BS: Random Traces From All Over

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 09:27 AM

Dolphins speak a contextual language
21 December 2007
Emma Young
Magazine issue 2635
Listen to dolphins whistling to each other and you could be forgiven for thinking that they are having a conversation. Now we're a bit nearer to understanding what they might be saying, thanks to a project that has distinguished nearly 200 different whistles dolphins make and linked some of them to specific behaviours.

Liz Hawkins of the Whale Research Centre at Southern Cross University in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia, eavesdropped on bottlenose dolphins living off the western coast of Australia for her three-year study.

"This communication is highly complex, and it is contextual, so in a sense, it could be termed a language," says Hawkins, who presented her work at a meeting of the Society for Marine Mammalogy in Cape Town, South Africa, this month

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 12:10 AM

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered a stunning rare case of a triple merger of galaxies. This system, which astronomers have dubbed 'The Bird' - albeit it also bears resemblance with a cosmic Tinker Bell - is composed of two massive spiral galaxies and a third irregular galaxy.


The galaxy ESO 593-IG 008, or IRAS 19115-2124, was previously merely known as an interacting pair of galaxies at a distance of 650 million light-years. But surprises were revealed by observations made with the NACO instrument attached to ESO's VLT, which peered through the all-pervasive dust clouds, using adaptive optics to resolve the finest details.

Underneath the chaotic appearance of the optical Hubble images - retrieved from the Hubble Space Telescope archive - the NACO images show two unmistakable galaxies, one a barred spiral while the other is more irregular.

The surprise lay in the clear identification of a third, clearly separate component, an irregular, yet fairly massive galaxy that seems to be forming stars at a frantic rate.

"Examples of mergers of three galaxies of roughly similar sizes are rare," says Petri VŠisŠnen, lead author of the paper reporting the results. "Only the near-infrared VLT observations made it possible to identify the triple merger nature of the system in this case."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 01:20 AM

Scientists say asteroid could hit Mars

Space rock has 1-in-75 chance of Red Planet smash-up in January

By Alicia Chang
The Associated Press
updated 9:01 p.m. CT, Thurs., Dec. 20, 2007

LOS ANGELES - Mars could be in for an asteroid hit.

A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1-in-75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30, scientists said Thursday.
"These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track ... threatening asteroids," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to the Tunguska object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb that wiped out 60 million trees.

Scientists tracking the asteroid, which is halfway to Mars, initially put the odds of impact at 1 in 350 and increased the chances this week after analyzing the data. Scientists expect the odds to diminish again early next month after getting new observations of the asteroid's orbit, Chesley said.

"We know that it's going to fly by Mars and most likely going to miss, but there's a possibility of an impact," he said.

If the asteroid does smash into Mars, it'll likely aim near the equator, close to where the rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian plains since 2004. The robot is not in danger because it lies outside the potential impact zone. Speeding at 8 miles (12.8 kilometers) a second, a collision would carve a hole the size of the famed Meteor Crater in Arizona.

In 2004, fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smacked into Jupiter, creating a series of overlapping fireballs in space. Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.

"Unlike an Earth impact, we're not afraid, but we're excited," Chesley said.

The initial version of this report briefly misstated the chances of a collision with Mars.

© 2007 The Associated Press.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 01:24 AM

Related Item?

Small asteroids pose big new threat

Supercomputer provides new clues about infamous Tunguska explosion
By Charles Q. Choi
Space.com
updated 12:50 p.m. CT, Wed., Dec. 19, 2007

The infamous Tunguska explosion, which mysteriously leveled an area of Siberian forest nearly the size of Tokyo a century ago, might have been caused by an impacting asteroid far smaller than previously thought.

The fact that a relatively small asteroid could still cause such a massive explosion suggests "we should be making more efforts at detecting the smaller ones than we have till now," said researcher Mark Boslough, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M.

The explosion near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River on June 30, 1908, flattened some 500,000 acres (2,000 square kilometers) of Siberian forest. Scientists calculated the Tunguska explosion could have been roughly as strong as 10 to 20 megatons of TNT — 1,000 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Wild theories have been bandied about for a century regarding what caused the Tunguska explosion, including a UFO crash, antimatter, a black hole and famed inventor Nikola Tesla's "death ray." In the last decade, researchers have conjectured the event was triggered by an asteroid exploding in Earth's atmosphere that was roughly 100 feet wide (30 meters) and 560,000 metric tons in mass — more than 10 times that of the Titanic.

The space rock is thought to have blown up above the surface, only fragments possibly striking the ground.

Now new supercomputer simulations suggest "the asteroid that caused the extensive damage was much smaller than we had thought," Boslough said. Specifically, he and his colleagues say it would have been a factor of three or four smaller in mass and perhaps 65 feet (20 meters) in diameter.

The simulations run on Sandia's Red Storm supercomputer — the third fastest in the world — detail how an asteroid that explodes as it runs into Earth's atmosphere will generate a supersonic jet of expanding superheated gas. This fireball would have caused blast waves that were stronger at the surface than previously thought.
At the same time, previous estimates seem to have overstated the devastation the event caused. The forest back then was not healthy, according to foresters, "and it doesn't take as much energy to blow down a diseased tree than a healthy tree," Boslough said. In addition, the winds from the explosion would naturally get amplified above ridgelines, making the explosion seem more powerful than it actually was. What scientists had thought to be an explosion between 10 and 20 megatons was more likely only three to five megatons, he explained.

All in all, the researchers suggest that smaller asteroids may pose a greater danger than previously believed. Moreover, "there are a lot more objects that size," Boslough told SPACE.com.

NASA Ames Research Center planetary scientist and astrobiologist David Morrison, who did not participate in this study, said, "If he's right, we can expect more Tunguska-sized explosions — perhaps every couple of centuries instead of every millennia or two." He added, "It raises the bar in the long term — ultimately, we'd like to have a survey system that can detect things this small."

Boslough and his colleagues detailed their findings at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on Dec. 11. A paper on the phenomenon has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Impact Engineering.

© 2007 Space.com.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 07 - 01:35 PM

An Anniversary of Note


On December 22, 1989, Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opened after nearly 30 years Ñ effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 07 - 12:12 PM

A report in BMC Biology uses genetic evidence to show that there may be at least six species of giraffe in Africa.

Currently giraffes are considered to represent a single species classified into multiple subspecies.

The study shows geographic variation in hair coat colour is evident across the giraffe's range in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting reproductive isolation.

"Using molecular techniques we found that giraffes can be classified into six groups that are reproductively isolated and not interbreeding," David Brown, the lead author of the study and a geneticist at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), told BBC News.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 05:17 PM

Female monkeys may shout during sex to help their male partners climax, research now reveals.

Without these yells, male Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) almost never ejaculated, scientists found.

Female monkeys often utter loud, distinctive calls before, during or after sex. Their exact function, if any, has remained heavily debated.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 05:32 PM

e wreckage of a pirate ship abandoned by Captain Kidd in the 17th century has been found by divers in shallow waters off the Dominican Republic, a research team claims.

The underwater archaeology team, from Indiana University, says they have found the remains of Quedagh Merchant, actively sought by treasure hunters for years.

Charles Beeker of IU said his team has been licensed to study the wreckage and convert the site into an underwater preserve for the public.

It is remarkable that the wreck has remained undiscovered all these years given its location, just 70 feet off the coast of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic in less than 10 feet of seawater.

"I've been on literally thousands of shipwrecks in my career," Beeker said. "This is one of the first sites I've been on where I haven't seen any looting. We've got a shipwreck in crystal clear, pristine water that's amazingly untouched. We want to keep it that way, so we made the announcement now to ensure the site's protection from looters."

The find is valuable because of what it could reveal about William Kidd and piracy in the Caribbean, said John Foster, California's state underwater archaeologist, who is participating in the research.

Historians differ on whether Kidd was actually a pirate or a privateer Ñ a ship or captain paid by a government to battle the enemy. After his conviction of piracy and murder charges in a sensational London trial, he was left to hang over the River Thames for two years.

Historians write that Kidd captured the Quedagh Merchant, loaded with valuable satins and silks, gold, silver and other East Indian merchandise, but left the ship in the Caribbean as he sailed to New York on a less conspicuous sloop to clear his name of the criminal charges.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 06:59 PM

Los Angeles is on track to end the year with fewer than 400 homicides for the first time in nearly four decades -- a hopeful milestone for a city so long associated with gangs, drive-by shootings and sometimes random violence.

With 386 killings recorded as of this morning, the city has experienced one-third the number of homicides it did in 1992. The last year with a comparably low figure was 1970, when Los Angeles had a million fewer residents, guns were far less prevalent and street gangs were a much smaller part of life in urban neighborhoods.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 27 Dec 07 - 10:55 AM

How many physical constants does it take to describe the Universe? The answer, according to a team of physicists in Brazil, is just two.
The two can be chosen, according to taste, from a list of three: the speed of light, the strength of gravity, and Planck's constant, which relates the energy to the frequency of a particle of light, say George Matsas of the São Paulo State University and his colleagues.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 09:43 PM

Snorting a Brain Chemical Could Replace Sleep
By Alexis Madrigal12.28.07 | 12:00 AM
>http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/sleep_deprivation

A nasal spray of a key brain hormone cures sleepiness in sleep-
deprived monkeys. With no apparent side effects, the hormone might be
a promising sleep-replacement drug.

In what sounds like a dream for millions of tired coffee drinkers,
Darpa-funded scientists might have found a drug that will eliminate
sleepiness.

A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called
orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys,
allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests.
The discovery's first application will probably be in treatment of the
severe sleep disorder narcolepsy.

The treatment is "a totally new route for increasing arousal, and the
new study shows it to be relatively benign," saidJerome Siegel, a
professor of psychiatry at UCLA and a co-author of the paper. "It
reduces sleepiness without causing edginess."

Orexin A is a promising candidate to become a "sleep replacement"
drug. For decades, stimulants have been used to combat sleepiness, but
they can be addictive and often have side effects, including raising
blood pressure or causing mood swings. The military, for example,
administers amphetamines to pilots flying long distances, and has
funded research into new drugs like the stimulant modafinil (.pdf) and
orexin A in an effort to help troops stay awake with the fewest side
effects. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 12:07 PM

Measuring Covert Attention

ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2007) Ñ The person you're speaking with may be looking at you, but are they really paying attention" Or has the person covertly shifted their attention, without moving their eyes" Dr. Brian Corneil, of the Centre for Brain and Mind at The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada has found a way of actually measuring covert attention.


"Our results demonstrate for the first time that covert attention can be measured in real-time via recordings of muscle activity in the neck," says Corneil, an assistant professor of physiology & pharmacology and psychology. "This finding may fundamentally change how attention is measured, grounding it in an objective and straightforward technique."

Until now, measuring attention was based on indirect measures of changes in reaction time, or stimulus detection. In furthering our understanding of how the brain works, Corneil has discovered that neck muscles are recruited during covert orienting, even in the absence of eye movements. This finding could help in assessing the effectiveness of therapies for stroke or other neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease.
His research "Neuromuscular consequences of reflexive covert orienting" is posted on the Advance Online Publication of "Nature Neuroscience".

The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers at Queen's University and the University of Toronto, with funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Human Frontier Science Program.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 10:05 AM

Britain: XL to the Rescue
               
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 3, 2008

When the meal a man was cooking at his aunt's house in Hartlepool caught fire this week, he grabbed the nearest thing from a pile of laundry to put it out: his aunt's billowing, powder blue, size XL underpants. He ran them under the faucet and tossed them onto the flames, smothering the fire and saving the kitchen, according to a spokesman for the local fire brigade. The fire official said that using a large, wet cloth to cover a grease fire was a sound principle and that with underwear, "clearly it depends on what size you are."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 01:53 PM

Amos, DARPA has not only found a (nasal spray) cure for sleep so soldiers can fight non stop, they have also found a cure for conscience, common sense and love.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 04:09 PM

, they have also found a cure for conscience, common sense and love.


Surely this should be credited to the Executive Branch?



A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 04:45 PM

Darpa actually started an exchange market for betting on terrorist activities. They actually guide the creation of video war games to lend the game as practical experience for future soldiers.
DARPA is wierd and wicked or a wonderful place depending upon how human you are. In whort its the kind of place where Poindexter can excel.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 08:46 PM

MOEBAS ANTICIPATE CLIMATE CHANGE   A new experiment shows that
amoebas will slow their motion in synch with periodic adverse
changes in their environment, and will, as if in anticipation, even
slow down when the adverse condition is not delivered. A team of
scientists from Hokkaido University and the ATR Wave Engineering
Laboratories in Japan cultured the single-celled slime mold Physarum
polycephalum (a member of the amoeba clan) in a bed of oat flakes on
agar. Every ten minutes the air was made slightly cooler and drier,
which had the effect of slowing the movement of the amoebas down a
narrow lane. Then more favorable air would be restored and the
motion continued as before. After several cycles, the amoebas
slowed even when the adverse conditions did not materialize. Later
still, when the organisms have been tricked into anticipating
impending climate change several times, they refrain from slowing
without an actual change in conditions. One of the researchers,
Toshiyuki Nakagaki from Hokkaido ([e-mail]),
cautions that amoebas do not have a brain and that this is not
example of classic *Pavlovian* conditioned response behavior.
Nevertheless, it might represent more evidence for a primitive
sensitivity or *intelligence* based on the dynamic behavior of the
tubular structures deployed by the amoeba. (Saigusa et al.,
Physical Review Letters, 11 January 2008; journalists can obtain the
article from www.aip.org/physnews/select)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 10:59 PM

Must-see meteor shower Friday morning

The notoriously unpredictable Quadrantids may end up being 2008's best

By Joe Rao
Space.com
updated 11:37 a.m. CT, Thurs., Jan. 3, 2008

The Quadrantid meteor shower is due to reach maximum in Friday's predawn hours. The Quadrantids are notoriously unpredictable, but if any year promises a fine display, this could be it.

Indeed, this may end up being the best meteor shower of 2008.

The Quadrantid (pronounced KWA-dran-tid) meteor shower provides one of the most intense annual meteor displays, with a brief, sharp maximum lasting but a few hours. The timing of peak activity favors Western Europe and eastern North America. Weather permitting, skywatchers in rural locations could see one or two shooting stars every minute during the peak.

Each year, many factors combine to make the peak of this display difficult to observe.

Peak intensity is exceedingly sharp: meteor rates exceed one-half of their highest value for only about eight hours (compared to two days for the August Perseids). This means that the stream of particles that produce this shower is a narrow one — apparently derived within the last 500 years from a small comet. As viewed from mid-northern latitudes, we have to get up before dawn to see the Quadrantids at their best. This is because the radiant — that part of the sky from where the meteors emanate — is down low on the northern horizon until about midnight, rising slowly higher as the night progresses. The growing light of dawn ends meteor observing usually by around 7 a.m. So, if the "Quads" are to be seen at all, some part of that eight-hour active period must fall between 2 and 7 a.m. In one out of every three years, bright moonlight spoils the view. Over northern latitudes, early January often sees inclement/unsettled weather.

It is not surprising then, that the Quadrantids are not as well-known as some of the other annual meteor showers, but 2008 may prove to be an unusual exception.

Exception this year

According to the International Meteor Organization, maximum activity this year is expected on Friday at 1:40 a.m. ET. [05:40 in London?]

For those in the eastern United States, the radiant will be about one-quarter of the way up in the east-northeast sky. The farther to the north and east you go, the higher in the sky the radiant will be. To the south and west the radiant will be lower and the meteors will be fewer.

From Western Europe, the radiant will soar high in the east as the peak arrives just as morning twilight intervenes.

Quadrantid meteors are described as bright and bluish with long silvery trains. Some years produce a mere handful, but for favorably placed observers, this could be a shower to remember; at greatest activity, Quadrantid rates will likely range from 30 to 60 per hour for eastern parts of the U.S. and Canada, to 60 to 120 per hour for Western Europe.

Across central and western parts of North America, the shower's sharp peak will have already passed and meteor activity will be rapidly diminishing by the time the radiant has a chance to get very high in the northeastern sky. Nonetheless, hourly rates of perhaps 15 to 30 may still be seen.

The moon will be a waning crescent, not rising until after 4 a.m. and will add very little light to the sky.

History and mystery

Adolphe Quetelet of Brussels Observatory discovered the shower in the 1830s, and shortly afterward it was noted by several other astronomers in Europe and America.

The meteors are named after the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis, the Mural or Wall Quadrant (an astronomical instrument), depicted in some 19th-century star atlases roughly midway between the end of the Handle of the Big Dipper and the quadrilateral of stars marking the head of the constellation Draco. (The International Astronomical Union phased out Quadrans Muralis in 1922.)

Meteor showers are generally caused by debris from comets. Most of the "shooting stars" result from bits the size of sand grains, which vaporize as they streak through Earth's atmosphere.

The parentage of the Quadrantids was long a mystery, however. Then Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., noticed that the orbit of 2003 EH1 — a small asteroid discovered in March 2003 — ''falls snug in the shower.'' He believes that this 1.2-mile-wide (2 kilometers) chunk of rock is the source of the Quadrantids; possibly this asteroid is the burnt-out core of the lost comet C/1490 Y1.

© 2007 Space.com.

Almost time to go outside and look up.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 02:52 AM

The possibility of an asteroid walloping the planet Mars this month is whetting the appetites of Earth-bound scientists, even as they further refine the space rock's trajectory.

The space rock in question Ñ Asteroid 2007 WD5 Ñ is similar in size to the object that carved Meteor Crater into northern Arizona some 50,000 years ago and is approaching Mars at about 30,000 miles per hour (48,280 kph).

Whether the asteroid will actually hit Mars or not is still uncertain.

Such an impact, researchers said, would prove an awesome opportunity for planetary science since NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and a flotilla of other spacecraft are already in position to follow up any impact from orbit.

"An impact that we could witness/follow-up with MRO would be truly spectacular, and could tell us much about the hidden subsurface that could help direct a search for life or life-related molecules," said John Rummel, NASA's senior scientist for astrobiology at the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 03:53 AM

First reports above in this thread put the odds of an impact at 1 chance in 75. There was much excitement when refinements of the calculations raised the odds to about 4.39%, but later calculations as of 03JAN08 predicted a significantly lower 4.35% chance of an impact.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: GUEST,Darowyn
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 04:02 AM

One of the alchemists who were reputed to have succeeded in transmuting base metal to gold was the Canon of Bridlington Priory. I never met anyone in Bridlington who had ever heard of him.

"George Ripley [1415?-1490] was one of the most important of English alchemists. Little is known about him, but it is supposed that he was a Canon at the Priory of St Augustine at Bridlington in Yorkshire during the latter part of the 15th century, where he devoted himself to the study of the physical sciences and especially alchemy. To acquire fuller knowledge he travelled in France, Germany and Italy, and lived for some time in Rome, and there in 1477 was made a chamberlain by Pope Innocent VIII. In 1478 he returned to England in possession of the secret of transmutation. He pursued his alchemical work, and is reputed to have given vast sums to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Rhodes to defend them from the Turks. But his labours becoming irksome to the abbot and other canons, he was released from the order, and joined the Carmelites at Boston, where he died in 1490."

The people who run Brid are still easy to irk, and the old gatehouse of the Priory is still home to them! They go by the name of "The Lords Feoffees" (pronounced Fifis)
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:00 AM

What note is the Universe tuned to?

The remants of the big bang has a resonant frequency of b flat 16 octaves below middle C.

I have several CDs of music decoded from radio frequencies picked up by Voyager's planatary fly bys. Earth is noisy but Jupiter is a gas.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:07 AM

This summer I said here: Buy Apple stock at 126
Last week it topped over 200

My reccomendation today 04 Jan 08 - 10:00 AM is SELL

I think it will suffer innocently from the coming recession sell off.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 12:26 PM

SAN FRANCISCO — California sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, challenging its recent decision to block California rules curbing greenhouse-gas emissions from new cars and trucks.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, California has the right to set its own standards on air pollutants, but must receive a waiver from the E.P.A. to do so. The environmental agency broke with decades of precedent last month and denied California a waiver to move forward with its proposed limits on vehicular emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide.

In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, "It is unconscionable that the federal government is keeping California" from adopting new standards.

California officials argue that the agency had no legal or technical justification for blocking the new standards. The E.P.A. administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said when announcing the decision that a new federal fuel-economy mandate would be more efficient in curbing pollution than the state standards.

The lawsuit also challenges the agency's contention that California is not uniquely affected by global warming and so lacks the "compelling and extraordinary" conditions that would allow it to regulate greenhouse-gas pollutants.

Mary D. Nichols, thechairwoman of the Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with putting California's 2002 law on vehicular emissions into practice, said the suit was filed quickly because "the states didn't want to sleep on their rights."

California regulators, Ms. Nichols added, have just calculated that in 2016, the state's standard would reduce carbon dioxide output by 17.2 million metric tons, more than double the 7.7 million metric tons that would be eliminated under the new federal fuel-economy standard.

California's cumulative reductions from 2009 through 2016 would be 58 million tons, she said — triple the reductions the federal standards would provide.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 12:44 PM

The Mistery
of Alchymists,
Composed by Sir Geo: Ripley
Chanon of Bridlington.

When Sol in Aries and Phoebus shines bright,
The Elements reviving the new Year springing
The Son by his Vertue gives Nature & Light,
And moysture refresheth all things growing:
In the season of the Yeare when the Sun waxeth warme,
Freshly and fragrante the Flowers doe grow,
Of Natures subtill working we cannot discerne,
Nor yet by our Reason we can it not know,
In foure Elements is comprehended things Three,
Animalls, Vegetabills, Mineralls must be,
Of this is our Principle that we make our Stone,
Quality and Quantity is unknowne to many one.
   Quality (Father) would I faine know,            Son.
Of what nature it is and what it hath in his kinde.
   As Colours divers which on the ground do grow,      Father.
Keep well this secret (Son) and marke it in thy minde.
   Without Proportion (Father) how should I it know,      Son.
This working now is far from my minde
   Nature and kinde (Son) together do grow,            Father.
Quality by waight (Son) shalt thow never finde.
   To Separate Elements (Father) I must needes know,      Son.
Either in Proportion which be more or less.
   Out of our Principle foure Elements thou shalt draw,      Father.
Thou shalt neede nothing else that needefull is;
Our Principle in quality is so perfectly mixed,
By vertue of the Son and his quality,
So equally Joyned, so well mixed may be.
   This Principle (Father) is but one thing,            Son.
Good (Father) tel me where it doth grow.
   In every place (Son) you shall him well finde;         Father.
By Tast and by Colour thou shalt him well know;
Fowle in the Ayer with it doe fly,
And Fishes doe swim there with in the Sea,
With Reason of Angels you may it diserne,
Both Man and Woman to governe,
With our fixed Body (Son) we must thus begin.
Of him make Mercury and Water cleare,
Man and Woman is them within,
Married together by vertue of our Fire,
The Woman in he working is full wild,
Be well aware she goe not out;
Till she have conceived and borne a Chylde,
Then all his kin on him shal lout;
In their workes they be unstable,
The Elements they be so raw;
And their Colour so variable,
As sometyme like the head of a Crow,
When he is black ye may well like,
Putrefaction must go beforne,
After Blacke he wilbe White,
Then Thank ye God the Chyld is borne.
This Chyld is both King and Emperour,
Through his region both far and neere;
All the World doth him honour,
By the vertue he hath taken of the Fire:
His first Vertue is White and pure,
As any Christall shining cleere,
Of White tincture then be you sure;
By vertue taken of our Fire,
His first Vesture that is so White,
Betokeneth his Virginity,
A similitude even thereto like,
And according to the Trinity:
Our Medicen is made of things Three,
Against which the Philosophers cannot say nay,
The Father, the Sone in one degree,
Corpus, Spiritus & Anima.
...

(Balance of this compelling Alchemical Epic can be found here.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:43 PM

Plantstones' could help lock away carbon
05 January 2008
Rachel Nowak
Magazine issue 2637

ONE way to cut greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere may be to exploit a particular talent some plants have of locking away carbon. All we need to do is choose the right strains of crops to grow, and they will sequester carbon for us for millennia.
That's the idea of two agricultural scientists in Australia, who say the trick is to grow grasses such as wheat and sorghum, which lock up large amounts of carbon in so-called plantstones, also known as phytoliths. These microscopic balls of silica, which form around a plant's cells as they take the mineral up from the soil, may help to strengthen the plant and protect it from disease.

As phytoliths form, they also lock up carbon by trapping scraps of plant material. They are practically indestructible, so once the plant dies they enter the soil where they may sequester carbon for thousands of years...

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 11:00 PM

But Amos, growing enough of anything widespread enough to be an effective capture agent will just be seen as a new source of material for ethanol production, which inevitably will re-release any carbon extracted. You KNOW how capitalists are when they see an opportunity.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 10:27 AM

'Maverick' sunspot heralds new solar cycle
19:30 07 January 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee

A sunspot with a magnetic field pointed in the opposite direction from others seen previously in the Sun's northern hemisphere appeared on Friday (top, labelled 0981), signalling the start of solar cycle 24.
A new 11-year solar cycle has officially begun, now that a sunspot has been found with a magnetic field pointing in the opposite direction from those in the previous cycle. But researchers are still divided over how active – and potentially damaging to Earth's satellites and power grids – the new cycle will be.
Sunspots are relatively cool regions where magnetic fields from within the Sun have risen up and broken through its surface. They vary in number – going from a minimum to a maximum and back to a minimum again – about every 11 years, the same timescale on which the Sun's magnetic poles reverse direction.
But predicting when the cycles will begin and end and how many sunspots they will produce is a tricky business, says David Hathaway of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, US. For example, he had predicted that the new sunspot cycle, cycle 24, would be quite active. Since active cycles usually start earlier than average, he expected the cycle's first sunspot to appear a year ago – but it was only observed on Friday, 4 January.

"I'm happy to see this spot," he told New Scientist late on Friday. "For more than the last year, I come in every morning and look at the pictures from SOHO [the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory satellite] and say, 'No, not yet.' And today, someone beat me into work and said, 'Go take a look – I think there's a spot."
The spot – along with a couple of previous magnetic hints that cycle 24 was underway – suggests the Sun is at or near solar minimum, a time when sunspots in the new cycle outnumber the old.

Just when solar max will occur is up for debate, with some research teams predicting 2011 and others 2012. "The bigger the cycle, the shorter the time it takes to get there," says Hathaway. "A number of us believe it's going to be a big cycle and hence it will peak earlier."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 12:57 PM

PSYCHOPATHS IN THE WHITE HOUSE???

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/01/02/02073.html

starts with great John Lennon quote.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 10:15 AM

NEW YORK — A judge said Wednesday that he was leaning toward allowing Dan Rather's $70 million lawsuit over his being fired by CBS to proceed.

"I concluded there was enough in the complaint (by Rather) to continue with discovery (pretrial research)," state Judicial Hearing Officer Ira Gammerman said at a hearing on CBS' motion to dismiss the case.

The judge did not issue a final ruling on CBS' motion, but he suggested the parties try to agree on the scope of pretrial discovery _ just in case _ and told them to return to court Jan. 23 for a conference.

Rather, whose last months at CBS were clouded by a disputed story on President Bush's Vietnam-era military service, says his employers made him a "scapegoat" to placate the White House after questions arose about the story.

The lawsuit names CBS Corp., former CBS parent Viacom Inc., CBS President Leslie Moonves, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. It seeks $20 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages.

Rather, 75, said after attending the hearing in Manhattan's state Supreme Court that he was pleased by the judge's statements.

"Allowing the case to go forward with discovery will put us on the road to finding out what really happened involving big corporations and powerful interests in Washington and their intrusions into newsrooms, which is the reason I'm here," Rather said. "That is the red, beating heart of this case."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 10:18 AM

Troubled pop tart Britney Spears skipped Los Angeles with her boyfriend on Wednesday night and flew here to avoid a planned intervention by her family later this week, sources close to her said.

Pals said she hopped a private jet in Van Nuys with paparazzo boyfriend Adnan Ghalib and took off for Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, where the couple landed last night.

Where they went from there wasn't immediately known.

Britney got spooked by published reports her family planned to have cops haul her out of her home and take her to a hospital for the second time in a week, if necessary, friends said.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces -- Curing Alzheimers?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 01:37 PM

New Alzheimer's treatment works in minutes
By Jonathan M. Gitlin | Published: January 10, 2008 - 03:43PM CT

http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/01/10/new-alzheimers-treatment-works-in-minutes

Alzheimer's disease is a growing concern among our aging populations.
As people live longer lives, diseases of old age become increasingly
common. Perhaps, as with obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis, and other
common modern maladies, there are also lifestyle or environmental
factors at play. Alzheimer's, unlike those ailments of the body, has
had little in the way of useful therapeutics, instead only offering
the promise of an inevitable mental decline.

One reason for the lack of effective Alzheimer's drugs has been our
understanding of the mechanisms involved in how the disease works. The
widely accepted view has been that certain proteins that are present
in nerve cells begin to aggregate together, forming lesions. Potential
therapies often focus on a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine (ACh), and
often have unpleasant side effects.

More recently, neuroscientists have been looking not at the neurons,
but the cells that surround them as an important component of the
disease. Glial cells are most of the cells in the brain that aren't
neurons, and they fulfill a range of specialized functions from
forming myelin to housekeeping in the brain. Some glia envelope
neuronal synapses, the junctions between nerves where
neurotransmitters signal from one to another, and it's these cells
that are now increasingly thought to be critical in Alzheimer's.

What's surprising is the involvement of a molecule we thought we knew
quite well. Most scientists working in biomedical research would be
familiar with a cytokine called Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF)-α. TNFα
is a signaling protein that is deeply involved in inflammation, and
drugs that act on the TNFα pathway are increasingly being used as
treatments for autoimmune diseases. But as it turns out, in the brain
TNFα is used by glial cells as a gliotransmitter, and increased levels
of TNFα in the brain, outside of the normal physiological levels,
results in impairment of synaptic function.

And that appears to provide a therapeutic avenue, thanks to those new
TNFα drugs we have developed. The Journal of Neuroinflammation carries
a case report of the rapid mental improvement of an Alzheimer's
patient following spinal infusion of a drug called etanercept.
Etanercept is a protein drug that binds to TNFα and neutralizes it.
Within just two hours of initial treatment with the drug, the patient
showed marked improvement on a range of cognitive tests, and following
a short series of repeat treatments, continued to improve. The authors
of the study have been using this treatment for several years now, and
have published other case studies also showing a remarkable mental
improvement.

While this case report gives cause for optimism, it must be noted that
the research is still preliminary; double-blind trials have not been
performed, and the case reports don't examine biomarkers of
Alzheimer's disease. Nevertheless, given the possibility of reversing
this terrible disease, it seems a foregone conclusion those double-
blind trials are in the works.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 03:33 PM

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) - Republican Bobby Jindal was sworn in on Monday as governor of Louisiana to become the first Indian-American elected head of a U.S. state.

The Oxford-educated conservative vowed in a speech at the state capitol to clean up Louisiana's notorious political corruption and to speed up the state's recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

"In our past, too many of our politicians looked out for themselves," said Jindal, who is the state's first non-white governor since Reconstruction in the 1870s. "We must win a war on corruption and incompetence in government."

Jindal, 36, was in his second term as a U.S. congressman when won the governorship in an October election in his second try for the office.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 09:27 AM

"If Idoya could talk, she would have plenty to boast about.
On Thursday, the 12-pound, 32-inch monkey made a 200-pound, 5-foot humanoid robot walk on a treadmill using only her brain activity.

She was in North Carolina, and the robot was in Japan.

It was the first time that brain signals had been used to make a robot walk, said Dr. Miguel A. L. Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University whose laboratory designed and carried out the experiment."
The complete story is really interesting -- one small step for a robtoic servomechanism, one huge leap for primate-kind.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 10:38 AM

Channeling Robert Stack: Residents of Stephenville, Texas are staring ominously at the night skies after several dozen reports of UFO sightings last week. Witnesses -- including a pilot -- all claim they saw what appeared to be a massive craft with strange flashing lights, traveling lower and faster than an airplane. Others say they spotted jet fighters chasing after the object.

As expected, federal officials say there is a "logical explanation," such as light reflecting off passing planes, for the Jan. 8 incident. But residents of this town, about 60 miles southwest of Fort Worth, remain unconvinced. "It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts," pilot Steve Allen was quoted as saying.

(WaPo)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 11:49 AM

Monday, January 14, 2008; Page A08

Right around noon today, if all goes as planned, a spacecraft called Messenger will swoop past the planet Mercury and begin two days of unprecedented picture-taking and data-collecting.


The flyby, the first visit to Mercury in more than 33 years by an emissary from Earth, will mark a key moment in a NASA mission that will ultimately place the first satellite into orbit around the tiny planet that sits closest to the sun.

The planetary science community is eagerly awaiting images and information that should shed light on some of the enduring mysteries about the planet -- such as where in the solar system it was formed and why its hard metal core is so large and its outer rock crust so scant, compared with those of Earth and the other rocky planets.

"Mercury is a difficult place to get to, and it's taken a long time to get back," said principal investigator Sean Solomon, who has worked on the mission for more than 11 years. "But now we're in place to learn things about one of our few sister rocky planets, and we're ready for some real surprises."

The desk-size spacecraft was launched in 2004 and has taken a circuitous path to Mercury, swinging twice by Venus and once by Earth for gravity assists. Messenger will make two more passes by Mercury to let the planet's gravity slow it down enough for it to swing into orbit in 2011.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: GUEST,bairn of brid
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 09:29 AM

There is a window in bridlington priory dedicated to sir george riply showing him with some of his alchemical nessesitys.

Feoffee is pronounced using every vowel,fifee is the french way but both are right
you say tomato etc
have you been on the brid ghost walk?

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 10:58 AM

14:37 17 January 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Andy Coghlan


A cloned human embryo has been produced for the first time from a man's skin cell, raising the prospect that such embryos could be made to provide stem cells tailored to any patient.

Only one cloned human embryo has been made before, reported by a team at Newcastle University, UK, in 2005. But it was made by cloning human embryonic stem cells that are not routinely available from patients, and so would not be practical.

The embryo newly created from a skin cell potentially gets round this problem. The ultimate aim is to make temporary embryos from which human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) could be extracted – these are the cells in embryos from which all tissues of the body originate.

Once obtained, these could be turned into tissue for treating the patient without any fear of rejection, as the cells originated from the patient.

But Stemagen, the company in La Jolla, California, US, which reported the breakthrough on Thursday, says its researchers did not manage to extract any stem cells from their cloned embryos. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 05:08 PM

An ad-hoc committee of alumni, undergrads, and *** staff has begun laying the groundwork for a 50th Anniversary Celebration of first Smoot Painting. As Ollie Smoot '62 will attest, neither he nor the others on the bridge that evening had the faintest clue that their measurement deeds that night would become the stuff of legend.

Even Google Earth now can supply any distance on the globe calibrating in Smoots.

In any event, on Saturday October 4, 2008, the icon of this treasured *** tradition will be back on campus to celebrate a day of community service, civic recognition, and just plain fun. The day will be capped by a festive '50s party hosted by the *** Museum. More details will be become available around Reunion time in June.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 05:58 PM

What are Smoots, then, good John?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 06:26 PM

A rat heart was cleaned with detergent until all that was left was a white ligament organ devoid of all living cells. Baby rat heart cells were placed on the dead heart and grew into a fully functioning heart.

The implications for growing organs in this manner are monumental.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 06:33 PM

WHAT HAS NEVER BEEN SAID ON TV


All you will hear about the economy is that the sub prime crises is to cause for the US economic down turn/recession/collapse.

BULL SHIT

It was the 2,000 billion dollar Bush war that we had to borrow money for and then wasted by inflating profits for defense contractors like Halliburton.

We could have 5 sub prime crises and be OK if we had not invaded the middle east.

People like nations do not die from the flu virus, they die from the immune system going too far resulting in destroying our own lungs in an attempt to destroy a tiny virtually invisible enemy.

It bears repeating...

People like nations do not die from the flu virus, they die from the immune system going too far resulting in destroying our own lungs in an attempt to destroy a tiny virtually invisible enemy.

People like nations do not die from the flu virus, they die from the immune system going too far resulting in destroying our own lungs in an attempt to destroy a tiny virtually invisible enemy.

But then again I'm not as smart as the pundits and I could be wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 09:17 PM

Around 1958, one of the fraternities was looking for a "pledge activity" and selected "a new standard of measurement." One of the pledges (who really was named Smoot) was selected as the standard for length/distance. The "newbies" were given the task of "calibrating" the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge across the Charles River in "Smoots" and duly marked "10 Smoot" intervals in very long-lasting paint on the bridge.

The tradition of "Re-Smooting" the bridge at approximately annual intervals has persisted until the present time, and "Mr Smoot" apparently will be attending his 50th class reunion soon.

As with all standards based on "physical samples" there is some indication of a moderate amount of "flexibility" in the precise length of "one Smoot" as markings from various years don't necessarily match up exactly.

The traditional re-marking almost died when the city decided it was a recognized "tradition" and declared that "smooters" would not be charged with vandalism, thereby removing the possibility of "being caught and prosecuted;" but fortunately the tradition appears to have survived.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 09:41 PM

Thank you, John. That is perhaps the st profoundly frivolous and trivial gem I have encountered ever.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Jan 08 - 12:00 AM

Amos -

Is that a challenge?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 08 - 12:07 AM

Oh, no, thanks very much! I was just chastising myself!!! LOL


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 05:13 PM

A brief video at MSNBC is titled "Cow Pictures." (A brief ad also runs.)

I can't say that the glamour shots of the subjects were a particular stimulus for me, but there are apparently numerous professional photographers who specialize in taking livestock pictures.

Pause for thought: One "spokesperson" states that

"There are more pictures of purebred beef cattle taken in the US each year than of graduating high school seniors."

Immediate reaction (subject to later reflection):

"Why not? A good cow brings a better price than most ....

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 01:03 AM

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Thailand's parliament reopened Monday, marking the end of 16 months of military rule and the return of democracy.


Samak Sundaravej, leader of the People Power Party, which won the December election, arrives at Thailand's parliament Monday.

Newly elected lawmakers in immaculate white ceremonial uniforms attended the opening in the sumptuous surroundings of the Thai parliament building in Bangkok.

The return of parliamentary rule follows elections in December in which the People Power Party (PPP), the party of deposed Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra, won nearly half the seats in the lower house.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 06:05 PM

How UFOs and Bigfoot Could Save Earth

By Benjamin Radford, LiveScience's Bad Science Columnist

posted: 22 January 2008 02:21 pm ET

These days green is big. The environmental movement has been around for decades, but issues such as global warming, recycling, and saving the planet have never been so much in the spotlight. Though many corporations have arrived late in the game (cynics might suspect they saw another type of green in "green marketing"), many New Agers and believers in the mysterious and paranormal have long incorporated environmentalism into their beliefs.

Among people who claim to have been abducted or contacted by space aliens, messages about world peace and warnings of impending environmental disaster are common.

One popular belief is that UFO sightings are simply glimpses of the benevolent aliens watching over us, monitoring our destructive ways. We should work to save the planet, the thinking goes, but if we can't, our savior space brothers will intervene just before the world destroys itself, either through environmental pollution or global nuclear war. Once that happens, we Earthlings will see the error of our ways, ushering in a new era of peace, love, and global consciousness..... (Click link above foe details).


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 02:35 PM

The YEar of the Private Commercial Spaceship

Published: January 23, 2008
Burt Rutan took the cloak off of his new spacecraft on Wednesday.

Mr. Rutan, the creator of SpaceShipOne, the first privately-financed craft to carry a human into space, traveled to New York to show detailed models of the bigger SpaceShipTwo and its carrier airplane, WhiteKnightTwo.

"2008 will really be the year of the spaceship," said Sir Richard Branson, the British serial entrepreneur, at the heavily attended press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Sir Richard, who founded a company, Virgin Galactic, that promises to take tourists on brief trips to the edge of space, was there to show off the sleek pod of a spacecraft and its spidery carrier plane.

WhiteKnight, a three-fuselage, four-engine plane in its new incarnation, will ferry the smaller spacecraft high into the sky and release it. The spacecraft pilot then fires the craft's rocket engine, which burns a combination of nitrous oxide and a rubber-based solid fuel, and shoots the vehicle upward to an altitude of more than 62 miles, the realm of black sky.

Once there, the pilot is to activate the craft's innovative feathered wing, which rotates into a position that greatly increases aerodynamic drag and slows the craft for a glider landing back on earth.

In 2004, SpaceShipOne earned Mr. Rutan and his backer, Paul Allen, the $10 million Ansari X Prize when it carried a pilot to the edge of space twice in five days. Since then, Mr. Rutan has been working on the follow-up vehicle for Sir Richard, under his customary heavy secrecy.

Officials at the press conference said that the WhiteKnight aircraft is 70 percent complete and that SpaceShipTwo is 60 percent complete. Test flights of the planes could occur this year. Passenger flights are not expected to begin before late 2009 or 2010.

But Will Whitehorn, the president of Virgin Galactic, said that the company would not yet set a date for the startup of commercial flights, which will depend not just on testing and manufacturing but also on government approval. "We don't want to make promises that we can't meet," Mr. Whitehorn said. "We're in a race with nobody, apart from a race with safety."

Mr. Rutan said that the new space travel system would have to be "hundreds" of times safer than present space flight, which he put at the level of safety of the early commercial aircraft of the 1920s.