`A bouncing universe that expands and then shrinks every trillion years or so could explain one of the most puzzling problems in cosmology: how we can exist at all.
If this explanation, proposed in Science1 by Paul Steinhardt at Princeton University, New Jersey, and Neil Turok at the University of Cambridge, UK, seems slightly preposterous, that can’t really be held against it. Astronomical observations over the past decade have shown that “we live in a preposterous universe”, says cosmologist Sean Carroll of the University of Chicago. “It’s our job to make sense of it,” he says.
In Steinhardt and Turok’s cyclic model of the Universe, it expands and contracts repeatedly over timescales that make the 13.7 billion years that have passed since the Big Bang seem a mere blink. This makes the Universe vastly old. And that in turn means that the mysterious ‘cosmological constant’, which describes how empty space appears to repel itself, has had time to shrink into the strangely small number that we observe today.’
`A knife-wielding mugger who robbed a woman of her bags before discovering they were full of dog mess has been jailed for four years.
David Carlisle, 32, forced 52-year-old Marion Budd to hand over the bags at knifepoint last July as she walked her dog in Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol.
When he realised what he had taken, Carlisle, a drug addict and father-of -four, fled the scene empty-handed.
The bungling would-be thief was jailed after admitting attempted robbery.’
`James Farrow could have been forgiven for losing his way in the heavily wooded, remote area of the Blue Mountains National Park.
But when the British tourist ignored rescuers who warned him against returning to the steep escarpment of Cedar Creek to retrieve his backpack, he was charged with an obscure criminal offence and this week ordered to repay the cost of his second rescue – more than $3000.’
`Here is the Space Cubed which is claimed to be the world’s smallest personal computer. At the size of 2 x 2 x 2.2 inch, it has a 300 MHz processor and 64MB of SDRAM. Shown in the picture, it includes number of ports such as USB, Ethernet, flash memory. monitor port, serial connection and microphone. Pocket PC anyone?’
2 x 2 x 2.2 isn’t a cube, if you ask me. Still, I want one. 🙂
`Nanotechnology companies need to do more to understand potential toxic effects of their products, a senior UK researcher has warned.
Professor Anthony Seaton, of Aberdeen University, said “very little” was still known about the health impacts of particles engineered at small scales.
His concern over nanoparticles covered production and lab workers as well as consumers, he told a conference.’
`It’s easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That’s because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America’s voting machines, Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things, that President Bush may owe his 2004 win to an unfair vote count.’
`A California lawmaker has introduced a bill sparked by Tom Cruise’s revelation he bought a sonogram machine to watch his daughter grow in Katie Holmes’ womb.
Democratic Assemblyman Ted Lieu’s bill would ban selling, leasing or distributing ultrasound machines to anyone other than licensed medical professionals, E! Online reported Wednesday. The state assembly is scheduled to debate the bill in Sacramento Thursday.
“If someone sees Tom Cruise buy one, they think this is the thing to do,” Lieu said. “This is a public safety measure. There’s really no medical reason for an untrained person to use this machine.”‘
Eating the still-beating heart of a frog. Looks tasty.
(3meg Windows media)
`”What we do with these boats is amazing,” says Thomas Coville, who was at the helm of Sodebo. “To be flying on the foils at 35 knots with the sail at the perfect angle is such a feeling.”
“There’s no aspect of sailing that’s more demanding or exciting,” Foxall says. He should know: He has competed in the America’s Cup and the globe-circling Volvo, and in 2004 he won the Quebec-Saint-Malo transatlantic race.
But the Jacques Vabre disaster posed a dilemma: In a sport made exciting by engineering and design innovation, have things gone too far? Maybe technology has taken sailors to a place they shouldn’t be going in ocean racing. Even Nigel Irens, a multihull designer whose trimaran Banque Populaire won the race, admits: “The power of these boats is getting beyond the reach of sailors. The problem is that you either break, capsize, or win.”‘
`Unlike Windows, which is a mature commercial product which is normally included with every new computer, Linux is given away. Now it may not sound like much of a problem, after all there is very little profit in merely giving a product away.
This would be certainly true were in not for the Linux project’s seductive Marxist ideology and the effect that it has on ‘Blue-State’ liberals. Indeed, Linux is so pervasive amongst the blue states and many liberal universities that a leading computer expert Steve Balmer (from Microsoft) described Linux as cancer. [..]
Imagine if the State of the Union address were hacked because the TV station decided to save money by using Linux? Imagine if a stealth-bomber crashed because it’s software was written by anonymous Chinese or European hackers. It would make as much sense as inviting the French to come over and take over the White-House.
And guess what software Osama Bin Laden uses on his laptop?’
`Irish rail officials have lashed out at the “gross stupidity” of truck drivers who can’t seem to stop ramming into low bridges.
Trucks have rammed — and become lodged beneath — bridges 52 times so far this year. One bridge had been struck 70 times in the past five years, The Independent reported. [..]
“It’s gross stupidity not being aware of the height of the bridge,” he said. “Another bridge that is regularly struck is 10-feet-6-inches. It’s absolutely insane that somebody could be stupid enough to hit that bridge.”
Jimmy Quinn of the Irish Road Haulers’ Association agrees.
“Anybody who’s driving round in a vehicle and doesn’t know its height is stupid,” said Quinn. “That’s a bald fact and only an idiot would try to defend that.”‘
`An engineered virus tracks down and infects the most common and deadly form of brain cancer and then kills tumor cells by forcing them to devour themselves, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The modified adenovirus homed in on malignant glioma cells in mice and induced enough self-cannibalization among the cancer cells — a process called autophagy — to reduce tumor size and extend survival, says senior author Seiji Kondo, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at M. D. Anderson.
”This virus uses telomerase, an enzyme found in 80 percent of brain tumors, as a target,” Kondo says. ”Once the virus enters the cell, it needs telomerase to replicate. Normal brain tissue does not have telomerase, so this virus replicates only in cancer cells.”’
A whole bunch of games rolled into one, each of which must be completed in 4 seconds.
`Midvale police are on the lookout for a man who allegedly tried to kidnap a 13 year old boy while he walked to school Tuesday morning.
Brendon Nichol tells police that he noticed a man following him almost from the moment he left his home headed to Midvale Middle School around 7:00 a.m.
“That’s when I took out my notepad and pencil and started looking at his facial expression and how big he was,” says Nichol.
Nichol also says the man followed him for several blocks, and then finally approached the boy from behind, getting him in a headlock. “My first reaction was to pick it up and stab him like this and it broke off somewhere in his face.” Nichol says.’
`The basic elements of the system are as follows.
* All the user need prepare is a collection of A4-sized envelopes and some means for marking the outside of the envelope. If some color coding (optional) is to be done, this can be done with marker pens.
* All documents, regardless of their class, level of importance, or perceived chance of being required at a later date are stored in A4-sized envelopes, which have the flaps cut off, as shown below.
By “all documents,” Noguchi means just that. He puts all categories of documents, including things like membership lists and his passport in envelopes.
* The title and date of the document are marked on the side of the envelope, as shown, and the envelopes are stored vertically on a bookshelf.
* Absolutely no “classification” of documents is attempted. The color coding is optional, and used only to shorten the amount of time to find a document.
* New documents (envelopes) are added at the left end of the “envelope buffer,” and whenever a document is used (i.e., the envelope removed from the shelf), it is returned to the left end of the bookshelf. The result of this system is that the most recent (and frequently) used documents migrate to the left, while documents that are not used often or not used at all migrate to the right.’
`A Malaysian housewife says a bogus spiritual medium duped her into having sex with him 51 times as the only way to exorcise her evil spirits.
The 41-year old woman, who sought the man’s help after he claimed to be able to heal her from her numerous ailments, was allegedly told that she had many evil spirits in her, the Star daily reported today.
The medium, who claims to be the reincarnation of a God, allegedly hypnotised her into having sex with him a total of 51 times over a period of six months.
The victim was also told to pay up to 50 ringgit ($A17) for each “exorcism” session.’
`Governments in Canada should steer completely clear from adopting or emulating any current drug policies in the United States, an outspoken New York state prosecutor said Tuesday.
“My advice to Canada is stay as completely far away from U.S. drug law policy as possible,” said David Soares, the district attorney for Albany County in the state of New York. “You (Canada) are headed in the right direction.”
In a blunt and scathing condemnation of his state and country’s ineffective drug war, Mr. Soares said lawmakers, judges and prosecutors in the U.S. know their system is ineffective.
But they support it anyway because it provides law enforcement officials with lucrative jobs.’
`I’ve been a fan of Michael Dell for about ten years since I read an article about him in Reader’s Digest. Not wanting to believe that my friend Michael would allow this garbage to be installed on computers that bare his name, I assumed that somehow a virus had snuck its way onto my machine in the ten minute window where my computer was without anti-virus software. Sadly, Google search after Google search revealed that in fact Dell is being paid to pre-install this filth on their machines. [..]
What Dell is doing should be illegal. They are being paid to install spyware on new computers. They are making it difficult for customers to remove the spyware on their own. Then, they charge $49 to teach you how to remove it. This would be like a doctor being paid to infect you with a disease and then charging you for the antidote.
Dell claims that people like me are overreacting, but a lot of people seem to disagree.’
`A McHenry County man is suing his marriage counselor, contending the therapist he hired to help improve his marriage instead began an affair with his wife.
That relationship eventually prompted the couple to divorce, according to the breach-of-contract suit filed by 35-year-old Scott Buetow of Lake in the Hills. [..]
The lawsuit filed by Buetow in McHenry County also accuses Blair — a state-licensed clinical professional counselor — of fraud and professional malpractice. [..]
Despite the alleged relationship, Blair continued counseling Buetow and worked “to undermine the marriage to his benefit by tendering poor advice,” the suit contends.’
`The Catholic Church is on the brink of a historic change of approach over condoms which could bring hope to millions in Africa and other parts of the developing world devastated by Aids.
“We are conducting a very profound scientific, technical and moral study,” said the head of the Vatican Council for Health Pastoral Care. The church is expected to give a guarded, provisional blessing to the use of condoms by married couples when one of them suffers from Aids, as a way of protecting the health of the other partner. It is only a technical concession, based on two ancient principles, but, against the background of the stolid refusal by church authorities to countenance even the slightest deviation for more than a generation, it amounts to a revolution.
At a time when more than 40 million people are infected with HIV, and there are 13,000 new cases every day, the Vatican has been accused of contributing to the spread of the epidemic by forbidding the use of prophylactics.’
`The amount of accessible oil worldwide could eventually be increased by roughly 30 percent with the help of new drilling, imaging, and oil extraction technologies, including the use of microbes, say MIT researchers. Theoretically, this number could be even higher; in a best-case scenario, the amount of oil that could be produced would double.
On average, using current techniques, about two-thirds of the oil in an oil field gets left behind, says Richard Sears, a vice president at Shell International Exploration and Production, Houston, TX. “The fundamental problem is basic physics. It’s not like the oil is in big tanks. We produce oil from rock — sandstone. The oil is actually held in the very small spaces between the grains of sand. The problem is, when you try to move that oil out of the rocks, because of the size of the spaces, you end up with a layer of oil coating the insides of the rocks.” About one-third of the oil in fields will always be inaccessible. That leaves one-third that could be recovered with new technologies — which is equal to the amount that would have already been extracted.’
`A Highland man, who claims to have mailed boxes of “cat poop sandwiches” to Lake County courts Monday to protest a small claims case, has locked himself in his home in anticipation of being arrested.
“I’m not coming out of this house,” he said.
Richard Carroll, 54, is the same man who early last month sent a package to Lake Superior Court Magistrate Michael Pagano that a hazardous materials team examined.
Carroll, who insists he’s not violent, said he believes he’s making his stand. The six boxes mailed this week contained the excrement, bread and torn up money with some change thrown in, he said.
“They all say I’m crazy, but I’m crazy about my rights,” he said.’
`Boffins at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and Harvard University have come up with an idea for a storage device which involves some nano-structures and a bit of water.
Normally if you tip water over your computer, you msy get an electric shock and your computer will keel over and die, but the boffins have worked out that you can get stable ferroelectricity in nanostructures by terminating their surfaces with traces of water.
[..] It means that if the technique was applied to store data, it would be possible to have more than 100,000 terabits per cubic centimetre.’
`A scientific study commissioned by the Bush administration concluded yesterday that the lower atmosphere was indeed growing warmer and that there was “clear evidence of human influences on the climate system.”
The finding eliminates a significant area of uncertainty in the debate over global warming, one that the administration has long cited as a rationale for proceeding cautiously on what it says would be costly limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases.’
This lightbulb has been on for 105 years or so. And now you can see a live webcam of it. Bask realtime in its 4 watt glow.
`Twart (portmanteau of ‘twat’ and ‘art’) n.
Early 21st century art movement using female genitalia for creative activity, eps. painting and drawing, resulting in visual representation, inspired by modern feminist culture, Amsterdam’s red light district and the surrealist work of Picasso, Miro and Masson’
Or, as I understand it, sticking a paint brush in your cunt and painting with it.
`There was quite a bit of teeth gnashing across the web throughout the evening yesterday as TypePad, LiveJournal, and all the other hosted Six Apart websites went dark; we learned late in the night that the cause was a “sophisticated distributed denial of service attack” against the sites. Digging a little deeper, though, it doesn’t look like this is a particularly accurate description of what happened — but instead of this being a case of the folks at Six Apart trying to cover up some internal issue, it instead looks like they’re being far too gracious in not revealing more about another company, Blue Security, which appears to have been responsible for the whole disaster.’
`Iran’s first target would be Israel in any response to a U.S. attack, a Revolutionary Guards commander said Tuesday, reinforcing the Iranian president’s past call for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”
“We have announced that wherever (in Iran) America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel,” the Iranian Student News Agency quoted Gen. Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani as saying.
Dehghani, a top commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, also said Israel was not prepared to go to war against Iran.’
`A Mexican man who at 550 kg (1,200 lb) is possibly the heaviest person in the world hopes to travel to Italy for a life-saving operation to shed weight.
Manuel Uribe, bedridden for the past five years, cannot stand on his own and will need a special flight to take him from Monterrey, Mexico to Modena, where a surgical team has offered to perform an intestinal bypass free of charge.
“I can’t walk. I’m can’t leave my bed,” the 40-year-old Uribe, who weighs the same as five baby elephants, said in a recent telephone interview.’
