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Democrats' healthcare bill would pay for 'prayer' treatment | Raw Story

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:33:49 -0800

From the page:

What do Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have in common?

A soft spot for Christian Scientists.

The three senators have quietly inserted a provision into the Democrats' healthcare overhaul that would allow the Christian Science church to receive remuneration from the federal government for prayer treatments as medical expenses.

Why are liberal Democrats teaming up with a conservative senator for a provision that would normally be the bane of the Senate's liberal elite? Because the headquarters of the Christian Science church is in Boston.

Maybe they should convert to Baptist...where I come from prayer is FREE. As a matter of fact, those Baptists love to pray so much, they'd probably pay for the chance to pray for you. Not too sure if they'd pray for the 'christian scientists' (where the fuck is the SCIENCE in that religion) so, obviously a conversion is necessary.

New fossil found in England makes pliosaur bigger predator than T-rex

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:20:07 -0800

http://images.moviefill.com/88c92a42ac4b41fb_8424f0a95a24f177_o.jpg

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:36:06 -0700

Right on, Ricky!

Teen burglars mom: I hope he stole those planes | KATU.com - Portland, Oregon | Local &Regional

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:10:36 -0700

Colton Harris-Moore is seen in a July 2008 photo recovered from a stolen digital camera memory card.

From the page:

Story Updated: Oct 9, 2009 at 11:05 AM PDT
By Gene Johnson, Associated Press Writer

EASTSOUND, Wash. (AP) - In the darkness of this sleepy island town, the beam of a deputy's flashlight caught the back of a lanky teenager wanted in a notorious 18-month burglary spree.

The teen glanced over his shoulder - and vanished into the woods. "He virtually vaporized in front of me," deputy Jeff Patterson recalled.

Such encounters have become all too common on the bucolic islands north of Seattle as police hunt for an elusive thief whose crime spree is quickly becoming a local legend. Colton Harris-Moore is suspected in about 50 burglary cases since he slipped away from a halfway house in April 2008.

Now, authorities say, he may have moved on to a more dangerous hobby: stealing airplanes.

The saga is beginning to feel like something out of the movie "Catch Me If You Can," as Harris-Moore keeps finding new ways to embarrass police by slipping through their grasp.

The 18 year old typically breaks into businesses or unoccupied vacation homes, lies down on the couch and then dashes into the woods if confronted. He earned himself the nickname of "the barefoot burglar" by committing some of his crimes without wearing shoes.

But authorities say the case has taken on a dangerous new dimension now that Harris-Moore is apparently joyriding in small aircraft.

He is suspected of taking three planes from rural airports and crash-landing them. There were bare footprints inside and outside some hangars that had been broken into. In one, police said, footprints were on the wall - indicating that the suspect put his feet up, apparently while eating.

His mother said she doesn't see anything wrong with what he's suspected of doing.

"I hope to h*** he stole those airplanes - I would be so proud," Pam Kohler told a reporter, noting her son's lack of training. "But put in there that I want him to wear a parachute next time."

Over the weekend, someone took blankets, shoes and food from a home near the site where a stolen Cessna crash-landed north of Seattle on an apparent path toward Harris-Moore's hometown on Camano Island. SWAT teams were called out after a shot was fired from the woods, but whoever was responsible got away.

The teen may be motivated by a strong interest in aviation, but police say he does not discriminate in his choice of stolen vehicle: A boat stolen from the island was found last month on the mainland.

Police believe Harris-Moore also recently took thousands of dollars from safes and ATMs at businesses in the Orcas Island hamlet of Eastsound.

The teen has exploited the fact that the police do not have the manpower to mount an all-out hunt in a property crime case. Sheriff's offices on some of the islands do not even have tracking dogs.

Frustrated residents wonder how hard it is to find a 6-foot-5-inch, 200-pound teenager in the confines of an island, while red-faced cops bristle at what they see as attempts to romanticize the fugitive.

A Harris-Moore fan club has emerged on Facebook, and a Seattle man started selling T-shirts bearing his picture and the words "Momma Tried."

Son, next time you steal an airplane, steal a parachute too.

The Moon Has Water?

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:05:06 -0700

Yes

A Wandering Space Announcement

Scientists Discover New Element, the Heaviest Yet Known to Science - Disaboom

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:00:19 -0700

From the page:

The Heaviest Element Known to Science

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.z

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Thanks Zeitgiest

menonroopeshs favorite web sites - StumbleUpon

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:54:40 -0700

Isn't he beautiful?!

NASA: More water beneath ocean floor is possibility // Current

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:22:41 -0700

From the page:

Water in Mantle May be Associated with Subduction

August 19, 2009

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A team of scientists from Oregon State University has created the first global three-dimensional map of electrical conductivity in the Earth's mantle and their model suggests that that enhanced conductivity in certain areas of the mantle may signal the presence of water.

What is most notable, the scientists say, is those areas of high conductivity coincide with subduction zones - where tectonic plates are being subducted beneath the Earth's crust. Subducting plates are comparatively colder than surrounding mantle materials and thus should be less conductive. The answer, the researchers suggest, may be that conductivity in those areas is enhanced by water drawn downward during the subduction process.

Results of their study are being published this week in Nature.

"Many earth scientists have thought that tectonic plates are not likely to carry much if any water deep into the Earth's mantle when they are being subducted," said Adam Schultz, a professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State and a co-author on the Nature study. "Most evidence suggests that subducting rocks initially hold water within their minerals, but that water is released as the rocks heat up."

"There may be other explanations," he added, "but the model clearly shows a close association between subduction zones and high conductivity and the simplest explanation is water."

The study is important because it provides new insights into the fundamental ways in which the planet works. Despite all of the advances in technology, scientists are still unsure how much water lies beneath the ocean floor - and how much of it makes its way into the mantle.

The implications are myriad. Water interacts with minerals differently at different depths, and small amounts of water can change the physical properties of rocks, alter the viscosity of materials in the mantle, assist in the formation of rising plumes of melted rock and ultimately affect what comes out on the surface.

"In fact, we don't really know how much water there is on Earth," said Gary Egbert, also a professor of oceanography at OSU and co-author on the study. "There is some evidence that there is many times more water below the ocean floor than there is in all the oceans of the world combined. Our results may shed some light on this question."

Egbert cautioned that there are other explanations for higher conductivity in the mantle, including elevated iron content or carbon.

There also may be different explanations for how the water - if indeed the conductivity is reflecting water - got there in the first place, the scientists point out.

"If it isn't being subducted down with the plates," Schultz said, "how did it get there? Is it primordial, down there for four billion years? Or did it indeed come down as the plates slowly subduct, suggesting that the planet may have been much wetter a long time ago? These are fascinating questions, for which we do not yet have answers."

The scientists conducted their study using electromagnetic induction sounding of the Earth's mantle. This electromagnetic imaging method is very sensitive to interconnecting pockets of fluid that may be found within rocks and minerals that enhance conductivity. Using magnetic observations from more than 100 observatories dating back to the 1980s, they were able to create a global three-dimensional map of mantle conductivity.

Anna Kelbert, a post-doctoral research associate at OSU and lead author on the paper, said the imaging doesn't show the water itself, but the level of conductivity and interpreting levels of hydrogen, iron or carbon require additional constraints from mineral physics. She described the study of electrical conductivity as both computationally intensive and requiring years of careful measurements in the international observatories.

nsf.gov - National Science Foundation (NSF) Discoveries - Not a Quirk But a Quark ... a Quark Star! - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:01:36 -0700

From the page:

June 26, 2008

Astronomers recently announced that they have found a novel explanation for a rare type of super-luminous stellar explosion that may have produced a new type of object known as a quark star.

Three exceptionally luminous supernovae explosions have been observed in recent years. One of them was first observed using a robotic telescope at the California Institute of Technology's (Caltech) Palomar Observatory.

Data collected with Palomar's Samuel Oschin Telescope was transmitted from the remote mountain site in southern California to astronomers via the High-Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Nearby Supernova Factory research group at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory reported the co-discovery of the supernova, known as SN2005gj.

Researchers in Canada have analyzed this, along with two other supernovae, and believe that they each may be the signature of the explosive conversion of a neutron star into a quark star.

These three supernovae, each 100 times brighter than a typical supernova, have been difficult to explain. The Canadian research team thinks the explosions herald the creation of a previously unobserved and new class of objects, designated as quark stars.

A quark star is a hypothetical type of star composed of ultra dense quark matter. Quarks are the fundamental components of protons and neutrons, which make up the nucleus of atoms. The most dense objects known to exist today are neutron stars--stars composed entirely of tightly packed neutrons. A typical neutron star is some 16 miles across, yet has a mass one and a half times the mass of our Sun.

Neutron stars are formed when a massive star undergoes a supernova explosion at the end of its life. The question is, is a neutron star indeed the most dense object that exists? It is thought that if the neutrons are too tightly packed--if what scientists consider a neutron star is too dense--the resulting instability may lead to a further collapse, resulting in a second explosion and the creation of a quark star. The energy that powers that second explosion comes from neutrons breaking down into their component parts: quarks.

Further observations should help to confirm or defeat the hypothesis of quark stars, but in either case, the use of a high-speed network like HPWREN helps astronomers across the world explore the frontiers of science.

Heavyweight black hole is a record breaker - space - 17 October 2007 - New Scientist

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:43:22 -0700

From the page:

A black hole as heavy as almost 16 Suns has set a new weight record for black holes that form from collapsing stars. Its discovery suggests that there may be even heavier ones lurking out there, spawned in the death throes of the universe's most massive stars.

When a very massive star ends its life, its outer layers explode outwards, forming a supernova, while its core collapses to form a black hole. There are limits to the size of the so-called stellar-mass black holes born this way, not least because there is only so much matter available from the parent star.

Until now, all the black holes formed this way whose mass has been precisely measured turn out to weigh in at 10 Suns or less. Some astronomers had proposed that this might be the upper limit via this route. Heavier black holes weighing millions of Suns can be found at the centres of galaxies, but these are probably formed in a different, if still mysterious, way.
Till now, all black holes formed this way turned out to weigh in at 10 Suns or less, which was thought to be the upper limit

At 15.7 times the Sun's mass, the newly measured object, called M33 X-7, has smashed through that tentative limit. It is also the first black hole to be discovered in an eclipsing binary: that is, it is orbiting a companion star in such a way that when seen from Earth it sometimes passes in front of the black hole, and vice versa.

The companion star is itself a brute, some 70 times the Sun's mass. Jerome Orosz of San Diego State University in California and colleagues used the 8.2-metre Gemini North telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to work out the orbit precisely and pin down the black hole's mass (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature06218).

For stars with a chemical composition similar to the Sun, so much mass is blown away during their lifetime that only a small fraction remains when they die, so even the biggest could barely produce a 16-solar-mass black hole. This slimming-down process would be less efficient for stars made from relatively pure hydrogen and helium, which could explain how M33 X-7 was born so large, says astrophysicist Stanford Woosley of the University of California, Santa Cruz. That explanation is plausible because the companion star appears to have just 10 per cent of the heavy-element impurities that the Sun has.

Article is two years old, but still fascinating.