BeautifulPeople.com, the dating site where ugly people need not apply, has launched a virtual sperm (and egg) bank for people who want to have beautiful babies. Really.
They call it the Beautiful Baby service and they have also made it available to non-members because, let's face it, the only way for more beautiful babies to be created is to have pretty men impregnate ugly women too, so take one for the team, fellow awesome men who are both smart and hot.
Crying is a waste of perfectly good water. So why we do it? I have no idea, so I would like to hear your ideas. To get the ball rolling, here are eight hypotheses, each surely inadequate and probably false.
The Geneva Protocol was ratified the 17 June 1925, banned the use of biological weapons but Japan refused to approve the contract and the U.S. to ratify it.
Therefore in 1936 Shiro Ishii (1892 -1959) physician, microbiologist and general Japanese, guided the biological weapons program of the Empire of Japan, under the command of a military unit called Research Unit 731.
Bridges That Build Themselves
The two oldest types of bridge are the arch bridge and the corbel bridge. It takes a lot of time and effort to build them, but they can last for thousands of years.
Rockfalls can make natural bridges over streams, but the 'design' is very inefficient. The water channels are easily blocked, with resultant flooding of the adjacent banks.
If I told you that a tornado could pick up rocks and drop them across a river so as to form a perfect arch bridge, you wouldn't believe me. I hope. The only way to build a stone arch bridge is to set up a type of scaffolding, shuttering, or former - more properly known as centering.
I don't get why science writers don't cover science education.
They cover whatever cool science is the flavor of the moment, they cover disasters and the science behind them, they cover scientists but they don't cover the kids who are going to replace them and what they're being taught. Call a science publication land ask it to do a story on science education - they'll tell you they do something once a year. Read them - you'll see what I mean. Read the regular national press and you'll find very little too.
I was relaxing out back, watching fireflies flash, when a buddy, dad to boy and girl 11 year old twins, called to catch up with news and relate a funny (still unfinished) story.
Growing crankier by the weekend with trespassers holding court on the porch steps and sneaking around bushes on the property (to pee or worse) after bar-closing-time, he and the kids opted to make fun of this annoyance and concocted a silly yet safe deterrence plan.
Jakobshavn Glacier Second Calving ?
The calving front of Jakobshavn glacier has retreated dramatically since about 1850, to the point that the two main outflow ice streams can be seen as separate calving fronts, Jakobshavn North and South.
Jakobshavn North recently calved a large floe which was widely reported by Arctic watchers and then picked up by the news media - and hyped up.
For a non-hyped report I recommend
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/.../jakobshavn...
Humans are very, very bad at being random. In roshambo, aka rock, paper, scissors, this leads to probabilities and patterns which you can exploit to give your RPS opponent(s) severe and repeated thumpings. There are two ways to go about this: knowing the psychology and creating new psychology.
Benguela-goby, or bearded goby, is a fish species that has adapted to a hostile environment poisonous to most other organisms.
This little goby-fish (Sufflogobius bibarbatus) reaches a maximum length of 13 cm and is only found in the Benguela ecosystem, the anoxic continental shelf outside Namibia and South-Africa, and one of the world’s most productive fisheries areas. Since the collapse of the sardine fisheries, this goby has become the new predominant prey species for larger fish, birds and mammals in the region.
Arctic Ice July 2010 - Update #3
An update and a bit of Arctic history.
Despite the extensive cloud cover over much of the Arctic it is possible to see some interesting patterns of behavior.
Around the Siberian side of the Arctic the ice has already retreated from shore or is in process of retreating. The same goes for the Alaskan and Canadian shores as far as Prince Patrick Island. Ice in the fjords and passages from the Beaufort Sea to Nares Strait is melting.
