The Official News of the Weird Thread

[Lerincho]

Got sick of starting a new thread each time. So now, just going to put all the wacky **** I find here.

California Apologizes to Chinese Americans
By LING WOO LIU – Tue Jul 21, 5:05 pm ET
What's in an apology? Some expressions of remorse are commonplace - we hear them on the playground when kids smack each other on the head, or they land in your inbox after a friend forgets your birthday. It's the grand-scale apologies, it seems, that are harder to come by.


On July 17, the California legislature quietly approved a landmark bill to apologize to the state's Chinese-American community for racist laws enacted as far back as the mid–19th century Gold Rush, which attracted about 25,000 Chinese from 1849 to 1852. The laws, some of which were not repealed until the 1940s, barred Chinese from owning land or property, marrying whites, working in the public sector and testifying against whites in court. The new bill also recognizes the contributions Chinese immigrants have made to the state, particularly their work on the Transcontinental Railroad. (Check out a story about the Asian-American experience in late[EN]20th century California.)


The apology is the latest in a wave of official acts of remorse around the globe. In 2006, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a similar apology, expressing regret to Chinese Canadians for unequal taxes imposed on them in the late 19th century. Last February, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized to his country's Aborigines for racist laws of the past, including the forced separation of children from their parents. Five months later, the U.S. Congress formally apologized to black Americans for slavery and the later Jim Crow laws, which were not repealed until the 1960s. And most notably, in 1988 the U.S. government decided to pay $20,000 to each of the surviving 120,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned in camps during World War II. Says Donald Tamaki, a San Francisco–based attorney who helped overturn wrongful WWII-era convictions of Japanese Americans: "Part of what a humane society does is recognize past injustices and address them."


The California resolution moved quickly through the state legislature since it was first introduced in February. "It's symbolic to recognize that the state made mistakes," says assembly member Paul Fong, who co-sponsored the legislation with assembly member Kevin de Leon. "These laws reverberate to this date because racism still exists." (Read about a new Asian-American stereotype in TIME'S 1987 cover story.)


Most of the direct victims of the laws in question have already passed away. Fong's grandfather was held for two months at Angel Island, an immigration station near San Francisco that targeted and detained several hundred thousand Chinese immigrants from 1910 to 1940. Dale Ching, 88, arrived at Angel Island from China's Guangdong province in 1937 at age 16. Though his father was an American citizen, immigration authorities detained Ching for 3½ months. "My intent was to try to have a better life, better than in China," says Ching. "But at that time, they didn't want you to get ahead."


How times have changed. In the throes of huge budget cuts, California is wooing cash-flush mainland Chinese tourists to its sun-kissed coastline and world-famous theme parks. So far this year, the state's Travel and Tourism Commission has opened offices in three Chinese cities. In 2005, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured China on a six-day trade mission to peddle his state's produce, technology and raw materials. China is now California's fourth largest export market, after Mexico, Canada and Japan. In 2008 California exported $10.9 billion worth of goods to China, up 40% since 2005.


With the California bill in the bag, Fong now plans to take the issue to Congress, where he will request an apology for the Chinese Exclusion Act, the only federal law ever enacted to deny immigration based exclusively on race or nationality. Passed in 1882, the law was not fully repealed until 1943, after China and the U.S. became allies in WWII. Given President Obama's decision to appoint Gary Locke as Commerce Secretary and Steven Chu as Energy Secretary, Fong says he's confident of the bill's passage. "As a person of color, President Obama would understand these issues," he says.


Fong does not plan to press for financial compensation for the surviving victims of the state and federal laws in question, despite the Japanese-American precedent. More important than individual compensation, he says, is to help educate younger generations about the mistakes of the past. That said, Fong may ask for funding to help preserve the Angel Island immigration station, dilapidated after decades of neglect. To complicate matters, the station is located within a state park that, along with several others, may be shut down to help balance California's budget shortfall.


Not long after his father helped negotiate his release, Dale Ching joined the U.S. Army and fought Japanese forces during WWII. He went on to become an electronics technician, but after retiring, he began volunteering as a docent at Angel Island in hopes of drawing more attention to that moment in history. "We've been fighting, but nobody would listen," he says. "Finally someone has said sorry."


View this article on Time.com

[Ghirmeshk]

Great idea, L!

[Lerincho]

The Truth About Bottled WaterBy David Zinczenko, with Matt Goulding - Posted on Tue, Jul 21, 2009, 1:35 pm PDT
Eat This, Not That
by David Zinczenko, with Matt Goulding a Yahoo! Health Expert for Nutrition

Imagine you’ve just been given a choice: You have to drink from one of two containers. One container is a cup from your own kitchen, and it contains a product that has passed strict state, federal and local guidelines for cleanliness and quality. Oh, and it’s free. The second container comes from a manufacturing plant somewhere, and its contents—while seemingly identical to your first choice—have not been subjected to the same strict national and local standards. It costs approximately four times more than gasoline. These products both look and taste nearly identical.

Which do you choose?

If you chose beverage A, congratulations: You just saved yourself a whole lot of money, and, perhaps, even contaminants, too. But if you picked beverage B, then you’ll be spending hundreds of unnecessary dollars on bottled water this year. Sure, bottled water is convenient, trendy, and may well be just as pure as what comes out of your tap. But it’s hardly a smart investment for your pocketbook, your body or our planet. Eat This, Not That! decided to take a closer look at what’s behind the pristine images and elegant-sounding names printed on those bottles.

You may actually be drinking tap water.
Case in point: Dasani, a Coca-Cola product. Despite its exotic-sounding name, Dasani is simply purified tap water that’s had minerals added back in. For example, if your Dasani water was bottled at the Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Philadelphia, you’re drinking Philly tap water. But it’s not the only brand of water that relies on city pipes to provide its product. About 25 percent of all bottled water is taken from municipal water sources, including Pepsi’s Aquafina.

Bottled water isn’t always pure.
Scan the labels of the leading brands and you see variations on the words “pure” and “natural” and “pristine” over and over again. And when a Cornell University marketing class studied consumer perceptions of bottled water, they found that people thought it was cleaner, with less bacteria. But that may not actually be true. For example, in a 4-year review that included the testing of 1,000 bottles of water, the Natural Resources Defense Council—one the country’s most ardent environmental crusaders—found that “about 22 percent of the brands we tested contained, in at least one sample, chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health limits.”

It’s not clear where the plastic container ends and the drink begins.
Turns out, when certain plastics are heated at a high temperature, chemicals from the plastics may leach into container’s contents. So there’s been a flurry of speculation recently as to whether the amounts of these chemicals are actually harmful, and whether this is even a concern when it comes to water bottles—which aren’t likely to be placed in boiling water or even a microwave. While the jury is still out on realistic health ramifications, it seems that, yes, small amounts of chemicals from PET water bottles such as antimony—a semi-metal that’s thought to be toxic in large doses—can accumulate the longer bottled water is stored in a hot environment. Which, of course, is probably a good reason to avoid storing bottled water in your garage for six months—or better yet, to just reach for tap instead.

Our country’s high demand for oil isn’t just due to long commutes.
Most water bottles are composed of a plastic called polyethylene terepthalate (PET). Now, to make PET, you need crude oil. Specifically, 17 million barrels of oil are used in the production of PET water bottles ever year, estimate University of Louisville scientists. No wonder the per ounce cost of bottled water rivals that of gasoline. What’s more, 86 percent of 30 billion PET water bottles sold annually are tossed in the trash, instead of being recycled, according to data from the Container Recycling Institute. That’s a lot of waste—waste that will outlive you, your children, and your children’s children. You see, PET bottles take 400 to 1000 years to degrade. Which begs the question: If our current rate of consumption continues, where will we put all of this discarded plastic?

To learn the truth about diet soda, energy drinks and discover the best no-diet weight loss solutions on the planet, check out all of the eye-popping lists at eatthis.com. Also, sign up for your FREE Eat This Not That! newsletter and stay informed about the best choices for you and your family.


To lose your belly fast and get in shape for summer, try a downloadable workout here. And don’t miss the newest book in the Eat This, Not That! series: The Best (and Worst!) Foods in America!

And please share your nutrition and weight-loss tips and tricks with the rest of us.

[Lerincho]

Coldest Known Object in Space Is Very Unnatural
SPACE.com staff

SPACE.com Space.com Staff

space.com – Tue Jul 7, 9:45 am ET

The coldest known object out in space has now been announced by scientists. It's not a frozen comet or even some distant, chilly gas cloud. Rather, it's a spacecraft.

On July 3, the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft reached this frigid extreme as part of a key step in the satellite's mission to observe the remnant radiation of the Big Bang.

Since its launch on May 14 (accompanied by its sibling spacecraft Herschel), Planck has been traveling to its final orbit at the second Lagrange point of the sun-Earth system, L2, and cooling its instruments down to their operational temperature of minus 459.49 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.05 Celsius). This temperature is just 0.1 Celsius above absolute zero, the coldest temperature theoretically possible in our universe.

"It is indeed both the coldest spot in any spacecraft that we know about, and also the coldest known object in space, including dust, gas etc.," Planck project scientist Jan Tauber wrote in an email. "Of course in a laboratory on Earth, colder spots can be made."

Such low temperatures are necessary for Planck's detectors to study the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) — the first light released by the universe, only 380,000 years after the Big Bang — by measuring its temperature across the sky.

Over the next few weeks, mission operators will fine-tune the spacecraft's instruments. Planck will begin to survey the sky in mid-August.

Planck is equipped with a passive cooling system that brings its temperature down to about minus 382 F (minus 230 C) by radiating heat into space. Three active coolers take over from there, and bring the temperature down further to an amazing low of minus 459.49 F (minus 273.05 C).

The CMB can be detected in all directions of the sky at an average temperature of 2.73 degrees Kelvin (minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 270 degrees Celsius). Previous space-based missions have found that the temperature of the CMB varies ever so slightly in different areas. Planck is built to resolve these variations in greater detail.

Planck's detectors will look for variations in the temperature of the CMB that are about a million times smaller than one degree – this is comparable to measuring from Earth the heat produced by a rabbit sitting on the Moon.

The photons in the CMB could also tell astronomers when and how the first stars formed. They could also shed light, so to speak, on how galaxies, galaxy clusters and the large voids in space came to be.

After a crucial maneuver, Planck also reached the L2 point last week. At the start of the maneuver, Planck was located 0.89 million miles (1.43 million km) from Earth.

"Everyone here is quite happy to see Planck getting into its operational orbit," said Chris Watson, Spacecraft Operations Manager.

Planck is slated for a 15-month mission, time enough for two full surveys of the sky.

[Lerincho]

Long Shot: Planet Could Hit Earth in Distant Future
By Jeanna Bryner
Senior Writer
posted: 10 June 2009
01:22 pm ET

Our solar system has a potentially violent future. New computer simulations reveal a slight chance that a disruption of planetary orbits could lead to a collision of Earth with Mercury, Mars or Venus in the next few billion years.

Despite its diminutive size, Mercury poses the greatest risk to the solar system's order. Results of the computer model show a roughly 1 percent chance that the elongation of Mercury's orbit will increase to the point where the planet's path around the sun crosses that of Venus. That's when planetary pandemonium would ensue, the researchers find, and Mercury could be ejected from the solar system, or collide with the sun or a neighboring planet, such as Earth.

The potential smash-ups, however remote, are detailed in the June 11 issue of the journal Nature.

"I see the results as a case of the glass being 99 percent full and 1 percent empty," said Gregory Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "While it's possible that a collision could occur billions of years from now, it's actually very unlikely." Laughlin was not involved in the current study but wrote an accompanying analysis of the research in Nature.

Solar system bang-ups

The researchers, Jacques Laskar and Mickael Gastineau of the Paris Observatory, ran computer simulations involving 2,501 scenarios with different planetary orbits.

While most of the outcomes don't involve any crashes, about 25 led to a large disruption of Mercury's orbit. If the increase in elongation of Mercury's orbit results in its collision with the sun or with Venus, the simulations showed the rest of the solar system wouldn't be affected much.

But in some less likely scenarios, the change to Mercury's orbit leads to a total destabilization of the inner solar system (the terrestrial planets) in about 3.3 billion years, possibly triggering collisions of Mercury, Mars or Venus with Earth.

"The most surprising outcome is the destabilization of the orbit of Earth and Venus," Laskar said during a telephone interview.

The result is a Venus-Earth bang-up.

"You first need Mercury to be destabilized by gravitational interaction with Jupiter," Laskar said. "Then this may destabilize Mars, which then can come very close to the Earth. Only then can you have destabilization of Venus' orbit and a collision with the Earth."

When the researchers looked at different cases involving this close approach of Mars and Earth, they found that five set-ups would lead to Mars being flung out of the solar system. And in nearly 200 of the cases, two celestial bodies will collide — 48 of which involve Earth.

Close encounters

While planet orbits might seem stable today, they aren't. And over billions of years, they are less so. Basically, the planets can perturb one another through gravitational interactions. Astronomers say that in the distant past, some of the planets of our solar system could have been on significantly different orbits and migrated to their present locations.

And as the sun ages, it is expected to swell and lose mass; previous studies have shown that could have significant effects on the planets in the next 7 billion years or so. Earth might be vaporized when this happens, or it might — with a gravitational assist from a passing star — be booted right out of the solar system. A study in 2001 by Laughlin, then at NASA, and Fred Adams of the University of Michigan put the odds of the Earth being ejected at one-in-100,000.

Meanwhile, as planets move around, close encounters (especially with larger worlds like Jupiter) could fling them on wildly new trajectories.

Evidence for such melees has been found in exoplanetary systems, including one in which the object 2M1207B may have formed from the collision and merger of two planets. Our own moon was created when a Mars-sized object hit Earth about 4 billion years ago, theorists figure.

Strongest evidence

The new model results provide the strongest evidence to date of the solar system's future in this regard. "These are the first calculations that really answer the question of the long-term stability of the solar system in a truly definitive way," Laughlin told SPACE.com.

That's because Laskar and Gastineau's model relies on non-averaged equations and accounts for general relativity.

Previous models were based on averaged equations for planetary motion and didn't include the effects of general relativity. When considering planets that are about to collide, such equations don't work well to make accurate predictions. And it turns out general relativity, or the effect of gravity on time and space, does play a role in the crash scenarios.

Here's how: "Mercury's orbit is a slightly elongated ellipse. The sun lies at one of the foci of the ellipse, not at the center," Laughlin said. "Over long periods of time (of the order 100,000 years), the orientation of Mercury's orbit rotates like a clock hand. General Relativity acts to speed up this clock-hand-like rotation, and this decreases the odds that Jupiter can drive large changes in Mercury's orbit."

[Lerincho]

Jupiter's New Bruise Big As Pacific Ocean
By SPACE.com staff

posted: 21 July 2009
05:32 pm ET

The dark bruise that appeared suddenly near the south pole of Jupiter several days ago, likely as the result of an impact by a comet or asteroid, is as big as the Pacific Ocean, astronomers report.


The dark spot was first noticed by chance by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley in Australia on Sunday, July 19.


The blemish is thought to be the result of an impact similar to that of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which pummeled the gas giant 15 years ago.


After he was convinced the spot was not just another storm or the shadow of one of Jupiter's moons, Wesley alerted other astronomers around the world to the scar's appearance.


University of California, Berkeley, astronomer Paul Kalas took advantage of previously scheduled observing time on the Keck II telescope in Hawaii to image the blemish in the early morning hours of Monday, July 20. The near-infrared image showed a bright spot in the clouds of Jupiter's southern hemisphere, where the impact had propelled reflective particles high into the relatively clear stratosphere.


In visible light, the bruise appears dark against the bright surface of Jupiter.


These observations mark only the second time that astronomers have been able to see the results of an impact on the planet, the first being Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's collision. Many theories were formed after that collision.


"Now we have a chance to test these ideas on a brand new impact event," Kalas, said.


Kalas and his colleagues hope their observations will shed light on the nature of the impact.


"The analysis of the shape and brightness of the feature will help in determining the energy and the origin of the impactor," said Marchis. "We don't see other bright features along the same latitude, so this was most likely the result of a single asteroid, not a chain of fragments like for SL9 [Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9]."


Mike Wong, a UC Berkeley researcher currently on leave at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, used the observations to calculate that the bruise is near the southern pole of Jupiter (305 degrees west longitude and 57 degrees south latitude in planetographic coordinates) and that the impact covers a 190-million-square-kilometer area, as big as the Pacific Ocean.


Because of the complex shape of the explosion, it is possible that tidal effects (the gravitational tugs of Jupiter and its moons) fragmented the impactor – a comet or asteroid – shortly before it collided with the planet.


Later this week, astronomers from UC Berkeley and around the world plan to conduct high-resolution visible and ultraviolet observations of the impact site using the Hubble Space Telescope's brand new Wide Field Camera 3. Ground-based facilities including the W. M. Keck telescope will also use adaptive optics to obtain much sharper infrared images of the impact's aftermath.

[Lerincho]

Archaeologists find graveyard of sunken Roman ships
Reuters – Amphorae from a Roman shipwreck are seen on the seabed near the island of Ventotene in a June 19, 2009 … Thu Jul 23, 9:30 am ET
ROME (Reuters) – A team of archaeologists using sonar technology to scan the seabed have discovered a "graveyard" of five pristine ancient Roman shipwrecks off the small Italian island of Ventotene.

The trading vessels, dating from the first century BC to the fifth century AD, lie more than 100 meters underwater and are amongst the deepest wrecks discovered in the Mediterranean in recent years, the researchers said on Thursday.

Part of an archipelago situated halfway between Rome and Naples on Italy's west coast, Ventotene historically served as a place of shelter during rough weather in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

"The ships appear to have been heading for safe anchorage, but they never made it," said Timmy Gambin, head of archaeology for the Aurora Trust (www.auroratrust.com). "So in a relatively small area we have five wrecks...a graveyard of ships."

The vessels were transporting wine from Italy, prized fish sauce from Spain and north Africa, and a mysterious cargo of metal ingots from Italy, possibly to be used in the construction of statues or weaponry.

Gambin said the wrecks revealed a pattern of trade in the empire: at first Rome exported its produce to its expanding provinces, but gradually it began to import from them more and more of the things it once produced.

In Roman times Ventotene, known as Pandataria, was used to exile disgraced Roman noblewomen. The Emperor Augustus sent his daughter Julia there because of her adultery. During the 20th century, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini used the remote island as a prison for political opponents.

Images of the wrecks show their crustacean-clad cargoes spilling onto the seafloor, after marine worms ate away the wooden hull of the vessels.

Due to their depth, the ships have lain untouched for hundreds of years but Gambin said the increasing popularity of deep water diving posed a threat to the Mediterranean's archaeological treasures.

"There is a race against time," he said. "In the next 10 years, there will be an explosion in mixed-gas diving and these sites will be accessible to ordinary treasure hunters."

(Reporting by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Jon Boyle)

[Lerincho]

RELATIONSHIPS Dating Tips: 4 Relationship Rules You Should Break
Never stopped to question the dating code of conduct everyone you know follows? Well, it's time to start. Right here, right now.

By dating editor Beth Whiffen for Cosmopolitan

Photo: iStockphoto.com© Rhienna Cutler
Updated: Jul 24, 2009

It's anyone's guess where they originally came from, but there are some universally accepted relationship mandates that we all think we should abide by. A few of these couple commandments are actually valid (as in: Your best friend's boyfriend is off limits). Others are totally outdated and bogus, and your relationship will be better off if you break them.
More Dating Articles from Cosmopolitan:
•How to Tell if a Guy Is Cheating
•Eight New Love Truths You Must Know
Here are the four dating doctrines that you need to ditch this instant!
Rule #1: You can't check out anyone else
Why you should break it: You're in a relationship; you're not dead. So when you're walking down the street and spot a piece of eye candy, go ahead and give yourself permission to do a double take. Noticing the scenery isn't a sign that your guy doesn't do it for you anymore. "It's human nature to be attracted to other people," explains Los Angeles psychotherapist Lynn Ianni, PhD.
That's not to say that it's cool to blatantly ogle every XY chromosome owner that crosses your path, even when your boyfriend isn't by your side. "It's important to respect your significant other, so you don't want to be too obvious or make a habit of looking," says Marcella Bakur Weiner, PhD, coauthor of "The Love Compatibility Test." Obviously, there's a difference between staring slack-jawed and simply appreciating a nice view.
On the flip side, however, you have to understand that your guy isn't blind either. If you see that he notices some chick, as long as he's not outright drooling over her, don't make a big deal out of it. You can even score points with him by joining in and saying something like, "Oh, she's cute," advises professional counselor Roger Rhoades of Carolina Counseling in Greenville, South Carolina. "Acknowledging that another woman is attractive makes you seem confident, which only adds to your own appeal."
Or do what Stella,* 29, does with her guy. "My boyfriend and I like to play this game we call Hot or Not, where we people-watch and rate all the passersby," she says. "It's a fun way for both of us to ogle hotties without driving each other crazy. Plus, it gives us interesting insight into each other's taste."
*Names have been changed.
Rule #2: You have to give each other the play-by-play of your day
Why you should break it: You already know it's not cool to attach yourself to his hip. Well, the same thing goes for drawing him a mental map of your daily grind. "The Cliffs' Notes version of your day is actually more effective. Then move on to more mutually interesting topics, like current events or a movie you want to see," says Rhoades.
So when you two hook up after work, how do you know if you're giving TMI? Follow this rule of thumb: "Fill your guy in on the things that elicited an emotional response from you," says Ianni. For instance, if someone got fired and you're afraid you'll be next, or if you're psyched because you learned your sister's pregnant, go ahead and share. "Then, skim over the stuff that didn't have a profound effect."
Also, keep in mind what you know he finds interesting and what will make his eyes glaze over. If hearing about office gossip is about as torturous to him as getting a root canal, spare him the dirty details. He'll be more into communicating with you if you're both on the same page.
Rule #3: You have to resolve every conflict
Why you should break it: Forget the old adage that you should never go to bed angry. Despite your feminine urge to fix a problem now, it often pays to sleep on it -- or drop the matter completely. "Women are oriented toward harmony and balance in relationships, so they often try too hard to analyze and repair an argument, which isn't always possible and can even exacerbate the issue," says Ianni.
What is important when you don't see eye-to-eye is being able to communicate your feelings. "If you bottle up your emotions, you set yourself up for a far worse explosion later," says Ianni. But speaking your mind doesn't necessarily mean finding a tidy resolution.
Take it from Erin, 28, who was sick of battling with her fiance about her future monster-in-law. "Greg's mother is a pain," she says. "I can't stand her, and I would take my anger out on him. But I realized that I wasn't being fair. She's his mother. What can he do? So now I complain to him when she upsets me, but I don't blame him for her behavior. I guess it's something I'm going to have to learn to live with."
As Erin found out, there are some disagreements that can't -- or shouldn't -- be fought to the finish. "Let smaller conflicts go and focus on working out the ones that involve your core values and life goals," says Rhoades. For example: If your guy's leave-the-dishes-in-the-sink habit bugs you, suck it up. He is probably an inherent slob and isn't likely to change. However, if he keeps blowing his paycheck on unnecessary big-ticket items while you want to save up to buy a house together, that's a point of contention you should hash out.
Rule #4: You need to deep-six your exes
Why you should break it: There's no reason to cut off contact with someone you genuinely care about. Just because it didn't work out romantically between the two of you doesn't mean you have to wind up hating each other. "You date someone who has qualities that you appreciate and enjoy," says Pepper Schwartz, PhD, author of "Everything You Know About Love and Sex Is Wrong." "Even if you didn't succeed as a couple, you might still like each other as friends."
However, there are certain codes of behavior that you need to respect. First, keep the camaraderie casual. "Make a conscious effort to refrain from doing anything that would make your current boyfriend feel threatened or jealous," says Rhoades. In other words, it's okay to meet your ex for a quick cup of coffee; it's not okay to get together for an hours-long romantic dinner.
Secondly, make sure it's clear to your new man that you no longer have any romantic feelings for your ex. One way to do that: Have a threesome...in the platonic sense. Instead of getting together with your old beau solo, invite your boyfriend along once in a while. "The fact that you're including him shows that you and your ex really are just friends and have nothing to hide," says Rhoades. They might even like each other. But even if they don't become buds, at least you will have averted any potential problems.
Just remember, keeping ties with old lovers works both ways. If you want to maintain relationships with your exes, you have to be understanding if your current guy wants to do the same.
Love Laws That Bombed
In hindsight, these couples realized their dating mandates were moronic.
"It's corny, but I wanted my voice to be the last thing my boyfriend heard each day, so I had him call me every night before he went to bed. Too bad he's a night owl and always wound up waking me." --Sasha, 19
"Before we moved in together, I negotiated a deal with my girlfriend that allowed us each to have one fling a year. It sounded like a great plan, until she acted on it. So much for my bright idea." --Dave, 34
"Sam and I promised to always be truthful. But after a few weeks, I got sick of hearing how he didn't like my new haircut or how my friend was ****ing him off. Sometimes ignorance is bliss." --Tanisha, 25

[Lerincho]

Could Earth Be Hit, Like Jupiter Just Was?
AP – Tue Jul 28, 10:45 am ET
The recent bruising Jupiter received from a cosmic impact is a violent reminder that our solar system is a shooting gallery that sometimes blasts Earth.


Still, what are the odds of a cosmic impact threatening our planet?


So far 784 near-Earth objects (NEOs) more than a half-mile wide (1 km) have been found.


"If an object of about the same size that just hit Jupiter also hit Earth — it was probably a typical cometary object of a kilometer or so in size (0.6 miles) — it would have been fairly catastrophic," explained astronomer Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object program office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.


Scientists have ruled out the chances of an Earth impact for all of these 784 large NEOs. Still, lesser objects also pose a risk, and researchers estimate more than 100 large NEOS remain to be found.


Small risk


Billions of years ago, impacts were far more common. Our moon retains a record of the pummeling it and Earth took: the moon's craters remain, while on Earth, most scars of ancient impacts have been folded back into the planet or weathered away.


Today's solar system is far less crowded, and in fact Jupiter, having more mass and gravity, scoops up a lot of the dangerous objects, as does the sun.


Currently just one NEO of all the objects scientists are tracking poses any significant chance of hitting the Earth — 2007 VK184. If this roughly 425-foot-wide (130 meters) asteroid hit our planet, it would strike with an energy of roughly 150 million tons of TNT, or more than 10,000 times that of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.


Roughly 100 telescopic observations made so far suggest that 2007 VK184 has a 1-in-2,940 chance of hitting Earth 40 to 50 years from now. However, if the past is any guide, further observations to refine computations of its orbit very likely will downgrade its probability of hitting Earth to virtually nothing, Yeomans said.


Of remaining concern are the NEOs that we do not see. Researchers suspect about 156 large NEOs 1 kilometer in diameter or larger remain to be found, and when it comes to dangerous NEOs in general, "when we get down to 140 meters (460 feet) or larger diameter objects, we think we've discovered about 15 percent of them, and with 50 meters (164 feet) or larger diameter, we've discovered less than 5 percent of them," Yeomans explained.


On average, an NEO roughly a half-mile wide or larger hits the Earth roughly every 500,000 years, "so we're not expecting one anytime soon," Yeomans explained.


"For 500 meters (1,640 feet), we're talking a mean interval of about 100,000 years," he added. "When you get down to 50 meters, the mean interval is about 700 years, and for 30 meters (98 feet), about 140 years or so, but by then you're getting down to a size where you won't expect any ground damage, as they burn up in the atmosphere at about 25 meters (82 feet) in diameter and smaller, probably for an impressive fireball event."


When it comes to truly monstrous NEOs some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) or larger, of the size thought to have helped kill off the dinosaurs, "that's a 100 million year event, and in fact, I don't think there is anything like that we see right now," Yeomans said. "The largest near-Earth object that can actually cross the Earth's path, Sisyphus, has a diameter of 8 kilometers (5 miles), and the largest that is termed a potential hazard is Toutatis, which has a diameter of approximately 5.4 km (3.35 miles)."


Keeping watch


There are currently four teams worldwide actively looking for both large and small NEOs, Yeomans said. "We're concentrating on the large ones for now, but hopefully with the next generation of search, we'll be more efficient in finding the smaller objects, to find 90 percent of the total population of potential hazards larger than 140 meters," he added.


Keeping an eye on NEOs might not just be healthy for humanity, but also help lead us out into space.


"They're easy objectives to get to, and asteroids have significant metal resources that can be mined, while comets have significant water resources for space habitats or travel," Yeomans said. "If you want to build a habitat in space, you're not going to build it all on the ground and launch it up, since that's too expensive — you want to go up and look for resources instead."

Furthermore, asteroids and comets are among the objects that have changed the least since the birth of the solar system roughly 4.6 billion years ago, and might reveal vital clues behind the mysterious process.

"They may well have delivered the water and carbon-based molecules to Earth that allowed life to form, so they're extremely important for study in that direction," Yeomans added.

[Lerincho]

Updated: July 28, 2009, 5:29 PM ET
Report: Favre opts to remain retiredComment Email Print Share By Kevin Seifert
ESPN.com
Archive


Favre

Quarterback Brett Favre has informed Minnesota Vikings officials that he will remain retired, according to The Star Tribune.

Coach Brad Childress confirmed the news to the Star Tribune, leaving the Vikings in an unexpected and awkward spot with training camp set to open Wednesday. The Vikings are now left to choose between Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels as their 2009 starter.

"I just think it was a rare opportunity to explore a Hall of Fame quarterback who had background in the NFC and in this division," Childress said to the newspaper. "He knows our system inside out ... This doesn't change anything about how I feel about our football team."

Kevin Seifert covers the NFC North for ESPN.com.

[Lerincho]

Boston hack almost takes blame for forgotten child
AP – Taxi driver Joseph Cohen sits in his cab Monday, July 27, 2009, in Boston. Supporters of Cohen say he …
Play Video Tax Season Video:Miami-Dade Schools Not Asking For Tax Hike CBS4 Miami Play Video Tax Season Video:Action Report: Woman struggles to convince city she paid property taxes WWL-TV, Channel 4 New Orleans Play Video Tax Season Video:New Calif. Budget To Withhold More In State Taxes CBS 5 San Francisco By BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press Writer Bob Salsberg, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 28, 4:40 pm ET
BOSTON – A family picked up by a taxi at the airport left a sleeping 5-year-old child behind in the back of the minivan — and the cabbie almost took the blame for it.

Joseph Cohen, a taxi driver for 39 years, picked up the family at Logan International Airport on Sunday, drove them to their home in the city's Mattapan neighborhood, and helped them unload their luggage.

"They paid me, thank you very much, everything was nice, and I left," he said.

Minutes later, Cohen got a call from the cab pool at the airport. State police, who have jurisdiction over Logan, were looking for him.

He was told the family left a child in his cab.

"I said, 'What?' So I looked in the back and I see the baby sleeping. I said, 'What should I do?' So you know, I take the baby (back) to the family," he said. "The father came out. He was very happy."

He even gave him a $50 tip.

The following day, Cohen was ordered to report to the Hackney unit, where police told him his license was being suspended for three days because he didn't do a thorough check of the van. He appealed the suspension and was allowed to keep his license pending a hearing. On Tuesday, he visited the police station with an attorney and learned he would only get a warning.

"We are very happy that the baby was safely returned to mom and dad," said Elaine Driscoll, a police spokeswoman. "That said, it was an important opportunity to remind cab drivers why we have a rule that dictates they must check the back of their cab after every fare."

Cohen said the girl had been in the back of the van behind another seat and he could not see her from his rearview mirror or from the outside of the vehicle.

The cabbies' union expressed outrage at the proposed suspension, saying the fault should lie with the child's family, not the driver.

Police would not release the names of the parents but said they were not being investigated.

"I think the sad piece here is that the police are not recognizing the responsibility of the adults and are now saying this driver also has to be responsible for passengers who forget their children," said Donna Blythe-Shaw, a staff representative for the United Steelworkers Boston Taxi Drivers Association.

[Lerincho]

Out on a limb: Arm-swinging riddle is answered

AFP/File – The shadow of a woman is seen on a wall. Biomedical researchers on Wednesday said they could explain … Tue Jul 28, 7:49 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – Biomedical researchers on Wednesday said they could explain why we swing our arms when we walk, a practice that has long piqued scientific curiosity.

Swinging one's arms comes at a cost. We need muscles to do it, and we need to provide energy in the form of food for those muscles. So what's the advantage?

Little or none, some experts have said, contending that arm-swinging, like our appendix, is an evolutionary relic from when we used to go about on all fours.

But a trio of specialists from the United States and the Netherlands have put the question to rigorous tests.

They built a mechanical model to get an idea of the dynamics of arm-swinging and then recruited 10 volunteers, who were asked to walk with a normal swing, an opposite-to-normal swing, with their arms folded or held by their sides.

The metabolic cost of this activity was derived from oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) production as the human guinea pigs breathed in and out.

Arm-swinging turned out to be a plus, rather than a negative, the investigators found.

For one thing, it is surprisingly, er, "'armless" in energy costs, requiring little torque, or rotational twist, from the shoulder muscles.

Holding one's arms as one walks requires 12 percent more metabolic energy, compared with swinging them.

The arms' pendulum swing also helps dampen the bobbly up-and-down motion of walking, which is itself an energy drain for the muscles of the lower legs.

If you hold your arms while walking, this movement, called vertical ground reaction moment, rises by a whopping 63 percent.

Should you prefer to walk with an opposite-to-normal swing -- meaning that your right arm moves in sync with your right leg and your left arm is matched to the motion of your left leg -- the energy cost of using your shoulder muscles will fall.

The downside, though, is that opposite-to-normal swing forces up the metabolic rate by a quarter.

The study, headed by Steven Collins at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, says we should give the thumb's-up to arm swinging.

"Rather than a facultative relic of the locomotion needs of our quadrupedal ancestors, arm swinging is an integral part of the energy economy of human gait," says the paper.

It appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the biological research journal of the Royal Society, Britain's de-facto academy of sciences.

[Strakeln]

The Truth About Bottled WaterBy David Zinczenko, with Matt Goulding

Couldn't be much more one-sided. Anyone who has done their own plumbing work knows full well that tap water is anything but free of contaminants.

[Lerincho]

Couldn't be much more one-sided. Anyone who has done their own plumbing work knows full well that tap water is anything but free of contaminants.

i know i wouldn't touch it without rubber gloves

[KoboldKiller]

You have waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy to much time on your hands.

[dragonruler]

Out on a limb: Arm-swinging riddle is answered

wow really i mean come on that was about the most ******** study ever...who cares why we walk like that. If anything i always thought that it just help keep some sort of balance while walking hence the left step right swing.

[Lerincho]

You have waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy to much time on your hands.

after the day i had yesterday, my profile at work is just sitting in office dealing only what i have to. no more going extra mile.

[KoboldKiller]

after the day i had yesterday, my profile at work is just sitting in office dealing only what i have to. no more going extra mile.

I understand that totally.

[Lerincho]

Alright. Confess people, who hacked into the Rorschack testing images to do self psychiatic evaluations?



This Is Only a Test: Rorschach Blots Rocking the Web
by Claudine Zap and Vera H-C Chan
17 hours ago

2,060 Votes
Ever take the inkblot test—or at least see one administered on TV (like in any "Law & Order" episode)? If so, then you know that there are no right or wrong answers on a Rorschach test, but responses do provide insight to the test-taker's state of mind.

And yet, a controversy about the posting of 10 Rorschach inkblots on Wikipedia is rocking the scientific community, according to The New York Times. In addition to the blots themselves, the Wikipedia entry also includes the most common interpretations of what these blots look like—the old bison vs. butterfly vs. moth.

Taking the Test
The Rorschach test—a series of ink blots shown to patients, who are then asked to explain what they see—is named after Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach. Five of the blots are black-and-white, two are black, white, and red, and the last three are in pretty colors. (Or not pretty, depending on your view.)

The test-taker is evaluated on 100 variables, which will show what he/she truly feels deep inside—not just separating psychotic thinking from "normal" thought. One Rorschach FAQ site describes it as asking "How does someone view and organize the world around them?"

One nonprofit parenting site, SPARC, explains that it's not only what patients say in describing what they see, but also what "hand gestures and body movements" they make. (Interestingly, SPARC precedes its lengthy description of the whole process with a disclaimer, posted "after repeated letters from dozens of outraged psychologists and psychiatrists.")

Illuminating or Cheating?
Is the test's public availability stimulating free debate, or enabling test-takers to "cheat"? Depends on how you look at it:

• From the Wiki view: Supporters say it's informative—and searches on Yahoo! for "rorschach" have popped up 111% in the past week.

• From the psychologists' view: These "cheats" could help test-takers game the system and get in the way of research. And if patients peek at the interpretations beforehand, they may get in the way of their own diagnoses.

• From the test publishers' view: The test's publisher is "assessing legal steps" to have the images removed from Wikipedia, even though those images—created some 90 years ago—are in the public domain. Still, one spokesperson huffed that Wikipedia's position is "unbelievably reckless and even cynical" for recognizing concerned claims and posting the images anyhow.

But Does One See Results?
Despite the outrage over Wikipedia's posting, not all researchers believe in the test's validity. The method was severely criticized in the 1950s and revised in the 1970s. Scientific American revived its 2005 article that called Rorschach's test "frequently ineffective" as a mental health tool.

Ideally, at least two clinicians should be involved in the interpretation of the test's results, but often they may not agree. Even worse, according to the article "What's Wrong With This Picture?", research also "suggests" that the Rorschach can't really gauge violent tendencies, depression, sexual abuse in children, antisocial tendencies, and so on. Since the test is administered to all kinds of people, from convicts seeking parole to parents in custody battles, obviously a lot rides on the interpretation of the results.

By the way, the Wikipedia uproar erupted in June, when an emergency-room doctor added the remaining nine inkblots to the one Wikipedia already had. When The New York Times told the doctor about all the experts' complaints, he replied, "Show me the evidence." Preferably not in the form of an inkblot.

[Lerincho]

Okay good news, we are NOT going to be killed by a comet soon.


Andrea Thompson
Senior Writer
SPACE.com andrea Thompson
senior Writer
space.com – 1 hr 57 mins ago
Some of the comets that make their way to Earth's neighborhood from the frigid outer reaches of the solar system likely follow a different route than previously thought, new modeling suggests.




The study's findings, detailed in the July 31 issue of the journal Science, are good news for our planet (especially in light of Jupiter's recent impact): Comets from this region should rarely cross Earth's orbit, and so aren't a collision concern.




In turn these rare encounters mean that these comets are unlikely to be the causes of past mass extinction events.




Oort cloud origins




So-called long-period comets (those with highly elongated orbits that take them hundreds or thousands of years to circle the sun) were long thought to come from the outer region of the Oort Cloud.




The Oort Cloud is a remnant of the nebula from which the solar system formed some 4.5 billion years ago. It encircles the solar system from a point about 93 billion miles from the sun (1,000 times the distance from Earth to the sun) and extends to about 5.9 trillion miles from the sun (or three light-years away, with a light-year being the distance it takes light to travel in one year).




The Oort Cloud is thought to contain billions of comets, most of which are far too small and distant to be seen even with powerful telescopes.




But gravitational nudges from a passing star can send the comets on a path to the inner solar system, where astronomers can finally get a glimpse of these long-exiled bodies.




There are about 3,200 known long-period comets (the most well-known of which was Comet Hale-Bopp, which was visible for much of 1996 and 1997).



Scientists thought that very few of these comets came from the inner Oort Cloud, and that they only did so when a passing star made a particularly close fly-by, setting off a comet shower in events that play out over millions of years.


"It was thought the long-period comets we see just tell us about the outer Oort Cloud," said lead author of the study Nathan Kaib, a graduate student of the University of Washington in Seattle.


Kaib's work suggests this isn't the case.


Innies, not outies


Scientists had thought that most of the comets coming from the inner Oort Cloud would be ejected from the solar system by gravitational interactions with Saturn and Jupiter, which act like body guards for the inner solar system planets.


"They cut down on the number of bodies reaching Earth-crossing orbits," Kaib said.


But after running computer models of the evolution of comet clouds for 1.2 billion years, Kaib and his colleague found that comets from the inner Oort Cloud could slip past the protective barrier of Jupiter and Saturn and reach an Earth-crossing orbit.


The new modeling suggests that a substantial portion of observable long-period comets actually come from the inner, not the outer, Oort Cloud.


Unlikely impactors


While the actual number of comets in the inner Oort Cloud is unknown, Kaib and his colleague were able to make an estimate of the highest possible number of comets in the region.


With this maximum, they could further estimate the number of comets likely to have struck Earth during the last 500 million years. They determined that it should be no more than two or three comets, which would have been part of the most powerful comet shower in that time span.


Three major impacts are known to have occurred nearly simultaneously (within a million or so years of each other) at around the same time as a mass extinction event about 40 million years ago. If that relatively minor extinction event was caused by a shower of inner Oort Cloud comets, it was likely the most intense comet shower since the fossil record began, and so it is unlikely that inner Oort Cloud comets were responsible for other extinction events (though other impactors may still be the culprits).


"That tells you that the most powerful comet showers caused minor extinctions and other showers should have been less severe, so comet showers are probably not likely causes of mass extinction events," Kaib said.


So while some comets slip through the Jupiter-Saturn barrier, most don't, and those that do aren't likely to hit Earth. Some might hit Jupiter and Saturn themselves though.


Whether or not Jupiter's bruise last week was caused by an impacting long-period comet isn't known for sure, but "it's certainly a possibility," Kaib told SPACE.com.


Kaib's work was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA.