BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Mice put in 'suspended animation'

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Mice put in 'suspended animation': "In the latest study, Dr Roth and his colleagues found that the mice stopped moving and appeared to lose consciousness within minutes of breathing the air and H2S mixture.

The animals' breathing rates dropped from the normal 120 breaths per minute to less than 10 breaths per minute.

During exposure their metabolic rates dropped by an astonishing 90%, and their core body temperatures fell from 37C to as low as 11C...
"There is military interest in short-duration hibernation for battlefield stabilisation of troops. If you have a soldier who is shot down, you want to be able to hibernate them on site until you can get a team in to rescue them."

After six hours' exposure to the mixture, the mice were given fresh air. Their metabolic rate and core body temperature returned to normal, and tests showed they had suffered no ill effects."

Inventor Creates Soundless Sound System - Yahoo! News

Inventor Creates Soundless Sound System - Yahoo! News: "PORTLAND, Ore. - Elwood 'Woody' Norris pointed a metal frequency emitter at one of perhaps 30 people who had come to see his invention. The emitter — an aluminum square — was hooked up by a wire to a CD player. Norris switched on the CD player.


'There's no speaker, but when I point this pad at you, you will hear the waterfall,' said the 63-year-old Californian.

And one by one, each person in the audience did, and smiled widely.

Norris' HyperSonic Sound system has won him an award coveted by inventors — the $500,000 annual Lemelson-MIT Prize. It works by sending a focused beam of sound above the range of human hearing. When it lands on you, it seems like sound is coming from inside your head."

Saudi Teens Go ‘West’

If Saudie teens are beholden to Eminem as the pinnacle of American pop culture, I would tend to agree with the last paragraph below...
Saudi Teens Go ‘West’: "Basim Hakami, 16, chooses to fill his room with huge posters of the American rapper Eminem, Rhythm and Blues star Beyonce Knowles and Western “boy-bands,” namely Blue. He proudly says his bedroom doesn’t contain a single poster of an Arab star; such is his interest in the West.

“Eminem is outstanding, his on-stage performance is wonderful,” Hakami said. “I really like his attitude and the way he dances.”"...

If these teenagers’ opinions are indeed representative of the Arab youth at large, it should be a red flag for the region’s entertainment industry and should encourage it to develop new stars to rise in the Middle East; otherwise, for young people, the stars they follow will continue to rise in the West.

More evidence of Saudi doubletalk? - Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit - MSNBC.com

More evidence of Saudi doubletalk? - Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit - MSNBC.com: "Judge caught on tape
encouraging Saudis
to fight in Iraq"

CBC Radio | Quirks & Quarks | Past Shows

CBC Radio | Quirks & Quarks | Past Shows: "Imagine being blind for 25 years, and suddenly being able to see again - using your ears. It sounds impossible, but that's exactly what happened to Pat Fletcher. For the past few years, she's been experimenting with a revolutionary new technology that allows her to see through sound. Using a simple computer program that she downloaded from the Internet, called 'The vOICe', which translates visual images into soundscapes, Pat's brain is able to translate those sounds back into images"

Crippled by Their Culture wsj.com

OpinionJournal - Featured Article (WSJ subcription required) :
Here is a free link to this most interesting argument put forth by Thomas Sowell, a very smart political anaylist (who happens to be African American).

"For most of the history of this country, differences between the black and the white population--whether in income, IQ, crime rates, or whatever--have been attributed to either race or racism. For much of the first half of the 20th century, these differences were attributed to race--that is, to an assumption that blacks just did not have it in their genes to do as well as white people. The tide began to turn in the second half of the 20th century, when the assumption developed that black-white differences were due to racism on the part of whites....

Three decades of my own research lead me to believe that neither of those explanations will stand up under scrutiny of the facts. As one small example, a study published last year indicated that most of the black alumni of Harvard were from either the West Indies or Africa, or were the children of West Indian or African immigrants. These people are the same race as American blacks, who greatly outnumber either or both."

Culture is left...

OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts

OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts: "Violence and vulgarity are hardly unique to rap. The mainstream is full of gore and borderline porn. But these tendencies are undiluted in rap, which is why many young African-Americans and Latinos who grew up embracing hip hop as a grassroots, multimedia art form now deplore rap as a cynical 'neominstrelsy' being mass-marketed not just nationally but globally.

This global twist is new. A decade ago, critics worried that 'gangsta' rap was portraying African-Americans as drug dealers, killers, 'bitches' and 'ho's.' Today the worry is international. Essence magazine recently launched an online debate about the image of black women in rap, and according to former editor Diane Weathers, that debate now includes Africans. 'They are disgusted by what their African-American brothers and sisters are doing in entertainment,' she says. 'They wonder if we've lost our mind"...

Free Mag 7 Star Charts

Free Mag 7 Star Charts: "free, downloadable set of high-quality star charts "

The New York Times > Science > Improved Scanning Technique Uses Brain as Portal to Thought

The New York Times > Science > Improved Scanning Technique Uses Brain as Portal to Thought: "y peering not into the eyes but into the brain, an improved scanning technique has enabled scientists to figure out what people are looking at - even, in some cases, when they are not aware of what they have seen. "

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Afghanistan names first female governor

And now for some good news from Afghanistan...
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Afghanistan names first female governor: "Ex-minister takes on region that is in some ways one of the world's worst places to be female "

International News Article | Reuters.com

International News Article | Reuters.com: "FAIZABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An Afghan woman has been stoned to death for adultery, police said on Sunday, the first such incident in Afghanistan since the Taliban's ouster from power. "

Scientific American: Performance without Anxiety

Scientific American: Performance without Anxiety: "Fear of reinforcing negative stereotypes, Claude Steele finds, hampers the ability to succeed. The idea is now central in affirmative action and job discrimination fights"

Cross and Crescent 

Spirit of America

Spirit of America: "Lebanon may be the only place in the world where you can buy a necklace with a Christian cross and a Muslim crescent moon fused together as one. What other country would even think of making something like this? I've never seen one before. But now I own two. "

Nanoparticles Offer New Hope For Detection And Treatment

Nanoparticles Offer New Hope For Detection And Treatment: "he spherical nanoparticles are a few thousand times smaller than the dot above this 'i,' yet each can carry about 100,000 molecules of the metal used to provide contrast in MRI images. This creates a high density of contrast agent, and when the particles bind to a specific area, that site glows brightly in MRI scans.

In this study, MRI scans picked up tumors that were only a couple of millimeters (about one twenty-fifth of an inch) wide.

Small, rapidly growing tumors cause growth of new blood vessels, which feed the tumors. To get the particles to bind to tumors, the researchers equipped them with tiny 'hooks' that link only to complementary 'loops' found on cells in newly forming blood vessels. When the nanoparticles hooked the 'loops' on the new vessels' cells, they revealed the location of the tumors."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Trap-building ants torture prey

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Trap-building ants torture prey: "A fierce species of Amazonian ant has been seen building elaborate traps on which hapless prey are stretched like medieval torture victims, before being slowly hacked to pieces."

BBC NEWS | UK | World armed groups 'abduct girls'

BBC NEWS | UK | World armed groups 'abduct girls': "Figures released by Save The Children showed that around 6,500 girls have been captured by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo another 12,000 are believed to be involved in armed organisations while another 21,500 (43% of all children fighting) are thought to be associated with conflict in Sri Lanka."

7 foods that help fight cancer

Waiter, "I will have a cosmopolitan garnished with orange zest; a baby green salad with sesame oil dressing, topped with walnuts; fish curry with yogurt, followed by a cup of white tea..."

http://articles.health.msn.com/id/100103740?GT1=6428

Islamists continue to gain in Saudi Municipal Elections

"For the next election, I must grow a beard in order to get elected."

My Way News: "Washington, has been under U.S. pressure to make some democratic reforms. But the limited experiment in democracy - only men could vote and run for seats on the half-appointed councils - also appeared to be an attempt to deflate the militant Islamic movement by bringing some Islamists into the system."...

The Doctor Is In � Turning Back the Clock

This seems like a good idea to me--tax credits to physicians for charity care...

The Doctor Is In Turning Back the Clock: " In a 2002 study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), nearly 72% of physicians provided charity care, although the percentage had declined somewhat from previous years, especially in practices with a high percentage of managed care. Ethically, the large majority of physicians feel a strong responsibility to provide needed care to those who cannot afford it."..

So here’s another proposal to consider: why not turn back the clock a bit, and create incentives for charity care? Let’s encourage physicians to see patients for free...
Provide tax credits to physicians for charity care. Fund health care for the poor directly out of tax receipts.