Did The Military Cause The Tornadoes That Devastated Joplin, Mo.?

Tornadoes Caused by Military?: Recent Events Fuel Conspiracy Theories -- ABC News

It's an astonishing claim: The tornado that ravaged Joplin, Mo., last Sunday, killing at least 125 people, was not a random act of nature but the result of an obscure military-backed research program in Alaska that shoots radio waves into the upper atmosphere.

Here's another one: The shooting rampage in Tucson last January that killed six people and wounded 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was an elaborate government hoax that used actors to portray the victims.

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My Comment: Conspiracy theories .... or in my opinion .... people having too much time on their hands, but not enough time for some independent thought.

The Moon Is Filled With Water

Scientists at Brown University found super-tiny melt inclusions in lunar soil samples that opened the door for measurements that revealed the magnitude of water inside the moon. (Credit: Saal lab, Brown University)

Scientists Detect Earth-Equivalent Amount of Water Within the Moon -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2011) — There is water inside the moon -- so much, in fact, that in some places it rivals the amount of water found within Earth.

The finding from a scientific team including Brown University comes from the first-ever measurements of water in lunar melt inclusions. Those measurements show that some parts of the lunar mantle have as much water as Earth's upper mantle.

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Babies And Their Ability To Reason

A baby watches objects bounce around an enclosure during an experiment on infant cognition. CREDIT: L. Bonatti & E. Teglas

Babies Are Capable of Complex Reasoning -- Live Science

Babies are sophisticated mini-statisticians, a new study finds, capable of making judgments about the probability of an event they've never seen before.

Using a computer model, researchers were able to accurately predict what a baby would know about a particular event if given certain information. The model may be useful in engineering artificial intelligence that reacts appropriately to the world, said study researcher Josh Tenenbaum, a cognitive scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The study also demonstrates just how savvy baby brains are, Tenenbaum told LiveScience.

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Skeleton Of Amazon Warrior Discovered In Scotland

Photo: Re-constructed heads of an unknown female and of a medieval knight whose skeletons were found during the recent refurbishment of the Palace at Stirling Castle.

From The Scotsman:

THE discovery of the remains of an aristocratic Scottish "Amazon", killed in battle during the Wars of Independence, is set to rewrite the history books.

Her skeleton was among the remains of five "high status" individuals - all of whom had suffered violent deaths - found beneath the paved floor of the "lost" Royal Chapel at Stirling Castle.

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Robot's Supersonic Air Jets Allow It To Climb Most Surfaces

Video: Robot's Supersonic Air Jets Allow It To Climb Just About Any Surface -- Popular Science

Many wall-walking robots mimic natural adhesives--like the sticky feet of geckos--to remain fixed to a surface while they scale it.

But this little bot uses nothing but a supersonic version of a well-known principle of fluid dynamics to cling to just about any surface--without the surface of its grippers ever actually touching it.

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Orion-Type Capsule Picked For Deep NASA Space Missions

Photo: The Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, or MPCV, shown with a launch escape rocket and service module. NASA plans to develop the capsule for use in future missions to deep space targets. (Credit: NASA)

NASA Picks Orion-Type Capsule For Deep Space Missions -- CNET

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--A version of the Bush administration's Orion moon capsule, written off by the Obama administration and then resurrected as a space station lifeboat, will be developed instead for use in future manned flights to deep space targets beyond Earth orbit, the agency announced today.

Douglas Cooke, associate administrator of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, told reporters the Orion concept, described by former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin as "Apollo on steroids," is the most capable spacecraft currently on the drawing board for meeting the Obama administration's "flexible path" approach to deep space exploration.

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U.S. Congress Getting Ready To Tax The Internet

How Will States Tax Internet Downloads? Congress May Decide -- Epicenter

Here’s an interesting conundrum, posed by Representative Dennis Ross (R-Florida), at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing held on Monday:

“Imagine you are sitting in Dulles airport in Virginia, waiting for a flight back to Florida,” Ross began in his opening remarks. “You download a music file from Apple, which is headquartered in California. The music is sent to you via a server in Oklahoma.”

Which of these states should be allowed to tax the sale?

Without a “clear national rule,” he warned at the hearing, “all four states may attempt to tax the transaction.”

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My Comment: Another tax grab .... get ready for it.

NASA's Mars Rover Spirit To Be Shut Down

NASA's Mars rover Spirit, shown in an artist's rendering, was expected to serve a three-month mission, but it provided scientists with a trove of information over more than six years of operation. (Reuters)

NASA Rover Spirit 'Revolutionized' How We See Mars -- L.A. Times

As the Martian rover falls silent for good, JPL scientists mourn Spirit's loss and celebrate its remarkable achievements that continued for years beyond its expected lifetime.

It was supposed to roam the surface of Mars for only three months and cover a distance of just a few hundred yards. Instead, NASA's Spirit rover traveled nearly five miles over five years, finding geological evidence that the Red Planet had once been warm and wet enough to have harbored life. Even after it got hopelessly stuck in the powdery soil of Gusev crater, the rover continued to make discoveries and beamed them to scientists millions of miles away.

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My Comment: Five years of discovery and excitement .... kudos to the engineers and scientists who made this possible.

Smallpox Eradication Decision Is Deferred Again

The viral disease was eradicated over 30 years ago. BBC

Smallpox-Destruction Deadline Delayed For 3 Years -- Wall Street Journal

Global health officials delayed setting a deadline Tuesday for destroying the last known stocks of smallpox for at least three years, a compromise that will enable the U.S. and Russia to continue researching medications to counter a bioterror attack.

The consensus at the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, came after a contentious debate stretching over two days. It represents a compromise for the U.S., Russia and more than two dozen other countries that wanted to keep the virus stocks for at least another five years. Iran, China, Thailand and other countries objected to that timetable and some of its provisions.

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More News On The World's Smallpox Supply

WHO defers fixing date on destroying live smallpox -- Reuters
Decision Delayed on Eliminating Smallpox Stocks -- Global Security Newswire
UN Decides Not to Destroy Last Known Smallpox Stockpiles -- The Atlantic
World Health Organization Decides to Keep Smallpox Stocks ... For Now -- FOX News/Live Science
Smallpox decision deferred again -- BBC
Call to destroy smallpox delayed -- CBC
US and Russian smallpox stocks spared the chop -- Register

My Comment: To better understand the impact that smallpox has had on the history of man .... check out this link.

It Seems That Man Has Been At War With His Fellow Man For A Very Long Time

Bronze Age relic: Archaeologists have found the remains of around 100 bodies in the Tollense Valley in northern Germany, including this fractured skull

'Earliest' Bronze Age Battle Site Containing 100 Bodies Found On German River Bank -- The Daily Mail

Fractured skulls and broken bones found on a German river bank could point to the earliest site of a Bronze Age battle ever discovered.

Archaeologists uncovered the remains of around 100 bodies in the Tollense Valley in northern Germany, suggesting brutal hand-to-hand combat between warring tribes.

Bones had been battered, skulls were fractured and one body has an arrowhead buried more than 2cm inside it.

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My Comment: On the one hand, such a discovery is fascinating and informative of how we interacted (and fought) in ancient times. On the other hand .... it is depressing to know that our culture and approach to war has not changed .... with the exception that we now have better weapons.

Lots Of Multi-Planet Systems Found In Kepler Planet Hunt

This artist rendering provided by NASA shows a solar system comparison of the Kepler 11 solar system and ours. NASA/AP

Surprise Find In Kepler Planet Hunt: Lots Of Multi-Planet Systems -- Christian Science Monitor

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which is searching for Earth-mass planets orbiting sun-like stars, is finding hundreds of candidate planets, and many more multi-planet systems than expected.

Two years into a 3-1/2-year mission, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, hunting for planets orbiting some 165,000 stars in the constellation Cygnus, is uncovering planet candidates by the hundreds.

Many of these inhabit multi-planet systems that are unexpectedly flat – the inclination of the planets’ orbits within each of these systems are essentially the same, a feature that may hold clues about how these systems formed and evolved.

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Endeavour Cleared After Heat Shield Inspection

Photo: The space shuttle Endeavour conducts a flip maneuver to allow inspection of its heat shield tiles, prior to docking at the International Space Station.

From CBS News:

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - After a close-up, focused inspection of a damaged heat shield tile on the belly of space shuttle Endeavour, NASA analysts have concluded that there is no threat posed to the orbiter, and NASA's Mission Management Team cleared the ship for re-entry as-is.

"So all good results all the way around," said MMT Chairman LeRoy Cain. "We're essentially clearing the vehicle for re-entry at this point. There were no dissenting opinions, no alternate opinions; the entire team was pretty much on board with the assessments that were done."

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Free-Floating "Planets" Are More Common Than What Is Believed

The "rogue" planets act as lenses, bending the light from distant stars

'Free-Floating' Planets Found With No Star In Sight -- BBC

An international team of astronomers claim to have found free-floating "planets" which do not seem to orbit a star.

Writing in Nature, they say they have found 10 Jupiter-sized objects which they could not connect to any solar system. They also believe such objects could be as common as stars are throughout the Milky Way.

The objects revealed themselves by bending the light of more distant stars, an effect called "gravitational microlensing".

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What If The Rapture Happens

According Christian tradition, the rapture is the day when believers will ascend to heaven and be rewarded with everlasting life. CREDIT: Dreamstime

What If 200 Million People Go Missing on Saturday? -- Live Science

According to the predictions of Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping, May 21 will be the day of the rapture, when God calls believers to heaven to live in everlasting paradise.

By Camping's estimation, that means the Earth will be 200 million souls lighter by Sunday morning.

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Radio Telescopes Capture Best-Ever Snapshot of Black Hole Jets

Merging X-ray data (blue) from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with microwave (orange) and visible images reveals the jets and radio-emitting lobes emanating from Centaurus A's central black hole. (Credit: ESO/WFI (visible); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (microwave); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray))

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (May 20, 2011) — An international team, including NASA-funded researchers, using radio telescopes located throughout the Southern Hemisphere has produced the most detailed image of particle jets erupting from a supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy.

"These jets arise as infalling matter approaches the black hole, but we don't yet know the details of how they form and maintain themselves," said Cornelia Mueller, the study's lead author and a doctoral student at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.

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How To Manipulate Social Movements By Hacking Twitter

Image credit: Leo Espinosa

Are You Following A Bot? -- The Atlantic

How to manipulate social movements by hacking Twitter.

One day last February, a Twitter user in California named Billy received a tweet from @JamesMTitus, identified in his profile as a “24 year old dude” from Christchurch, New Zealand, who had the avatar of a tabby cat. “If you could bring one character to life from your favorite book, who would it be?,” @JamesMTitus asked. Billy tweeted back, “Jesus,” to which @JamesMTitus replied: “honestly? no fracking way. ahahahhaa.” Their exchange continued, and Billy began following @JamesMTitus. It probably never occurred to him that the Kiwi dude with an apparent love of cats was, in fact, a robot.

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Massive Storm On Saturn

This false-color infrared image shows clouds of large ammonia ice particles dredged up by the powerful storm. Credit: Cassini

Massive Storm Erupts On Saturn -- Cosmos

MARYLAND: A giant early-spring storm in Saturn's northern hemisphere - so powerful that it stretches around the entire planet - has been detected.

The rare storm has been wreaking havoc for months and shooting plumes of gas high into the planet's atmosphere, according to data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft and a European Southern Observatory ground-based telescope, that have been tracking its progress

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My Comment: Hmmmm ..... I guess I should not complain about the weather that I must go through each winter (I live in Quebec, Canada).

'Dark Energy' Confirmed

The Anglo-Australian telescope was used in the galaxy survey

New Method 'Confirms Dark Energy' -- BBC

First results from a major astronomical survey using a cutting-edge technique appear to have confirmed the existence of mysterious dark energy.

Dark energy makes up some 74% of the Universe and its existence would explain why the Universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate.

The finding was based on studies of more than 200,000 galaxies.

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How Piano Wires Changed Through The Centuries

Even as the wires used in pianos changed from iron to steel, sound quality has remained largely the same. Getty Images

How Piano Wires Changed Through Centuries -- Discovery

Since Mozart's time, piano wires have changed in content -- but very little in quality, research shows.

* The wire inside pianos has undergone significant changes between the piano's origins in the early 1700s until the late 1880s.
* Research suggests that piano designers used music wire to reach similar harmonic levels despite working with different metals.
* Piano designers balance tension and stiffness of music wire, but many other factors are considered as well.

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10 Incredible Facts About The Human Brain

10 astounding facts about the human brain

10 Astounding Facts About The Human Brain -- The Telegraph

Last night, BBC One's Inside the Human Body focused on the brain. Here are ten remarkable facts about our most complex organ.

* The human brain is so sophisticated it takes nearly 20 years to mature

* In the womb, humans grow 8,000 new brain cells every second

* By the time humans are born they have all the brain cells they will ever need

* The human brain is the "most sophisticated thing" in the known universe

* New-born babies can recognise their mother’s face after just a few hours

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