dennis Desjardin, professor of mycology at San Francisco State University in California; and Marina Capelari of Brazil's Institute of Botany have discovered ten more bioluminescent fungi species—four of which are new to science—in Brazil's tropical forests.

The work, Stevani says, has increased the number of glowers known since the 1970s by 30 percent.

New Glowing Mushrooms Found in Brazil

Baseball diamonds in the sky

2006-11-01T21:52:00.000+08:00

We're coming up on World Series time once again so it may be of interest to baseball fans that there are two star patterns that very much resemble baseball diamonds in our current evening sky.

Some sky watchers might immediately think of the Great Square of Pegasus, landmark of the autumn sky, as one of these celestial ball fields, and they would be right. This week at around 8:00 p.m., the Square is high in the eastern sky. I know that many planetarium lecturers over the years have always referenced the Great Square as a baseball diamond (even though the "diamond" itself is in rather banged-up condition).

The star, Scheat, in the upper right corner of the Square would mark home plate. The star, Alpheratz, in the upper left corner of the Square marks first base (Alpheratz, in fact, actually belongs to the constellation of Andromeda, the Princess). Algenib, in the lower left corner of the Square is second base, while Markab in the lower right corner is third base.

Baseball diamonds in the sky

Job at PC plant may raise risk of cancer death

2006-10-31T22:09:00.000+08:00

Death rates, both overall and cancer-related, are considerably higher among workers engaged in manufacturing computers and component parts, when compared with the general population, according to a report in the journal Environmental Health.

While similar findings have been reported among employees who work in plants that manufacture computers, semiconductors, integrated circuits and other components, this report involves the largest database to date, Dr. Richard W. Clapp notes in the report.

A court order required that IBM provide to the plaintiffs in litigation "the IBM Corporate Mortality file," maintained by the company. It includes 31,941 records concerning decedents who had worked at their plants for at least 5 years. The data included the sex, birth date, death date, and underlying cause of death for the period from 1969 and 2001.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs handed the records over to Clapp, an epidemiologist at Boston University School of Public Health, to search for patterns of excess mortality among the employees. For comparison with the general population, Clapp procured data from the Mortality and Population Data System at the University of Pittsburgh.

Results showed that among the company employees, proportional mortality ratios (PRM) averaged 107 among men and 115 among women, as compared with the general population.

Cancer appeared to target specific organs, such that among men, the proportional cancer mortality ratios (PCMR) were 166 for cancers affecting the brain and central nervous system, 162 for kidney cancer, 179 for melanoma and 126 for pancreatic cancer.

In women, PCMRs were 212 for kidney cancer and 163 for cancer of all lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue.

There were also excessive numbers of deaths due to multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and ALS.

In his report, Clapp notes that employees were routinely exposed to solvents and chemicals such as photoresist; metals, such as arsenic, nickel and chromium; electromagnet fields, especially ultraviolet light, radiofrequency, and x-ray radiation.

"When comparing four plants around the country, the findings were remarkably similar, in revealing excess cancers of the brain, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and kidney, primarily among manufacturing workers," Clapp told Reuters Health.

IBM still may be ahead of Clapp's work, the epidemiologist added, "because they had data to which we had no access, such as job titles, work groups, types and duration of exposure to carcinogenic agents."

Nevertheless, Clapp is optimistic, since "some of these cancers can be screened for, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and kidney cancer, in order to identify cancers at more early, treatable stage," especially when the management staff is aware of who is at higher risk due to their exposures.

Job at PC plant may raise risk of cancer death

Best Wildlife Photos of 2006 Announced

2006-10-27T13:29:00.000+08:00

This image of a massive walrus looming through clouds of mud while probing for food in Arctic waters was voted best overall photo in the 2006 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Unveiled October 19 at the Natural History Museum in London, the winning images—five of which are included in this gallery—were chosen from 18,000 entries from amateur and professional photographers in 55 countries.

Göran Ehlmé from Sweden captured top prize for this face-to-face walrus encounter off northeast Greenland, where the tusked giants come to root out mollusks from the seabed using their bristled snouts and powerful flippers.

Ehlmé, who has filmed walruses for National Geographic Television, is the first person to photograph the animals feeding underwater. Diving with walruses is fraught with danger, and Ehlmé took the plunge only after spending many years studying their behavior.

"They are highly unpredictable and dangerous," said Ehlmé, who has been attacked by the marine mammals in the past.

"I think this one was in a bad, bad mood when he saw me. Appearing through the mud clouds, he looks like an angry god coming down from the heavens."

Best Wildlife Photos of 2006 Announced

Helping Children Celebrate Halloween

2006-10-26T22:07:00.000+08:00

Arlington, Va. – Costumes, jack-o-lanterns, and candy! These are all thoughts that come to mind when parents and children think of Halloween. But this festive fall event can be truly scary for some kids, especially young children or those who have had previous traumatic or frightening experiences. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) would like to offer some tips for helping children enjoy the holiday.

“Witches, monsters and ghosts can all seem real to young children,” says David Fassler, M.D., a board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and APA Trustee-at-large. “Images of blood, death or dismemberment can also trigger fears and anxieties.”

There are a number of things parents can do to help make Halloween a safe and enjoyable experience for children. These include:

1. Take your child’s fears and concerns seriously. Don’t minimize or trivialize them.

2. Help children distinguish between fantasy and reality. Reassure them that the scary images they see are not real, and that you’ll keep them safe.

3. Let kids participate in picking out their costume. Don’t push them to choose something scary or frightening if that’s not what they want to wear.

4. Escort young children to the door to hand out or collect candy.

5. If children are frightened by trick-or-treaters, let them participate from a safe distance. For example, they may not want to go to the door to greet the werewolf, although they may be quite willing to watch through a window.

6. Talk with your children before you let them see scary movies or visit haunted houses to gauge how well they will handle these situations. If they seem apprehensive, don’t let them participate.

Children with pre-existing fears or phobias and those who’ve had personal experiences with death or trauma may be particularly vulnerable to anxiety in conjunction with Halloween events. Fortunately, children are also generally resilient and most can and do enjoy the holiday. However, thoughtful preparation and responses on the part of parents can help minimize stress and ensure a positive experience.

Helping Children Celebrate Halloween

A Bizarre Study Suggests That Watching TV Causes Autism -

2006-10-25T22:27:00.000+08:00

Strange things happen when you apply the statistical methods of economics to medical science. You might say you get dismal science, but that's a bit glib. You certainly get some strange claims — like the contention of three economists that autism may be caused by watching too much television at a tender age. It gets stranger still when you look at the data upon which this argument is based. The as yet unpublished Cornell University study, which will be presented Friday at a health economics conference in Cambridge, Mass., is constructed from an analysis of reported autism cases, cable TV subscription data and weather reports. Yes, weather reports. And yet, it all makes some kind of sense in the realm of statistics. And it makes sense to author Gregg Easterbrook, who stirred the blogosphere this week with an article about the study on Slate, provocatively (and perhaps irresponsibly) titled "TV Really Might Cause Autism."

The alarming rise in autism rates in the U.S. and some other developed nations is one of the most anguishing mysteries of modern medicine — and the source of much desperate speculation by parents. In 1970, its incidence was thought to be just 1 in 2,500; today about 1 in 170 kids born in the U.S. fall somewhere on the autism spectrum (which includes Asperger's Syndrome), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some of the spike can be reasonably attributed to a new, broader definition of the disorder, better detection, mandatory reporting by schools and greater awareness of autism among doctors, parents and educators. Still, there's a nagging sense among many experts that some mysterious X-factor or factors in the environment tip genetically susceptible kids into autism, though efforts to pin it on childhood vaccines, mercury or other toxins haven't panned out. Genes alone can't explain it; the identical twin of a child with autism has only a 70% to 90% chance of being similarly afflicted.

A Bizarre Study Suggests That Watching TV Causes Autism

Baghdad bakers and barbers at risk

2006-10-24T09:41:00.000+08:00

This is a snapshot of life for two people in one Baghdad neighbourhood.

Before I introduce you to the baker and the barber though, a little background...

They both work in Karrada which sits on the east bank of the river Tigris.

It is one of the wealthier parts of the city and right now it is seen as something of a haven. In this case that means bombings and shootings only once or twice a week, rather than every day.

This is a majority Shia area, but many of its residents are Sunni, and there are large numbers of Christians too.

So far though it has avoided the fate of other traditionally mixed neighbourhoods which have become ever more homogeneous, as death squads and militias drive out whichever group is in the minority.

The question though everyone in Karrada has at the back of their minds is: how long before it starts happening here too?

Fresh bread

Hussein, the baker, is a Shia. Sami, the barber, is a Christian. These are not their real names.

There is nothing fancy about Hussein's bakery. No cakes or pastries on sale here, just one kind of traditional flat bread.

He works incessantly as he answers my questions, flipping diamond-shaped pieces of dough from a tray and onto a long wooden paddle.

Once full, he plunges it into a cavernous oven beside him.

I soon feel myself starting to sweat with the intense heat coming from within. Hussein keeps cool though with the aid of two large fans attached to the wall behind.

It is not long before he whips the paddle out again. Almost in the same movement, he sweeps the freshly cooked bread down a chute and starts filling the paddle again.

A colleague at the other end of the chute scoops a bundle into a bag and hands it to a customer waiting at the window.

It is a wonderfully efficient process - it is just minutes between the dough going into the oven and a customer walking away with steaming-hot bread for the evening meal to break the Ramadan fast.

Easy target

Hussein is a tough-looking character, with a boxer's face and forearms shaped like bowling skittles.

But he is nervous. He is not just keeping watch on his bread. His eyes flick constantly towards the street outside.

Because bakers have become the latest casualties in Iraq's seemingly unstoppable slide into communal blood-letting.

The reason is simple - traditionally most bakeries in the city have been run by Shia families.

So, for Sunni insurgents trying to stir the sectarian demon, or seeking revenge for Shia attacks on their own communities, bakers make an easy target.

The stern face of one of the most revered Shia Imams staring down from the wall leaves no room for doubt as to the kind of Muslims who work here.

"We will stand up to these people," says Hussein. "We are doing a good thing, making bread for the people."

"The government has to protect us," he says - his tone suggests though he has little hope it will.

It is hardly surprising - Iraqi government and American security plans for Baghdad have come and gone, but the killing only increases.

We don't stay long. They are concerned that the presence of our foreign faces will attract undue attention. Hurry, hurry, says the man at the bread chute, as I finish talking to Hussein.

Baghdad bakers and barbers at risk

Ancient World Culture

2006-10-23T19:09:00.000+08:00

Ancient Angel

Well, I thought that you have probably read about angels in your study, so, I thought I would send a picture from the British Museum. This is a Protective Spirit and is one of histories early versions of an angel!!! The monster(angel) has a dagger but he is protecting the King , who is standing beside him..and not trying to harm him!

Actually, there are also very early angels from Zoroastrian religion, this is from Iran (Persia)…The prophet was called ‘Zoroaster’..

So, why do angels appear in the Bible?

Because the Israelites were taken to Babylon as prisoners by the Assyrians and then Babylon was invaded by the Persians from Iran. The Persians allowed the Israelites(Jews) to return back to Judah and they took back the ideas that they saw from the Assyrians and Persians…When the Jewish people wrote the Bible (old Testament) they included many ideas that they had seen from those other civilizations..

Ancient World Culture

The Names of God

2006-10-20T20:49:00.000+08:00

I. Introduction of Yah, El Yah, Yahh, and Yahu:

From a corpus of over one hundred Yahweh inscriptions, thirteen have been selected for the viewer to study. Observation of the way that the ancient scribes wrote the name of their God has led to a theory as to why so many archaic forms are retained in Old Negev. It was observed that often when the name of Yahweh was written (in any of the respectful abbreviated forms) archaic letters were used. And since most of the inscriptions of these ancient dwellers of the Negev were religious, their language was viewed as a carrier of sacred knowledge and such a language has a conservative preference for archaic forms. That is, God's name should be written in the forms used in the beginning, such as the forms carried down from the mountain of God by Moses.

II. The Name of God In the Ancient Negev:

A search of Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions by I. Beit-Arieh, and B. Sass, has uncovered several inscriptions of the pan Canaanite name of God (El) in the Sinai dating between the 17th century BCE to the 15th century BCE.

Careers in Computational Neuroscience

2006-10-19T15:00:00.000+08:00

Study of the brain and nervous system offers stimulating intellectual challenges and at the same time can provide researchers with a chance to help alleviate serious health problems affecting individuals, families, and the general public. But the brain and nervous system are among the most complex organs, so understanding them requires the most sophisticated tools and instruments.

Computational neuroscience combines traditional neuroscience with computer science, physics, mathematics, and engineering. It requires researchers with the ability to exploit those tools to their fullest potential while incorporating findings from wet-lab neuroscience. In short, it is a field that requires broad thinkers with outstanding technical and quantitative skills.

Despite being a relatively new field--computational neuroscience has emerged over the past 15 years or so--career opportunities for researchers who can meet these requirements are expanding. "In the early 1990s," says Hirsh Cohen of the Swartz Foundation, which funds 10 computational neuroscience research centers across the United States, "our deep worry was there would not be jobs in this field. It is just the opposite situation now." As Cohen points out, the problem now is finding enough scientists with the skills to do this important work with these sophisticated tools. If you're seeking a field of science with room for new people and new skills, computational neuroscience is one to consider.

Leading the Blue Brain Project
Elisabeth Pain talks with Felix Schürmann, a 29-year-old German postdoc who leads the Blue Brain Project, a collaboration between IBM and the Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland.

Neural Computing at Waterloo
Andrew Fazekas outlines the computational neuroscience research group at the University of Waterloo, established in 2001, that is hiring new faculty and getting set to open up its own centre.

An Enterprising Approach to Brain Science
Mobile computing pioneer Jeff Hawkins has had a lifelong fascination with brains. Now he's trying to model the human cerebral cortex--and he’s created a software company based on his ideas. (Link to the full text provided courtesy of Science magazine.)

Vision’s Grand Theorist
Eero Simoncelli has an eye for mathematical truths that explain human vision--and he's adept at translating that knowledge into practical tools such as image-compression techniques. (Link to the full text provided courtesy of Science magazine.)

Financing Your Research in Computational Neuroscience
Science Careers surveys several American sources of funding for research and training in computational neuroscience, both from government agencies and private foundations.

Careers in Computational Neuroscience

Jupiter's smaller spot getting redder

2006-10-18T14:19:00.000+08:00

The little brother to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is getting redder and stronger.

Both spots are actually fierce storms in Jupiter's atmosphere. While the Great Red Spot -- at three times the size of Earth -- is much more noticeable, strange things are happening to the smaller spot.

Just a little more than a year ago, the Earth-sized spot was a pale white. Now it matches the reddish hue of its bigger sibling and boasts 400 mile per hour winds, according to new data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Scientists aren't quite sure what's happening to the smaller storm, nicknamed the Little Red Spot or Red Spot Jr. but officially called "Oval BA."

It probably gained strength as it shrunk slightly, the same way spinning ice skaters go faster when they move their arms closer, said NASA planetary scientist Amy Simon-Miller. Her findings from the Hubble data were published in the astronomical journal Icarus.

As the storm has grown stronger it's probably picked up red material from lower in the Jupiter atmosphere, most likely some form of sulfur which turns red as part of a chemical reaction, she said.

The color change took astronomers by surprise. And now they figure more surprises are in store as the solar system's largest planet goes into hiding from Earth's prying eyes until January, moving behind the sun.

"We found that Jupiter tends to do interesting things behind the sun and we can't see it," Simon-Miller said.

Jupiter's smaller spot getting redder

A Floating Chernobyl?

2006-10-17T09:18:00.000+08:00

While the U.S. hems and haws over reviving nuclear energy as a less expensive alternative to oil, Russia has dug back 30 years in our nuclear history to find a solution for some of its own energy woes: the floating nuclear power plant.

The Russian nuclear-energy company Rosenergoatom is planning a mobile plant to deliver electricity to hard-to-reach northern territories near the White Sea, where harsh weather makes regular coal and oil fuel deliveries unreliable and expensive. The $200-million floating plant—slated for construction next year—could provide relatively inexpensive, reliable electricity to 200,000 people.

Although the concept of a water-borne nuke plant might sound outlandish, it isn’t new, nor did it originate in Russia. Westinghouse Electric Company considered the idea in the 1970s and built an immense dry-dock facility in Jacksonville, Florida, where plants would be launched and floated north along the Eastern Seaboard, con- veniently doling out power to towns in need. Engineers would be able to standardize construction for multiple plants in an offsite factory with increased quality control and reduced production costs before tugging a plant to its port of call. But ultimately, says retired Westinghouse consultant Richard Orr, energy conservation following the 1973 OPEC oil embargo killed the project.

The Russian plan is to mount two reactors on a football-field-size barge, float it to a port, connect power lines to the mainland, and turn on the reactors, providing communities with affordable electricity. The plant will store waste and spent fuel in an onboard facility that workers will empty every 10 to 12 years during regular maintenance overhauls. After 40 years, the normal life span for a nuclear plant, the decommissioned plant would be towed away and replaced with
a new one. The reactor and spent fuel would go to a storage facility, but the barge could be recycled.

Yet because the safety of the Russian facility is still unknown, the prospect of resurrecting the Westinghouse idea in the White Sea has drawn protest from environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Norwegian foundation Bellona. One concern is that a boat could ram the plant and spill waste into the water. An even bigger fear is that a nasty storm could cut the plant off from the land-based power supply required to run plant operations. Should emergency generators fail, says David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Chernobyl-like disaster could ensue. In a worst-case scenario, an overheated core could melt through the bottom of the barge and drop into the water, creating a radioactive steam explosion. Such a cloud could do far more damage than the plume of nuclear fallout kicked up by the 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former U.S.S.R., Lochbaum notes, because the human body absorbs radioactive water droplets more easily than it does radioactive ash. “Its worst day would be much worse than a land power plant’s,” he says.

Sergey Obozov, acting director for Rosenergoatom, says that reactors at sea have a proven safety record: The facility would be powered by two 60-megawatt KLT-40S reactors adapted from those already in use on three Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers. Yet Cristina Chuen, a Russian nuclear-energy specialist with the Monterey Institute for International Studies in California, cautions that subtle performance differences might arise when running the reactor for pure energy generation instead of propulsion, noting that the cooling system remains unproven. Although the technology exists to contain a burning core, Rosenergoatom won’t say if the plant—which was designed a decade ago—will include the most modern safety measures.

With a building permit in hand, Rosenergoatom aims to have the facility afloat in the port city of Severodvinsk in the southeastern White Sea by late 2010. “The Russians have learned a lot about safety from the U.S. Department of Energy, Sweden and Norway—who probably all wish [the Russians] would focus on things other than a floating nuclear power plant,” says Chuen, who adds that she wishes the planning process were more transparent. “Maybe it will turn out great, but I just hope they did all the research to make sure it’s safe.”

A Floating Chernobyl?

Robot infantry get ready for the battlefield

2006-10-16T12:22:00.000+08:00

"Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply." So said the armed robot in Paul Verhoeven's 1987 movie RoboCop. The suspect drops his weapon but a fault in the robot's software means it opens fire anyway. Nearly two decades later, such fictional weapon-toting robots are looking startlingly close to reality - and New Scientist has discovered that some may eventually help to decide who is friend and who is foe.

Sometime in the coming months, chances are that we'll be seeing TV reports that an armed remote-controlled robot has been used in anger for the first time. "They will appear when they appear. I can't talk about when that may be," says Bob Quinn, general manager at Foster-Miller of Waltham, Massachusetts, whose machine-gun-equipped robot, called Sword, was certified safe for use by the US forces in June.

Robots have already shown their mettle in defensive roles, detonating ...

Robot infantry get ready for the battlefield

eals Protect Brain, Conserve Oxygen By Turning Off Shivering Response On Icy Dives

2006-10-13T14:14:00.000+08:00

Seals shiver when exposed to cold air but not when diving in chilly water, a finding that researchers believe allows the diving seal to conserve oxygen and minimize brain damage that could result from long dives.

The researchers presented the study at The American Physiological Society's conference "Comparative Physiology 2006: Integrating Diversity," in Virginia Beach, Va., October 8-11. The researchers, Arnoldus Schytte Blix, Petter H. Kvadsheim and Lars P. Folkow hail from the University of Tromsø, located above the Arctic Circle in Tromsø, Norway.

The research provides insight into how seals allow their bodies to cool (become hypothermic) during a dive, presumably to better cope with a lack of oxygen (hypoxia). Research into hypothermia and hypoxia is important because they are problems that affect people under a variety of circumstances. Doctors often are called upon to treat people who have suffered accidental hypothermia, for example, as a result of falling into the ocean or becoming lost during the winter. In addition, several hundred thousand people die or are irreversibly injured each year following cardiac arrest, stroke or respiratory disorders which cause inadequate oxygen supply to the brain, Folkow explained.

Folkow will present a second study on hypoxia, involving diving birds, at the conference. The study "Neuronal hypoxic tolerance in diving birds and mammals," examines how diving birds and seals preserve brain cell function in the face of oxygen deficits. The study is by Folkow, Stian Ludvigsen and Blix, of the University of Tromsø and Jan-Marino Ramirez of the University of Chicago.

Seals Protect Brain, Conserve Oxygen By Turning Off Shivering Response On Icy Dives

New Bird Discovered On Unexplored Colombian Mountain

2006-10-12T11:28:00.000+08:00

A new bird to science was recently discovered on an unexplored mountain range in northern Colombia by a team supported by the BP Conservation Programme. It was named "Yariguies Brush-Finch," with the scientific name Atlapetes latinuchus yariguierum.

The new brush-finch was described by an Anglo-Colombian team of biologists including Thomas Donegan (Fundación ProAves) and Blanca Huertas (Natural History Museum and University College London), following their leadership of the first biological exploration of the Yariguíes mountains. The description was published in the June issue of the scientific journal Bulletin of the British Ornithologists Club (Vol. 126: June 2006).

The new bird is named for the Yariguies indigenous people who formerly inhabited the mountain range where the bird was found. A large and colorful finch with black, yellow and red plumage, the new species differs from its closest relatives in having a black back and no white markings on its wings. It also is found in other nearby mountains in Colombia's eastern Andean range. Genetic, morphological and vocal studies have confirmed its identity as a new taxon.

New Bird Discovered On Unexplored Colombian Mountain

WEB EXCLUSIVE Hydrogen

2006-10-11T09:27:00.000+08:00

There’s something disconcerting about driving a high-speed oval for the first time, and it’s easy to identify: As you approach either of the steeply banked turns, you don't slow down. Trust me when I tell you it’s easier to nod and say “Sure, I get it” than it is to blast into those perfect semicircles at full speed. Especially when you’re only the second civilian in the world to drive the next-generation Honda FCX prototype, a one-of-a-kind, multimillion-dollar, zero-emission fuel-cell car that you always assumed was made of duct tape and posterboard gussied up with a nice paint job, as is so often the case for auto-show concepts. Surely the rules are different for this car.

“Dondon dondon osaete kudasai.” Huh? I mentally check and then recheck my Japanese. There’s no question: The clipboard-clutching engineer next to me just told me to floor it. So I floor it. And the car goes—fast. Though Honda will not give official numbers for acceleration, my silent mental stopwatch puts the FCX’s 0–60 time at about seven seconds, on par with an Audi A4. And around the steep banks, the car is completely surefooted, with no shakes or scary suspension moments. It seems a lot closer to production-ready than its “limited release” date of 2008 (which refers to the year when, like, one guy in California gets to lease the car) would suggest.

The FCX's driving traits are attributable to Honda’s new vertically oriented fuel cell. Instead of lying flat under the floor like all the other hydrogen vehicles out there, Honda’s new stack stands upright where a normal car’s transmission would go. The advantage of this is that the water created as a by-product of converting hydrogen to electricity doesn’t need to be aggressively pumped out of the fuel cell; gravity does much of the work, so there’s much less need for a power-sucking, efficiency-stealing pump to move the moisture. The orientation also makes for a much lower center of gravity than a typical fuel-cell car. Almost all of the ones before the FCX looked like mini SUVs: high off the ground for their size. This is because most of the area under their floors was taken up by their fuel cells and the massive cooling ducts meant to keep them from overheating. This design made the cars nail-biters anywhere north of 75mph.

At least, that’s how the currently available version of the FCX felt when I drove it for comparison. While I slowed it waaaay down before entering the curve, I pushed the low-slung prototype into the bank at more than 80 miles an hour. The high-off-the-ground ’05 FCX felt skittish even on the straightaway at its maximum speed of 140 kph (about 87 mph). The FCX prototype, which looks like a sleeker and more stylish Accord, is low to the ground, sporty, and well-behaved at 92 mph, my maximum speed in it.

WEB EXCLUSIVE Hydrogen

Shop Until You Can't Stop

2006-10-10T21:17:00.000+08:00

Talk about buyer's remorse. A new national telephone survey indicates that nearly 6 percent of adults find themselves unable to resist frequent shopping binges that leave them saddled with debt, anxiety, and depression.

Buying gone bad, also known as compulsive buying, occurs almost as often in men as in women, says a team led by psychiatrist Lorrin M. Koran of the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The new survey offers the best estimate to date for what some mental-health workers regard as an addiction to spending money. Earlier prevalence figures for compulsive buying, based on interviews with small groups of consumers, ranged from 2 percent to 16 percent. Because women seek psychiatric treatment for uncontrolled spending more often than men do, scientists previously pegged it as a predominantly female condition.

"The widespread opinion that most compulsive buyers are women may be wrong," Koran says.

He and his colleagues describe their findings in the October American Journal of Psychiatry. Koran says that he would now like to see a larger survey that probes the emotional and social impact of uncontrolled purchases on people's lives.

In 2004, the team conducted roughly 11-minute interviews with 2,513 individuals, ages 18 and up, contacted randomly by phone. Interviewers asked about cardinal signs of compulsive buying, such as intrusive or senseless impulses to buy, frequent purchases of unneeded or unaffordable items, and shopping for longer periods than intended. Questions also touched on financial problems and emotional letdowns after buying sprees.

Compulsive buying, as defined by a high score on a tally of the cardinal signs, occurred in 6 percent of women and 5.5 percent of men, regardless of racial or ethnic background, Koran's group says. Compulsive buyers averaged 40 years of age, compared with 49 years for the other participants. A majority of compulsive buyers reported annual incomes under $50,000, whereas only 39 percent of the others reported incomes in that category.

Compulsive buyers reported having the same number of credit cards as other participants did. However, compulsive buyers tended to stretch credit card limits thin, often to within $100 of the maximum. Compulsive buyers also preferred to make minimum payments on credit card balances, regardless of their annual incomes.

Shop Until You Can't Stop

The Last Word on the Last Breath

2006-10-06T19:21:00.000+08:00

The patient, only 35, had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years. Recently, he had developed septic bedsores and pneumonia. His kidneys were failing, and despite the feeding tube, he was losing weight. Now he was in cardiac arrest. He was dying.

But the young staff doctor had no choice. The patient’s relatives, convinced that the man could communicate, had insisted that all revival efforts be made. So the doctor gave the patient a few mouth-to-mouth breaths, climbed on the bed and began vigorous chest compressions, trying cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

The patient was intubated, shocked with electric paddles and injected with epinephrine. Blood spurted as a central line was inserted into the large vein in his groin to administer medicine and fluids. EKG electrodes were placed on his arms and legs: streams of paper spilled over the floor, as the hospital room filled with people and shouted orders.

After 15 minutes, the doctors called the time of death.

“Kneeling on that bed, doing CPR, felt not only pointless, but like I was administering final blows to someone who had already had a hard enough life,” said the doctor, Daniel Sulmasy, now a New York internist, medical ethicist and Franciscan friar, recalling this experience from his internship. “Why was I forced to crack this person’s ribs? Why couldn’t we have let the patient die in peace?”

Extreme cases like this one are rare. But the question of who has final say over whether CPR should be attempted on a gravely ill patient — the doctor, the patient or the patient’s representative — is live and unsettled in law and medicine.

The Last Word on the Last Breath

Chow Chow

2006-10-05T23:13:00.000+08:00

Characteristics
An ancient breed of northern Chinese origin, this all-purpose dog of China was used for hunting, herding, pulling, and protection of the home. While primarily a companion today, his working origin must always be remembered when assessing true Chow type. A powerful, sturdy, squarely built, upstanding dog of Arctic type, medium in size with strong muscular development and heavy bone. The body is compact, short coupled, broad and deep, the tail set high and carried closely to the back, the whole supported by four straight, strong, sound legs. Viewed from the side, the hind legs have little apparent angulation and the hock joint and metatarsals are directly beneath the hip joint. It is this structure which produces the characteristic short, stilted gait unique to the breed. The large head with broad, flat skull and short, broad and deep muzzle is proudly carried and accentuated by a ruff. Elegance and substance must be combined into a well balanced whole, never so massive as to outweigh his ability to be active, alert, and agile. Clothed in a smooth or an offstanding rough double coat, the Chow is a masterpiece of beauty, dignity, and naturalness, unique in his blue-black tongue, scowling expression, and stilted gait.

Owning
The Chow Chow's coat will require at least weekly grooming. The Chow Chow is a possessive dog who endears his family and their possessions to him. The Chow Chow is a wonderful companion for adults who will take the time to care for them properly.

Did You Know?
The Chow Chow is one of the oldest recognizable types of dog, dating back more than 2000 years. The Chow Chow possesses the rare characteristic of having a blue-black tongue. The breed was recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1903. The Chow Chow was used for hunting, herding, pulling, and protection of the home in China. Today, the Chow Chow is primarily a companion dog.

Chow Chow

Their Stamp on History: Jan E. Matzeliger (1852-1889)

2006-10-04T21:48:00.000+08:00

Before Jan Matzeliger came along, no one thought it was possible to make shoes entirely by machine. Other inventors had managed to create machines to cut out the different parts of the shoe and to sew together the leather that made up the top, but the last and hardest part still had to be done by hand. Skilled shoemakers would shape the leather upper part of the shoe over a foot-shaped wooden mold called a last and then sew it onto the sole, or bottom, of the shoe. An expert shoe laster could make about fifty pairs of shoes a day. When Matzeliger was thirty years old, he created a machine that could make 150 to 700 pairs a day…that’s fourteen times as many as a skilled person!

Matzeliger was born on September 15, 1852 in Dutch Guiana (now called Suriname). His father was a white Dutchman and his mother was a black Surinamer. As a child, Jan worked in his father’s machine shop and developed an early interest in mechanics.

When he was 19, Jan set off to explore the world as a sailor. After two years, he arrived in the United States and began doing odd jobs in New England. By 1876, Matzeliger had settled in Lynn, Massachusetts and taken a job in a shoe factory. He worked ten-hour days there and spent his free time learning English (he was a native Dutch speaker) and joining in activities with his church.

When Matzeliger learned of the challenge of creating an automatic shoe lasting machine, he set to work on inventing one, using whatever materials came to hand—some wire, pieces of wood, and cigar boxes. His early mechanical experience and his observations in the shoe factory served him well. By 1883, he was the owner of a patent crediting him with the invention.

Matzeliger’s shoe-lasting machine was so efficient that it cut the price of shoes in half after it went into production in 1885. Thanks to him, new shoes became much more affordable for average Americans.

The success of his invention came at a price to Jan Matzeliger. Weakened by long working hours, he contracted tuberculosis and died when he was only 37 years old.

Their Stamp on History: Jan E. Matzeliger (1852-1889)

Python Eats Pregnant Sheep

2006-10-03T10:01:00.000+08:00

A fresh lamb dinner might sound like a manageable meal for an 18-foot-long (5.5-meter-long) python. But maybe the hungry snake should have waited for the lamb to be born.

Last week firefighters in the Malaysian village of Kampung Jabor were called in to remove the bloated snake (pictured) from a roadway. The reptile had swallowed an entire pregnant sheep and was too full to slither away and digest its supersize meal.

But the stress of being captured likely triggered the python to purge—it eventually regurgitated the dead ewe.

Pythons are constrictors, meaning they rely on strength, not venom, to kill their prey. About once a week the large snakes ambush a likely meal, grab hold with backward-curving teeth, and wrap around the victim, suffocating it to death. Pythons then open their hinged jaws wide to swallow their prey whole.

Sometimes, though, it seems like the voracious reptiles don't think before they snack. This particular snake isn't the first python to get a tough lesson in the dangers of swallowing oversize prey.

In July a pet Burmese python in Idaho required life-saving surgery to remove a queen-size electric blanket from its digestive tract. And last October a python in the Florida Everglades apparently busted a gut when it tried to make a meal of a 6-foot-long (2-meter-long) American alligator.

Python Eats Pregnant Sheep

Scientists Solve Mystery of Rare Disorder

2006-10-02T08:29:00.000+08:00

Two rare and related diseases leave their sufferers with no fingerprints. Now scientists may have cracked the genetic code behind the inherited ailments.

Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia report that defects in the protein keratin 14 may be responsible for both diseases, known as Naegeli syndrome and dermatopathia pigmentosa reticularis (DPR).The lack of fingerprints can cause vexing social problems, which are magnified because few people have heard of the condition.

Cheryl Maynard of Fairfax, Virginia, is part of the fifth generation of her family to have inherited DPR from her mother's side.

"My father was in the military and he had top-secret clearances," she recalled.

"We moved a lot, and everywhere we went they'd say, What do you mean your wife doesn't have fingerprints? What do you mean that you have kids without fingerprints?"

Maynard has personally experienced many fingerprint-related snafus, often related to employment.

She works as a flight attendant and noted that a standard background check by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which took about 2 weeks for most of her peers, took 14 weeks in her case.

"I applied for work at a jail facility, and they were naturally fingerprinting people who were going to be employees," she said.

"I kept hearing, Of course you have fingerprints. And five or six different technicians were telling one another, You're doing this wrong, let me do this. I have to tell them I was born without them."

"Things like that are a problem," Maynard said. "It has delayed me [from] getting jobs."

Scientists Solve Mystery of Rare Disorder

Scientists Decode Molecular Details Of Genetic Defect That Causes Autism

2006-09-29T09:19:00.000+08:00

Using an animal model, brain researchers in Göttingen have examined the effects of mutations that cause autism in humans. These are mutations in the genes which carry the building instructions for proteins in the neuroligin family. The study published in the scientific journal Neuron (September 21, 2006) shows that neuroligins ensure that signal transmission between nerve cells functions. In the brain of genetically altered mice without neuroligins, the contact points at which the nerve cells communicate, the synapses, do not mature. The researchers assume that similar malfunctions are experienced by autistic patients.

Autism is one of the most common psychiatric illnesses. Around 0.5 percent of all young children have a syndrome belonging to the "autistic spectrum". The main symptoms of this developmental malfunction are delayed language development or no language development at all, disturbed social behaviour and repetitive behaviour patterns. In many patients, the disease is accompanied by mental disability. Autistic individuals exhibiting high intelligence or outstanding skills in a particular area, called "savants", such as the main character in the film "Rain Man", are rare.

Even up to the middle of the last century, exceptionally cold emotional behaviour on the part of the mother was given as the cause for autism. However, the "refrigerator mom" theory has now been refuted. The belief widely held in the 1990s that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine could cause autism in small children has no scientific basis at all. Today, it is clear that genetic factors are the major cause of the illness. Studies of identical twins have been particularly convincing in demonstrating this fact - the probability that the identical twin of an autistic person will also be autistic lies between 80 and 95 percent.

In 2003, French geneticist Thomas Bourgeron showed in an investigation of families with several autistic children that mutations in the two genes NLGN3 and NLGN4X had lead to a complete loss of function in the genes and triggered autism in affected patients. Bourgeron’s work sent a shock wave through neuro-scientific institutes worldwide, as the a NLGN genes were not unknown. They are responsible for the creation of two proteins, neuroligin-3 and neuroligin-4, which are considered to play an important part in the structure of nerve cell contacts.

Read more by this link.

Scientists Decode Molecular Details Of Genetic Defect That Causes Autism

Giant Jumping Rats' Numbers Get Big Bounce In Madagascar

2006-09-28T00:27:00.000+08:00

Madagascar's giant jumping rats are less endangered than previously thought, new surveys suggest.

The rats, which can launch themselves three feet (a meter) into the air with their kangaroolike hind legs, were predicted in 2001 to become extinct on the African island by 2025.But several studies over a more extensive area of the nocturnal animal's habitat have found this forecast to be excessively pessimistic.

The new findings have led researchers to increase their population estimate for the rabbit-size rodents from 11,000 to around 33,000.

The data come from tallies of the animals' burrows and the results of camera traps—devices set to take a photograph each time a rat enters or exits its burrow.

Despite the revised population estimate, scientists warn that giant jumping rats still need the attention of continued conservation efforts.

"It's no reason to be complacent … because this absolutely incredible animal is restricted to such a tiny area," said John Fa, director of conservation science at England's Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, which conducted the surveys.

Rare, Unusual Animal

The giant jumping rat is found only in a fragmented region of dry, deciduous forest—just 154 square miles (400 square kilometers) in size—in an area of western Madagascar called Menabe. (See Madagascar map.)

A village splits the habitat in two, isolating a northern population of giant jumping rats from one further south.

Local people collect firewood and honey from the forest and occasionally start fires to clear land for agriculture.

Where this destruction is most acute, only thick-trunked baobab trees remain. The result is an emptier landscape of scrappy shrub and grassland where giant jumping rats have difficulty burrowing, Fa explains.

Giant Jumping Rats' Numbers Get Big Bounce In Madagascar

Top tips for avoiding a dog attack

2006-09-27T13:15:00.000+08:00


Dog attacks are rare, but this weekend a five month-old child died when two Rottweilers grabbed hold of her at a pub in Leicester. Newsround interviewed vet Tricia Mundy from the Village Animal Hospital in Surrey, who gave us some top tips for avoiding dangerous dogs. Here's what you should do if you fear a dog might be about to attack you. Stand still Stay calm Face the dog Fold your arms Walk away calmly, facing the dog, but without making eye contact And remember, if a dog attacks a human, it's usually not because it is trying to "hunt". Tricia said it's often because the animal feels frightened, so dogs are usually more scared of us than we are of them.

Top tips for avoiding a dog attack

Rats Careful Deliberators

2006-09-26T15:03:00.000+08:00

Rats, like humans, contemplate problems by carefully weighing the costs and benefits of a situation before making decisions, according to a new study on Wistar rats, a rodent developed for research.

The study is the first to demonstrate that a non-human animal creates a desired ratio, or standard, to decide between options requiring varying levels of effort and that yield different rewards.

A person buying a new car, for example, must weigh the cost and the effort needed to make payments versus the value of the car. Rats, and likely all rodents, do something similar, only under a lot more pressure.

"In its natural habitat, rats are facing the problem that little is under their control, so they are facing various levels and forms of uncertainty all the time," said Ruud van den Bos, who led the research. "For instance, the quality and amount of food items at patches varies over time and between different patches, thus benefits are not always the same."

Van den Bos, a scientist in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University in The Netherlands, added, "The amount of energy spent to obtain these different items varies during the different foraging sessions, as sometimes it's cold, sometimes it's hot, sometimes it rains, sometimes sudden obstacles are present after heavy storms, etc."

Van den Bos and his team attempted to duplicate such challenges by manipulating barriers in a T-shaped maze that rats explored. Rats entered at the bottom of the "T," which connected two arms.

At the end of each arm was a chamber filled with treats. One side had a low reward — one sugar pellet — while the other side had three to five sugar pellets.

Rats that wanted the higher rewards had to climb steep barriers. It would be like placing a person's favorite dessert behind a Marines-type training wall that would have to be scaled before the individual could nosh. The researchers varied the size of the barrier and the amount of reward on that side to see how the rodents would react.

At first the rats went for the easy pickings, but when they determined more sweets were available on the other side of the maze, they exerted additional effort, but only after a certain point. When the pain yielded too little gain, they stuck with the tiny treat.

Findings have been accepted for publication in the journal Behavioral Brain Research.

Rats Careful Deliberators

The Mexica / Aztecs

2006-09-25T18:04:00.000+08:00

The term, Aztec, is a startlingly imprecise term to describe the culture that dominated the Valley of Mexico in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Properly speaking, all the Nahua-speaking peoples in the Valley of Mexico were Aztecs, while the culture that dominated the area was a tribe of the Mexica (pronounced "me-shee-ka") called the Tenochca ("te-noch-ka"). At the time of the European conquest, they called themselves either "Tenochca" or "Toltec," which was the name assumed by the bearers of the Classic Mesoamerican culture. The earliest we know about the Mexica is that they migrated from the north into the Valley of Mexico as early as the twelfth century AD, well after the close of the Classic Period in Mesoamerica. They were a subject and abject people, forced to live on the worst lands in the valley. They adopted the cultural patterns (called Mixteca-Pueblo) that originated in the culture of Teotihuacán, so the urban culture they built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is essentially a continuation of Teotihuacán culture.

As stated in the section on the Toltecs, the peoples of Mesoamerica distinguished between two types of people: the Toltec (which means "craftsman"), who continued Classic urban culture, and the Chichimec, or wild people, who settled Mesoamerica from the north. The Mexica were, then, originally Chichimec when they migrated into Mexico, but eventually became Toltecs proper.

The history of the Tenochca is among the best preserved of the Mesoamericans. They date the beginning of their history to 1168 and their origins to an island in the middle of a lake north of the Valley of Mexico. Their god, Huitzilopochtli, commanded them on a journey to the south and they arrived in the Valley of Mexico in 1248. According to their history, the Tenochca were originally peaceful, but their Chichimec ways, especially their practice of human sacrifice, revolted other peoples who banded together and crushed their tribe. In 1300, the Tenochcas became vassals of the town of Culhuacan; some escaped to settle on an island in the middle of the lake. The town they founded was Tenochtitlan, or "place of the Tenochcas."

The Mexica / Aztecs

"Lucy's Baby" -- World's Oldest Child -- Found by Fossil Hunters

2006-09-22T13:10:00.000+08:00

The world's oldest known child has been discovered in East Africa in an area known appropriately as the Cradle of Humanity.

The 3.3-million-year-old fossilized toddler was uncovered in north Ethiopia's badlands along the Great Rift Valley (map of Ethiopia).

The skeleton, belonging to the primitive human species Australopithecus afarensis, is remarkable for its age and completeness, even for a region spectacularly rich in fossils of our ancient ancestors, experts say.

The new find may even trump the superstar fossil of the same species: "Lucy," a 3.2-million-year-old adult female discovered nearby in 1974 that reshaped theories of human evolution. (Related: "Fossil Find Is Missing Link in Human Evolution, Scientists Say" [April 2006].)

Some experts have taken to calling the baby skeleton "Lucy's baby" because of the proximity of the discoveries, despite the fact that the baby is tens of thousands of years older. (See a historical photo gallery on A. afarensis and more information about Lucy.)

"This is something you find once in a lifetime," said Zeresenay Alemseged of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the team that made the discovery.

A Complete Find

The child was probably female and about three years old when she died, according to the researchers.

Found in sandstone in the Dikika area, the remains include a remarkably well preserved skull, milk teeth, tiny fingers, a torso, a foot, and a kneecap no bigger than a dried pea.

Archaeologists hope that the baby skeleton, because of its completeness, can provide a wealth of details that Lucy and similar fossils couldn't.

The age of death makes the find especially useful, scientists say, providing insights into the growth and development of human ancestors.

"Lucy's Baby" -- World's Oldest Child -- Found by Fossil Hunters

New Shark "Walks" on Its Fins

2006-09-20T13:07:00.000+08:00

Fifty new marine species, including this epaulette shark that "walks" on its fins, were recently discovered by a team of scientists in northwest Indonesia's Papua province.

Led by Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Conservation International, the team surveyed two sites in the Bird's Head Seascape region—a 70,000-square-mile (112,650-square-kilometer) area that is home to more than 1,200 types of reef fishes and around 600 coral species. The 50 new, or believed to be new, species include 24 fishes, 20 corals, and 8 mantis shrimps.

Among the fishes, scientists discovered two new species of epaulette sharks, so named for the distinguishing spots above their pectoral fins, which the animals use to prowl along the seafloor. Additional discoveries include several new species of “flasher” wrasses, fairy basslets, damselfishes, and a type of jawfish.

The scientists recorded a total of 1,233 species of coral reef fishes in the region, lending support to the belief that it is the Earth's most abundant seascape.

50 New Marine Species Discovered in Indonesia

Stingray kills 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin--We are going to miss you so much!

2006-09-04T22:02:00.000+08:00

CAIRNS, Australia - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44.

rwin was at Batt Reef, off the remote coast of northeastern Queensland state, shooting a segment for a series called "Ocean's Deadliest" when he swam too close to one of the animals, which have a poisonous barb on their tails, his friend and colleague John Stainton said.

"He came on top of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Stainton, who was on board Irwin's boat at the time.

Crew members aboard the boat, Croc One, called emergency services in the nearest city, Cairns, and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to nearby Low Isle to meet a rescue helicopter. Medical staff pronounced Irwin dead when they arrived a short time later, Stainton said.

Irwin was famous for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchword "Crikey!" in his television program "Crocodile Hunter." First broadcast in Australia in 1992, the program was picked up by the Discovery network, catapulting Irwin to international celebrity.

He rode his image into a feature film, 2002's "The Crocodile Hunters: Collision Course" and developed the wildlife park that his parents opened, Australia Zoo, into a major tourist attraction.

"The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet," Stainton told reporters in Cairns. "He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. He would have said, 'Crocs Rule!'"

"It's a huge loss to Australia," Howard told reporters. "He was a wonderful character. He was a passionate environmentalist. He brought joy and entertainment and excitement to millions of people."

Irwin, who made a trademark of hovering dangerously close to untethered crocodiles and leaping on their backs, spoke in rapid-fire bursts with a thick Australian accent and was almost never seen without his uniform of khaki shorts and shirt and heavy boots.

Wild animal expert Jack Hanna, who frequently appears on TV with his subjects, offered praise for Irwin.

"Steve was one of these guys, we thought of him as invincible," Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus (Ohio) Zoo and Aquarium, told ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday.

"The guy was incredible. His knowledge was incredible," Hanna said. "Some people that are doing this stuff are actors and that type of thing, but Steve was truly a zoologist, so to speak, a person who knew what he was doing. Yes, he did things a lot of people wouldn't do. I think he knew what he was doing."

Irwin's ebullience was infectious and Australian officials sought him out for photo opportunities and to promote Australia internationally.

His public image was dented, however, in 2004 when he caused an uproar by holding his infant son in one arm while feeding large crocodiles inside a zoo pen. Irwin claimed at the time there was no danger to the child, and authorities declined to charge Irwin with violating safety regulations.

Later that year, he was accused of getting too close to penguins, a seal and humpback whales in Antarctica while making a documentary. Irwin denied any wrongdoing, and an Australian Environment Department investigation recommended no action be taken against him.

Stingrays have a serrated, toxin-loaded barb, or spine, on the top of their tail. The barb, which can be up to 10 inches long, flexes if a ray is frightened. Stings usually occur to people when they step on or swim too close to a ray and can be excruciatingly painful but are rarely fatal, said University of Queensland marine neuroscientist Shaun Collin.

Collin said he suspected Irwin died because the barb pierced under his ribcage and directly into his heart.

"It was extraordinarily bad luck. It's not easy to get spined by a stingray and to be killed by one is very rare," Collin said.

News of Irwin's death spread quickly, and tributes flowed from all quarters of society.

At Australia Zoo at Beerwah, south Queensland, floral tributes were dropped at the entrance, where a huge fake crocodile gapes. Drivers honked their horns as they passed.

"Steve, from all God's creatures, thank you. Rest in peace," was written on a card with a bouquet of native flowers.

"We're all very shocked. I don't know what the zoo will do without him. He's done so much for us, the environment and it's a big loss," said Paula Kelly, a local resident and volunteer at the zoo, after dropping off a wreath at the gate.

Stainton said Irwin's American-born wife Terri, from Eugene, Ore., had been informed of his death, and had told their daughter Bindi Sue, 8, and son Bob, who will turn 3 in December.

The couple met when she went on vacation in Australia in 1991 and visited Irwin's Australia Zoo; they were married six months later. Sometimes referred to as the "Crocodile Huntress," she costarred on her husband's television show and in his 2002 movie.

Stingray kills 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin

I Love Photoshop

2006-08-29T12:49:00.000+08:00

Say Goodbye to Red Eye

Red eye is a very common concern in photographing. How to get rid of red eye? Let’ s do it step by step.

First, look at your Adobe Photoshop tool bar on the left hand side of the screen. There is a small sign like a plaster, which called Healing Brush tool (J). Right click on this button, you can see three functions come out. One of it is an eye and a pen—Color Replacement Tool. Yah, this is the one needed when you want to correct the red eye.

After choose this button, make sure you use the right color. In fact, black is the most common used color to correct red eye. Then estimate the diameter of the eye that can be changed from the top of the screen—Brush from 0-2500px. Now, one more thing need to be select is Sampling that at right site of the Brush button. Generally, we often choose “once”.

Finally, you can open the photo that you want to change from File button on the top left hand side. Just be gentle, slowly change the red eye to a normal color. That’s it! Don’t forget to save the photo you have been adjusted. Try it today!

I Love Photoshop

Folacin/Folic Acid

2006-08-28T00:58:00.000+08:00

Folic acid is important for the maturation of red blood cells. It is also essential for the baby’s spinal cord development in the first 3 months of pregnancy. So, folic acid is very popular during pregnancy period that to prevent spina bifida.

Obviously, low folic acid level during pregnant will cause spina bifida in newborns. For adults, it can leads to megaloblastic anemia and tropical sprue.

The top natural food sources rich in folacin

Organ meat
Muscle meat
Poultry
Fish
Eggs
Green leafy vegetables
Peanut
Avocado
Fortified cereal

RDA for adults—200mcg

Folacin/Folic Acid

Free Online Books

2006-08-23T22:59:00.000+08:00

Hi, I found many wonderful free books from the this web site. Please go to read some good works if you willing the hear the God's words.

Online Books Available

Free Online Books

Mexican Gray Wolf

2006-08-22T21:43:00.000+08:00

Wolves are wild carnivore members of the dog family (Canidae). They are believed to be ancestors of the domestic dog, which evolved separately more than 20,000 years ago. Only two species of wolves remain today -- the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) -- also called the Timber Wolf -- and the Red Wolf (Canis rufus).

The Gray Wolf is the best-known species and still inhabits some areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Some taxonomists contend there are as many as 30 subspecies of the Gray Wolf. One of these, the Mexican Wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) is the only wolf indigenous to the Southwestern Deserts.

The Red Wolf (C. rufus) is a smaller species almost extinct from the south-central United States. The extinct Dire Wolf (C. dirus), was half again as large as the modern Gray Wolf and was common in western North America during the Pleistocene, until about 10,000 years ago.

Range

The Gray Wolf has a larger natural distribution than any other mammal except humans. It once ranged through all of North America from the Arctic Circle to central Mexico. But because of human persecution and habitat destruction it has been eliminated from much of its original range.

In North America, the Gray Wolf is now found primarily in Canada and Alaska, with much smaller numbers in Minnesota. In 1995 wolves were reintroduced in wilderness areas of the northern Rocky Mountains. A small population of the sub-species Mexican Wolf once existed in higher elevations of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts of Mexico but is now extinct in its native habitat.

Habitat

Wolves can live in a great variety of habitats, ranging from arctic tundra to forest and prairie, if adequate prey is present. They are absent from tropical forests, desert floors and the highest mountains.

Mexican Gray Wolf

Appreciation of Chinese Calligraphy

2006-08-21T19:59:00.000+08:00

Calligraphy is an art dating back to the earliest day of history, and widely practiced throughout China to this day. Although it uses Chinese words as its vehicle of expression, one does not have to know Chinese to appreciate its beauty. Because in essence, Calligraphy is an abstract art. While viewing a Western abstract painting, one does not ask, "What is it?" When viewing Chinese calligraphy, one need not ask, "What is the Chinese word?"
In this page, we selected single words from the works of many master calligraphers from the past to illustrate the astounding beauty of the art. Like all art, it is best to simply look at them for enjoyment. Do not be sidetracked with questions of theory, technique, etc. Do not worry about "What is it?"
Beside each work, a very short comment is given to describe its "style", based on the classical book of Tu Meng.

Tu Meng of the Tang dynasty (618-905) developed 120 expressions to describe different styles of calligraphy and establish criteria for them. The first 15 from his list, with explanations and English interpretations by Chiang Yee:

1. ability, mysterious, careful, carefree, balance
2. unrestrained, mature, virile, grace, sober, well-knit, prolix, rich, exuberant, classic

For a flavor of these different styles, look at the calligraphy of single words, as written by the past masters. The idea here is not to learn how to write with a brush, or what the words are, but just to look at them as an abstract art.

A single word written in different styles

A gracefully executed work has no peer.

By Si-Ma Kuang, Song Dynasty (1019-1086)

Bold yet fluid -

From Ode of Mulan by [Mi Fei] [Mei Fei] (aka Mi Fu)

Formal

By [Yan Zhenqing] [Yen Chen-Ching]

Balance

By [Wu Ju]{Wu Chu]

Geometric

By Zhang Ruitu (1570-1641)

playful

By Li Juan (b. 1713)

A carefree style has no fixed directions

By [Wang Xizhi] [Wang Hsi-Chih]. The character is Sui (to follow), in cursive style.
The movement of the strokes suggests speed, by a dancing rather than a racing speed.

A gracefully executed work

An exuberant work full of feeling and vigor.

By [Wang Xizhi][Wang Hsi-Chih]

Lighting quick

By [Dong Qichang] [Tung Chi-Chang]

A virile work in which strength is paramount.

The character is "mountain".

By [Zhang Zhengyu][Chang Cheng-yu] (1903-1976)

Appreciation of Chinese Calligraphy

Digging up troves of possible solar systems in Orion

2006-08-18T10:25:00.000+08:00

A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope probes deep into the clouds of dust that permeate the nebula and its surrounding regions. The striking false-color picture shows pinkish swirls of dust speckled with stars, some of which are orbited by disks of planet-forming dust.

Spitzer, with its powerful infrared vision, was able to unearth nearly 2,300 such planet-forming disks in the Orion cloud complex, a collection of turbulent star-forming clouds that includes the well-known Orion nebula.

The disks - made of gas and dust that whirl around young suns - are too small and distant to be seen by visible-light telescopes; however, the infrared glow of their warm dust is easily spotted by Spitzer's infrared detectors. Each disk has the potential to form planets and its own solar system.

"This is the most complete census of young stars with disks in the Orion cloud complex," said Dr. Thomas Megeath of the University of Toledo, Ohio, who led the research. "Basically, we have a census of potential solar systems, and we want to know how many are born in the cities, how many in small towns, and how many out in the countryside."

A look at Orion's demographics reveals that the potential solar systems populate a variety of environments. Megeath and his colleagues found that about 60 percent of the disk-sporting stars in the Orion cloud complex inhabit its bustling "cities," or clusters, containing hundreds of young stars. About 15 percent reside in small outer communities, and a surprising 25 percent prefer to go it alone, living in isolation.

Prior to the Spitzer observations, scientists thought that up to 90 percent of young stars, both with and without disks, dwelled in cities like those of Orion.

"The Orion image shows that many stars also appear to form in isolation or in groups of just a few stars," said team member Dr. John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "These new data may help us to determine the type of environment in which our sun formed."

Astronomers do not know whether our middle-aged sun grew up in the stellar equivalent of the city or countryside, though most favor a large city scenario. Newborn stars like the ones in Orion tend to drift away from their siblings over time, so it is hard to trace an adult star's origins.

Megeath and his colleagues estimate that about 60 to 70 percent of the stars in the Orion cloud complex have disks. "It is an interesting question why this number isn't 100 percent. Eventually, we may be able to understand why some stars don't have disks," said Megeath.

Digging up troves of possible solar systems in Orion

Hunting Tumors and Exploring the Universe

2006-08-17T17:08:00.000+08:00

X-rays picture broken bones. Microwaves warm leftovers. Both are parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, which also includes light and radio.

Meanwhile, little-known T-rays see through clothing, identify explosives and drugs, and detect tumors. Often overlooked, T-rays are even being used to explore the universe.

The electromagnetic spectrum runs from long-wavelength radio at one end to high-energy, short-wavelength X-rays and gamma rays on the other. Between microwaves and X-rays, in the least explored region of the spectrum, lie T-rays, or terahertz radiation, the most common form of radiation in the universe.

If you've never heard of T-rays, it's because scientists have had trouble harnessing them. Although the first scientific paper on the subject was published in the 1890's on the first page of the first issue of the journal Physical Review, the challenges of generating, detecting, and manipulating terahertz radiation have hindered the technology's research and development—until now.

With more efficient sources and detectors of terahertz radiation, researchers in the last decade have begun to develop waveguides, filters, and beam splitters to manipulate T-rays.

"At this point the technology is very young," said electrical engineer Daniel Mittleman, of Rice University's T-ray lab. "Terahertz is now where X-rays were in 1905," ten years after Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen discovered X-rays.

See right through

Many everyday materials, such as clothing, plastics, and wood look transparent under terahertz imaging. In addition, materials will absorb the radiation at varying frequencies, depending on the type of material.

Based on absorption frequencies, researchers have been able to identify specific explosives and drugs that have unique "fingerprints."

For example, an envelope containing a white powder looks ambiguous and looms ominously to the naked eye. But with the help of T-ray imaging, a postal work could decipher whether the powdery parcel contained methamphetamine or aspirin. Explosive devices would be more easily spotted inside luggage.

T-rays are already being put to work.

The technology is being used in some hospitals as a novel, noninvasive diagnostic tool for doctors hunting tumors. The technique cuts costs and pain related to previous diagnostic tools. Scientists at the University of Liverpool, England, hope to kill skin cancer cells by bombarding them with terahertz radiation.

Cigarette manufacturers such as Phillip Morris are researching ways to use T-rays for quality control in the factory.

After cigarettes are packed inside cartons, the imaging systems check the moisture content and tobacco density of each cigarette. While former methods may have put workers at risk of radiation, T-rays in a factory setting are not hazardous.

"It's a hi-tech solution to a low-tech problem, but no low-tech solution is available," Mittleman said. "So the high-tech solution is the best solution."

Pharmaceutical companies are also employing hi-tech solutions, verifying the contents of their pills without putting a finger on a capsule. Terahertz imaging can even measure the thickness of a pill's coating.

Hunting Tumors and Exploring the Universe

Figures of Buddha

2006-08-16T09:03:00.000+08:00

The art of Buddhist figures in China took shape with the introduction of Indian Buddhism. The legend had it that on a certain night of the year 60, Ming Emperor Liu Zhuang in Eastern Han dreamed a golden man without knowing where he came from. The next day, the emperor called his subjects together to explain the dream. A minister named Fu Yi said Xitianzhu (in ancient India) had such a sage called Buddha dressed in gold. What the emperor had dreamed must be the Buddha. Then the emperor sent one of his attendants, Cai Yin, with thousands of soldiers, to Tianzhu on a diplomatic mission to seek Buddhist doctrine. In 67, they returned to China with Buddhist scripture and figures. This was the first record on China's Buddhist figures in ancient books, but it didn't tell what kind of figures they were. From the existing stone sculptures and pottery Buddhist figures, we will find that the Han people carved them according to the images of celestial beings in vogue at that time. In the Five Dynasties and 16 States, Buddhist figures in Chinese style began to show up. They were not reliefs or shallow-carved images attached to other objects, but whole Buddhist figures with complete body structure. The statues, however, still followed the suit of Indian models.

In the Northern Wei period, the art of Buddhist figures flourished and began to shake off trace from ancient India. At that time, emperors believed in Buddhism which resulted in a nationwide practice to cast figures. The early works were greatly influenced by the Indian arts. The most attractive was two gold-plated copper buddhas sitting abreast. Hebei region was then the figure-carving centre and had gathered many skillful craftsmen from the country. Among the Yungang Grottoes we found many ancient outstanding works.

Figures of the middle of the Wei Dynasty changed a lot in that Buddha's faces which once had been plump and decorous became fine and decated. In the late Northern Wei, Longmen style which laid stress on realness and meticulosity became the main stream in Buddhist figure carving. The works presented fine workmanship and a realistic approach. In the era of Xiaoming Emperor, this exciting artistic style was widely accepted as a rule for the then figure-carving craftsmen to follow.

Buddhist figures in Western Wei not only preserved the delicated and elegant bearings of Northern Wei but also were permeated with more artistic interest of life. The varied looks and unrestrained carriage were most fully displayed in the Grotto Temple on Maijishan Mountain.

Figures in Northern Qi were known for changeable techniques of expression and characterization. The combination of Buddhas and their family dependents presented a colourful Buddhist world. More attention was paid to the sense of beauty against against the gorgeous back light.

Early arts of Buddhist images in the Sui Dynasty carried on part of the Northern Dynasty style. At its mature period of stone carving, Sui Dynasty produces many outstanding Buddhist statues with unique characteristics and dignified gestures and magnificent dress.

When it is the Tang Dynasty, Buddha images were dressed in clothes so thin and light as if wet gauze sticked to the body. The half-naked body was well-developed, assuming a projecting and clear arc line from breast to waist. This feature in curved body line became an important rule to judge carving works of Tang Dynasty from those of the others periods.

Carved Buddha image works of the Song Dynasty were inferior to those in the Tang Dynasty in terms of number and scale. But new development was made to techniques of expression. Artists with superior skills characterized many figures with profound psychology and personality reflecting real life.

A broad review of China's carving arts of Buddhist figures showed that figures mainly followed the Indian styles at the beginning. The Northern and Southern Dynasties made some essential changes and improvements. China's first generation of Buddhist images with Han characteristics were thus created. Transforms of Bei Qi and the Sui Dynasty helped the Tang Dynasty creat a new peak of Buddhist figure carvings. This exotic art was finally localized and became popular. In the Song Dynasty, religious colour on Buddhist figures graduated faded and common delights of life were reflected. That is the main development of China's carving arts of Buddhist figures.

Figures of Buddha

Animal Experiments

2006-08-15T19:22:00.000+08:00

Key Points

	More than 2.7 million live animal experiments were authorised in Great Britain in 2002. This number has halved in the last 30 years
	Around the world, animals are used to test products ranging from shampoo to new cancer drugs
	British law requires that any new drug must be tested on at least two different species of live mammal. One must be a large non-rodent
	UK regulations are considered some of the most rigorous in the world - the Animals Act of 1986 insists that no animal experiments be conducted if there is a realistic alternative
	Almost every medical treatment you use has been tested on animals. Animals were also used to develop anesthetics to prevent human pain and suffering during surgery

Does animal testing work?


	Animal testing has helped to develop vaccines against diseases like rabies, polio, measles, mumps, rubella and TB				Animal experiments can be misleading. An animal's response to a drug can be different to a human's

	Antibiotics, HIV drugs, insulin and cancer treatments rely on animal tests. Other testing methods aren't advanced enough				Successful alternatives include test tube studies on human tissue cultures, statistics and computer models

	Scientists claim there are no differences in lab animals and humans that cannot be factored into tests				The stress that animals endure in labs can affect experiments, making the results meaningless

	Operations on animals helped to develop organ transplant and open-heart surgery techniques				Animals are still used to test items like cleaning products, which benefit mankind less than medicines or surgery

What are the alternatives to animal testing?

Is animal testing morally right?


	Human life has greater intrinsic value than animal life				Animals have as much right to life as human beings

	Legislation protects all lab animals from cruelty or mistreatment				Strict controls have not prevented researchers from abusing animals - although such instances are rare

	Millions of animals are killed for food every year - if anything, medical research is a more worthy death				Deaths through research are absolutely unnecessary and are morally no different from murder

	Few animals feel any pain as they are killed before they have the chance to suffer				When locked up they suffer tremendous stress. Can we know they don't feel pain?

Animal Experiments

More Babies Too Fat

2006-08-14T19:15:00.000+08:00

Chubby cheeks and dimpled thighs have long been a mother's proof of a healthy, well-fed baby. But those roly-poly infants now may be a sign of something much different: America's growing problem with weight.

Even babies under 6 months old are more likely to be overweight today compared with those 20 years ago, a study of Massachusetts children found.

Fewer than 1 in 10 babies was found to be too fat, but the rate was still up substantially from two decades ago. That's worrisome because research has shown that accelerated weight gain in a child's early months can predict weight problems and higher blood pressure later in life, said senior author Dr. Matthew Gillman, associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

"The results of this study point out very clearly that the origins of overweight are at the origins of human life, even at birth,'' he said. The study was published this week in the journal Obesity.

The researchers looked at medical records of more than 120,000 children who visited doctors from 1980-2001. All were enrolled in a health maintenance organization that used an electronic medical record system and most came from middle-class families.

Among children 6 months and younger -- a group seldom included in weight studies -- the percentage of overweight babies jumped from a little over 3 percent in 1980 to nearly 6 percent.

Whether a baby was overweight was determined mostly by change in weight over those first crucial months -- especially weight gain out of proportion with length -- rather than the infant's weight at a specific age, Gillman said.

For the group overall, the prevalence of overweight children increased from 6 percent to 10 percent.

Researchers didn't study why there is a higher rate of fat babies today, but Gillman pointed to previous studies that have connected higher birth weights to mothers who were overweight before or during pregnancy and to those who had diabetes during pregnancy.

"Good habits need to begin at the very beginning of life,'' said Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Obesity Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, who was not involved with the study.

Laura Riley, a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who was not connected with the research, said she hoped it would give doctors more ammunition in the push to get mothers to make healthier choices before, during and immediately after pregnancy.

"Pregnant women need to be much more aware of what the implications are of what they do,'' she said. "Yeah, it's cute to be a nice, healthy, chubby baby, but the question is whether there's a point when it's really over the top.''

Sara Keng, a 29-year-old stay-at-home mother of three from Woonsocket, R.I., said she wasn't surprised by the study's results. She blames the increase on "super-sized'' foods and harried parents who rely on fast foods to feed their families.

Keng said she got a wake-up call when her oldest son, now 4, became overweight when he was a toddler, forcing her and her husband to change family eating habits. She thinks the new study shouldn't drive parents to obsess over their newborn's weight.

But she believes the new data could be more evidence for parents and especially pregnant women that their actions can cause future problems. Holding her 8-month-old son, Brycen, while her other children played in Boston Common, Keng said she sees it firsthand at the playground sometimes.

"Some kids are really big, and that's really scary,'' she said.

More Babies Too Fat

Living with food allergies

2006-08-11T21:57:00.000+08:00

Eight different foods including peanuts, which can cause particularly severe reactions, are responsible for 90 percent of all food allergies. For the 11 million Americans living with food allergies, dining out, whether at a restaurant or a friend's home, can cause more problems than it's worth. Unless you're standing over the chef in the kitchen, the fact is you have no guarantee that the food or foods to which you're allergic won't end up on your plate.

Let's face it: Food plays an irreplaceable role in our social lives. And the good news is that, with a little planning and a lot of communication, you can continue to enjoy evenings out at your favorite restaurant or a potluck with friends.

If you're heading to a restaurant, call ahead and speak to the manager and/or chef. "Let them know you may need to bring a few food items to supplement or enhance your meal," says Debra Indorato, RD, LDN, a Virginia-based nutrition consultant. Ask the waiter questions about how the food is prepared. "Knowing hidden sources of your allergen, such as foods fried in shared oils or nuts added to crumb toppings, can help determine what questions to ask," Indorato says.

"Always carry a safe snack in case there is nothing on the menu that is acceptable," says William Berger, M.D., clinical professor at University of California, Irvine, and a Health advisory board member and allergy expert. Stick with simple dishes, and always request sauces on the side. Try to avoid buffets and bakeries, because they tend to use the same utensils and machines for a variety of foods.

Before going to a friend's house where food will be served, "let your friend know about your allergies as early as possible, and offer to bring some tolerated foods with you," Indorato says. Give your friend specific examples of foods to avoid.

Describe the symptoms of an allergic reaction and what you need your friend to do should one occur. "Have directions in your emergency kit on how the medicine should be administered in case you are unable to do so," Berger adds.

Regardless of the setting, "make sure you carry an emergency treatment kit that contains an EpiPen, Benadryl, and any other medications your doctor has prescribed," says Indorato.

The best way to determine if any food is safe is by looking at the label every time. The manufacturer could have changed the formula or ingredients since the last time you purchased it.

But thanks to the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA), any food produced after January 2006 containing one of the eight most frequent food allergens (in the linked PDF chart) will now use the common name for the allergen in the ingredient list. In other words, a product containing gluten, known to most of us as wheat, will now say "wheat" on its label.

The FALCPA will affect more than product labels; it will also increase the variety of foods available to allergy sufferers. "Foods that were once avoided due to uncertainty may now be consumed," Indorato says. "It's not fun to have to avoid a food just because 'spices' is listed, and you don't know what they are." It will take a few months for all products on the shelves to be labeled with these common names. In the meantime, refer to the accompanying chart to aid in your diet decisions.

Living with food allergies

Say " I Love You " In 89 Different Languages

2006-08-10T10:42:00.000+08:00

"I LOVE YOU" in:

Afrikaans	Ek is lief vir jou
Albanian	Te dua Te dashuroj Ti je zemra ime
American Indian	(North American Native)
Apache	Sheth she~n zho~n (nazalized vowel sounds)
Cheyenne	Ne mohotatse
Chickasaw	Chiholloli (first 'i' nasalized)
Hopi	Nu' umi unangw'ta
Mohawk	Konoronhkwa
Navajo	Ayor anosh'ni
Sioux	Techihhila
Zuni	Tom ho' ichema
Arabic	Ana behibak (female to male) Ana Behibek (male to female) Ana ahebik Ib'n hebbak Ana ba-heb-bak Nhebuk (spoken to someone important)
Armenian	Yes kez guh seerem (Western dialect) Yes kez si'rumem (Eastern dialect)
Bangladeschi	Ami tomake valobashi
Basque	Nere maitea
Bengali	Aami tomaake bhaalo baashi
Bolivian Quechua	Qanta munani
Bosnian	Volim te
Brazilian (Portuguese)	Eu te amo (pronounced "eiu chee amu")
Bulgarian	Obicham te
	As te obeicham
	As te obicham
Burmese	Chit pa te
Cambodian	Kh_nhaum soro_lahn nhee_ah
Canadian (French)	Sh'teme (spoken)
	Je t'aime (I like you)
	Je t'adore (I love you)
Chinese	Ngo oi ney (Cantonese)
	Wo oi ney (Cantonese)
	Wo ai ni (Mandarin)
	Wo ie ni (Mandarin)
	Wuo ai nee (Mandarin)
	Wo ay ni (Mandarin)
Creol	Mi aime jou
Croation (familiar)	Volim te (used in common speech)
Czech	Miluji te
Danish	Jeg elsker dig
Dutch	Ik hou van je
	Ik hou van jou
Equador Quechua	Canda munani
English	I love you
	I adore you
	I love thee (poetic)
Estonian	Mina armastan sind
	Ma armastan sind
Ethiopian	ewedishalew (Male to Female) ewedihalew (Female to Male)
Farsi (Iran-dialects in Afghanistan/Pakistan)	Tora dost daram
Filipino (Phillipino)	Mahal ka ta Iniibig kita Mahal kita


Finnish	Mina rakastan sinua Rakaastan sinua ("Ma") tykka"a"n susta (I like you)

French	Je t'aime (I love you) Je t'adore (I love you - stronger between lovers) J' t'aime bien (I like you - meant for friends, family members - not for lovers)


Gaelic (Language of Ireland)	Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic): Tá mé i ngrá leat (literally: Am I in love with-you / meaning: I'm in love with you) Pronounced: taa may ee ngraw lat Tá grá agam ort (literally: Is love at-me on-you / meaning: I love you) Pronounced: taa graw aggam orret Is grá liom thú (literally: Is love with-me you meaning: You are love in me) Pronounced: es graw lom who (The Irish language is generally a very idiomatic and metaphorical one.) Gàidhlig (Scots Gaelic): Tha gaol agam ort (literally: Is love at-me on-you / meaning: I love you) Pronounced: ha gewl aggam orsht

German	Ich liebe dich (classic & conservative) Ich hab dich lieb


Swiss (German)	Ch'ha di ga"rn
Greek	S'ayapo (spoken s'agapo)
Greenlandic	Asavakit
Hawaiian	Aloha wau ia oi Aloha wau ia oi nui loa (I love you very much)

Hebrew	Ani ohevet otcha (female to male) Ani ohev otach (male to female)
Hindi (language of northern states of India)	Mai tumase pyar karata hun (male to female) Mai tumase pyar karati hun (female to male)
Hungarian	Szeretlek
Icelandic	Eg elska thig (pronounce "yeg l-ska thig")
Indonesia	Saya cinta padamu Saya cinta kamu Saya kasih saudari
Italian	Ti amo (relationship - lover or spouse) Ti voglio bene (between friends) Ti voglio (strong sexual meaning of desire)
Irish (see also Gaelic)	Taim i' ngra leat
Japanese	Kimi o ai shiteru Aishiteru Chuu shiteyo Ore wa omae ga suki da Watashi wa anata ga suki desu Suki desu (used at the beginning of a relationship - no intimacy yet)
Korean	Dangsinul saranghee yo Saranghee Joahaeyo Norul sarang hae
Kurdish	Ez te hezdikhem
Lao	Khoi hak jao
Latin	Te amo
Latvian	Es tevi milu (pronounced "es tevy meelu")
Lebanese	Bahibak
Lithuanian Luganda (language of Uganda)	Tave myliu (pronounced "ta-ve mee-lyu") Nkwagala Nyo
Luo (language of Kenya)	Aheri
Luxembourgish	Ech hun dech ga"r
Macedonian	Te sakam (a bit stronger than "I like you")
	Te ljubam (I really love you)
Malay (Indonesian)	Saya cintakan kamu
	Saya cinta pada mu (best and most commonly used)
Moroccan	Kanbhik
Norwegian	Jeg elsker deg (Bokmaal)
	Eg elskar deg (Nynorsk)
Pakistani	Mujhe tumse muhabbat hai
	Muje se mu habbat hai
Polish	Kocham cie
	Kocham ciebie
	Ja cie kocham

Portuguese	Eu amo te (pronounced "eiu amu chee")
Punjabi (language of N. Punjab, India)	Main tainu pyar karna
	Nai taunu pyar karda
Romanian	Te iubesc
	Te ador
Russian	Ya tyebya lyublyu
Samoan	Ou te alofa outou
Serbian (familiar)	Volim te

Slovene	Ljubim te
Slovak	Lubim ta
Somali	Waan ku gealahay
Spanish	Te amo
	Te quiero
	Te adoro (I adore you)
	Te deseo (I desire you)
	Me antojis (I crave you)
Srilankan	Mama oyata arderyi
Swahili	Nakupenda
	Naku penda (followed by the person's name)
Swedish	Jag a"lskar dig
Syrian/Lebanese	Bhebbek (male to female)
	Bhebbak (female to male)
Tagalog (a dialect of the Philippines)	Mahal kita
Tahitian	Ua here au ia oe
	Ua here vau ia oe
Thai (language of Thailand)	Chan raak ther
Tunisian	Ha eh bak
Turkish	Seni seviyorum
Ukranian	Ya tebe kokhayu
	Ja pokokhav tebe
Urdu (spoken in Pakistan and India)	Main tumse muhabbat karta hoon
	Mujhe tumse mohabbat hai
	Kam prem kartahai
Vietnamese	Anh ye^u em (male to female)
	Em ye^u anh (female to male)
Welsh (language spoken in Wales, UK)	Rwy'n dy garu di
Yiddish	Ikh hob dikh lib
	Ich libe dich
	Ich han dich lib
Yugoslavian	Ja te volim
Zulu	Mena tanda wena
	Ngiyakuthanda

Say " I Love You " In 89 Different Languages

Pesky Buffalo Invade Canada Town

2006-08-08T10:42:00.000+08:00

Residents of Fort Providence in Canada's Northwest Territories are having a cow about their latest pest-control problem.

Several wild buffalo have invaded the small northern town, rubbing siding off houses, head-butting trucks, and even scaring kids off the playground.

The nuisance bovines have been roaming Fort Providence since May, according to a report from the AFP news service. Officials believe the buffalo, which are part of a wild herd of about 2,400, were drawn to the town's manicured lawns and lack of predators.

"You're sure to run into one when you walk to the corner store for milk," the town's resource officer Darren Campbell told AFP.

"One of them kicked a vehicle. Try and get an insurance claim done after your car was kicked by a buffalo," Campbell said. "The adjustor will just laugh at you."

At least one buffalo in Canada discovered the ease of suburban living a few years back. This photo from April 2004 shows a trained buffalo named Bailey eating a meal with rancher Jim Sautner at his home in Spruce Grove near Edmonton, Alberta.

Meanwhile, most of Fort Providence's pesky critters have started moving back into the surrounding forests to search for mates. But two "trouble" buffalo were shot in mid-July for refusing to vacate. The town is now seeking buffalo-control officers to gently encourage the rest of the animals to leave.

Pesky Buffalo Invade Canada Town

Sun

2006-08-07T17:37:00.000+08:00

The Sun is the most prominent feature in our solar system. It is the largest object and contains approximately 98% of the total solar system mass. One hundred and nine Earths would be required to fit across the Sun's disk, and its interior could hold over 1.3 million Earths. The Sun's outer visible layer is called the photosphere and has a temperature of 6,000°C (11,000°F). This layer has a mottled appearance due to the turbulent eruptions of energy at the surface.

Solar energy is created deep within the core of the Sun. It is here that the temperature (15,000,000° C; 27,000,000° F) and pressure (340 billion times Earth's air pressure at sea level) is so intense that nuclear reactions take place. This reaction causes four protons or hydrogen nuclei to fuse together to form one alpha particle or helium nucleus. The alpha particle is about .7 percent less massive than the four protons. The difference in mass is expelled as energy and is carried to the surface of the Sun, through a process known as convection, where it is released as light and heat. Energy generated in the Sun's core takes a million years to reach its surface. Every second 700 million tons of hydrogen are converted into helium ashes. In the process 5 million tons of pure energy is released; therefore, as time goes on the Sun is becoming lighter.

Sun

Reducing the Risk of a Shark Encounter: Advice to Aquatic Recreationists

2006-08-05T11:16:00.000+08:00

The relative risk of a shark attack is very small but, risks should always be minimized whenever possible in any activity. The chances of having an interaction with a shark can be reduced if one heeds the following advice:

Always stay in groups since sharks are more likely to attack a solitary individual.
Do not wander too far from shore --- this isolates an individual and additionally places one far away from assistance.
Avoid being in the water during darkness or twilight hours when sharks are most active and have a competitive sensory advantage.
Do not enter the water if bleeding from an open wound or if menstruating --- a shark's olfactory ability is acute.
Wearing shiny jewelry is discouraged because the reflected light resembles the sheen of fish scales.
Avoid waters with known effluents or sewage and those being used by sport or commercial fisherman, especially if there are signs of bait fishes or feeding activity. Diving seabirds are good indicators of such action.
Sightings of porpoises do not indicate the absence of sharks --- both often eat the same food items.
Use extra caution when waters are murky and avoid uneven tanning and bright colored clothing --- sharks see contrast particularly well.
Refrain from excess splashing and do not allow pets in the water because of their erratic movements.
Exercise caution when occupying the area between sandbars or near steep dropoffs --- these are favorite hangouts for sharks.
Do not enter the water if sharks are known to be present and evacuate the water if sharks are seen while there. And, of course, do not harass a shark if you see one!

Reducing the Risk of a Shark Encounter: Advice to Aquatic Recreationists

Side Effect Revealed: Heart risk found in leukemia drug

2006-08-03T17:56:00.000+08:00

Since its introduction a few years ago, the cancer drug imatinib has given patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia an unprecedented chance at long-term survival. But studies of the drug in people and mice reveal an unexpected risk of heart failure lurking beneath imatinib's benefits.

A research team led by Thomas Force of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia evaluated 10 patients who suffered moderate-to-severe heart failure while taking imatinib, which is marketed as Gleevec by the drug company Novartis. In all 10 patients, none of whom had had previous heart problems, their heart's blood-pumping efficiency decreased after 1 to 14 months on the drug. When the researchers examined heart tissue from two of the patients, they found cell abnormalities characteristic of heart damage.

In a second study, Force's team gave imatinib to healthy mice. After 3 weeks, those mice showed a deterioration in heart contractions, the researchers report in the August Nature Medicine. The mice received drug doses similar—adjusted for size—to those prescribed for people.

"I don't think anyone would have expected this drug to have any cardiotoxicity," says Force.

About 90 percent of chronic myelogenous leukemia patients treated with imatinib survive for 5 years or longer. Before the drug was approved in 2001, average survival was less than 5 years.

Imatinib also treats a rare stomach cancer called gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

The drug stops the leukemia by inhibiting a cancer-causing two-protein combination called Bcr-Abl. The new study pinpoints Abl inhibition as the factor that leads to the heart failure. Although the protein's role remains unclear, Abl may be essential in maintaining cardiac health, says Force.

Only 1 to 5 percent of patients taking imatinib will develop heart failure, Force estimates, but he adds that long-term data are needed to establish a more precise figure.

One reason that earlier studies of imatinib didn't reveal the cardiac risk might be that instead of attributing heart problems to the drug, physicians assigned them to hypertension, diabetes, or other ailments common in the leukemia patients, Force says.

Heart problems may not have shown up in early mouse studies because rodents metabolize imatinib quickly, he says.

Side Effect Revealed: Heart risk found in leukemia drug

At An Underwater Volcano, Evidence Of Man's Environmental Impact

2006-08-02T18:52:00.000+08:00

Scientists studying hydrothermal vents, those underwater geysers that are home to bizarre geological structures and unique marine species, have discovered something all too familiar: pollution.

A University of Florida geologist is among a team of geologists that is the first to observe “anthropogenic influence” in hydrothermal deposits, according to an article in the June issue of the journal Marine Geology. Examining deposits retrieved from the site of an underwater volcano near Italy, they discovered lead that did not come from the underlying rocks or from any possible natural source in the nearby region or anywhere in Europe.

Instead, they traced the lead to an Australian lead mine thousands of miles away.

“I guess we can speculate that this is yet another piece of evidence of how widespread our disturbance in the environment is: the fact that we can influence natural hydrothermal systems,” said George Kamenov, a faculty member at the UF geological sciences department.

Hydrothermal vents form when seawater seeps through cracks in the deep ocean floor, gets heated by magma, or molten rock, then streams upward back into the sea. The vents have aroused a great deal of scientific interest since they were discovered in 1977, in part because of their remarkable appearance but mainly because they host unusual creatures and offer natural laboratories to study the formation of metal ores. Some have tall and elaborate “chimneys” formed from minerals disbursed by the hot water as it leaves the ocean floor. “Black smokers,” the hottest hydrothermal vents, spew dark-looking iron and sulfide particles as they shoot up through seawater. Found throughout the world’s oceans, many vents even harbor eyeless shrimp, giant clams and other fauna rarely seen elsewhere.

At An Underwater Volcano, Evidence Of Man's Environmental Impact

Count Your Blessings -- and Your Money: Money Matters

2006-08-01T18:44:00.000+08:00

I'd be the last person to tell you that money can buy happiness, but I'm fascinated by recent reports insisting that money isn't a major factor in whether or not people are happy.

Please.

Positive psychology (that's what academicians call the study of human happiness) is a hot field of research, and the folks at the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania have come up with an interesting questionnaire that's been getting a lot of press.

Yet nowhere in the 24-question Authentic Happiness Inventory does the issue of money -- or, more important, our desire for financial security -- merit a mention. Hmm.

A Conspicuous Omission

Given how expensive our lives are, how can money not be a factor? We have huge mortgages and tapped-out home equity lines of credit weighing on us. College tuition bills have never been more daunting. Our employers are less likely to give us a defined benefit pension, so the onus is on us -- and our 401(k)s -- to figure out how we'll be able to afford retirement. If we're lucky enough to get health insurance through our employer, the trend is for each of us to be responsible for a greater portion of the bill.

I would love to live in a world where authentic happiness was achievable solely from the richness of relationships, but I'm a realist. And the reality I see -- and that so many of you write to me about -- is one in which money plays into our ability to be truly happy.

Yes, I've heard about the study of lottery winners that showed they were not relatively happier than those who hadn't won the lottery, and the one reporting that folks on the Forbes 100 list (the wealthiest people alive) weren't much happier than the average American.

Those studies show that being filthy rich doesn't ensure happiness, but that's not something most of us have to contend with.

I'm talking about how your happiness is affected when you're worried about how you'll pay the bills at the end of the month, save for the future, and be able to afford to retire. In other words, how you'll make ends meet. When those worries are your reality, I think it's ridiculously hard to be authentically happy.

Happiness Is Income-Sensitive

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so. A survey conducted earlier this year by the Pew Research Center reports that, overall, just 34 percent of respondents are very happy.

But when you start to slice the findings by income, it gets very interesting: 49 percent of respondents with an annual family income above $100,000 say they are very happy. When income falls between $75,000 and $100,000, the very-happy contingent falls to 38 percent. Just 24 percent of those with incomes below $30,000 said they were very happy.

I want to be quite clear: I'm in no way saying that money is all that matters. But I'm so tired of how scared everyone is to admit that money does in fact make a difference in the quality of our lives.

A Family Affair

Most of you would probably say that what makes you truly happy is your family and the love you share in your relationships, and I couldn't agree more. But money comes into play in those relationships, too.

When I talk about money this way to a group, invariably someone comes up to me afterward and give me a "tsk, tsk" look and says, "Suze, you are so wrong. Money isn't the key to life, this is!" At which point their wallet flies open and they show me a photo of their family.

That's when things get interesting, because I start asking them questions: Did you take that photo with your own camera? It looks like a beautiful beach; was the photo taken on a family vacation? Are those braces I see on the two teenagers? Do you hope to help those beautiful kids go to college?

As their heads bob in successive "yes" nods, I ask them how they provide all of that for their family. That's when they understand that I had it right.

Richer, But Not Happier

At the risk of repeating myself, I totally agree that family and friends are vital to our well being; without meaningful relationships, there's no chance of ever being truly, authentically happy. That's why, every Saturday night, I end my CNBC show with the following words: "People first. Then money. Then things."

But money does have a place at the table. If you don't have money to buy things, you're going to be very frustrated. It's just that simple.

How we handle the money we have also plays into our happiness. The Pew survey points out that over the past few decades, the percentage of Americans who say they're happy hasn't changed much (it hovers at around one-third of the population), while at the same time the average per capita income has doubled in inflation-adjusted dollars. So we have more money, but we're not much happier on average.

A paradox? Far from it. My sense is that we while we're making more money, we aren't making more of the money we make. We have a ton of debt, and we have to worry about saving for retirement in a way that our parents and grandparents never did. And as many of you know, it's really hard to boost your happiness quotient when you've got a lot of money worries.

Count Your Blessings -- and Your Money: Money Matters

Lobster Caught "Half Cooked" in Maine

2006-07-31T22:36:00.000+08:00

July 20, 2006—Batman fans will remember Two-Face, the villain with a mug that's half handsome and half gruesome. Recently a Maine lobsterman caught a different kind of two-faced prey—a lobster that looks half raw and half cooked.

Alan Robinson of Steuben, Maine, hauled up this two-toned lobster last week while bringing in his catch near the town of Bar Harbor.

Half of the animal is mottled brown, while the other is bright orange—the color lobsters turn after they've been boiled.

In his 20 years of catching the crustaceans, Robinson says, he has never seen anything like it.

"I thought someone was playing a trick on me," he told the Bangor Daily News. "Once I saw what it was … it was worth seeing."

He wanted others to see it, too, so Robinson donated his unusual catch to Maine's Mount Desert Oceanarium, where experts were able to shed some light on the find. Two-toned lobsters, they explain, are rare but not unheard of.

The shells of American, or Maine, lobsters usually sport a combination of yellow, red, and blue pigments. But the animals grow symmetrically, with each half of the body developing independently of the other.

In the case of Robinson's catch, half of the lobster's shell was lacking the blue pigment, giving it the appearance of having been cooked to a turn.

All this makes Robinson's fifty-fifty find one for the record books, the Oceanarium's staffers say.

The aquarium has received only three two-toned lobsters in 35 years, they note, and the odds of finding one that's exactly half and half is about 1 in 50 million.

Lobster Caught "Half Cooked" in Maine

Examples Of Body Language

2006-07-28T21:49:00.000+08:00

Examples Of Body Language

NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR	INTERPRETATION
Brisk, erect walk	Confidence
Standing with hands on hips	Readiness, aggression
Sitting with legs crossed, foot kicking slightly	Boredom
Sitting, legs apart	Open, relaxed
Arms crossed on chest	Defensiveness
Walking with hands in pockets, shoulders hunched	Dejection
Hand to cheek	Evaluation, thinking
Touching, slightly rubbing nose	Rejection, doubt, lying
Rubbing the eye	Doubt, disbelief
Hands clasped behind back	Anger, frustration, apprehension
Locked ankles	Apprehension
Head resting in hand, eyes downcast	Boredom
Rubbing hands	Anticipation
Sitting with hands clasped behind head, legs crossed	Confidence, superiority
Open palm	Sincerity, openness, innocence
Pinching bridge of nose, eyes closed	Negative evaluation
Tapping or drumming fingers	Impatience
Steepling fingers	Authoritative
Patting/fondling hair	Lack of self-confidence; insecurity
Tilted head	Interest
Stroking chin	Trying to make a decision
Looking down, face turned away	Disbelief
Biting nails	Insecurity, nervousness
Pulling or tugging at ear	Indecision

Examples Of Body Language

Strange Stuff In Space

2006-07-27T20:38:00.000+08:00

There is some pretty strange stuff in space. Things that not even the strangest science fiction stories have dreamed. Some things are just so weird that even astrophysicists don't know what they are.

When stars die they go out in many different ways. When normal stars, like our sun, die they go by throwing off their outer layers and leaving behind a White Dwarf. When really massive stars die they often blow up in a huge explosion called a Supernova. Depending on how massive a star was that went supernova, a Neutron Star or a Black Hole may be left behind as a monument to the star's life.

But there are still stranger things in space. Not very long ago astronomers were baffled by the mystery of Quasars. These objects look like stars but are much farther away than stars in our galaxy and they are much brighter.

There is also a phenomenon that has caused much excitement and wonder among astronomers called Gravitational Lensing. This is where really massive things, like galaxies and galaxy clusters, actually bend light like a lens using gravity!

But one of the strangest things in space is the mystery of Gamma Ray Bursts. These are what seem to be random bursts of gamma rays, you know the radiation that made the Incredible Hulk. They come from every direction in the sky, they never repeat, and they are very energetic.

Strange Stuff In Space

Get Rid of Squirrels

2006-07-26T22:01:00.000+08:00

Squirrels are lovely little animals in the nature, but we often find them irritating in our garden. They love to dig up your lawn, flower beds, plants and seeds, destroy all your fruits and smash your bird feeder. How to get rid of Squirrels immediately when you can’t tolerate them anymore?

Well, here we have found the solution for you! But, some solution is not too pleasant please bare with it.

Burning Sensation
Using dried peppermint, peppermint oil, cayenne powder or hot chili pepper can cause burning sensation to squirrels but no physical injury. Sprinkler them along the perimeter of your plant or spray them on any food they like. This method maybe a little troublesome, because that you need to reapply it each time after raining.

Pellet Gun
Get a pellet gun together with some premium pellets. All you have to do is by spending a week or two guarding at the window. Once you see any squirrel in your shooting range. FIRE! Clean and sweet technique.

Cat
Consider getting yourself a cat and allowed it to stay outdoor. Cat by natural are good hunter, they can help keeping squirrels out of your garden. However do take note that, cats not only hunt down squirrels, they prey on birds too. You may want to reconsider this option. I feel it’s kind of irresponsible.

Live Traps
Havahart traps work well, trying using apple slice with peanut butter as bait. Catch them alive and relocate them. If you dun want to kill them, this may be the best solution.

Rat Zapper
A straight forward trap. Trap, dead and throw. Clean and efficient no handling of carcasses.

Plant Garlic
By planting garlic and sprinkled garlic powder along side with your seeds. Squirrels just hate the smelling of garlic. This method helps to keep squirrels away from your seeds.

Feed them
Feed squirrels with sunflower seed together with a big dish of water at the other side of your garden. They wouldn’t border you after that. This may not be the correct way, but it works to some extend.

Rat Snake
You can consider a rat snake to get rid of squirrels and at the same time keep it as a pet. Be sure that none of your family members are afraid of reptiles. Rat snake is only large enough to eat squirrel and not a threat to human or dog.

Try to avoid killing if possible. Living in harmony with our surrounding animals makes this world a better place.

Alexander the Great

2006-07-25T16:17:00.000+08:00

Alexander the Great (Greek: Μέγας Αλέξανδρος[1] Megas Alexandros; July 21, 356 BC — June 11, 323 BC), also known as Alexander III, king of Macedon (336–323 BC), is considered one of the most successful military commanders in history, conquering most of his known world before his death. Alexander is also known in the Zoroastrian Middle Persian work Arda Wiraz Nāmag as "the accursed Alexander" due to his conquest of the Persian Empire and the destruction of its capital Persepolis. He is known as Eskandar in Persian and even acclaimed during the construction of the Great Wall Sadd-e Eskandar by the Parthian Dynasty[citation needed]. He is also known as Sikandar in Urdu and Hindi, a term also used as a synonym for "expert" or "extremely skilled".

Early life

Alexander the Great was the son of King Philip II of Macedonia and of his fourth wife, Epirote princess Olympias. According to Plutarch (Alexander 3.1,3), Olympias was impregnated not by Philip, who was afraid of her, and her affinity for sleeping in the company of snakes, but by Zeus Ammon. Plutarch (Alexander 2.2-3) relates that both Philip and Olympias dreamt of their son's future birth. Olympias dreamed of a loud burst of thunder and of lightning striking her womb. In Philip's dream, he sealed her womb with the seal of the lion. Alarmed by this, he consulted the seer Aristander of Telmessus, who determined that his wife was pregnant and that the child would have the character of a lion.

Aristotle was Alexander's tutor; he gave Alexander a thorough training in rhetoric and literature and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy. After his visit to the Oracle of Ammon at Siwa, according to five historians of antiquity (Arrian, Curtius, Diodorus, Justin, and Plutarch), rumors spread that the Oracle had revealed Alexander's father to be Zeus, rather than Philip.

Ascent of Macedon

When Philip led an attack on Byzantium in 340 BC, Alexander, aged 16, was left as regent of Macedonia. In 339 BC, Philip took a fifth wife, the Macedonian Cleopatra. As Alexander's mother, Olympias, was from Epirus (a land in the western part of the Greek peninsula and not part of Macedon), and Cleopatra was a true Macedonian, this led to a dispute over Alexander's legitimacy as heir to the throne. Attalus, the uncle of the bride, supposedly gave a toast during the wedding feast giving his wish for the wedding to result in a legitimate heir to the throne of Macedon; Alexander hurled his goblet at Attalus shouting "What am I, a bastard then?" Alexander's father apparently had drawn his sword and moved towards Alexander, but then had fallen in a drunken stupor. Alexander remarked "Here is the man planning on conquering from Greece to Asia, and he cannot even move from one table to another." Alexander, his mother, and sister (also named Cleopatra) then left Macedon in anger.

Eventually Philip reconciled with his son, and Alexander returned home; Olympias and Alexander's sister remained in Epirus. In 338 BC Alexander assisted his father at the decisive Battle of Chaeronea against the Greek city-states of Athens and Thebes, in which the cavalry wing led by Alexander annihilated the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite corps regarded as invincible. After the battle, Phillip led a wild celebration, from which Alexander was notably absent (it is believed he was treating the wounded and burying the dead, both of his own troops and of the enemy). Philip was content to deprive Thebes of her dominion over Boeotia and leave a Macedonian garrison in the citadel. A few months later, to strengthen Macedon's control over the Greek city-states, the League of Corinth was formed.

Read full story through the link.

Alexander the Great

Never Too Late to Exercise

2006-07-24T10:40:00.000+08:00

LARGO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- If you ask a Golden Ager if they exercise, most will say they walk. While walking is good, new research shows seniors need to "pump it up" a little more.

Fit, healthy and young? Not exactly. The fastest-growing age group in the United States is those older than 85. And many are finding the key to a healthy life is sweat.

"If you don't exercise, you'll become physically and mentally stagnate the older you get, and I'm not gonna get that way," says 70-year old Dee Purdue.

A new study shows you don't have to do much to see the benefits -- anything from sitting exercises to weight training machines. Just 45 minutes of strength training two times a week increases quality of life by 40 percent.

Bob Simons, Ph.D. a health and fitness expert at The Bonsai Spa and Fitness Center in Largo, Florida, says, "When you exercise even a minimal amount at the age of 85, you can make some phenomenal gains."

He led the study and saw the results firsthand. "After about the sixth or seventh week, they had a garage sale, and several walkers and canes were in that garage sale," Simmons tells Ivanhoe.

But convincing a senior to hit the gym is not easy. This is a generation that knows hard times and hard work, not necessarily healthy habits. Dr. Simons says you have to relate exercise to their everyday living. Once they feel the benefits, it's easy to get them coming back.

Dr. Simons says to talk to your doctor before starting to exercise, but 99 percent of the time, you can start some type of program at any age with any ailment. For some seniors, simple sitting exercises is where they need to start. Others are ready to do weight training on machines or more intense cardio workouts.

Never Too Late to Exercise

Michelangelo Buonarroti

2006-07-22T10:27:00.000+08:00

He is one of the greatest artists of all time, a man whose name has become synonymous with the word "masterpiece": Michelangelo Buonarroti.

As an artist he was unmatched, the creator of works of sublime beauty that express the full breadth of the human condition. Yet in a world where art flourished only with patronage, Michelangelo was caught between the conflicting powers and whims of the Medici family in Florence, and the Papacy in Rome. Unlike many artists of his time, his genius was recognized.

The idea of commissioning an enormous fresco, the largest ever painted in that century, depicting the Last Judgment, was probably suggested to Clement VII by the traumatic events that were undermining the unity of Christians at the time. After the pope's death, on September 25, 1534, and only two days after Michelangelo's arrival in Rome, his successor, Paul III Farnese confirmed the commission to Michelangelo, and in April 1535 scaffolding was put up in front of the altar wall.

All that had happened in the church in the years that preceded the Judgment, including the Reformation and the Sack of Rome, had a direct influence on the work's conception: painted on the altar wall, the Last Judgment was to represent humanity face to face with salvation.

The Scandal
Even before its official unveiling, the Judgment became the target of violent criticisms of a moral character. Vasari relates that Biagio da Cesena, the Vatican's master of Ceremonies, said that "it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully, and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns."

Michelangelo was not slow to take his revenge: the poor Biagio was portrayed in hell, in the figure of Minos, "shown with a great serpent curled around his legs, among a heap of devils."

Others accused the painter of heresy. These included Pietro Aretino, who, in a famous letter, even called for the fresco's destruction, the Dominican preacher Ambrogio Politi called Caterino, and Giovanni Andrea Gilio, who drew up a long statement of charges against Michelangelo in his Dialoghi.

But the nudity of the figures worried neither Paul III nor his successor Julius III. It was not until January 1564, and therefore about a month before Michelangelo's death, that the assembly of the Council of Trent took the decision to "amend" the fresco.

The Last Judgment, which Michelangelo finished in 1541 was the largest fresco of the Renaissance, it depicts Judgment Day. Christ, with a clap of thunder, puts into motion the inevitable separation, with the saved ascending on the left side of the painting and the damned descending on the right into a Dantesque hell. As was his custom, Michelangelo portrayed all the figures nude, but prudish draperies were added by another artist (who was dubbed the "breeches-maker") a decade later, as the cultural climate became more conservative. Michelangelo painted his own image in the flayed skin of St. Bartholomew. Although he was also given another painting commission, the decoration of the Pauline Chapel in the 1540s, his main energies were directed toward architecture during this phase of his life.

Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna
In 1538, three years before finishing the Last Judgment, Michelangelo had met Vittoria Colonna, a poetess and highly cultivated woman who was one of the most influential figures in the Viterbo Circle. The members of the Circle called for certain reforms to be made in the church, in the conviction that it was Divine Grace that should play the major role in Christian life, rather than the works of man.

Between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna (he aged sixty-one, she forty-six) a deep friendship developed, one might almost say an absolutely pure love, inspired by poetry and faith, out of which were to emerge some of Michelangelo's finest lyric poems, overflowing with admiration and devotion. The most intense period of their relationship, described in the Dialogues of Francisco de Hollanda, lasted from 1544 until Colonna's death in 1547: years filled with long conversations on how faith should be understood and lived, with passionate exchanges of letters, and with frequent visits to the church of San Silvestro al Quirinale to listen to commentaries on the sacred texts. Art, too, cemented their communion: Michelangelo gave her three drawings (a Crucifixion sent to her in 1536, a Deposition of Christ, and a Mary Magdalen) and together they planned the construction of a monastery on the slopes of the Quirinal.

Poems for Vittoria Colonna
The sonnets and madrigals that Michelangelo wrote for Vittoria Colonna between 1538 and 1547 are characterized by a tranquil Platonism, that is by the attainment of bliss through admiration of a superior woman.

Along with lyric poems of a spiritual and mystical character, Michelangelo composed other poems that were more passionate and more in keeping with the style of the time, inspired by a "cruel and beautiful" woman, seen in these verses as the object of an unattainable desire.

Michelangelo's Solitude
Michelangelo's "unsociableness" has been seen as the typical attitude of what was known in the Renaissance as the vir melanchonicus, or the absorbed and solitary contemplator, wholly wrapped up in his art, for whom involvement in creative activity was transformed into suffering: "I am here in great distress and with great physical strain, and have no friends of any kind, nor do I want them; and I do not have enough time to eat as much as I need; my joy and my sorrow/my repose are these discomforts."

Michelangelo was perhaps one of the artists who paid the greatest price in terms of suffering for the divine gift of his art: "I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible" (January 29th, 1542).

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Out of Sight

2006-07-21T16:33:00.000+08:00

First, a disclaimer: Invisibility cloaks like Harry Potter's are nowhere near becoming reality. Nor has anyone unearthed proof that the infamous Philadelphia experiment—in which U.S. Navy scientists in 1943 supposedly made a destroyer and its crew vanish—really took place. Stygian crystals, said to confer invisibility in Star Wars films and books, remain figments of writers' imaginations. And not one invisibility shield yet exists, not even a mouse-size one, as best anyone can tell.

The reality is this: Scientists have recently been doing some deep thinking about how light and matter interact. As a result, even some practical-minded physicists and engineers have embraced the notion that humankind's long-held desire to make a person or an object invisible may no longer be just the stuff of fantasy.

"In principle, it's possible to make cloaking devices," contends theoretical physicist Ulf Leonhardt of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, speaking for a growing number of researchers. In recent studies, several teams have proposed rigid shells or walls—invisibility shields—that would interact with electromagnetic radiation in new ways. As a result, observers could, in essence, look right through those shields and the objects they enclose.

While none of the strategies has yet been tested experimentally, experimental physicist David Schurig of Duke University in Durham, N.C., predicts that he and his colleagues will demonstrate such a device that can render, say, a toaster-size object invisible to radar in less than 6 months.

"What differs from science fiction," says experimental physicist David R. Smith, who heads the Duke team, is that those authors "imagine a field in space that does this. We do it by creating a material that directs the light around the thing being cloaked."

The new strategies also differ from the military's current stealth technologies for planes, boats, and armored vehicles. Whereas those objects have equipment and surface coatings that absorb or deflect radar signals, the envisioned invisibility devices would cancel electromagnetic waves from the object or route radar or light signals around it.

Although some of the new schemes might apply only to objects already too small to be seen with the naked eye, others may be suitable for ordinary, human-scale items. However, no theorist has yet proposed a shield that drapes and folds like a cloak—à la Harry Potter.

Out of Sight

Is Our Copy of the Bible a Reliable Copy of the Original?

2006-07-20T17:22:00.000+08:00

Old Testament

How do we know the Bible has been kept in tact for over 2,000 years of copying? Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, our earliest Hebrew copy of the Old Testament was the Masoretic text, dating around 800 A.D. The Dead Sea Scrolls date to the time of Jesus and were copied by the Qumran community, a Jewish sect living around the Dead Sea. We also have the Septuagint which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament dating in the second century B.C. When we compare these texts which have an 800-1000 years gap between them we are amazed that 95% of the texts are identical with only minor variations and a few discrepancies.

New Testament

In considering the New Testament we have tens of thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in part or in whole, dating from the second century A.D. to the late fifteenth century, when the printing press was invented. These manuscripts have been found in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, making collusion unlikely. The oldest manuscript, the John Rylands manuscript, has been dated to 125 A.D. and was found in Egypt, some distance from where the New Testament was originally composed in Asia Minor). Many early Christian papyri, discovered in 1935, have been dated to 150 A.D., and include the four gospels. The Papyrus Bodmer II, discovered in 1956, has been dated to 200 A.D., and contains 14 chapters and portions of the last seven chapters of the gospel of John. The Chester Beatty biblical papyri, discovered in 1931, has been dated to 200-250 A.D. and contains the Gospels, Acts, Paul's Epistles, and Revelation. The number of manuscripts is extensive compared to other ancient historical writings, such as Caesar's "Gallic Wars" (10 Greek manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), the "Annals" of Tacitus (2 manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), Livy (20 manuscripts, the earliest 350 years after the original), and Plato (7 manuscripts).

**Manuscript Evidence for Ancient Writings**

Author	Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	# Mss.

Caesar	100-44 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,000 yrs	10
Plato	427-347 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,200 yrs	7
Thucydides	460-400 B.C.	900 A.D.	1,300 yrs	8
Tacitus	100 A.D.	1100 A.D.	1,000 yrs	20
Suetonius	75-160 A.D.	950 A.D.	800 yrs	8
Homer (Iliad)	900 B.C.	400 B.C.	500 yrs	643
New Testament	40-100 A.D.	125 A.D.	25-50 yrs	24,000

Thousands of early Christian writings and lexionaries (first and second century) cite verses from the New Testament. In fact, it is nearly possible to put together the entire New Testament just from early Christian writings. For example, the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (dated 95 A.D.) cites verses from the Gospels, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. The letters of Ignatius (dated 115 A.D.) were written to several churches in Asia Minor and cites verses from Matthew, John, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. These letters indicate that the entire New Testament was written in the first century A.D. In addition, there is internal evidence for a first century date for the writing of the New Testament. The book of Acts ends abruptly with Paul in prison, awaiting trial (Acts 28:30-31 (1)). It is likely that Luke wrote Acts during this time, before Paul finally appeared before Nero. This would be about 62-63 A.D., meaning that Acts and Luke were written within thirty years of ministry and death of Jesus. Another internal evidence is that there is no mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Although Matthew, Mark and Luke record Jesus' prophecy that the temple and city would be destroyed within that generation (Matthew 24:1-2 (2),Mark 13:1-2 (3), Luke 21:5-9,20-24,32(4)), no New Testament book refers to this event as having happened. If they had been written after 70 A.D., it is likely that letters written after 70 A.D. would have mentioned the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy. As stated by Nelson Glueck, former president of the Jewish Theological Seminary in the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and renowned Jewish archaeologist, "In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written between the forties and eighties of the first century A.D."

With all of the massive manuscript evidence you would think there would be massive discrepancies - just the opposite is true. New Testament manuscripts agree in 99.5% of the text (compared to only 95% for the Iliad). Most of the discrepancies are in spelling and word order. A few words have been changed or added. There are two passages that are disputed but no discrepancy is of any doctrinal significance (i.e., none would alter basic Christian doctrine). Most Bibles include the options as footnotes when there are discrepancies. How could there be such accuracy over a period of 1,400 years of copying? Two reasons: The scribes that did the copying had meticulous methods for checking their copies for errors. 2) The Holy Spirit made sure we would have an accurate copy of God's word so we would not be deceived. The Mormons, theological liberals as well as other cults and false religions such as Islam that claim the Bible has been tampered with are completely proven false by the extensive, historical manuscript evidence.

Is Our Copy of the Bible a Reliable Copy of the Original?

Blood Test Predicts Detects Lung Cancer Years Before CT Scan

2006-07-19T10:35:00.000+08:00

A new blood test is able to correctly predict non-small-cell lung cancer in patients years before any CT scan can detect it, say researchers from the University of Kentucky, USA. The test identifies human immune response to tumors.

Non-small-cell lung cancer patients have a 40% chance of living for five years or more after diagnosis. 50% of patients die within the first year. It is the most common lung cancer.

If further studies confirm its reliability, this will become the first blood test to predict cancer since the PSA (prostate specific antigen) test.

You can read about this research in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

Lung cancer kills more people around the world than any other cancer. 10 million new lung cancer diagnoses are made each year. Over three quarters of all lung-cancer patients are/were long-term regular smokers.

At the moment the most common way of diagnosing lung-cancer is with a CT Scan (computed tomography). However, CT scans are not completely accurate and patients often have to have a piece of the lump in their lung extracted for further tests - they have to have a biopsy. Biopsies for lung cancer can be painful. It is common for the biopsy test to find there was no cancer at all.

The biggest problem with lung cancer survival is that many patients are diagnosed when the cancer is well advanced.

This new blood test has an accuracy rate of at least 90% among people who have lung cancer and an extremely low false positive rate, say the researchers. In other words, unlike CT scans, this blood test does not commonly indicate lung cancer when it is not there.

In this study the researchers used blood samples from lung cancer patients years before they had been diagnosed. The tests was surprisingly accurate in predicting lung cancer.

According to Dr. Zhong, lead researcher, and team, lung cancer can be present three to five years before reaching the conventional size limits of radiographic detection.

As with most cancers, the earlier it can be detected, the easier it is to cure the patient.

Blood Test Predicts Detects Lung Cancer Years Before CT Scan

Bottom Trawling Destroys Deep Sea Life

2006-07-18T20:25:00.000+08:00

A long-awaited report by the United Nations shows the need for an international moratorium on bottom-trawling and other destructive fishing practices that damage deep sea life, Conservation International (CI) said.

The U.N. Division for Ocean Affairs and Law of the Sea (DOALOS) reviewed measures to protect the vulnerable deep oceans of the high seas – the 64 percent of ocean that lies beyond the national jurisdictions of any individual nation. Its review, ordered by the U.N. General Assembly in 2004, was based on reports from member states on steps taken to stop destructive high seas fishing practices.

A draft version of the review posted July 14 on the DOALOS Web site said extremely vulnerable deep sea habitats require protection, but that fishing for newly discovered resources in the high seas often proceeds unregulated to the point of serious harm.

"Many fisheries are not managed until they are overexploited and clearly depleted and, because of the high vulnerability of deep-sea species to exploitation and their low potential for recovery, this is of particular concern for these stocks," the review said.

The draft review called bottom trawling a particular concern, due to its tendency to over-fish both targeted and non-targeted species, and the damage it causes to vulnerable ecosystems that provide critical habitat for marine life. It cited an "urgent need" in some cases for interim steps such as a moratorium on bottom trawling until formal conservation and management systems can be set up.

Nations have until Aug. 7 to respond to the review, which will be considered by the General Assembly before the end of the year.

Marine scientists and developing countries have called for a moratorium against high seas bottom trawling, which targets deep sea fish species such as orange roughy by dragging heavy gear across the seafloor, causing widespread and potentially irreversible damage to deep sea life.

Bottom Trawling Destroys Deep Sea Life

Chinese death toll from Typhoon Bilis rises to 115

2006-07-17T09:50:00.000+08:00

BEIJING - Torrential rainstorms and flooding unleashed by Typhoon Bilis has killed at least 115 people across southeast China, the official Xinhua news agency has reported.

It said 43 people died in Fujian province, 39 in Hunan and 33 in Guangdong as swirling waters swept away homes and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.

Local rescue teams, backed by the army, moved in to scoop families to safety.

A mudslide triggered by the rains in the city of Zhangzhou killed 10 people and local officials held out little hope for a further 10 engulfed by a second landslide, state television said.

Emergency workers delivered tents, quilts and instant noodles to the victims of the storm.

Eleven seamen were plucked to safety before a Russian vessel sank in stormy seas off the Chinese coast on Saturday, Xinhua said.

Bilis ravaged the Philippines and Taiwan before hitting China, where it was downgraded to a tropical storm but still wrought havoc.

Flooding cut the main Beijing-Guangzhou railway line, stranding 5000 passengers at the station in Changsha, Hunan's capital. Some 10,000 workers were repairing the inundated track.

In the city of Lechang, the streets were under 3 metres of water and more than 1600 inmates were evacuated from the local prison, Xinhua said. In Leiyang, water levels had risen more than 10 metres since Friday to record heights.

Local weathermen said heavy rains or rainstorms would continue in Guangdong for the next couple of days.

Disaster officials put the number of dead at 28 in the Philippines, where more bodies were found on Saturday in swollen rivers and creeks and dug out from dozens of minor landslides.

The storm also caused one death in southern Taiwan.

Chinese death toll from Typhoon Bilis rises to 115

Delightful drink--White Russian

2006-07-14T19:40:00.000+08:00

White Russian

It’s Friday again! Party time! Where are you going tonight? I just joined a party last night at my friend’s home. Amazingly, I had some absolutely tasting experience from a drink which called “White Russian”. It is a delightful drink that appreciates for all kind of parties. Here is the recipe of the drink:

2 ounces Vodka
1 ounce Coffee Liqueur
3 ounces Light Cream

White Russian is easy to make. Just pour vodka and coffee liqueur over ice cubes in an old-fashioned glass and fill with light cream. Now, it’s time to enjoy…

Alien Species Invading Antarctica, Experts Warn

2006-07-13T20:56:00.000+08:00

Golf in Antarctica, anyone? You can't set a tee time just yet, but a type of grass favored for putting greens—annual bluegrass—has taken root on King George Island, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the icy continent.

Scientists are not amused.

"Sooner or later, invasive species do become a big problem," said Maj de Poorter, an invasive-species researcher at Auckland University in New Zealand.

De Poorter is among a handful of scientists raising a call to arms to prevent the invaders from transforming Antarctica's unique ecosystems.

Annual bluegrass's recent arrival to King George Island signals a tough battle. The turf may have been transported there by a duffer on an adventure travel holiday.

And more tourists and researchers are going to Antarctica each year. For the 2006-2007 tourist season, the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators expects at least 28,000 people will make the trek.

According to de Poorter, each season also sees as many as 10,000 scientists. This rise in human traffic means a greater likelihood that alien species will be introduced and take hold, she says.

"The more individuals of an alien species or nonnative species get there, the more likely something will be able to establish and live there," she said.

Another invader is the North Atlantic spider crab—males and females have been found in the waters near the Antarctic Peninsula. They likely stowed away in the ballast tanks of a ship, according to scientists.

Ships carry water in their tanks and cargo holds for stabilization at sea. Organisms that live in the water get transported to new environments when the water is dumped.

Alien Species Invading Antarctica, Experts Warn

Stroke makes smokers forget their addiction

2006-07-12T18:10:00.000+08:00

Strokes often change a person's character, depending on where the damage hits. Some may become more impulsive, others depressed. Now researchers have shown that damage to a small but very specific brain area can wipe out an addiction to smoking.

Antoine Bechera, of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, has identified 14 patients who all stopped smoking immediately after having a stroke that damaged their insular cortex. This seems to be not because they were concerned about their health, but because they had lost all interest in cigarettes, he told the Federation of Neuroscience Societies in Vienna this week. "One or two had even forgotten that they used to smoke," says Bechera.

The insular cortex is a relatively primitive part of the brain whose functions include providing an emotional context for experiences, such as drug taking, along with some higher-level, decision-making functions involved, for example, in forming memories.

The seemingly huge impact of switching off this area could have implications for addiction research in general, according to Bechera. Throwing off an addiction for good is tough because cues in the environment — a whiff of tobacco smoke, or the room where you used to shoot up — automatically invokes the emotion associated with the last fix. But such triggers don't seem to trouble the patients with a damaged insula. "We could do everything we wanted to reawaken craving in these patients," says Bechera. "We could even light up in front of them but it had no effect at all."

Inconstant craving Bechera's experience with these patients supports his hypothesis that addiction is caused by an imbalance between two neuronal systems — the impulsive system controlled by a brain area (the amygdala) that helps to process emotions and a reflective system controlled by the forebrain. The reflective system anticipates and assesses the consequences, good or bad, that any action will have for the future. Most addiction research focuses on the impulsive system.

Bechera has previously shown that some drug addicts behave similarly to stroke patients with forebrain damage when it comes to decision making. In tests designed to assess financial risk-taking behaviour, they impulsively chose to take as much cash as possible up front, even when that option is linked to a major loss of cash in the longer term. This implies that their impulsive system is winning out over the more logical, risk-assessing system.

But other addicts will make the clever decision — to take less cash up front and benefit long-term. These kinds of addicts tend to have more functional lives, says Bechera. "They have not broken up their families, and they hold down their jobs, because their reflective system is not damaged and they make sensible decisions." "I think these kinds of addicts will find it easier to stay off drugs if they go clean," he adds.

Kick the habit Selective damage to the insula cortex seems to filter out some of the information from the impulsive system when it comes to making a decision. As a result, smokers whose reflective capacities are functional seem to be able to make the rational decision to give up, without experiencing withdrawal pain, Bechera says.

Stroke makes smokers forget their addiction

Eye contact

2006-07-12T17:26:00.000+08:00

Eye contact is the event when two people look at each other's eyes at the same time[1]. It is a form of nonverbal communication, and can be an intense or emotional occurrence or a soon-forgotten event. Eye contact is a large influence on social behaviour, but it means dramatically different things at different times and in different situations. Eye contact is interpreted differently and occurs at greatly different frequencies across cultures and animal species. Eye aversion is the avoidance of eye contact.

Social meanings of eye contact

Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and emotional information; people, perhaps without consciously doing so, probe each other's eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs. In some contexts, the meeting of eyes arouses strong emotions. These include:

Romantic attraction

Lovers often gaze into each other's eyes for extended periods of time, using nonverbal communication to express their love or desire for one another. The eyes have often been described as the "windows of the soul".

Intimidation and status

In primate behavior, the unwavering gaze is used as a sign of dominance and threat, while gaze avoidance originated as a submissive cue. Looking directly into the others' eyes for a prolonged time may be an effective way of intimidating somebody or of initiating combat.

Most common with stutterers is the inability to maintain eye contact with the listener, which may in turn hamper the growth of personal or professional relationships.

Actors in theatre are trained to avoid specific eye contact with any members of the audience, and in film are generally instructed to avoid looking directly into the camera. This is to keep the audience from feeling self-conscious or uncomfortable.

After interviewing Saddam Hussein, Dan Rather described him as a "strong eye-contact person". Later, after being captured, Hussein avoided eye contact with his visitors.

The effectiveness of eye contact
[edit]

Physiological explanation

The size of the pupils may reveal a great deal about a person's current state. Strong emotions, convictions, and moods often stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and cause dilation of the pupils. In response to a threat or fear, this is often called the fight or flight response, and has an effect on the appearance of the eye.

The pupil may dilate if a person sees something (or someone) of interest or is aroused, thus making eye contact much more intense than it already is. Studies have shown that humans (especially females) are judged as more attractive if their pupils are wide open and more dilated than is normal.

Mother/child eye contact

Although some assert that children often respond to their mother's eyes from the moment of birth and that babies instinctively smile at black geometric spots -- perceiving them as "eyes" by six weeks of age, a 1985 study published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology suggested that "3-month-old infants are comparatively insensitive to being the object of another's visual regard" [4]. A 1996 Canadian study with 3 to 6 month old infants found that smiling in the infants decreased when adult eye contact was removed [5]. A recent British study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience found that face recognition by infants was facilited by direct gaze [6]. Other recent research has confirmed the belief that the direct of gaze of adults influences the direct of gaze of infants.

Other explanations

Communicating attention A person's direction of gaze may indicate to others where his or her attention lies.

Facilitating learning Recent studies suggests that eye contact has a positive impact on the retention and recall of information and may promote more efficient learning.

Eye contact

Coffinfishe

2006-07-11T17:36:00.000+08:00

Coffinfishes are flabby bottom-dwelling fishes that occur in deep waters around the world. They can walk along the seafloor on short leg-like fins. These fish often come up in the nets swollen into a ball. Like the pufferfishes, they can swallow large amounts of water to inflate themselves, presumably making it harder for predators to bite into them. The lateral line system (a series of sensory pores that can detect vibrations and chemicals) is very obvious on their smooth bodies. Coffinfishes have a small lure on their head (like their anglerfish relatives), consisting of a short rod and a small glowing bulb at the tip used to lure its prey. The eyes of the fresh fish are speckled with iridescent green looking like a pair of spectacular opals. Our animals are around 20-30 cm long.

Creature Feature

Italy hold their nerve to claim fourth crown

2006-07-10T11:52:00.000+08:00

THE FINAL DAY REPLAYED: Fabio Cannavaro, a player who has belied his diminutive stature with some giant performances this past month, fittingly closed the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ by holding the biggest prize in football aloft. Fireworks proclaiming a fourth FIFA World Cup for Italy exploded into the black skies above the Olympiastadion as the Azzurri party began, leaving France – and a disconsolate Zinedine Zidane – to their own thoughts.

What an occasion the 18th Final produced with excitement at the start and incredible drama at the end as Zidane, on his farewell to the game he has graced for so long with his graceful skill, was shown the red card. On it went to a penalty showdown and five unerring Italian spot-kicks delivered them the title of world champions, with David Trezeguet the luckless player to miss. With Fabio Grosso converting, his country edged one Trophy behind Brazil in the pantheon of FIFA World Cup winners.

Zidane will remember this night for as long as he lives. France had promised to repeat their success of 1998 for their retiring captain and only he will know what possessed him when he thrust his forehead into the chest of Marco Materazzi. Zidane had to go, accompanied down the tunnel by the glare of thousands and thousands of flash bulbs and the tears of the legions of French supporters.

“Allez les Blues” they had chorused again and again. The Blues came through all right but it was the blue of Italy that held sway. France were wearing white but what colour they added to the occasion with their stirring comeback after Marcello Lippi’s side had threatened to put a stranglehold on the game.

Italy hold their nerve to claim fourth crown

Monday Blue...

2006-07-10T11:11:00.000+08:00

Hi, it’s Monday today! Most of people may have some Monday blue, right? Here are some tips to beat your blue from expert.

1. What and how

What you do is not important, it is how you do it. Whatever you do, do it with deep alertness; then even small things become sacred. You can clean the floor like a robot; you have to clean it, so you clean it.

But it could have been a great experience; you missed it.

You cleaned the floor and that would have cleansed you. Clean the floor full of awareness; be luminous with awareness.

2. Remember yourself

One thing has to be a continuous thread: remember yourself.

While walking, say, "I am walking." While sitting, say, "I am sitting."

And feel the shift in your awareness. There will be a sudden spark.

3. Are you a perfectionist?

Beware! What counts is being total, not perfect. This brings out the best in you. The very idea of perfectionism drives people crazy.

The perfectionist is bound to be neurotic. S/he cannot enjoy life till s/he is perfect. And perfection never happens, it is not in the nature of things.

Life is imperfect. Only death is perfect. Totality is possible, perfection is not possible.

If you still fall in Monday blue, then you can sing this song—

"Blue Monday"

How does it feel to treat me like you do?
When you've your hands upon me
And told me who you are
I thought I was mistaken
I thought I heard your words
Tell me, how do I feel
Tell me now, How do I feel

Those who came before me
Lived through their vocations
From the past until completion
They'll turn away no more
And I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me
Just how I should feel today

I see a ship in the harbor
I can and shall obey
But if it wasn't for your misfortune
I'd be a heavenly person today
And I thought I was mistaken
And I thought I heard you speak
Tell me how do I feel
Tell me now, how should I feel

Now I stand here waiting...
I thought I told you to leave me
While I walked down to the beach
Tell me how does it feel
When your heart grows cold

What to do Today?

2006-07-08T16:06:00.000+08:00

I love those words!

Before you Speak, Listen ,
Before you Write, Think
Before you Spend, Earn
Before you Criticise, Wait
Before you Pray, Forgive
Before you Quit, Try

Science & Football

2006-07-07T12:54:00.000+08:00

Key Points
Science is playing a greater role in football than ever before

The England squad has been using new training techniques to boost their power

In a penalty shoot-out, keepers can spot important clues about which way to dive

'Bending it like Beckham' is a straightforward matter of physics

Despite the tears and frustrations, watching the World Cup is good for your health

You've always suspected it - and it's true – the referee is blind

Football science
There's more money in football than ever before. And this has had one important consequence - football science is now big business. It's making an impact on everything from training regimes to the design of the ball.

Are you a natural footballer?
Good footballers must have something in their genes. Researchers have discovered a link between the length of a footballer's ring finger and their ability as a player.They measured the difference in length between the ring and index fingers of top players. Players whose ring fingers were longer compared to their index fingers were more likely to be elite players. Some of the players found to have long ring fingers are Bryan Robson, Ossie Ardiles, Glenn Hoddle, Sir Stanley Matthews and Gazza.

There might be a sensible explanation for this finding. When a male foetus is between eight and twelve weeks old, certain parts of his body become sensitive to the hormone testosterone. The heart, lungs and brain are all affected and so are the fingers.

It seems that fingers, although they don't help a footballer in any major way, are an indicator of how much testosterone they received at this crucial stage of development. This might increase their strength and spatial awareness.

Both are useful qualities, but what every footballer needs on top of that is rigorous training.

Science & Football

Modern media meets Colonial Williamsburg

2006-07-06T16:04:00.000+08:00

But people far from the restored 18th-century capital of Virginia can use their portable audio players to hear costumed interpreter Bill Barker talk about portraying Jefferson or, in honor of the Fourth of July holiday, read the Declaration of Independence.

The world's largest living history museum long has used modern media to share its stories with audiences far beyond its 301-acre Historic Area, dating back to before World War II when it produced an educational film for schools.

Today, it has an extensive Web site with photo slideshows, online exhibits and interactive tours, and it offers "electronic field trips" for schools using live television broadcasts and the Internet.

It's also using something that didn't even exist a couple years ago: podcasts.

Colonial Williamsburg is creating free weekly audio programs people can listen to on computers as well as portable players to find out more about those who work there, plying old trades and playing historical figures. The idea is to educate people and, hopefully, inspire them to visit.

Modern media meets Colonial Williamsburg

Asteroid has near-collision with Earth

2006-07-05T12:13:00.000+08:00

An asteroid hurtling through space came within a hair's breadth -- in astronomical terms, at least -- of crashing into the Earth early on Monday, US scientists said.

Apollo Asteroid 2004 XP14 was discovered by Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, a research facility which part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and which claims the title of "the world's principal detector of asteroids", said Roger Sudbury, a spokesman for the lab.

"We were the discoverer" said Sudbury of the Apollo Asteroid 2004 XP14, which passed some 432,000 kilometres from the Earth at 0955 IST.

The distance between the two bodies was slightly greater than that between the Earth and the moon -- a close shave in the vastness of outer space.

Asteroid has near-collision with Earth

Tragic loss of ‘prettiest dog’

2006-07-04T09:14:00.000+08:00

TRIBUTES have been paid to Inverclyde's prettiest dog who died of diabetes three days after winning the title.

And the pup's best friend, a cockatiel named George, was so distraught he passed away just days later.

Lhasa apso Bonnie won the accolade for the first time at the PDSA show in Battery Park — and it was the last time she truly enjoyed herself.

But Bonnie's death proved too much for the yellow-and-grey bird who spent seven years growing up alongside her.

Devastated owner Lorraine King, 49, said: "George went quiet after Bonnie died. She used to say Bonnie's name and Bonnie would sit on the armchair and protect her.

Tragic loss of ‘prettiest dog’

Lost connection to animate Earth

2006-07-03T16:18:00.000+08:00

There is now little doubt that our culture is unleashing a vast and accelerating crisis upon the world.

We have set in train changes to our climate that seem certain to become very dangerous indeed during the next 50 years or so.

We are wiping out so many species that biologists speak of a mass extinction faster and possibly more fatal than any other in our Earth's long history.

Our social fabric is also unravelling, and as it does so crime and massive psychological problems increase apace.

Lost connection to animate Earth

Oldest known jewellery discovered

2006-06-30T11:08:00.000+08:00

Beads made from shells represent earliest personal adornment.

Nancy Hynes

It can take hundreds of beads to make a single bracelet, and thousands for a haute couture gown. But it has taken only three shell beads to shake up our theories about human evolution.

The jewellery might not be much by today's standards of bling: they are simple seashells punctured to make rudimentary beads. But archaeologists have dated two of them, from the site of Skhul in Israel, as at least 100,000 years old. This makes them the oldest known items of personal adornment, beating the previous record-holder, a set of similar shell beads found in South Africa's Blombos Cave, by almost 25,000 years.

The third bead, found at Oued Djebbana in Algeria, is younger at just over 35,000 years old, but what it lacks in age it makes up for in location. Found more than 160 kilometres from the sea, its presence clearly suggests intentional human transportation.

The two sites were excavated in the 1930s, but their significance has only recently come to light. "This study refutes the hypothesis that humans only became culturally modern when they entered Europe 40,000 years ago and replaced Neanderthals," says Marian Vanhaeren of University College London, UK, who led the research, published today in Science. Complex behaviour

The discovery is significant because it shows that our ancestors adopted symbolic behaviour much earlier than previously thought, says Vanhaeren. For decades, archaeologists had assumed that the complex behaviours such as language, burials and art first turned up about 40,000 years ago in Europe. So whereas modern humans may have physically evolved in Africa, their cultural development was thought to have largely occurred in Europe.

The Blombos Cave beads, found in 2004, were the first to shake that belief. And the new discoveries extend the geographic and temporal region in which early symbolic activity took place. Vanhaeren's team argues that a "long-lasting and widespread bead-working tradition" existed throughout Africa and the Middle East long before anatomically modern humans arrived in Europe.

This hypothesis does not contradict the appearance of European material 40,000 years ago, but instead challenges ideas about its role in human evolution, says Vanhaeren's colleague Chris Stringer, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London. "What we find in Europe is very spectacular. The painted caves are very special, and we've found nothing like them yet in Africa or Asia," he says. "But we now know that the basic framework for that behaviour was already present around 100,000 years ago."

It is difficult to imagine any use for the pierced shells rather than as personal decoration, says Vanhaeren. But the use of jewellery suggests a complex social system. Beads and pendants may be used in gift-giving, as markers of ethnic, social or personal identity, or even as amulets. "When you put a personal ornament on your body, you are sending a message to other people," she says. "It is a silent language, but very powerful."

It is possible that other forms of symbolic material, such as wooden beads or bark paintings, may have existed before 100,000 years ago and simply not survived, Stringer suggests. "The Blombos find showed us how we can use beads as a window to social complexity. But it is only one window and there are many more to open."

Oldest known jewellery discovered

Warning against mobile phone use in storms

2006-06-29T13:36:00.000+08:00

Lightning poses a threat to people who use mobile phones out of doors during a thunderstorm, say UK doctors.

Dr Swinda Esprit and two other senior London doctors report a case study in this week's British Medical Journal of a 15-year-old girl who was struck by lightning while using her mobile phone in a large city park during stormy weather.

The girl had an instant heart attack but was revived in time. She lost all memory of the incident, although the lightning strike was witnessed by other people.

A year later, though, the patient had become wheelchair-bound, suffering from physical, cognitive and emotional problems as well as a badly perforated eardrum in the left ear, the side where she had been holding the mobile phone.

The physicians, who work at Northwick Park Hospital in northwest London, say they have found three press reports of people being killed by lightning while using their mobile phones outdoors.

These incidents took place in China in 2005, in South Korea in 2004 and in Malaysia in 1999.

However, no similar cases have ever been reported in medical literature, they note.

"This rare phenomenon is a public health issue, and education is necessary to highlight the risk," say Esprit and colleagues.

As lightning chooses the easiest route to the ground, someone standing up and using the phone (and possibly wet at the same time) may well offer the path of least resistance.

Advice to the public from national safety authorities is either confused or nonexistent, the doctors say.

Australia's Lightning Protection Standard says that neither mobile phones nor cordless phones should used, or even carried, outdoors during a thunderstorm.

On the other hand, US National Weather Service says on its website that both are safe to use "because there is no direct path between you and the lightning".

Warning against mobile phone use in storms

Panda population far higher than expected

2006-06-28T21:20:00.000+08:00

Scientists predicted that there were many more giant pandas than previously thought, following a novel study examining the DNA of their feces.

The experts, who used new "non-invasive" methods for counting wild animal numbers to re-examine panda population estimates, said the new method provided an accurate population profile.

The scientists published their results in the international journal Current Biology. The team was led by Professor Michael Bruford of the Cardiff School of Biosciences and Professor Fuwen Wei of the Institute of Zoology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The giant panda is one of the world's most elusive and endangered species.

The traditional way to estimate panda populations is to examine the feces for the length of bamboo it contained, Bruford told Britain's domestic Press Association news agency.

Experts would then guess the panda's age and estimate how many different pandas the feces had come from.

"Without DNA profiling you are bound to under-estimate," Bruford said.

His team surveyed 10 square miles (26 square kilometres) of a Chinese reserve.

"We really combed the reserve. There were teams of people in a field walking in a line," the professor said.

It was previously thought that 27 giant pandas lived there. But Buford's team now reckons there are 66.

He predicted that the results would be replicated in other panda reserves.

"Our results found that previous surveys underestimated the population by more than 50 percent," said Bruford. "These findings indicate that the species has a much better chance of long-term viability, although we must not become complacent, since the population size is still perilously low." He warned: "We still may be only talking about a few thousand individuals. These guys are not common."

Giant pandas' traditional homes have been the mountains of central and southern China, as well as Myanmar and Vietnam.

But their numbers have fallen to only around 1,590, according to Chinese estimates, as their natural habitats have been destroyed by humans.

China founded its first nature reserve for giant pandas in the 1950s and now has 56 nature reserves for them, according to the Xinhua news agency.

It also has 183 giant pandas in captivity, while others have been sent to zoos around the world.

Panda population far higher than expected

Ancient web spins evolution story

2006-06-27T11:12:00.000+08:00

The oldest-known spider web with prey still entrapped has been found preserved in a chunk of amber in Spain.

The mesh of silk strands snaring the remains of a fly, beetle, mite and wasp, dates back 110 million years to the time of the dinosaurs.

The fossil web appears to have been designed along the same lines as the round nets woven by modern spiders.

The find, described in Science, sheds light on the early evolution of spiders and the insects they fed on.

The web consists of some 26 silk strands preserved in a thin layer of amber together with arachnid prey.

Although it is not intact, enough of the web structure has survived to convince its discovers - from the University of Barcelona, Spain, and the American Museum of Natural History, New York, US - that it was probably a classical wheel-shaped, or orb, web. It is possibly the oldest spider web on record; an earlier single strand of spider silk preserved in Lebanese amber has been discovered although it is unclear if this was part of a true web.

"The advanced structure of this fossilised web (from Spain), along with the type of prey that the web caught, indicates that spiders have been fishing insects from the air for a very long time," said Dr David Grimaldi of the American Museum of Natural History.

"Spiders today have a huge impact as predators on insect populations, along with birds and bats."

Ancient web spins evolution story

Nature in the garden

2006-06-26T10:42:00.000+08:00

Everyone can be a gardener. Perhaps you have a window box or a tub, or enjoy relaxing outside in the summer. Maybe you have an allotment or are involved in a local community gardening project. Whether you are an expert or simply enjoy growing plants in a pot there is a great deal you can do to encourage wildlife to visit.

There are more billions gardens in the world and these already provide a very important home for wildlife. But they could be far more valuable still if more people gardened with wildlife in mind.

Here are some top tips for nature-friendly gardening.

	Try and introduce natural predator control. Beneficial insects and other small invertebrates can be your best friends when it comes to controlling pests in your garden and vegetable patch. Planting annuals such as Californian poppies and marigolds among your vegetables will attract a wealth of beneficial insects, like ladybirds and hoverflies, which will eat aphids.

	Try to avoid the use of chemicals, such as pesticides and fertilisers. Almost all chemicals will kill plants and animals beyond those targeted. Work with nature rather than against it.

	Make your own compost and ask for peat-free products when buying from your local garden centre. Peat extraction is damaging a fragile wild habitat that cannot be recreated so avoid using peat in the garden. Instead, make your own compost from kitchen and garden waste.

	Create a pond. Water bodies - even very small ones - are wonderful for wildlife. If you are short of space try placing a container, such as an old enamel or china sink, in your garden. Remember to add a few stones at one end, so that frogs and toads can get out easily.

	Plant some native shrubs or trees. Flowering and fruiting trees and shrubs provide a source of food and shelter for small mammals and birds.

	Choose plants that offer nectar and pollen. Go for old cottage garden plants, and avoid those with complex flowers. Generally speaking, the more complex or highly bred the flower, the less it will have to offer bees, butterflies and other insects. Native plants will often be better for insects but many exotic plants are good too.

	Don't just feed the birds! You can make your garden more attractive to birds by providing them with a wide range of food. The greater the choice of food you offer, the more species you are likely to see. If you have a cat, put a bell on its collar to alert birds.

	Leave a small pile of logs in the corner of your garden. Decaying logs in a quiet shady corner will provide a home for a wide range of insects and mammals, such as hedgehogs. Ideally, some of the logs should be upright and partially buried in the earth.

	Use a water butt to collect rainwater from house, shed and garage roofs. Using this in the garden will reduce the consumption of mains water. Huge amounts of energy are wasted on cleaning and transporting mains water and it is often extracted from rivers at levels that threaten local wildlife.

	Use the right rocks! What kind of stone can you use in your garden without causing damage to rare landscapes? Avoid using water-worn limestone and tufa as they are a non-renewable resource and may come from protected sites. Check where your pebbles come from and avoid those removed from beaches. On a large scale, such removal can cause damage to rare habitats.

	Check the origin of any wood you buy for the garden. If you're not careful, you may be unknowingly contributing to the destruction of tropical rain forests. Wood products (including paper) with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label are from well-managed forests. FSC is an international, non-governmental body.

Nature in the garden

Exercise: Key to good sex, good sleep

2006-06-23T11:43:00.000+08:00

"Obviously, exercise helps with weight loss, lowering cholesterol and blood pressure and reducing risk for such things as osteoporosis and diabetes," says Fabio Comana, exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise. "Those are the mainstream benefits, but there's a lot more people may not be aware of."

As summer begins -- and many contemplate a trip to the gym -- take a look at a few of the other benefits of exercise.

Good night's sleep

An active lifestyle might also mean a more restful sleep. The National Sleep Foundation reports that exercise in the afternoon can help deepen shut-eye and cut the time it takes for you to fall into dreamland. But, they caution, vigorous exercise leading up to bedtime can actually have the reverse effects.

A 2003 study, however, found that a morning fitness regime was key to a better snooze. Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center concluded that postmenopausal women who exercised 30 minutes every morning had less trouble falling asleep than those who were less active. The women who worked out in the evening hours saw little or no improvement in their sleep patterns.

No studies have proven conclusively the best time to exercise, says Comana, but the benefits of "a better ability to fall asleep and a more restful sleep when you do -- there's unanimous agreement on that."

A stop to smoking

The adrenaline rush and stress relief from a brief workout can replace similar feelings smokers get from tobacco and help reduce the urge for a cigarette for those trying to quit, according to smoking cessation programs.

Interested in the effect of exercise on someone trying to kick the habit, one study in the Archives of Internal Medicine followed 281 sedentary female smokers, who were otherwise healthy, in their efforts to quit. The group assigned exercise sessions was twice as likely to quit and stay smoke-free over the nonexercise group, both at 12 weeks and a year later.

Brain boost

Regular exercisers may have to work less to jog their memory in the long run, as well as experience short-term benefits in creativity and reaction time.

One study in the journal Nature reports that sedentary senior citizens who took up walking for 45 minutes, three days a week, were able to significantly improve mental skills that decline with age. Meanwhile, Middlesex University researchers in London discovered that 25 minutes of aerobic exercise boosted scores on creativity tests that followed.

And one study "found physically fit workers were 12.5 percent more efficient at the end of the day than their nonphysically fit counterparts," Comana says.

Better sex

If a well-rested, smarter and nonsmoking self is not enough, exercise has also been linked to a better sex life. Poor general health can lead to poor sexual function, so keeping fit only helps maintain or revitalize performance and satisfaction in the bedroom.

After studying more than 31,000 men, the Harvard School of Public Health researchers reported that those who were physically active had a 30 percent lower risk for erectile dysfunction than the men with little or no physical activity.

Women reap the exercise benefits, too. One study by the University of British Columbia found that 20 minutes of exercise spurred greater sexual response in the women participants compared with no exercise at all.

And overall, people who exercise regularly feel better about themselves, feel more sexually desirable and report higher levels of satisfaction, according to a study in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality.

Along with these lesser-known benefits, exercise also promotes health in a myriad of tiny detailed ways, says Comana, with increased "coordination, flexibility and greater efficiency in daily activities."

Exercise: Key to good sex, good sleep

Orchid Has "Active" Sex With Itself -- A Flower First?

2006-06-22T07:42:00.000+08:00

An agile Chinese orchid performs a floral version of sexual intercourse—with itself. Researchers say an extension of the male flower part, or anther, turns an upside-down loop to deliver spermlike pollen spores directly into the female cavity.The anther bends to enter the female chamber from below and is secured in place by a ring structure on its stalk to ensure fertilization.

The flower is the first known plant in which pollination is entirely self-directed, with no outside agents or forces—such as bees or breezes—playing a role.

Biologists observed the elaborate style of reproduction in the bisexual orchid Holcoglossum amesianum, a tree-dwelling plant found in the dry forests of China's southern Yunnan Province (map of China).

LaiQiang Huang of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen and colleagues studied the unusual flower. The team's findings will appear in tomorrow's issue of the journal Nature.

Pollinating Alone

In more conventional plant sex, creatures such as insects or birds transport pollen from one plant to another, resulting in a fertilized embryo or seed.

Most orchids reproduce in this way, and many are known for their elaborate floral structures (photo: South African Disa uniflora orchid) designed to attract specialized insect pollinators.

But pollen may also be transferred from male to female flowers on a single plant, or from male to female parts on a single blossom. In such cases, plants can fertilize themselves.

While less common in orchids, many flowering plants are known to self-fertilize either some or all of the time. Most rely on wind or fluid secretions to move pollen around.

Orchid Has "Active" Sex With Itself

Blue Whale--the largest mammal on the earth

2006-06-21T22:50:00.000+08:00

Blue whales are the largest mammals, and possibly the largest animal of any kind to have lived on Earth. A 33-metre long, 190-tonne whale has been seen, but most examples are much smaller. There are three subspecies divided between the northern and southern hemispheres. Blue whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during the 20th Century. The most recent abundance estimate for the southern hemisphere is 1,700 and there is evidence they are increasing annually by about 7%. There are no good estimates for numbers in other areas.

Key species of endangered whale

How to save our Amazon

2006-06-20T21:01:00.000+08:00

Along with the tropical forests of the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia, the Amazon rainforest forms a green belt that encircles the Earth - a belt that is constantly reducing in size.The region's rainforest is spread across the Amazon River Basin (approx. 6.9 million km2), a vast natural tropical area more than half of which is located in Brazil. The basin also covers parts of Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

An exceptional biodiversity
A considerable number of the world's plants and animals live in the Amazon, most of which remain undiscovered by scientists. To date, at least 40,000 plant species, 427 mammals, 1,294 birds, 378 reptiles, 427 amphibians, and at least 3,000 fishes have been scientifically classified in the region.

But smaller life forms win hands down in terms of their numbers: just in Brazil, between 96,660 and 128,840 invertebrate species have been described by scientists.

Indigenous cultural richness rivals the Amazon wildlife
Amazon wildlife shares this huge space with some 30 million people, including more than 220 indigenous groups in the Brazilian Amazon4, 40 in Peru and 10 in Ecuador. In Venezuela, some 17 indigenous languages are spoken in the Amazon part of the country. This number is dwarfed by the Bolivian and Colombian Amazon, where 33 and 52 indigenous languages respectively are in use.*

Behind this incredible cultural diversity lies a stark picture. Despite living in an area with a bewildering array of natural products and services, many local people remain in relative poverty.

The Amazon River, lifeline of the Amazon River Basin
At 6,400 km, the Amazon River is the world's second longest river, after the Nile in Africa. This massive body of water feeds the basin as it meanders from the high Andes Mountains, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean in the east, discharging approximately one-fifth of all fresh water that drains into the world's oceans.

Now, forests burn, soils dwindle and people suffer...

Market forces, population pressure and infrastructure advances are continuing to pry open the Amazon rainforest.

As the pressures afflicting the region grow in intensity, it is becoming increasingly clear that the price to be paid is not only loss of biodiversity and habitat – but also of a decreasing life quality for people.

Among the threats behind environmental destruction and degradation in the Amazon are the lack of policy frameworks to support sustainable development and natural resource protection, political instability, the inability of some institutional and governmental entities to establish and enforce legislation for nature conservation, and poverty and inequality.

The price of development at all costs
Today, regional government programmes and initiatives are pushing for constant development, often encouraging blind clearance of forests for cattle ranching, oil drilling or soybean production. Such efforts seek to secure much-needed foreign exchange and generally develop economies.

As the countries of the Amazon become increasingly integrated into the global economy and there is increased demand for ever-limited natural resources, efforts to protect the region continue to be threatened by unsustainable economic demands.

Trade, the fuel of deforestation
Development activities in the Amazon are responding in part to the insatiable international demand for raw goods.
For example, Brazil’s beef exports are closely linked to financial markets and the strength of the Real, the Brazilian currency.

When the real devaluated, the price of beef in real approximately doubled, creating a huge incentive for ranchers to expand their
pasture area.

At the same time, the price of Brazilian beef in dollars fell, which made Brazil’s exports more competitive on international markets. Conversely, when the real strengthens, exporters struggle to keep their slice of the market.

Trade requires infrastructure
Responding to international demands in agricultural products requires infrastructure such as dams and roads. BR-163 and BR-319, two of the main roads to be laid down through the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, are examples of this situation.

But global demand is not limited to cattle and soy. To satisfy its industrial needs, China is involved in mining projects in the eastern Amazon, ranging from aluminium and steel to nickel and copper.

Our Solutions for the Amazon

Isaac Newton's Life

2006-06-19T23:54:00.000+08:00

Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all time. Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as "the prime of my age for invention". During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687.

As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705.

As Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment; he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He never married and lived modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.

Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. With equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western civilization, and theology; among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as described in the Bible, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.

In 1664, while still a student, Newton read recent work on optics and light by the English physicists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke; he also studied both the mathematics and the physics of the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. He investigated the refraction of light by a glass prism; developing over a few years a series of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact experiments, Newton discovered measurable, mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of colour. He found white light to be a mixture of infinitely varied coloured rays (manifest in the rainbow and the spectrum), each ray definable by the angle through which it is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium. He correlated this notion with his study of the interference colours of thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap bubbles), using a simple technique of extreme acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He held that light consisted of streams of minute particles. From his experiments he could infer the magnitudes of the transparent "corpuscles" forming the surfaces of bodies, which, according to their dimensions, so interacted with white light as to reflect, selectively, the different observed colours of those surfaces.

The roots of these unconventional ideas were with Newton by about 1668; when first expressed (tersely and partially) in public in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, mainly because colours were thought to be modified forms of homogeneous white light. Doubts, and Newton's rejoinders, were printed in the learned journals. Notably, the scepticism of Christiaan Huygens and the failure of the French physicist Edmé Mariotte to duplicate Newton's refraction experiments in 1681 set scientists on the Continent against him for a generation. The publication of Opticks, largely written by 1692, was delayed by Newton until the critics were dead. The book was still imperfect: the colours of diffraction defeated Newton. Nevertheless, Opticks established itself, from about 1715, as a model of the interweaving of theory with quantitative experimentation.

Read more stories of Isaac Newton from the linkpage.

Isaac Newton's Life

A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears

2006-06-16T19:33:00.000+08:00

In that old battle of the wills between young people and their keepers, the young have found a new weapon that could change the balance of power on the cellphone front: a ring tone that many adults cannot hear.

In settings where cellphone use is forbidden — in class, for example — it is perfect for signaling the arrival of a text message without being detected by an elder of the species.

"When I heard about it I didn't believe it at first," said Donna Lewis, a technology teacher at the Trinity School in Manhattan. "But one of the kids gave me a copy, and I sent it to a colleague. She played it for her first graders. All of them could hear it, and neither she nor I could."

The technology, which relies on the fact that most adults gradually lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds, was developed in Britain but has only recently spread to America — by Internet, of course.

Recently, in classes at Trinity and elsewhere, some students have begun testing the boundaries of their new technology. One place was Michelle Musorofiti's freshman honors math class at Roslyn High School on Long Island.

At Roslyn, as at most schools, cellphones must be turned off during class. But one morning last week, a high-pitched ring tone went off that set teeth on edge for anyone who could hear it. To the students' surprise, that group included their teacher.

"Whose cellphone is that?" Miss Musorofiti demanded, demonstrating that at 28, her ears had not lost their sensitivity to strangely annoying, high-pitched, though virtually inaudible tones.

"You can hear that?" one of them asked.

"Adults are not supposed to be able to hear that," said another, according to the teacher's account.

She had indeed heard that, Miss Musorofiti said, adding, "Now turn it off."

The cellphone ring tone that she heard was the offshoot of an invention called the Mosquito, developed last year by a Welsh security company to annoy teenagers and gratify adults, not the other way around.

A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears

Reef at forefront of CO2 battle

2006-06-15T19:03:00.000+08:00

UK scientists say it's now so badly damaged that another hurricane would simply sweep it away.

But they don't primarily blame hurricanes for the damage to the coral here on the Belize Barrier Reef; they blame climate change.

And they are backing a petition pressing the United Nations World Heritage Sites Committee to acknowledge that climate change is already damaging world heritage sites.

The five sites are the Belize Barrier reef, at 321km (200 miles) long, the biggest in the western hemisphere; the Australian barrier reef; and glacier parks in Nepal, Peru and the Rockies where glaciers are disappearing as the climate warms.

The World Heritage Sites Treaty stipulates that listed sites should not be damaged by signatories to the treaty, but it was mainly designed to protect the world's treasures in the event of wars.

The stakes are high because if the UN accepts the case, it might lead to poor countries attempting to sue rich countries for damages for the greenhouse gases they've emitted.

Scientists in Belize believe their case is strong. They say the 297km (185 mile) reef here has suffered more than 40% damage since 1998.

They particularly implicate three events of coral bleaching when water temperatures were high.

Corals get their colour from tiny single-cell plants - zooxanthellae - which provide for the reef-building creatures, the polyps.

When temperatures are very high for a protracted period, the zooxanthellae are driven away, the coral loses its colour, the polyps lose their food and so the reef is weakened.

The reefs then easily fall victim to the many forces that assail them - over-fishing, pollution, creatures that eat them, tourist snorkellers who inadvertently smother them with sand, and particularly the storm waves of hurricanes.

Local fishermen say there is no record of bleaching before 1998.

Reef at forefront of CO2 battle

The ultimate pain killer

2006-06-14T14:52:00.000+08:00

Birth, fractures, abscesses ... when we feel the pangs, we suffer alone. Gene therapy may ease the effects.

"The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated." - Plato

The experience and treatment of pain is one area of human health to which Plato's body and mind philosophy can be applied.

When a person experiences pain, whether the sharp and sudden pangs of acute pain or the exhaustion and depression of persistent pain, it can be extremely difficult for them to accept that only they can understand their pain.

"Pain is an entirely subjective human experience," says Professor Michael Cousins, director of the Pain Management Research Institute in Sydney. "The only person who knows what the experience of pain is, is that individual.

"You can't second-guess your neighbour's pain. There are a lot of misconceived ideas about it. People might say, 'She doesn't look as though she is in pain.' But what does a person in pain look like? It is very different for different people."

Cousins's pain institute was established in 1990. Two years ago, it identified pain as a disease in its own right, with its own set of symptoms and side-effects.

The ultimate pain killer

New Hammerhead Shark Species Found in U.S.

2006-06-13T15:45:00.000+08:00

A new species of hammerhead shark has been discovered off the coast of South Carolina, but summer swimmers don't have to worry—it's the sharks that are in trouble, experts say.

The newfound shark species, which has not yet been named, is nearly identical to the scalloped hammerhead, a common Atlantic shark that can grow up to 10 feet (3 meters) long.

But the new species appears to be extremely rare—so much so that it may only breed in certain South Carolina bays.

Biologists at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, discovered the new species while studying the DNA of scalloped hammerheads. The researchers found that some hammerheads they examined had a significantly different genetic signature from the rest, despite their similar appearance.

A separate team led by Joe Quattro at the University of South Carolina in Columbia came to the same conclusion while studying the state's coastal shark stocks.

Discovery of the new hammerhead raises the need for better shark protection in the U.S., Quattro says.

"If South Carolina's waters are the primary nursery grounds for [this] species, and females gather here to reproduce, these areas should be conservation priorities," he said in a statement issued last week.

"Protecting this prime nursery habitat is vital to the survival of the species."

—Blake de Pastino

New Hammerhead Shark Species Found in U.S.

In the sights of a joystick killing machine

2006-06-12T19:46:00.000+08:00

About 8,000 miles away, someone at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada could look at me through the Predator's zoom lens and determine whether I should live or die. I could not see the Predator or hear it, but I could imagine how it must feel in the control box at Nellis when a high-value target is in their sights.

"The heart beats faster and the concentration levels really kick in," said Capt. Jon Songer, the squadron leader of the 62nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Flight.

The unsuspecting target has no clue that once the Predator locks on, the final moments of life are upon you. Nothing is seen, nothing is usually heard. It's a clinical, surreal form of destroying a target.

The Predator is the U.S. military's most sophisticated killing machine in the war on terror -- a flying assassin constantly searching for Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda members. In one successful strike in Yemen in late 2002, a CIA Predator killed six suspected al Qaeda members, including a former bin Laden security guard who was suspected of playing a key role in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

"This is the way of the future," Songer said. "Just the ability from the other side of the world to locate and destroy enemy targets is incredible, unbelievable -- to be able to do this from Vegas and destroy high value targets, perhaps bin Laden himself one day."

In the sights of a joystick killing machine

Beijing Roost Duck

2006-06-09T16:40:00.000+08:00

Materials:

Preparations

Select a Beijing Duck crammed with whole skin. Pump in air through the opening cut at the windpipe so as to plump up the duck and disjoin from meat.
Cut open the belly and draw, and then insert a 2 inch- long piece of wood to support the chest bone and to stretch the skin. Hook the duck by the neck, spread diluted maltose over it. Hang the duck in an airy place to dry.
The stuffed duck is hung in the roaster and kettles of hot water are placed in front to fill out the duck.Proper timing and temperature are important and the duck is turned often enough to roast them completely and evenly.Roasting rods may be used if needed.
Roast until golden brown. The removed duck looks as though it were lacquered.
Lotus leafcakes, hollow sesame seeds buns and seasonings are arranged on the table before serving.

Beijing Roost Duck

Emerging Technologies and their Impact

2006-06-08T18:55:00.000+08:00

In recent years, scientists have discovered that the brain has a remarkable capacity for self-repair. Hoping to take advantage of this ability, researchers have developed a technology to deliver electrical stimulation directly to brain tissue. The therapy, now being tested in large clinical trials, could boost the brain's repair mechanisms and improve recovery after stroke.

Studies in both laboratory animals and humans have shown that after stroke, neurons near the damaged tissue begin to reorganize themselves in an attempt to compensate for the injured areas. However, this healing ability can be hit or miss -- some patients regain the ability to walk or talk while others are left permanently disabled.

In many cases, patients can stimulate recovery through practice. Someone who has lost function in their left hand, for example, could practice various movements with that hand to boost the brain's innate repair mechanisms. "But in most cases, that neuroplasticity doesn't go far enough," says Alan Levy, CEO of Northstar Neuroscience, a medical device company based in Seattle, WA.

So Levy and collaborators designed a way to stimulate specific parts of the cortex to try to further enhance the brain's natural neuroplasticity. The technology has shown promise in preliminary human studies -- researchers found that patients receiving both rehabilitation therapy and stimulation improved 15 to 30 percent on standard tests of hand and arm function; while controls, who underwent only physical therapy, improved just 0 to 12 percent. Northstar is now sponsoring a larger clinical trial at 18 rehabilitation centers across the United States.

Experts caution that it's too soon to say how effective or broadly applicable the technology will be, though. "We need to see studies in larger groups to know if it's effective," says Douglas Katz, a neurologist at Boston University Medical School, "and under what circumstances it's effective, such as the location of stroke, the time after stroke [that the treatment is used], and how much stimulation is necessary." Adds Katz: "But I do think these techniques show a lot of promise."

The benefits may also depend on the severity of stroke. It's possible that this therapy will be effective only in patients with relatively mild impairments, says Randolph Nudo, director of the Landon Center on Aging at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, who is studying the effects of the Northstar technology in animal models of stroke. People who have had a more severe stroke, and therefore have fewer neurons left to compensate for the damaged area, may not be able to benefit from stimulation.

Emerging Technologies and their Impact

In Egypt, saving the cats of the gods

2006-06-07T23:32:00.000+08:00

CAIRO, Egypt — In the times of the ancient pharoahs, the cat was almost an equal of the gods.

Pilgrims would place mummified cats around statues of cat-headed goddess Bastet, along with written prayers. The temple would periodically be cleared of these mummies, which would then be buried in a special necropolis designated for cat burial. And in 5 BC, a Greek historian observed that the members of an Egyptian household had shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the family cat's demise.

The cat even had a place in hieroglyphics, where it was written as "miu,” not unlike the noise it made as it hunted birds in the marshes, gnawed on a fish under its mistress' chair or slayed serpents — all scenes recorded for eternity on tomb walls more than 3,000 years ago.

But take a short walk in Cairo today, it is clear to see that the former demi-gods have indisputably fallen from grace. Feral cats are everywhere — prey for cars, abuse, disease and starvation.

One woman, though, is fighting a largely lone battle to take Egyptian cats off the streets and put them into homes with people who appreciate their legendary heritage. Her greater dream is to see theses native animals revered for what many believe them to be: modern descendants of cats domesticated in Pharaonic times.

In Egypt, saving the cats of the gods