Fringy, science-stuff, maybe fact or fiction?

The Man Who Invented Mars

Long before the space race and space shuttle, a brilliant, wealthy, charming Boston Brahmin named Percival Lowell popularized the idea that we are not alone in the universe. As the next US spacecraft prepares to descend upon the Red Planet, it's an idea worth revisiting.

At left, a colorized version of a 1905 drawing of Mars by Lowell; at right, an artist’s concept of the Phoenix Mars lander. (1905 drawing from the Lowell Observatory Archives; artist's rendering from NASA/JPL/UA)

AT 7:36 P.M. ON May 25, if all goes well, a stranger from Earth will land near the north pole of Mars. It is called Phoenix. To the unscientific eye, it looks like a giant winged bug. It has three legs and a 5-foot-wide central science deck. With its two solar panels deployed, it measures about 18 feet long. It is 7 feet high. It weighs 772 pounds. Its landing parachute is 39 feet wide. When it touches down on the Martian landscape, it will have traveled 423 million miles - the equivalent of almost 18,000 trips around Earth.

Percival Lowell peers at Mars through his Clark telescope. (Photo from the Lowell Observatory Archives)

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Approximately 17 minutes after it lands, its first signals will be received by its controllers. Then it will begin the task for which it was designed - a task that has never been performed before. It will extend its robotic arm and scoop up dirt and ice from beneath the Martian surface for analysis. It will be looking for evidence of life.

"Finding organic compounds on Mars will increase the probability that life may have or does exist there," says Tufts University professor Samuel Kounaves, the lead scientist for the wet chemistry investigation on NASA's Phoenix mission.

Somewhere, a 19th century Boston Brahmin named Percival Lowell will be smiling.

Long before NASA was established in 1958, before JFK's impassioned speech about the space race, and before any of the Apollo missions or space shuttle successes and disasters, Percival Lowell devoted much of his career and considerable fortune to trying to prove that Mars hosted intelligent life. Viewed through his telescopes, the ancient, baleful Red Planet was about the size of a dime. Lowell believed he was seeing a network of canals on its surface. Therefore, he declared, Mars holds intelligent life. It is not necessarily like human life, he emphasized, but it is intelligent enough to build canals.

It is Lowell's vision of Mars that has enthralled and inspired earthlings ever since.

In 1895, Lowell published a book about what he believed he saw. He wrote articles about it for Popular Astronomy and The Atlantic Monthly. He lectured widely about it. He became famous and immensely popular. He was "of medium height, slim and handsome, with an athletic build and an intense expression," his biographer, David Strauss, professor emeritus of history at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, writes in an e-mail. "His erect bearing and fastidious dress contributed to a commanding presence."

Lowell enchanted the public with his charisma and the power and conviction of his beliefs. "He was a very effective popularizer of his ideas," says Robert Millis, director of the Lowell Observatory. "He was the Carl Sagan of his day."

The scientific community was less enthusiastic than the general public about the notion of intelligent life on Mars.

No matter. Wealthy, brilliant, charming when he wanted to be, Percival Lowell was confident in his heritage and convinced of his superiority to the "ruck and rubble" from Southern and Eastern Europe flooding onto America's shores. He was also seriously inner-directed. And with what he was certain was his discovery of the canals, he had found his life's work: to promulgate his sensational belief that Mars was the home of Martians.

LOWELL WAS BORN AT 131 TREMONT STREET in Boston on March 13, 1855, into a family at the pinnacle of what passed for American aristocracy. The first Percival Lowle, as it was then spelled, arrived in America in 1639 from Bristol, England ("the Venice of the West"), and settled in Newbury, north of Boston. His descendants flourished in the law, business, and the arts.

Percival Lowell's upbringing was entirely conventional for a boy of his time and class: early instruction at a "dame school," a couple of years' education in France, attendance at Mr. George W. C. Noble's school to prepare for Harvard. At college, he excelled in both history and mathematics. He won a Bowdoin Prize for his essay on England as a European power, and he gave a commencement address on "The Nebular Hypothesis." Some people thought him the most brilliant young man in Boston.

After graduation and the obligatory tour of Europe, he settled into the family business, much of which involved the textile mills in the city of Lowell. There were - and are - many canals in that city. Before the first brick of the first cotton factory was laid there in the 1820s, Irish canal-cutters - intelligent life - dug the canal beds and built the granite walls to channel the Merrimack River's water to power the mills.

Lowell chafed at life in cold, caste-ridden Boston. He was the most eligible bachelor in the city, but he was not happy. He served as best man at the wedding of Edith Jones and Teddy Wharton, but he himself did not want to be married. He became engaged to a Boston girl, but broke off the engagement - a more serious matter then than it is now.

A man of his time and class, Lowell was a patron of London tailors, a sometime presence on the American expatriate scene in Europe, a connoisseur of wine and spirits deeply opposed to the idea of Prohibition (which fortunately for him did not come in his lifetime). He was an avid reader of Greek and Latin classics in the original and of Chaucer in Middle English. He liked detective stories, too. An enthusiastic polo player, he was one of the founders of the Dedham Polo Club. Within his own household, he was something of a tyrant and was once witnessed kicking his butler down the front steps of his Beacon Hill home and throwing the unfortunate servant's trunk after him.

At a lecture in 1882, Lowell heard about this exotic, faraway land called Japan - at the time, a place as alien, as mysterious, as Mars is to us today, possibly more so. Having made a comfortable fortune in his own right, he decided to go there. For a few years, Japan was all he desired in the way of adventure and separation from Boston. He wrote three well-received books about Japan, and he published a book of photographs about Korea - the first ever seen by the American public of that land. For a time, he served as minister for the first Korean delegation to Washington.

The lure of the Far East faded, however, when he encountered the writings of the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli and the French astronomer Camille Flammarion. There were, Schiaparelli said, "canali" on the planet Mars; Flammarion enlarged upon that idea. In Italian, canali means "channels"; a secondary meaning is "canals," and that was the meaning - the misinterpretation - that was given to Schiaparelli's assertion.

WHEN LOWELL WAS A BOY, he had been given a small telescope, and with it he gazed in fascination at the heavens from the roof of the family home at "Sevenels" in Brookline. Now, as an adult, he was about to embark on a new career: astronomy. It would bring him more fame - and more scorn - than he could have imagined.

Mars was to be in opposition to Earth in 1894 - closer than usual as it traveled its elliptical orbit, and thus in prime position for viewing. Lowell borrowed two telescopes and ordered another, with a 24-inch lens, from the best manufacturer in the country, Alvan Clark & Sons of Cambridgeport. He delegated a man to find a place with the clearest atmosphere for "good seeing." Flagstaff, in the Arizona Territory, was delighted to receive him; the townspeople understood that the Lowell Observatory would bring them worldwide fame. Lowell built his observatory there on "Mars Hill"; eventually he built a 25-room "Baronial Mansion" there, too.

In the clear desert and mountain air, far from the constraints of Boston and free to gaze at the stars with his cherished "Clark," Lowell was happy at Mars Hill. He spent much of the rest of his life there. From his garden and the surrounding desert and mountains, he sent exotic plants to professor Charles Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum. He hosted his many friends and, often, strangers; improbably, he dressed up as Santa Claus to help the local children celebrate Christmas.

The appearance of Lowell's book about Mars in 1895 came at a time of canal-building on earth. The Suez had recently been constructed; the Panama was in the works. For both Lowell and his adoring public, the prospect of canals on a neighboring planet was too captivating to dismiss. Let the stuffy academic scientists and astronomers carp and criticize, let them proclaim that there could not possibly be life on Mars because the Martian atmosphere was too thin, its gravity too weak. Lowell knew what he knew. He envisioned Mars society as a kind of utopia, with a place for every man and every man in his place. On Mars, there was no nonsense about workers' rights or labor unions or Progressivism or Socialism or any of the other discontents in the America of his time.

In 1897, Lowell had a nervous breakdown. At first his family tried to nurse him at home with the most up-to-date treatment: solitary confinement, no visitors, no reading material, no distraction or intellectual activity of any kind. Such a cure, Lowell said, was worse than the illness itself. After a month, he abandoned it. He went to Bermuda and then to the south of France to recuperate.

In 1901, Lowell returned to Flagstaff. Night after night, when the seeing was good, he would climb the ladder in his observatory to peer through the lens of his Clark telescope at the object of his obsession. He published his second book about the Red Planet, Mars and Its Canals, in 1906.

Because Lowell wanted a base in Boston separate from his family, he bought a house at 11 West Cedar Street on Beacon Hill. The seller was a neighbor, an interior decorator, a woman not of his exalted class. In 1908, he married her. While in London on their honeymoon, they ascended 5,500 feet over Hyde Park in a balloon because Lowell wanted to photograph the paths to see how they (or the canals on Mars) would look from the air. In that year, he published his third and final book on the planet, Mars as the Abode of Life.

Back at his observatory on Mars Hill, Lowell renewed his attention to another matter: the possibility of a ninth planet beyond Neptune, which he called "Planet X." The issue of intelligent life on Mars receded, but not much. By then, George du Maurier had published The Martian and H.G. Wells had produced a sensational fiction piece about Martians invading Earth, The War of the Worlds. Edgar Rice Burroughs, a pulp writer who later found immortality with his Tarzan stories, published the first of his Mars fantasies, A Princess of Mars, in 1912. It was an immediate hit. Burroughs wrote several sequels. Along with works by other writers, it was the beginning of the cottage industry that came to be called science fiction.

Despite having another breakdown in 1912, Lowell concentrated increasingly on Planet X. He never found it. He died at Mars Hill of a cerebral hemorrhage on November 12, 1916. A member of the Mars Hill community remembered that shortly before his fatal stroke, he had exploded in anger at a servant. He is buried there in a mausoleum shaped like an observatory with a blue glass dome.

Fourteen years later, in 1930, Lowell Observatory announced the discovery of a ninth planet: Lowell's Planet X. Pluto, as it was named, has since been downgraded to dwarf planet status because it is so small, so lacking in what might be called gravitas.

NINTH PLANET OR NO, Percival Lowell's greatest achievement was to popularize the idea of life on Mars. Astronomers had speculated about that possibility for centuries, but it was Lowell who implanted in the minds of earthlings, once and for all, the idea that we are not alone in the universe - an idea once as unthinkable, as heretical, as the notion that the earth revolves around the sun. Accordingly, in the decades after Lowell's death, the science-fiction genre flourished. Novels, pulp magazines, and the new media of radio, film, and TV kept Lowell's basic concept of Martian life alive, even if that fictional life was not quite the kind he would have approved of.

The public adored these speculative fictions - and sometimes believed them. On the night of October 30, 1938, Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre company appeared in a radio production of The War of the Worlds, updated to suburban New Jersey. At the beginning of the program, an announcer stated that it was a fictional presentation, but many people didn't hear that disclaimer. What they heard was a vivid, spine-chilling account of the invasion of New Jersey by Martians - not Percival Lowell's wise and rather hidebound creatures, but quite nasty super-intelligent beings intent on destroying earthlings. Panic ensued; Welles was thrilled at his success. The lesson was that two decades after Lowell's death, people were prepared to acknowledge that life existed beyond earth - and that it could come here with hostile intent.

During the first wave of Lowell's fame at the end of the 19th century, Robert Goddard of Worcester dreamed of a voyage to Mars. His subsequent development of the liquid-fuel rocket was known to German scientists who made the V-1 and V-2 rockets during World War II. After the war, many of those scientists came to the United States, while some went to the Soviet Union, and the space race was on.

The leading US space scientist was the former head of the German rocket manufactory (and slave camp) at Peenemunde, Wernher von Braun. Like many of his peers, von Braun was enchanted by the idea of man going to Mars. He was also, like Percival Lowell, a popularizer. He published articles and a book about a Martian expedition; he also wrote a novel about Mars.

The space program needed government financing, and the hundreds of science-fiction writers and filmmakers flourishing by the mid-20th century fostered the public's support for the program. People were eager to know about Mars, in particular. In 1976, Viking 1 and Viking 2 transmitted spectacular pictures of a ruddy landscape studded with giant volcanoes and riddled with deep canyons separated by stretches of vast desert. No sign of life was apparent. There has also been a continuing effort to receive a signal from space. This program, SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), is of two kinds: active and passive. Those who favor passive listening warn that when we do encounter extraterrestrial life - or when it encounters us - it may not be friendly.

Finally, early in the 21st century, came life-altering news. The Mars Opportunity Rover had found evidence that Mars had been "soaking wet" in the past. Water meant life - or possible life, at any rate. Soon after that discovery, someone left a glass of champagne at the mausoleum of Percival Lowell with a note: "Far away, hidden from the eyes of daylight, there are watchers in the sky" (Euripides, The Bacchae, circa 406 BC).

THE MARS WE SEEK, WITH OR WITHOUT canals and no matter what the Phoenix mission demonstrates, is Lowell's Mars. The Mars of our imagination is his fantasy, transmogrified a thousand times by writers and filmmakers. The questions that haunted him - questions to which he believed he had found the answers - are questions that haunt us still. Is there life on Mars now? Or was life there once, long ago? If so, what form did it take, and how and why did it die? Is the secret of life on Mars the secret of our own fate?

Now scientists anticipate the landing of the Phoenix next month.

"We are investigating if the soil has the ability to support life, past, present, or for future humans who may land there," says Tufts' Kounaves. The Phoenix will carry four wet chemistry labs to analyze the Martian ice and soil, as well as the first optical and atomic-force microscopes. The craft has been sterilized in accordance with NASA's planetary protection policy to ensure against contamination by earth organisms.

Some people wonder if the space program is worth all the money and effort.

Most definitely, says Maria T. Zuber, E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and head of the department of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at MIT. "If you look at how our understanding of the universe, the solar system, and the earth itself have advanced from observations made since the dawn of the Space Age 50 years ago, it's clear that the results have been every bit worth the investment."

The Phoenix mission and its search for evidence of life on Mars is an important step forward in that understanding. Meanwhile, plans for "terraforming" Mars proceed. Terraforming means making the planet - any planet - fit for human life. This research is being conducted in Mars-like environments like Siberia, the Antarctic, and the Canadian Arctic. "The key challenge in making Mars habitable is warming it," says Christopher McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center, a lead researcher in planning for future Mars missions. "The way to warm Mars using technologies we have already demonstrated is to use super-greenhouse gases."

McKay estimates it will be at least 25 years before we can establish a long-term research base on Mars and that warming the planet might take 100 years. One problem will be water: how to melt it, possibly make it fit for human use, and then transport it from the planet's ice caps to the equatorial regions where the colonizers will want to be.

The late Carl Sagan had a solution. If we wanted to transport water across Mars, he said, "we would build canals."

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 22:14 | link | comments (3)

Know Your Hangover

One-star hangover

* No pain. No real feeling of illness. Your sleep last night was a mere disco nap, which is giving you a whole lot of misplaced energy. Be glad that you are able to function relatively well. However, you are still parched. You can drink 10 soft drinks and still feel this way. Even vegetarians are craving a cheeseburger and a side of fries.

Two-star hangover

** No pain. Something is definitely amiss. You may look okay but you have the attention span and mental capacity of a stapler. The coffee you chug to try and remain focused is only exacerbating your rumbling gut, which is craving a fresh and fruity pancake breakfast. Last night has wreaked havoc on your bowels and even though you have a nice demeanor about the office, you are costing your employer valuable money because all you really can handle is surfing the Internet and writing junk e-mails.

Three-star hangover

*** Slight headache. Stomach feels crappy. You are definitely a space shot and so not productive. Anytime a girl/guy walks by, you gag because her/his perfume/BO reminds you of the random gin shots you did with your alcoholic friends after the bouncer kicked you out at 3:45am. Life would be better right now if you were in your bed with a dozen donuts and a litre of Coke watching Good Morning Australia with crater face. You've had four cups of coffee, a jug of water, two sausage rolls and a litre of Diet Coke - yet you haven't peed once.

Four-star hangover

**** Life sucks. Your head is throbbing and you can't speak too quickly or else you might puke. Your boss has already lambasted you for being late and has given you a lecture for reeking of booze. You wore nice clothes, but that can't hide the fact that you missed an oh-so crucial spot shaving, (girls, it looks like you put your make-up on while riding the bumper cars), your teeth are brown, your eyes look like one big vein and your hair style makes you look like a reject from the class picture of Revere High, '76. You would walk over your mother for one or all of the following:
1. The clock to strike 6pm.
2. The entire appetiser list from Smorgy's.
3. A time machine so you could go back and NOT have gone out the night before.

Five-tar hangover (aka Dante's 4th Circle of Hell).

***** You have a second heartbeat in your head which is actually annoying the employee who sits in the next cube. Vodka vapor is seeping out of every pore and making you dizzy. You still have toothpaste crust in the corners of your mouth from brushing your teeth. Your body has lost the ability to generate saliva, so your tongue is suffocating you. You'd cry, but that would take the last of the moisture left in your body. Death seems pretty good right now. Your boss doesn't even get mad at you and your co-workers think that your dog just died because you look so pathetic. You should have called in sick because, let's face it, all you can manage to do is bitch about your state - which is a mystery to you because you definitely don't remember who you were with, where you were and what you drank. The only thing you can do is pass out. It's when you wake up a few hours later with a lesser-star hangover that you eat a large pizza, a ham and cheese omelette and a batch of Rice Krispie treats.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 06:07 | link | comments (1)

Yay!!! I did extremely well this semester. So I'm patting my self on the back, this seems appropriate for a student from the FIU Chemistry Department:

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 13:57 | link | comments (7)

Gasoline May Soon Cost a Sawbuck

Big New Shock at the Pump Forecast by Two Analysts

By DAN DORFMAN Special to the Sun April 28, 2008

Get ready for another economic shock of major proportions — a virtual doubling of prices at the gas pump to as much as $10 a gallon.

That's the message from a couple of analytical energy industry trackers, both of whom, based on the surging oil prices, see considerably more pain at the pump than most drivers realize.

Gasoline nationally is in an accelerated upswing, having jumped to $3.58 a gallon from $3.50 in just the past week. In some parts of the country, including New York City and the West Coast, gas is already sporting a price tag above $4 a gallon. There was a pray-in at a Chevron station in San Francisco on Friday led by a minister asking God for cheaper gas, and an Arco gas station in San Mateo, Calif., has already raised its price to a sky-high $4.62.

In Manhattan, at a Mobil gas station at York Avenue and East 61st Street, premium gas is now $4.03 a gallon. Two days ago, it was $3.96. Why such a high price? "Blame the people at STOPEC (he meant OPEC) and the oil companies," an attendant there told me.

These increases are taking place before the all-important summer driving season, signaling even higher prices ahead.

That's also the outlook of the Automobile Association of America. "As long as the price of crude oil stays above $100 a barrel, drivers will be forced to pay more and more at the gas pump," a AAA spokesman, Troy Green, said.

Oil recently hit an all-time high of nearly $120 a barrel, more than double its early 2007 price of about $50 a barrel. It closed Friday at $118.52.

The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years.

Translating this price into dollars and cents at the gas pump, one of our forecasters, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, Alan Gaines, sees gas rising to $7-$8 a gallon. The other, a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla., Sean Brodrick, projects a range of $8 to $10 a gallon.

While $7-$10 a gallon would be ground-breaking in America, these prices would not be trendsetting internationally. For example, European drivers are already shelling out $9 a gallon (which includes a $2-a-gallon tax).

Canadians are also being hit with rising gas prices. They are paying the American-dollar equivalent of $4.92 a gallon, and they're being told to brace themselves for prices above $5.65 a gallon this summer.

Early last year, with a barrel of oil trading in the low $50s and gasoline nationally selling in a range of $2.30 to $2.50 a gallon, Mr. Gaines — in an impressive display of crystal ball gazing — accurately predicted oil was $100-bound and that gasoline would follow suit by reaching $4 a gallon.

His latest prediction of $200 oil is open to question, since it would undoubtedly create considerable global economic distress. Further, just about every energy expert I talk to cautions me to expect a sizable pullback in oil prices, maybe to between $50 and $70 a barrel, especially if there's a global economic slowdown.

While Mr. Gaines thinks there could be a temporary decline in the oil price, he's convinced an overall uptrend is unstoppable. In fact, he thinks his $200 forecast could be conservative, and that perhaps $250 could be reached. His reasoning: a combination of shrinking supply and increasing demand, especially from China, India, and America.

Mr. Brodrick's $200 oil forecast is largely predicated on a combination of pretty flat supply and rip-roaring demand. Other key catalysts include surging demand in China and India, where auto sales are booming, and major supply disruptions in Nigeria and also in Mexico, our second-largest source of oil imports, where oil production has fallen off a cliff.

More factors include the ever-present danger of additional supply disruptions from volatile countries in the Middle East that are not our allies, and the unwillingness of SUV-loving Americans to trim their unquenchable thirst for foreign oil. Likewise, for the first time, emerging markets this year will use more oil than America.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 09:01 | link | comments

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 21:42 | link | comments (1)

Middle English Svmer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu! Groweþ sed and bloweþ med And springþ þe wde nu, Sing cuccu! Awe bleteþ after lomb, Lhouþ after calue cu. Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ, Murie sing cuccu! Cuccu, cuccu, wel singes þu, cuccu; Ne swik þu nauer nu. Pes: Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu!

Another leap in weastern polyphony: singing in the round.

Yup, I know, it's the three stooges theme song, as well as three blind mice. Here a bit of trivia: Yes, my favorite rock band, sang the same round at the ending of their famous song, Roundabout.

Also, Ezra Pound did a parody:

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, tis why I am,
Goddamm.
So 'gainst the winter's balm
Sing Goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm
Sing Goddamm, sing Goddamm,
DAMM.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 15:23 | link | comments

Euler-Lagrange equation

The Euler-Lagrange equation or Lagrange's equation, developed by Leonhard Euler and Joseph-Louis Lagrange in the 1750s, is the major formula of the calculus of variations. It provides a way to solve for functions which extremize a given cost functional. It is widely used to solve optimization problems, and in conjunction with the action principle to calculate trajectories. It is analogous to the result from calculus that when a smooth function attains its extreme values its derivative goes to zero.

The Euler-Lagrange equation is an equation satisfied by a function f of a real parameter t which extremises the functional

where F is a given function

with continuous first partial derivatives. Here R denotes the set of real numbers and f is an X-valued function on the reals

whereas the derivative of f is defined as

so Y is the space of values of the derivative of f, i.e., Y=TX (the space of tangents to X).

The Euler-Lagrange equation then is the ordinary differential equation

where F_x and F_y denote the partial derivatives of F with respect to the second and third argument, respectively.

Field theories, both Classical field theory and Quantum field theory, deal with continuous coordinates, and like classical mechanics, has its own Euler-Lagrange equation of motion for a field,

where

is the field, and

is a vector of derivatives:

Note: Not all classical fields are assumed commuting/bosonic variables, some of them (like the Dirac field, the Weyl field, the Rarita-Schwinger field) are fermionic and so, when trying to get the field equations from the Lagrangian density, one must choose whether to use the right or the left derivative of the Lagrangian density (which is a boson) with respect to the fields and their first space-time derivatives which are fermionic/anticommuting objects.

There are several examples of applying the Euler-Lagrange equation to various Lagrangians.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 13:49 | link | comments

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 08:21 | link | comments (1)

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennes- see and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. "Now look here, Bailey," she said, "see here, read this," and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did."

Bailey didn't look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children's mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbit's ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. "The children have been to Florida before," the old lady said. "You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee."

The children's mother didn't seem to hear her but the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky child with glasses, said, "If you don't want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?" He and the little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor.

"She wouldn't stay at home to be queen for a day," June Star said without raising her yellow head.

"Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?" the grandmother asked.

"I'd smack his face," John Wesley said.

"She wouldn't stay at home for a million bucks," June Star said. "Afraid she'd miss something. She has to go everywhere we go."

"All right, Miss," the grandmother said. "Just re- member that the next time you want me to curl your hair."

June Star said her hair was naturally curly.

The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She didn't intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of her gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself. Her son, Bailey, didn't like to arrive at a motel with a cat.

She sat in the middle of the back seat with John Wesley and June Star on either side of her. Bailey and the children's mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother wrote this down because she thought it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when they got back. It took them twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of the city.

The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.

She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen hid themselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery: Stone Mountain; the blue granite that in some places came up to both sides of the highway; the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple; and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled. The children were reading comic magazines and their mother and gone back to sleep.

"Let's go through Georgia fast so we won't have to look at it much," John Wesley said.

"If I were a little boy," said the grandmother, "I wouldn't talk about my native state that way. Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the hills."

"Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground," John Wesley said, "and Georgia is a lousy state too."

"You said it," June Star said.

"In my time," said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!" she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?" she asked and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the back window. He waved

"He didn't have any britches on," June Star said.

"He probably didn't have any," the grandmother explained. "Little riggers in the country don't have things like we do. If I could paint, I'd paint that picture," she said.

The children exchanged comic books.

The grandmother offered to hold the baby and the children's mother passed him over the front seat to her. She set him on her knee and bounced him and told him about the things they were passing. She rolled her eyes and screwed up her mouth and stuck her leathery thin face into his smooth bland one. Occasionally he gave her a faraway smile. They passed a large cotton field with five or fix graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. "Look at the graveyard!" the grandmother said, pointing it out. "That was the old family burying ground. That belonged to the plantation."

"Where's the plantation?" John Wesley asked.

"Gone With the Wind" said the grandmother. "Ha. Ha."

When the children finished all the comic books they had brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The grandmother ate a peanut butter sandwich and an olive and would not let the children throw the box and the paper napkins out the window. When there was nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested. John Wesley took one the shape of a cow and June Star guessed a cow and John Wesley said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he didn't play fair, and they began to slap each other over the grandmother.

The grandmother said she would tell them a story if they would keep quiet. When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic. She said once when she was a maiden lady she had been courted by a Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden from Jasper, Georgia. She said he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her a watermelon every Saturday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E. A. T. Well, one Saturday, she said, Mr. Teagarden brought the watermelon and there was nobody at home and he left it on the front porch and returned in his buggy to Jasper, but she never got the watermelon, she said, because a nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials, E. A. T. ! This story tickled John Wesley's funny bone and he giggled and giggled but June Star didn't think it was any good. She said she wouldn't marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday. The grandmother said she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentle man and had bought Coca-Cola stock when it first came out and that he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man.

They stopped at The Tower for barbecued sand- wiches. The Tower was a part stucco and part wood filling station and dance hall set in a clearing outside of Timothy. A fat man named Red Sammy Butts ran it and there were signs stuck here and there on the building and for miles up and down the highway saying, TRY RED SAMMY'S FAMOUS BARBECUE. NONE LIKE FAMOUS RED SAMMY'S! RED SAM! THE FAT BOY WITH THE HAPPY LAUGH. A VETERAN! RED SAMMY'S YOUR MAN!

Red Sammy was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower with his head under a truck while a gray monkey about a foot high, chained to a small chinaberry tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got on the highest limb as soon as he saw the children jump out of the car and run toward him.

Inside, The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at one end and tables at the other and dancing space in the middle. They all sat down at a board table next to the nickelodeon and Red Sam's wife, a tall burnt-brown woman with hair and eyes lighter than her skin, came and took their order. The children's mother put a dime in the machine and played "The Tennessee Waltz," and the grandmother said that tune always made her want to dance. She asked Bailey if he would like to dance but he only glared at her. He didn't have a naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous. The grandmother's brown eyes were very bright. She swayed her head from side to side and pretended she was dancing in her chair. June Star said play something she could tap to so the children's mother put in another dime and played a fast number and June Star stepped out onto the dance floor and did her tap routine.

"Ain't she cute?" Red Sam's wife said, leaning over the counter. "Would you like to come be my little girl?"

"No I certainly wouldn't," June Star said. "I wouldn't live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!" and she ran back to the table.

"Ain't she cute?" the woman repeated, stretching her mouth politely.

"Arn't you ashamed?" hissed the grandmother.

Red Sam came in and told his wife to quit lounging on the counter and hurry up with these people's order. His khaki trousers reached just to his hip bones and his stomach hung over them like a sack of meal swaying under his shirt. He came over and sat down at a table nearby and let out a combination sigh and yodel. "You can't win," he said. "You can't win," and he wiped his sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief. "These days you don't know who to trust," he said. "Ain't that the truth?"

"People are certainly not nice like they used to be," said the grandmother.

"Two fellers come in here last week," Red Sammy said, "driving a Chrysler. It was a old beat-up car but it was a good one and these boys looked all right to me. Said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?"

"Because you're a good man!" the grandmother said at once.

"Yes'm, I suppose so," Red Sam said as if he were struck with this answer.

His wife brought the orders, carrying the five plates all at once without a tray, two in each hand and one balanced on her arm. "It isn't a soul in this green world of God's that you can trust," she said. "And I don't count nobody out of that, not nobody," she repeated, looking at Red Sammy.

"Did you read about that criminal, The Misfit, that's escaped?" asked the grandmother.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he didn't attack this place right here," said the woman. "If he hears about it being here, I wouldn't be none surprised to see him. If he hears it's two cent in the cash register, I wouldn't be a tall surprised if he . . ."

"That'll do," Red Sam said. "Go bring these people their Co'-Colas," and the woman went off to get the rest of the order.

"A good man is hard to find," Red Sammy said. "Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more."

He and the grandmother discussed better times. The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it, she was exactly right. The children ran outside into the white sunlight and looked at the monkey in the lacy chinaberry tree. He was busy catching fleas on himself and biting each one carefully between his teeth as if it were a delicacy.

They drove off again into the hot afternoon. The grandmother took cat naps and woke up every few minutes with her own snoring. Outside of Toombsboro she woke up and recalled an old plantation that she had visited in this neighborhood once when she was a young lady. She said the house had six white columns across the front and that there was an avenue of oaks leading up to it and two little wooden trellis arbors on either side in front where you sat down with your suitor after a stroll in the garden. She recalled exactly which road to turn off to get to it. She knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but the more she talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again and find out if the little twin arbors were still standing. "There was a secret:-panel in this house," she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, "and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found . . ."

"Hey!" John Wesley said. "Let's go see it! We'll find it! We'll poke all the woodwork and find it! Who lives there? Where do you turn off at? Hey Pop, can't we turn off there?"

"We never have seen a house with a secret panel!" June Star shrieked. "Let's go to the house with the secret panel! Hey Pop, can't we go see the house with the secret panel!"

"It's not far from here, I know," the grandmother said. "It wouldn't take over twenty minutes."

Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid as a horseshoe. "No," he said.

The children began to yell and scream that they wanted to see the house with the secret panel. John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat and June Star hung over her mother's shoulder and whined desperately into her ear that they never had any fun even on their vacation, that they could never do what THEY wanted to do. The baby began to scream and John Wesley kicked the back of the seat so hard that his father could feel the blows in his kidney.

"All right!" he shouted and drew the car to a stop at the side of the road. "Will you all shut up? Will you all just shut up for one second? If you don't shut up, we won't go anywhere."

"It would be very educational for them," the grandmother murmured.

"All right," Bailey said, "but get this: this is the only time we're going to stop for anything like this. This is the one and only time."

"The dirt road that you have to turn down is about a mile back," the grandmother directed. "I marked it when we passed."

"A dirt road," Bailey groaned.

After they had turned around and were headed toward the dirt road, the grandmother recalled other points about the house, the beautiful glass over the front doorway and the candle-lamp in the hall. John Wesley said that the secret panel was probably in the fireplace.

"You can't go inside this house," Bailey said. "You don't know who lives there."

"While you all talk to the people in front, I'll run around behind and get in a window," John Wesley suggested.

"We'll all stay in the car," his mother said.

They turned onto the dirt road and the car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust. The grandmother recalled the times when there were no paved roads and thirty miles was a day's journey. The dirt road was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp curves on dangerous embankments. All at once they would be on a hill, looking down over the blue tops of trees for miles around, then the next minute, they would be in a red depression with the dust-coated trees looking down on them.

"This place had better turn up in a minute," Bailey said, "or I'm going to turn around."

The road looked as if no one had traveled on it in months.

"It's not much farther," the grandmother said and just as she said it, a horrible thought came to her. The thought was so embarrassing that she turned red in the face and her eyes dilated and her feet jumped up, upsetting her valise in the corner. The instant the valise moved, the newspaper top she had over the basket under it rose with a snarl and Pitty Sing, the cat, sprang onto Bailey's shoulder.

The children were thrown to the floor and their mother, clutching the baby, was thrown out the door onto the ground; the old lady was thrown into the front seat. The car turned over once and landed right-side-up in a gulch off the side of the road. Bailey remained in the driver's seat with the cat gray-striped with a broad white face and an orange nose clinging to his neck like a caterpillar.

As soon as the children saw they could move their arms and legs, they scrambled out of the car, shouting, "We've had an ACCIDENT!" The grandmother was curled up under the dashboard, hoping she was injured so that Bailey's wrath would not come down on her all at once. The horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee.

Bailey removed the cat from his neck with both hands and flung it out the window against the side of a pine tree. Then he got out of the car and started looking for the children's mother. She was sitting against the side of the red gutted ditch, holding the screaming baby, but she only had a cut down her face and a broken shoulder. "We've had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed in a frenzy of delight.

"But nobody's killed," June Star said with disappointment as the grandmother limped out of the car, her hat still pinned to her head but the broken front brim standing up at a jaunty angle and the violet spray hanging off the side. They all sat down in the ditch, except the children, to recover from the shock. They were all shaking.

"Maybe a car will come along," said the children's mother hoarsely.

"I believe I have injured an organ," said the grandmother, pressing her side, but no one answered her. Bailey's teeth were clattering. He had on a yellow sport shirt with bright blue parrots designed in it and his face was as yellow as the shirt. The grandmother decided that she would not mention that the house was in Tennessee.

The road was about ten feet above and they could see only the tops of the trees on the other side of it. Behind the ditch they were sitting in there were more woods, tall and dark and deep. In a few minutes they saw a car some distance away on top of a hill, coming slowly as if the occupants were watching them. The grandmother stood up and waved both arms dramatically to attract their attention. The car continued to come on slowly, disappeared around a bend and appeared again, moving even slower, on top of the hill they had gone over. It was a big black battered hearselike automobile. There were three men in it.

It came to a stop just over them and for some minutes, the driver looked down with a steady expressionless gaze to where they were sitting, and didn't speak. Then he turned his head and muttered something to the other two and they got out. One was a fat boy in black trousers and a red sweat shirt with a silver stallion embossed on the front of it. He moved around on the right side of them and stood staring, his mouth partly open in a kind of loose grin. The other had on khaki pants and a blue striped coat and a gray hat pulled down very low, hiding most of his face. He came around slowly on the left side. Neither spoke.

The driver got out of the car and stood by the side of it, looking down at them. He was an older man than the other two. His hair was just beginning to gray and he wore silver-rimmed spectacles that gave him a scholarly look. He had a long creased face and didn't have on any shirt or undershirt. He had on blue jeans that were too tight for him and was holding a black hat and a gun. The two boys also had guns.

"We've had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed.

The grandmother had the peculiar feeling that the bespectacled man was someone she knew. His face was as familiar to her as if she had known him all her life but she could not recall who he was. He moved away from the car and began to come down the embankment, placing his feet carefully so that he wouldn't slip. He had on tan and white shoes and no socks, and his ankles were red and thin. "Good afternoon," he said. "I see you all had you a little spill."

"We turned over twice!" said the grandmother.

"Once", he corrected. "We seen it happen. Try their car and see will it run, Hiram," he said quietly to the boy with the gray hat.

"What you got that gun for?" John Wesley asked. "Whatcha gonna do with that gun?"

"Lady," the man said to the children's mother, "would you mind calling them children to sit down by you? Children make me nervous. I want all you all to sit down right together there where you're at."

"What are you telling US what to do for?" June Star asked.

Behind them the line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth. "Come here," said their mother.

"Look here now," Bailey began suddenly, "we're in a predicament! We're in . . ."

The grandmother shrieked. She scrambled to her feet and stood staring. "You're The Misfit!" she said. "I recognized you at once!"

"Yes'm," the man said, smiling slightly as if he were pleased in spite of himself to be known, "but it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn't of reckernized me."

Bailey turned his head sharply and said something to his mother that shocked even the children. The old lady began to cry and The Misfit reddened.

"Lady," he said, "don't you get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don't mean. I don't reckon he meant to talk to you thataway."

"You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you?" the grandmother said and removed a clean handkerchief from her cuff and began to slap at her eyes with it.

The Misfit pointed the toe of his shoe into the ground and made a little hole and then covered it up again. "I would hate to have to," he said.

"Listen," the grandmother almost screamed, "I know you're a good man. You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!"

"Yes mam," he said, "finest people in the world." When he smiled he showed a row of strong white teeth. "God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy's heart was pure gold," he said. The boy with the red sweat shirt had come around behind them and was standing with his gun at his hip. The Misfit squatted down on the ground. "Watch them children, Bobby Lee," he said. "You know they make me nervous." He looked at the six of them huddled together in front of him and he seemed to be embarrassed as if he couldn't think of anything to say. "Ain't a cloud in the sky," he remarked, looking up at it. "Don't see no sun but don't see no cloud neither."

"Yes, it's a beautiful day," said the grandmother. "Listen," she said, "you shouldn't call yourself The Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell."

"Hush!" Bailey yelled. "Hush! Everybody shut up and let me handle this!" He was squatting in the position of a runner about to sprint forward but he didn't move.

"I pre-chate that, lady," The Misfit said and drew a little circle in the ground with the butt of his gun.

"It'll take a half a hour to fix this here car," Hiram called, looking over the raised hood of it.

"Well, first you and Bobby Lee get him and that little boy to step over yonder with you," The Misfit said, pointing to Bailey and John Wesley. "The boys want to ast you something," he said to Bailey. "Would you mind stepping back in them woods there with them?"

"Listen," Bailey began, "we're in a terrible predicament! Nobody realizes what this is," and his voice cracked. His eyes were as blue and intense as the parrots in his shirt and he remained perfectly still.

The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground. Hiram pulled Bailey up by the arm as if he were assisting an old man. John Wesley caught hold of his father's hand and Bobby I,ee followed. They went off toward the woods and just as they reached the dark edge, Bailey turned and supporting himself against a gray naked pine trunk, he shouted, "I'll be back in a minute, Mamma, wait on me!"

"Come back this instant!" his mother shrilled but they all disappeared into the woods.

"Bailey Boy!" the grandmother called in a tragic voice but she found she was looking at The Misfit squatting on the ground in front of her. "I just know you're a good man," she said desperately. "You're not a bit common!"

"Nome, I ain't a good man," The Misfit said after a second ah if he had considered her statement carefully, "but I ain't the worst in the world neither. My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. 'You know,' Daddy said, 'it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He's going to be into everything!"' He put on his black hat and looked up suddenly and then away deep into the woods as if he were embarrassed again. "I'm sorry I don't have on a shirt before you ladies," he said, hunching his shoulders slightly. "We buried our clothes that we had on when we escaped and we're just making do until we can get better. We borrowed these from some folks we met," he explained.

"That's perfectly all right," the grandmother said. "Maybe Bailey has an extra shirt in his suitcase."

"I'll look and see terrectly," The Misfit said.

"Where are they taking him?" the children's mother screamed.

"Daddy was a card himself," The Misfit said. "You couldn't put anything over on him. He never got in trouble with the Authorities though. Just had the knack of handling them."

"You could be honest too if you'd only try," said the grandmother. "Think how wonderful it would be to settle down and live a comfortable life and not have to think about somebody chasing you all the time."

The Misfit kept scratching in the ground with the butt of his gun as if he were thinking about it. "Yestm, somebody is always after you," he murmured.

The grandmother noticed how thin his shoulder blades were just behind his hat because she was standing up looking down on him. "Do you every pray?" she asked.

He shook his head. All she saw was the black hat wiggle between his shoulder blades. "Nome," he said.

There was a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely by another. Then silence. The old lady's head jerked around. She could hear the wind move through the tree tops like a long satisfied insuck of breath. "Bailey Boy!" she called.

"I was a gospel singer for a while," The Misfit said. "I been most everything. Been in the arm service both land and sea, at home and abroad, been twict married, been an undertaker, been with the railroads, plowed Mother Earth, been in a tornado, seen a man burnt alive oncet," and he looked up at the children's mother and the little girl who were sitting close together, their faces white and their eyes glassy; "I even seen a woman flogged," he said.

"Pray, pray," the grandmother began, "pray, pray . . ."

I never was a bad boy that I remember of," The Misfit said in an almost dreamy voice, "but somewheres along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the penitentiary. I was buried alive," and he looked up and held her attention to him by a steady stare.

"That's when you should have started to pray," she said. "What did you do to get sent to the penitentiary that first time?"

"Turn to the right, it was a wall," The Misfit said, looking up again at the cloudless sky. "Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor. I forget what I done, lady. I set there and set there, trying to remember what it was I done and I ain't recalled it to this day. Oncet in a while, I would think it was coming to me, but it never come."

"Maybe they put you in by mistake," the old lady said vaguely.

"Nome," he said. "It wasn't no mistake. They had the papers on me."

"You must have stolen something," she said.

The Misfit sneered slightly. "Nobody had nothing I wanted," he said. "It was a head-doctor at the penitentiary said what I had done was kill my daddy but I known that for a lie. My daddy died in nineteen ought nineteen of the epidemic flu and I never had a thing to do with it. He was buried in the Mount Hopewell Baptist churchyard and you can go there and see for yourself."

"If you would pray," the old lady said, "Jesus would help you."

"That's right," The Misfit said.

"Well then, why don't you pray?" she asked trembling with delight suddenly.

"I don't want no hep," he said. "I'm doing all right by myself."

Bobby Lee and Hiram came ambling back from the woods. Bobby Lee was dragging a yellow shirt with bright blue parrots in it.

"Thow me that shirt, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. The shirt came flying at him and landed on his shoulder and he put it on. The grandmother couldn't name what the shirt reminded her of. "No, lady," The Misfit said while he was buttoning it up, "I found out the crime don't matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you're going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it."

The children's mother had begun to make heaving noises as if she couldn't get her breath. "Lady," he asked, "would you and that little girl like to step off yonder with Bobby Lee and Hiram and join your husband?"

"Yes, thank you," the mother said faintly. Her left arm dangled helplessly and she was holding the baby, who had gone to sleep, in the other. "Hep that lady up, Hiram," The Misfit said as she struggled to climb out of the ditch, "and Bobby Lee, you hold onto that little girl's hand."

"I don't want to hold hands with him," June Star said. "He reminds me of a pig."

The fat boy blushed and laughed and caught her by the arm and pulled her off into the woods after Hiram and her mother.

Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her but woods. She wanted to tell him that he must pray. She opened and closed her mouth several times before anything came out. Finally she found herself saying, "Jesus. Jesus," meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing.

"Yes'm, The Misfit said as if he agreed. "Jesus shown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me. Of course," he said, "they never shown me my papers. That's why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get you a signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then you'll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you'll have something to prove you ain't been treated right. I call myself The Misfit," he said, "because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment."

There was a piercing scream from the woods, followed closely by a pistol report. "Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain't punished at all?"

"Jesus!" the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money I've got!"

"Lady," The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, "there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip."

There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, "Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!" as if her heart would break.

"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.

"Maybe He didn't raise the dead," the old lady mumbled, not knowing what she was saying and feeling so dizzy that she sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her.

"I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't," The Misfit said. "I wisht I had of been there," he said, hitting the ground with his fist. "It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known. Listen lady," he said in a high voice, "if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now." His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children !" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.

Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky.

Without his glasses, The Misfit's eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenseless-looking. "Take her off and thow her where you thown the others," he said, picking up the cat that was rubbing itself against his leg.

"She was a talker, wasn't she?" Bobby Lee said, sliding down the ditch with a yodel.

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

"Some fun!" Bobby Lee said.

"Shut up, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life."

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 23:14 | link | comments (2)

A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night!
A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off - it dies from starvation!
A crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old teeth!
A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein!
A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it's there, though!
A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average!
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside!
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny!
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second!
A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court!
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove!
After eating, a housefly regurgitates its food and then eats it again!
Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the mornings!
Bulls are colorblind, therefore will usually charge at a matador's waving cape no matter what color it is -- be it red or neon yellow!
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand!
Cat urine glows under a black-light!
Dogs and cats, like humans, are either right or left handed... or is that paws?!
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie!
Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks!
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete!
If you counted 24 hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to reach one trillion!
Most lipstick contains fish scales!
No piece of square dry paper can be folded more than 7 times in half!
Nose prints are used to identify dogs, just like humans use fingerprints!
One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen!
Over 10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows!
Over 2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people!
Porcupines float in water!
Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands when typing!
Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight!
The average ice berg weighs 20,000,000 tons!
The average life span of a major league baseball is 5-7 pitches!
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!
The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons!
The electric chair was invented by a dentist!
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds!
The most used letter in the English alphabet is 'E', and 'Q' is the least used!
The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven!
The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'!
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its head enables it to see all four feet at all times!
The poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people!
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet!
The sloth (a mammal) moves so slowly that green algae can grow undisturbed on its fur!
The state of Florida is bigger than England!
The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth!
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1!
There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building!
Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark!
Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland!
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
You're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206!
101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan are the only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don't die throughout the movie.
142857 is a cyclic number, the numbers of which always appear in the same order but rotated around when multiplied by any number from 1 to 6. 142857 * 2 = 285714 142857 * 3 = 428571 142857 * 4 = 571428 142857 * 5 = 714285 142857 * 6 = 857142
A barnacle has the largest penis of any other animal in the world in relation to its size.
A dragonfly has a lifespan of twenty-four hours.
A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.
A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
A flush toilet exists that dates back to 2000 BC.
A fully loaded supertanker traveling at normal speed takes a least twenty minutes to stop.
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
A rhinoceros' horn is made of compacted hair.
A species of earthworm in Australia grows up to 10 feet in length.
A ten-gallon hat holds three-quarters of a gallon.
A walla-walla scene is one where extras pretend to be talking in the background -- when they say "walla-walla" it looks like they are actually talking.
A whale's penis is called a dork.
According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg.
Actor Tommy Lee Jones and vice-president Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
After human death, post-mortem rigidity starts in the head and travels to the feet, and leaves the same way it came -- head to toe.
Albert Brooks's real name is Albert Einstein.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never phoned his wife or his mother. They were both deaf.
Alexander the Great was an epileptic.
Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
All of the officers in the Confederate army were given copies of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, to carry with them at all times. Robert E. Lee, among others, believed that the book symbolized their cause. Both revolts were defeated.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
Ancient drinkers warded off the devil by clinking their cups.
Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the deaths of their cats.
Anteaters prefer termites to ants.
Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.
Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
Barbie's full name is Barbra Millicent Roberts.
Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
Bela Lugosi died during the filming of "PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE". Director Edward D. Wood Jr. used a taller relative who held a cape in front of his face so the audience wouldn't know the difference so he could complete filming.
Bingo is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box.
Blonde beards grow faster than darker beards.
Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan.
Bob Dylan's real name is Robert Zimmerman.
Bob May played the Robot on "Lost In Space" (1965-68) and Dick Tufeld was the voice.
Boris Karloff is the narrator of the seasonal television special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
Both Hitler and Napoleon were missing one testicle.
Boys who have unusual first names are more likely to have mental problems than boys with conventional names. Girls don't seem to have this problem.
Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.
Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to SLOW a film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.
By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.
Casey Kasem is the voice of Shaggy on "Scooby-Doo."
Cat urine glows under a black light.
Catgut comes from sheep not cats.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
Cheryl Ladd (of Charlie's Angels fame) played the voice, both talking and singing, of Josie in the 70s Saturday morning cartoon "Josie and the Pussycats."
Chop-suey is not a native Chinese dish, it was created in California by Chinese immigrants.
Chrysler built B-29's that bombed Japan. Mitsubishi built the Zeros that tried to shoot them down. Both companies now build cars in a joint plant call Diamond Star.
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them use to burn their houses down -- hence the statement "to get fired."
Clark Gable used to shower more than 4 times a day.
Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works.
Crickets hear through their knees.
Crocodiles swallow stones to help them dive deeper.
Daniel Boone detested coonskin caps.
Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.
Despite the hump, a camel's spine is straight.
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth, and whose shame created the statement for ignominy, "His name is Mudd."
Dr. Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut went to college together. They were even in the same fraternity, where Seuss decorated the fraternity house walls with drawings of his characters.
Due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the moon is directly overhead.
During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be seen in the distance.
During World War II, W.C. Fields kept US $50,000 in Germany 'in case the little bastard wins'.
Earth is the only planet not named after a God.
Elvis had a twin brother named Jesse Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis' middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his brother.
Every photograph of an American atomic bomb detonation was taken by Harold Edgerton.
Every Swiss citizen is required by law to have a bomb shelter or access to a bomb shelter.
Evian (the bottled water) spelled backwards is "naive."
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
Flying from London to New York by Concord, due to the time zones crossed, you can arrive 2 hours before you leave.
Former US President Ulysses S. Grant had the boyhood nickname 'Useless'.
Four people played Darth Vader: David Prowse was his body, James Earl Jones did the voice, Sebastian Shaw was his face and a fourth person did the breathing.
From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in size.
George Washington grew marijuana in his garden.
Gerald Ford pardoned Robert E. Lee posthumously of all crimes of treason.
Gilligan of Gilligan's Island had a first name that was only used once, on the never-aired pilot show. His first name was Willy. The skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby. It was mentioned once in the first episode on the radio newscast about the wreck. The Professor's real name was Roy Hinkley, Mary Ann's last name was Summers and Mrs. Howell's maiden name was Wentworth.
Halloween took place in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois but almost all the cars in the film had California license plates.
Hara kiri is an impolite way of saying the Japanese word "seppuku" which means, literally, "belly splitting."
Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by Bayer.
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
Hindu men believe(d) it to be unluckily to marry a third time. They could avoid misfortune by marrying a tree first. The tree ( his third wife ) was then burnt, freeing him to marry again.
Human birth control pills work on gorillas.
Human hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after death.
Hummingbirds can't walk.
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
If a surgeon in Ancient Egypt lost a patient while performing an operation, his hands were cut off.
If the population of the Earth continued to increase at its present rate indefinitely, by 3530 A.D. the total mass of human flesh and blood would equal the mass of the Earth. By 6826 A.D. it would equal the mass of the known universe.
If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
If you can see a rainbow you must have your back to the sun. If you don't, you can't see it.
If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode.
If you multiply 526,315,789,473,684,210 with any number you will always find the original number in the result!
If you pause "Saturday Night Fever" at the "How Deep Is Your Love" rehearsal scene, you will see the camera crew reflected in the dance hall mirror.
If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
Iguanas, koalas and Komodo dragons all have two penises.
In Ancient Peru, when a woman found an 'ugly' potato, it was the custom for her to push it into the face of the nearest man.
In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam." Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson." Captain Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty," but he did say, "Beam me up, Mr. Scott."
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
In most watch advertisements the time displayed on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame the brand of the watch (and make it look like it's smiling.)
In the 40's, the Bich pen was changed to Bic for fear that Americans would pronounce it 'Bitch.'
In the Andes, time is often measured by how long it takes to smoke a cigarette.
In the film 'Star Trek : First Contact', when Picard shows Lilly she is orbiting Earth, Australia and Papa New Guinea are clearly visible .. but New Zealand is missing.
It is a criminal offence to drive around in a dirty car in Russia.
It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is shake and the 46th word from the last word is spear.
It is illegal to be a prostitute in Siena, Italy, if your name is Mary.
It takes 8.5 minutes for light to get from the sun to earth.
It was illegal to sell ET dolls in France because there is a law against selling dolls without human faces.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
It's rumored that sucking on a copper penny will cause a breath-alyzer to read 0.
Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over mixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.
Jacques Cousteau invented scuba gear while in the French resistance during World War II.
James Doohan, who plays Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott on Star Trek, is missing the entire middle finger of his right hand.
Jean-Claude Van Damme was the alien in the original "PREDATOR" in almost all the jumping and climbing scenes.
Jet lag was once called boat lag, back before jets existed.
John Larroquette of "Night Court" and "The John Larroquette Show" was the narrator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and was found in a warehouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was found in a theatre.
John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son.
June Foray, the voice of Talking Tina from the classic Twilight Zone episode "Living Doll", was also the voice of Rocky the talking squirrel from "Rocky & Bullwinkle".
Kathleen Turner was the voice of Jessica Rabbit, and Amy Irving was her singing voice.
King Kong is the only movie to have its sequel (Son of Kong) released the same year (1933).
Lady Astor once told Winston Churchill 'if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee'. His reply ' if you were my wife, I would drink it!'
Leonardo De Vinci invented the scissors.
Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.
Liquid paper was invented by Mike Nesmith's (of the Monkees) mother, Bette Nesmith Graham, in 1951.
Lizzie Borden was acquitted.
Look at the number four on a clock face that uses Roman numerals. If the clock is made correctly then the Roman numeral four is wrong. The standard and correct way to write the Roman numeral four is "IV," but the traditional way to show it on a clock face is "IIII." Legend has it that a clock was made for a British king. When he saw the clock he mis- informedly corrected the clock maker who re-did the clock face to show a "IIII" instead of an "IV" thus not risking offending the king. Other clock makers followed suit so as not to embarrass the king. Now it is the traditional way to make clocks.
Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom."
Lynyrd Skynard was the name of the gym teacher of the boys who went on to form that band. He once told them, "You boys ain't never gonna amount to nothin'."
Melanie Griffith's mother is actress Tippi Hendren, best known for her lead role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
Men leave their hotel rooms cleaner than women do.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds.
More money is printed daily for the Monopoly game than by the U.S. Treasury.
More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.
Most Americans' car horns beep in the key of F.
Mozart was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave.
Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
Nine pennies weigh exactly one ounce.
Ninety eight per cent of the weight of water is made up from oxygen.
No animal, once frozen solid (i.e., water solidifies and turns to ice) survives when thawed, because the ice crystals formed inside cells would break open the cell membranes. However there are certain frogs that can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins, which prevent the formation of ice (or at least keep the crystals from becoming very large), so that they actually never freeze even though their body temperature is below zero Celsius. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as 'supercooling.' If you disturb one of these frogs (just touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.
No matter its size or thickness, no piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.
Of the six men who made up the Three Stooges, three of them were real brothers (Moe, Curly and Shemp.)
On 15 April 1912 the SS Titanic sunk on her maiden voyage and over 1,500 people died. Fourteen years earlier a novel was published by Morgan Robertson which seemed to foretell the disaster. The book described a ship the same size as the Titanic which crashes into an iceberg on its maiden voyage on a misty April night. The name of Robertson's fictional ship was the Titan.
On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
On the new one hundred dollar bill the time on the clock tower of Independence Hall is 4:10.
One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers -- they saw it as competition. It is not chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.
Only female mosquitoes bite.
Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
Other than humans, black lemurs are the only primates that have blue eyes.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
Pamela Lee-Anderson is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence.
Panama hats come from Ecuador not Panama.
Peanuts are used in the production of dynamite.
Pearls melt in vinegar.
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eyes."
Pogonophobia is the fear of beards.
Polar bear fur is not white, it's clear.
Race car is a palindrome.
Ralph Lauren's original name was Ralph Lifshitz.
Residents of the island of Lesbos are Lesbosians, rather than Lesbians. (Of course, lesbians are called lesbians because Sappho was from Lesbos.)
Revolvers cannot be silenced, due to all the noisy gasses which escape the cylinder gap at the rear of the barrel.
Rhythm and "syzygy" are the longest English words without vowels.
Robert E. Lee, of the Confederate Army, remains the only person, to date, to have graduated from the West Point military academy without a single demerit.
Roosters can't crow if they can't fully extend their necks.
Russians generally answer the phone by saying, 'I'm listening.'
S.O.S. doesn't stand for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls" -- It was chosen by an 1908 international conference on Morse Code because the letters S and O were easy to remember and just about anyone could key it and read it, S = dot dot dot, O = dash dash dash.
Samuel Clemens's pseudonym "Mark Twain" was the nickname of a riverboat pilot about whom Clemens wrote a needless nasty satirical piece. Apparently, Clemens felt guilty later and adopted the nom de plume as some sort of expiation. The phrase "mark twain" from which the river pilot got his name does not mean two fathoms (twelve feet.)
Sharon Stone was the first "Star Search" spokes model.
Smithee is a pseudonym that filmmakers use when they don't want their names to appear in the credits.
Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating.
Soda water does not contain soda.
Some Eskimos have been known to use refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.
Soweto in South Africa was derived from SOuth WEst TOwnship.
Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits.'
Speak of the Devil is short for "Speak of the Devil and he shall come". It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention and he would appear.
St. Bernards, famous for their role as alpine rescue dogs, do NOT wear casks of brandy around their necks.
Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young.
Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.
Talk show host Montel Williams had a nose job.
Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal music.
The "Grinch" singer and voice of Tony the Tiger is a man named Thurl Ravenscroft.
The "save" icon on Microsoft Word shows a floppy disk, with the shutter on backwards.
The allele for six fingers and toes is dominant in humans.
The Andy Griffth Show was the first spin-off in TV history. It was spun-off from the Danny Thomas Show.
The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
The average scalp has 100,000 hairs. Redheads have the least at 80,000; brown and black haired persons have about 100,000; and blondes have the most at 120,000. (That is more than a thousand hairs in each square inch!)
The band "Duran Duran" got their name from an astronaut in the 1968 Jane Fonda movie "Barbarella."
The bat on the Bacardi symbol is there because the soil where the sugar cane grows is fertile from the excessive guano (bat droppings.)
The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
The bubbles in Guiness Beer sink to the bottom rather than float to the top like all other beers. No one knows why.
The car in the foreground on the back of a $10 bill is a 1925 Huptmobile.
The car manufacturer Henry Ford was awarded Hitler's Supreme Order of the German Eagle.
The childrens' nursery rhyme 'Ring-a-Round-The-Rosies' actually refers to the Black Death which killed about 30 million people in the fourteenth-century.
The Chinese ideogram for 'trouble' depicts two women living under one roof'.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
The dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, conceals a billiards room. In Jefferson's day, billiards were illegal in Virginia.
The dunce cap of schoolhouse fame originates from a paper cone that was placed on the heads of accused witches during the Middle Ages. When Joan of Arc was martyred, she was wearing one of them.
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
The famous split-fingered Vulcan salute is actually intended to represent the first letter ("shin," pronounced "sheen") of the word "shalom." As a small boy, Leonard Nimoy observed his rabbi using it in a benediction and never forgot it; eventually he was able to add it to "Star Trek" lore.
The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.
The first Ford cars had Dodge engines.
The first inter-racial kiss on TV was in an original "STAR TREK" episode entitled "Plato's Stepchildren". The kiss was between Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner.
The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
The first safety razor was not actually invented by King Gillette himself but by a man named William Nickerson who was Kings partner. They believed that the label bearing Nickersons name would be bad for business, plus it was Kings idea anyway.
The first time the word "hell" was spoken on TV was in an original "STAR TREK" episode entitled "City on the Edge of Forever". The exact quote was "...let's get the hell out of here...", spoken by William Shatner.
The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver".
The 'Hundred Years War' lasted 116 years.
The largest eggs in the world are laid by a shark.
The launching mechanism of a carrier ship that helps planes to take off could throw a pickup truck over a mile.
The lead singer of The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and Jack Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug & Jeffrey Feiger.
The Les Nessman character on the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati wore a band-aid in every episode. Either on himself, his glasses, or his clothing.
The lifespan of a tastebud is ten days.
The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are radioactive--so much so that they will set of an alarm at a nuclear reactor.
The longest U.S. highway is route 6 starting in Cape Cod, Massachusetts going through 14 states, and ending in Bishop, California.
The magic word "Abracadabra" was originally intended for the specific purpose of curing hay fever.
The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z, hence "Oz."
The name of the Vulcan's heaven is Sha Ka Ree, this is a play on the name Sean Connery who was considered for the part of Sarek, Spock's father.
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
The names of the three wise monkeys are: Mizaru: See no evil, Mikazaru: Hear no evil, and Mazaru: Speak no evil.
The national flag of Italy was designed by Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Nobel Prize resulted from a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered after his death as a propagator of violence - he invented dynamite.
The numbers '172' can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.
The NY phone book had 22 Hitlers before WWII. The NY phone book had 0 Hitlers after WWII.
The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the last name Beard.
The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is lost. The copy in Washington D.C. is what is referred to as a holograph. That is a term for a handmade copy of a document and is not the same as a laser produced hologram.
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
The pet ferret (Mustela putorias furo) was domesticated more than 500 years before the house cat.
The Phillips-head screwdriver was invented in Oregon.
The phrase ' The 3 R's ' ( standing for 'reading, writing and arithmetic' ) was created by Sir William Curtis, who was illiterate.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times.
The province of Alberta in Canada has been completely free of rats since 1905.
The screwdriver was invented before the screw.
The 'Screwdriver' was invented by oilmen, who used the tool to stir the drink.
The slogan on New Hampshire license plates is 'Live Free or Die'. These license plates are manufactured by prisoners in the state prison in Concord.
The spaceship 'Valley Forge' from "Silent Running" (1971) actually got it's name from the location used to film some of its interiors; a decommissioned aircraft carrier named the U.S.S. Valley Forge.
The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.
The term "Mayday" is used for signaling for help. It comes from the French term "M'aidez" which is pronounced "MayDay" and means, "Help Me."
The turkey was wrongly named after what was thought to be it's country of origin.
The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows!
The United States government keeps its supply of silver at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY.
There are four cars and eleven light posts on the back of a ten-dollar bill.
There are more beetles than any other kind of creature in the world.
There are more nutrients in the cornflake package itself than there are in the actual cornflakes.
There are more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world every year!
There are no clocks in Las Vegas casinos.
There are no rivers in Saudi Arabia.
There are only three cities that are named exactly after the state they are located in: Maine, ME; New York, NY; and Wyoming, WY.
There is a city called Rome on every continent.
There is a town in Texas called 'Ding Dong.'
There is about 200 times more gold in the world’s oceans, than has been mined in our entire history.
There is no mention of Adam and Eve eating an apple in the Bible.
There were no squirrels on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts until 1989.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.
Tomb robbers believed that knocking Egyptian sarcophagi's noses off would forestall curses.
Turkey's often look up at the sky during a rainstorm. Unfortunately some have been known to drown as a result.
U.S. Interstates which go north-south are numbered sequentially starting from the west with odd numbers, and Interstates which go east-west are numbered sequentially starting from the south with even numbers.
Until 1967, LSD was legal in California.
Video Killed the Radio Star was the very first video ever played on MTV.
Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney, whose mother he dated for some time.
Walt Disney's autograph bears no resemblance to the famous Disney logo.
Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
When opossums are playing opossum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
When young and impoverished, Pablo Picasso kept warm by burning his own paintings.
While at Havard University, Edward Kennedy was suspended for cheating on a Spanish exam.
While performing her duties as queen, Cleopatra sometimes wore a fake beard.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan carries the designation M-1, named so because it was the first paved road anywhere

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 07:15 | link | comments (5)

Maybe almost a thousand years ago, the mother of western music and culture. Vision of Hildegard von Bingen-voice Hana Blochová-KVINTERNA.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 18:47 | link | comments (3)

Dippy Drinking Birds

The Edmund Scientific company has been selling engineering, robotic, and astronomy supplies since 1942 -- but their stand out best seller and unofficial mascot is the Dippy Drinking Bird. Dippy reached new heights of popularity in 1995, during an episode of The Simpsons in which a 300-pound Homer sets Dippy in front of his keyboard to automate the monitoring of the Springfield nuclear plant.

In 1946, thermodynamics engineer and chemical hobbyist Miles V. Sullivan filed a technical illustration with the U.S. Patent Office for his version of a bird-shaped Heat Engine. The structure of the bird was comprised of two glass bulbs: one for the head (and beak, and jaunty hat, and googly eyeballs) and another for the lower body (and shakeable tail feathers).

Originally Dippy was clamped along the side of a water glass, but the balancing mechanism would later evolve into tall, stork-like legs upon which the glass bulbs were balanced and perched. Variations included duck shapes and giraffes, but the essential mechanics of the device remained constant. A thin glass tube connecting the two bulbs from the inside extended down into the lower body, where it dipped into a reservoir of Freon-based liquid (now banned) or colored methylene chloride. This is the fluid that rises and falls to make Dippy bobble back and forth.

Most of the air is vacuum-sucked from the glass structure at the factory, after the liquid is placed inside. Although the head and upper part of the glass tube appear to be "empty", they are actually full of active, vaporous gas from the methylene chloride, which doesn't take much heat energy to turn from a vapor into a liquid, or vice versa. In the scientific community, that's called a "low latent heat of evaporation".

Methylene chloride, also called dichloromethane (CH₂Cl₂), is a volatile, colorless liquid with a chloroform-like odor. It's used in various industrial processes in many different industries -- including paint stripping, pharmaceutical manufacturing, paint remover manufacturing, metal cleaning and degreasing, and so forth. The most common means of exposure to methylene chloride is inhalation or skin exposure, i.e. your son or daughter smashes Dippy against the windowsill and drinks the holiday fruit punch inside. OSHA considers methylene chloride to be a potential occupational carcinogen: in studies, mice exposed to airborne methylene chloride developed cancers and tumors of the lung and the liver.

Anyway, if the head bulb is slightly cooler than the body bulb, a temperature differential occurs. The methylene chloride turns from a liquid to a vapor, and as it rises up the glass tube, vacuum action pulls the liquid up along with it, like a thermometer. When it nears the top, Dippy's head tips forward on the swing-leg hinges, dunks his nose into a glass of water and appears to drink. While the whole family sits around applauding and taking pictures, Dippy's red felt-covered beak, face, and head are absorbing water from the drinking glass. As the moisture evaporates from the fabric, the head becomes cooler than the body and internal pressures within the chamber are equalized.

The vapor turns back into liquid, the liquid drops to the lower bulb, and Dippy's center of gravity pivots him to his normal, natural, upright position. Under the right conditions, Dippy can tipple and topple back and forth quickly, dook-dook-dooking like there's no tomorrow. But don't try to be clever in front of your stupid friends and put alcohol-based beverages in Dippy's shotglass: the swinging pendulum motion of the body can accelerate the chaos of the liquid and vapor, and the evaporation process from Dippy's head requires liquid no heavier than water. You can, however, "trick" Dippy into drinking by positioning a lamp toward the bottom bulb. If you limit the penumbra (falloff) from the light so Dippy's head remains cool, he'll go back and forth and even drink without a water glass for hours at a time. But exercise caution: lamplight can produce excessive heat, and Dippy's glass will burst. One Dippy Bird hack involves painting the body black so the body becomes warmer more quickly than the head.

In 1966, civil engineer and logistics expert R.B. Murrow developed an abstract study recommending that the possibilities of a Dippy Drinking Bird heat engine be investigated to see if it could be further developed into a useful machine which performed low-power requirement tasks in primitive environments (such as the one addressing the Egyptian low-water-lift agricultural problem). In the report, such an engine was described in considerable detail. Direct experiment has shown that the Dippy Drinking Bird works best on small scale, and does so particularly well under the arid climatological conditions of Egypt and many other underdeveloped countries. By measuring the power output of a drinking bird, attaching it to a windglass and using it to lift heavy paper clips, scientist Don Rathjen reported the successful extraction of a nanohorsepower of work (about a microwatt).

Artist Daniel Reynolds spent six years and $20,000 developing his most brilliant work to date: a flock of fifteen enormous drinking birds filling an entire art gallery. Each is six and a half feet tall, and 3,000 times heavier than the original Dippy. The birds are made of pyrex glass, and require a special vacuum attachment so the liquid can travel efficiently. The head of the Institute of Thermodynamics at the University of Stuttgart in Germany turned over all their research and development resources to assist in the project.

Unfortunately, the art and science of Dippy the Drinking Bird were only the precursor to cheaper, gimmicky Hand Boiler devices also known as "libido detectors" -- the looped and twisted glass sculptures containing a liquid which bubbles and churns like a tempest in a teacup with the heat from your bare hand. Once the bulbous end is out of your hands, it takes a few moments for the liquid to cool down. No delightful bird shape, no pointy beak, no pretty eyes or feathers -- just another example of the dumbing down and over-pussification of America's youth. You can probably find Hand Boilers at the Hallmark store near the candles and cat calendars. Dippy Drinking Birds, while hardly extinct, are now primarily indigenous to magic shops.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 08:39 | link | comments

The dark side of me. Don't get me wrong, I love life. But yet I wonder....what will be our demise? What will it be like?....Don't read further if you are squeamish....

Death special: How does it feel to die?

• 13 October 2007
• From New Scientist Print Edition.
• Anna Gosline

• IS IT distressing to experience consciousness slipping away or something people can accept with equanimity? Are there any surprises in store as our existence draws to a close? These are questions that have plagued philosophers and scientists for centuries, and chances are you've pondered them too occasionally.

  None of us can know the answers for sure until our own time comes, but the few individuals who have their brush with death interrupted by a last-minute reprieve can offer some intriguing insights. Advances in medical science, too, have led to a better understanding of what goes on as the body gives up the ghost.

  Death comes in many guises, but one way or another it is usually a lack of oxygen to the brain that delivers the coup de grâce. Whether as a result of a heart attack, drowning or suffocation, for example, people ultimately die because their neurons are deprived of oxygen, leading to cessation of electrical activity in the brain - the modern definition of biological death.

  If the flow of freshly oxygenated blood to the brain is stopped, through whatever mechanism, people tend to have about 10 seconds before losing consciousness. They may take many more minutes to die, though, with the exact mode of death affecting the subtleties of the final experience. If you can take the grisly details, read on for a brief guide to the many and varied ways death can suddenly strike.

  Drowning

  The "surface struggle" for breath

  Death by drowning has a certain dark romance to it: countless literary heroines have met their end slipping beneath the waves with billowy layers of petticoats floating around their heads. In reality, suffocating to death in water is neither pretty nor painless, though it can be surprisingly swift.

  Just how fast people drown depends on several factors, including swimming ability and water temperature. In the UK, where the water is generally cold, 55 per cent of open-water drownings occur within 3 metres of safety. Two-thirds of victims are good swimmers, suggesting that people can get into difficulties within seconds, says Mike Tipton, a physiologist and expert in marine survival at the University of Portsmouth in the UK.

  Typically, when a victim realises that they cannot keep their head above water they tend to panic, leading to the classic "surface struggle". They gasp for air at the surface and hold their breath as they bob beneath, says Tipton. Struggling to breathe, they can't call for help. Their bodies are upright, arms weakly grasping, as if trying to climb a non-existent ladder from the sea. Studies with New York lifeguards in the 1950s and 1960s found that this stage lasts just 20 to 60 seconds.

  When victims eventually submerge, they hold their breath for as long as possible, typically 30 to 90 seconds. After that, they inhale some water, splutter, cough and inhale more. Water in the lungs blocks gas exchange in delicate tissues, while inhaling water also triggers the airway to seal shut - a reflex called a laryngospasm. "There is a feeling of tearing and a burning sensation in the chest as water goes down into the airway. Then that sort of slips into a feeling of calmness and tranquility," says Tipton, describing reports from survivors.

  That calmness represents the beginnings of the loss of consciousness from oxygen deprivation, which eventually results in the heart stopping and brain death.

  Heart attack

  One of the most common forms of exit

  The "Hollywood Heart Attack", featuring sudden pain, desperate chest-clutching and immediate collapse, certainly happens in a few cases. But a typical "myocardial infarction", as medical-speak has it, is a lot less dramatic and comes on slowly, beginning with mild discomfort.

  The most common symptom is, of course, chest pain: a tightness, pressure or squeezing, often described as an "elephant on my chest", which may be lasting or come and go. This is the heart muscle struggling and dying from oxygen deprivation. Pain can radiate to the jaw, throat, back, belly and arms. Other signs and symptoms include shortness of breath, nausea and cold sweats.

  Most victims delay before seeking assistance, waiting an average of 2 to 6 hours. Women are the worst, probably because they are more likely to experience less well-known symptoms, such as breathlessness, back or jaw pain, or nausea, says JoAnn Manson, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School. Survivors say they just didn't want to make a fuss; that it felt more like indigestion, tiredness or muscle cramps than a heart attack. Then again, some victims are just in denial.

  Delay costs lives. Most people who die from heart attacks do so before reaching hospital. The actual cause of death is often heart arrhythmia - disruption of the normal heart rhythm, in other words.

  Even small heart attacks can play havoc with the electrical impulses that control heart muscle contraction, effectively stopping it. In about 10 seconds the person loses consciousness, and minutes later they are dead.

  Patients who make it to hospital quickly fare much better; in the UK and US more than 85 per cent of heart attack patients admitted to hospital survive to 30 days. Hospitals can deploy defibrillators to shock the heart back into rhythm, and clot-busting drugs and artery-clearing surgery.

  Bleeding to death

  Several stages of haemorrhagic shock

  The speed of exsanguination, as bleeding to death is known, depends on the source of the bleed, says John Kortbeek at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and chair of Advanced Trauma Life Support for the American College of Surgeons. People can bleed to death in seconds if the aorta, the major blood vessel leading from the heart, is completely severed, for example, after a severe fall or car accident.

  Death could creep up much more slowly if a smaller vein or artery is nicked - even taking hours. Such victims would experience several stages of haemorrhagic shock. The average adult has 5 litres of blood. Losses of around 750 millilitres generally cause few symptoms. Anyone losing 1.5 litres - either through an external wound or internal bleeding - feels weak, thirsty and anxious, and would be breathing fast. By 2 litres, people experience dizziness, confusion and then eventual unconsciousness.

  "Survivors of haemorrhagic shock describe many different experiences, ranging from fear to relative calm," Kortbeek says. "In large part this would depend on what and how extensive the associated injuries were. A single penetrating wound to the femoral artery in the leg might be less painful than multiple fractures sustained in a motor vehicle crash."

  Fire

  It's usually the toxic gases that prove lethal

  Long the fate of witches and heretics, burning to death is torture. Hot smoke and flames singe eyebrows and hair and burn the throat and airways, making it hard to breathe. Burns inflict immediate and intense pain through stimulation of the nociceptors - the pain nerves in the skin. To make matters worse, burns also trigger a rapid inflammatory response, which boosts sensitivity to pain in the injured tissues and surrounding areas.

  As burn intensities progress, some feeling is lost but not much, says David Herndon, a burns-care specialist at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. "Third-degree burns do not hurt as much as second-degree wounds, as superficial nerves are destroyed. But the difference is semantic; large burns are horrifically painful in any instance."

  Some victims of severe burns report not feeling their injuries while they are still in danger or intent on saving others. Once the adrenalin and shock wear off, however, the pain quickly sets in. Pain management remains one of the most challenging medical problems in the care of burns victims.

  Most people who die in fires do not in fact die from burns. The most common cause of death is inhaling toxic gases - carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and even hydrogen cyanide - together with the suffocating lack of oxygen. One study of fire deaths in Norway from 1996 found that almost 75 per cent of the 286 people autopsied had died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

  Depending on the size of the fire and how close you are to it, concentrations of carbon monoxide could start to cause headache and drowsiness in minutes, eventually leading to unconsciousness. According to the US National Fire Protection Association, 40 per cent of the victims of fatal home fires are knocked out by fumes before they can even wake up.

  Decapitation

  Nearly instantaneous

  Beheading, if somewhat gruesome, can be one of the quickest and least painful ways to die - so long as the executioner is skilled, his blade sharp, and the condemned sits still.

  The height of decapitation technology is, of course, the guillotine. Officially adopted by the French government in 1792, it was seen as more humane than other methods of execution. When the guillotine was first used in public, onlookers were reportedly aghast at the speed of death.

  Quick it may be, but consciousness is nevertheless believed to continue after the spinal chord is severed. A study in rats in 1991 found that it takes 2.7 seconds for the brain to consume the oxygen from the blood in the head; the equivalent figure for humans has been calculated at 7 seconds. Some macabre historical reports from post-revolutionary France cited movements of the eyes and mouth for 15 to 30 seconds after the blade struck, although these may have been post-mortem twitches and reflexes.

  If you end up losing your head, but aren't lucky enough to fall under the guillotine, or even a very sharp, well-wielded blade, the time of conscious awareness of pain may be much longer. It took the axeman three attempts to sever the head of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. He had to finish the job with a knife.

  Decades earlier in 1541, Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury, was executed at the Tower of London. She was dragged to the block, but refused to lay her head down. The inexperienced axe man made a gash in her shoulder rather than her neck. According to some reports, she leapt from the block and was chased by the executioner, who struck 11 times before she died.

  Electrocution

  The heart and the brain are most vulnerable

  In accidental electrocutions, usually involving low, household current, the most common cause of death is arrhythmia, stopping the heart dead. Unconsciousness ensues after the standard 10 seconds, says Richard Trohman, a cardiologist at Rush University in Chicago. One study of electrocution deaths in Montreal, Canada found that 92 per cent had probably died from arrhythmia.

  Higher currents can produce nearly immediate unconsciousness. The electric chair was designed to produce instant loss of consciousness and painless death - a step up from traditional hangings - by conducting the current through the brain and the heart.

  Whether it achieves this end is debatable. Studies on dogs in 1950 found that electrodes had to be placed on either side of the head to ensure sufficient current passed through the brain to knock the creature out. There have been many botched executions - those that required several jolts to kill, or where flames leapt from the prisoner's head, in one case due to a damp synthetic sponge being attached to the electrodes on the prisoner's head, which was such a poor conductor it was heated up by the current and caught fire.

  An analysis in 2005 of post-mortem remains from 43 prisoners sentenced to death by electrocution found the most common visible injuries to be head and leg burns where the electrodes were attached. The study's senior author, William Hamilton, a medical examiner in Florida, concluded that these burns occurred post-mortem and that death was indeed instantaneous.

  However, John Wikswo, a biophysicist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, maintains that the thick, insulating bones of the skull would prevent sufficient current from reaching the brain, and prisoners could instead be dying from heating of the brain, or perhaps from suffocation due to paralysis of the breathing muscles - either way, an unpleasant way to go.

  Fall from a height

  If possible aim to land feet first

  A high fall is certainly among the speediest ways to die: terminal velocity (no pun intended) is about 200 kilometres per hour, achieved from a height of about 145 metres or more. A study of deadly falls in Hamburg, Germany, found that 75 per cent of victims died in the first few seconds or minutes after landing.

  The exact cause of death varies, depending on the landing surface and the person's posture. People are especially unlikely to arrive at the hospital alive if they land on their head - more common for shorter (under 10 metres) and higher (over 25 metres) falls. A 1981 analysis of 100 suicidal jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - height: 75 metres, velocity on impact with the water: 120 kilometres per hour - found numerous causes of instantaneous death including massive lung bruising, collapsed lungs, exploded hearts or damage to major blood vessels and lungs through broken ribs.

  Survivors of great falls often report the sensation of time slowing down. The natural reaction is to struggle to maintain a feet-first landing, resulting in fractures to the leg bones, lower spinal column and life-threatening broken pelvises. The impact travelling up through the body can also burst the aorta and heart chambers. Yet this is probably still the safest way to land, despite the force being concentrated in a small area: the feet and legs form a "crumple zone" which provides some protection to the major internal organs.

  Some experienced climbers or skydivers who have survived a fall report feeling focused, alert and driven to ensure they landed in the best way possible: relaxed, legs bent and, where possible, ready to roll. Certainly every little helps, but the top tip for fallers must be to aim for a soft landing. A paper from 1942 reports a woman falling 28 metres from her apartment building into freshly tilled soil. She walked away with just a fractured rib and broken wrist.

  Hanging

  Speed of death depends on the hangman's skill

  Suicides and old-fashioned "short drop" executions cause death by strangulation; the rope puts pressure on the windpipe and the arteries to the brain. This can cause unconsciousness in 10 seconds, but it takes longer if the noose is incorrectly sited. Witnesses of public hangings often reported victims "dancing" in pain at the end of the rope, struggling violently as they asphyxiated. Death only ensues after many minutes, as shown by the numerous people being resuscitated after being cut down - even after 15 minutes.

  When public executions were outlawed in Britain in 1868, hangmen looked for a less performance-oriented approach. They eventually adopted the "long-drop" method, using a lengthier rope so the victim reached a speed that broke their necks. It had to be tailored to the victim's weight, however, as too great a force could rip the head clean off, a professionally embarrassing outcome for the hangman.

  Despite the public boasting of several prominent executioners in late 19th-century Britain, a 1992 analysis of the remains of 34 prisoners found that in only about half of cases was the cause of death wholly or partly due to spinal trauma. Just one-fifth showed the classic "hangman's fracture" between the second and third cervical vertebrae. The others died in part from asphyxiation.

  Michael Spence, an anthropologist at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, has found similar results in US victims. He concluded, however, that even if asphyxiation played a role, the trauma of the drop would have rapidly rendered all of them unconscious. "What the hangmen were looking for was quick cessation of activity," he says. "And they knew enough about their craft to ensure that happened. The thing they feared most was decapitation."

  Lethal injection

  US-government approved, but is it really painless?

  Lethal injection was designed in Oklahoma in 1977 as a humane alternative to the electric chair. The state medical examiner and chair of anaesthesiology settled on a series of three drug injections. First comes the anaesthetic thiopental to speed away any feelings of pain, followed by a paralytic agent called pancuronium to stop breathing. Finally potassium chloride is injected, which stops the heart almost instantly.

  Each drug is supposed to be administered in a lethal dose, a redundancy to ensure speedy and humane death. However, eyewitnesses have reported inmates convulsing, heaving and attempting to sit up during the procedure, suggesting the cocktail is not always completely effective.

  The reason, say Leonidas Koniaris at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, is insufficient thiopental. He and his colleagues analysed 41 executions by lethal injection in North Carolina and California, and compared anaesthetic doses to known effects in animal models, such as pigs. As the same dose of thiopental is used regardless of body weight, the anaesthesia produced in some heavier inmates might be inadequate, they concluded.

  "I think that awareness is a real possibility in a large fraction of executions," says Koniaris. That awareness might include feelings of suffocation from paralysed lungs and the searing, burning pain of a potassium chloride injection. The effect of the paralytic, however, might mean that witnesses never see any outward signs of pain.

  The Supreme Court is now going to review whether this mode of execution is legal.

  Explosive decompression

  It takes your breath away

  Death due to exposure to vacuum is a staple of science fiction plots, whether the unfortunate gets thrown from an airlock or ruptures their spacesuit.

  In real life there has been just one fatal space depressurisation accident. This occurred on the Russian Soyuz-11 mission in 1971, when a seal leaked upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere; upon landing all three flight crew were found dead from asphyxiation.

  Most of our knowledge of depressurisation comes from animal experiments and the experiences of pilots in accidents at very high altitudes. When the external air pressure suddenly drops, the air in the lungs expands, tearing the fragile gas exchange tissues. This is especially damaging if the victim neglects to exhale prior to decompression or tries to hold their breath. Oxygen begins to escape from the blood and lungs.

  Experiments on dogs in the 1950s showed that 30 to 40 seconds after the pressure drops, their bodies began to swell as the water in tissues vaporised, though the tight seal of their skin prevented them from "bursting". The heart rate rises initially, then plummets. Bubbles of water vapour form in the blood and travel through the circulatory system, obstructing blood flow. After about a minute, blood effectively stops circulating.

  Human survivors of rapid decompression accidents include pilots whose planes lost pressure, or in one case a NASA technician who accidentally depressurised his flight suit inside a vacuum chamber. They often report an initial pain, like being hit in the chest, and may remember feeling air escape from their lungs and the inability to inhale. Time to the loss of consciousness was generally less than 15 seconds.

  One mid-1960s experiment by the US Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory in New Mexico found that a chimpanzee had a period of useful consciousness of just 11 seconds before lack of oxygen caused them to pass out.

  Surprisingly, in view of these apparently traumatic effects, animals that have been repressurised within 90 seconds have generally survived with no lasting damage.

  Death - Delve deeper into the riddle of human mortality in our special report.

  Anna Gosline is a science writer in Vancouver, Canada
  From issue 2625 of New Scientist magazine, 13 October 2007, page 53-57

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 22:37 | link | comments (5)

Will new collider create black holes that destroy us all?

Visitors stand in front of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva. (Salvatore Di Nolfi, Keystone/Associated Press)

April 21, 2008

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 19:30 | link | comments (3)

Are Men and Women Really Equal?

So, you've just got your first job babysitting. Hooray! You get to earn some extra money, maybe start saving up to buy something cool? When you get home, you compare paychecks with your boyfriend. He just got his first job, too. You realize he is making more money than you are. Wait a minute, isn't childcare an important job? Shouldn't your time be worth just as much as his? Let's just get it out in the open, right here and now: women do not earn as much money as men. In fact, women receive about three quarters to every dollar that a man makes. How can that be? This is, after all, the new millennium. Even the Declaration of Independence tells us that there should be equal rights for all. Equal, it says, or does it?

If we go way back to 1776, the Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal" and that "Governments are instituted among Men." Now, I don't mean to be too literal, but that is just what they meant. Thomas Jefferson, when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, was definitely looking out for wealthy, white men. Almost a hundred years later, Congress and state legislatures began adopting new amendments to the Bill of Rights. These were even more explicit in their exclusion of women. The Fourteenth Amendment, which supposedly guaranteed equal protection to all "persons," used the words "male citizens". And the Fifteenth Amendment gave "all men" the right to vote. But hey, what about the women? That's exactly why the women's suffrage movement began.

Alice Paul worked together with other feminists towards women's suffrage. She believed that all people are fundamentally equal, regardless of their race, sex, or economic situation. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed and women were given the right to vote. But that was only one piece of the puzzle. What about obtaining equal protection under the law for women, as it was given to men in the Fifteenth Amendment? Alice Paul was wondering the same thing, so, three years after women got the right to vote, she drafted the Equal Rights Amendment. That was back in 1923, and guess what…it still hasn't passed as an amendment to the Bill of Rights. How can that be? Shouldn't women be given access to all of the rights and privileges that men have?

The ERA has had a rocky ride on the legislative highway. In 1972, it was finally passed by both houses of Congress, but it was never ratified by the thirty-eight states needed to make it an amendment. Renamed as the Constitutional Equality Amendment (CEA), it has been placed before every session of Congress since that time. That means it's been before Congress for over seventy-five years! What's going on here?

As the Civil Rights Movement has shown, making large changes in a society's institutionalized discrimination doesn't come easily. Historically speaking, the majority group never wants to give up the privileges they enjoy. Since men hold the majority of government offices, could it be that our policy makers are slow to make changes to the laws that would affect women? The status quo is a difficult thing to change, but women haven't given up yet.

Without the passage of the ERA or the CEA, what's a girl to do? Besides continuing to fight for the passage of the CEA, women have banded together in grassroots organizations all across the country to fight for and protect their rights. At both the government and the community level, women are creating their own power against the policies of sex discrimination in education, the workplace, healthcare, and many other areas important to women.

The National Committee of Pay Equity is one of these organizations. Its mission is to eliminate the wage gap - the large difference in wages that a man earns as compared to a woman for doing the same job. Historically, sex discrimination has always existed, and men have earned more money than women. In the 1950s, women earned only half of what men did. After all, men were the breadwinners, responsible for supporting their families, right? Wasn't anyone thinking about women who were widowed, divorced or single parents? Apparently not.

Even though the ERA didn't pass, some legislation did support the rising fight for women's equality. In 1963, the Equal Pay Act was signed, making it illegal for employers to pay women a lower salary for an equal job. What an amazing concept! But, instead of paying equal salaries, some employers simply changed the job titles or altered the job description of their women employees. However, some employers did change their ways, and the next couple of decades showed the wage gap getting smaller. Women were earning more than they ever had, and, by the 1990s, the gap had settled at seventy-two cents on the dollar, as opposed to the fifty cents women were earning in the fifties.

Unfortunately, in the year 2000 and beyond, we have not seen the wage gap get any smaller; in fact, it is slowly getting bigger again. It seems women have now hit a "glass ceiling." We can look up and see all the men going up, up, up on the pay scale, but if we try to go up any higher, we bump our heads on that ceiling. The National Committee of Pay Equity encourages women to demand equal salaries. Getting an education is one way to do this. Learning to negotiate a good salary is another. And trying to get women's voices heard in Congress through lobbying is yet another way. The organization helps women with all of these strategies and even promotes an annual "Equal Pay Day" across the nation. But if women are doing these things, and organizations are around to support them, why have we hit such a plateau in the movement against sex discrimination in the workplace?

Hopefully, the women's rights movement hasn't become apathetic. Although we've certainly come a long way, there's still work to be done. Until the Equal Rights Amendment is passed, women will not have the same rights as men under the Constitution. Women are as intelligent, dedicated, and capable as men. When will our Constitution, and our paychecks, prove it?

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 14:43 | link | comments (1)

Jeez...Girls....these are sample of what I mean when I comment the phrase:

MATURITY:
Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year old females can function as adults. Most 17-year old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out.

HANDWRITING:
To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just chicken scratch. Women use scented, colored stationary and they dot their "i's" with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their "p's" and "g's". It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even when she's dumping you, she'll put a smiley face at the end of the note.

BATHROOMS:
A man has six items in his bathroom-a toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from a Holiday Inn. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 437. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.

REST ROOMS Men use rest rooms for purely biological reasons. Women use rest rooms as social lounges. Men in a rest room will never speak a word to each other. Never in the history of the world has a man excused himself from a restaurant table by saying, "Hey Tom, I was just about to take a leak. Do you want to join me?

OFFSPRING:
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

SEX:
Women prefer 30-40 minutes of foreplay. Men prefer 30-40 seconds of foreplay. Men consider driving back to her place as part of the foreplay.

LAUNDRY:
Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants , before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweat shirt inside out, rent a U-Haul, and take his mountain of clothes to the Laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the Laundromat. This is a myth perpetuated by reruns of old episodes of "Love, American Style."

WEDDINGS:
When reminiscing about weddings, women talk about "the ceremony." Men talk about "the bachelor party."

THE TELEPHONE:
Men see the telephone as a communication tool. They use the telephone to send short messages to other people. A woman can visit her girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same friend and they will talk for three hours.

RICHARD GERE:
Women like Richard Gere because he is sexy in a dangerous way. Men hate Richard Gere because he reminds them of that slick guy who works at the health club and dates only married women.

MADONNA:
Same as above, but reversed. Same reason.

PLANTS:
A woman asks a man to water her plants while she is on vacation. The man waters the plants. The woman comes home five or six days later to an apartment full of dead plants. No one knows why this happens.

CAMERAS:
Men take photography very seriously. They'll shell out $4000 for state of the art equipment, and build dark rooms and take photography classes. Women purchase Kodak Insta-matics. Of course, women always end up taking better pictures.

LOCKER ROOMS: In the locker room men talk about three things: money, football, and women. They exaggerate about money, they don't know football nearly as well as they think they do, and they fabricate stories about women. Women talk about one thing in the locker room-sex. And not in abstract terms, either. They are extremely graphic and technical, and they never lie.

MOVIES:
Every actress in the history of movies has had to do a nude scene. This is because every movie in the history of movies has been produced by a man. The only actor who has ever appeared nude in the movies is Richard Gere. This is another reason why men hate him.

TIME:
When a woman says she'll be ready to go out in five more minutes, she's using the same meaning of time as when a man says the football games just got five minutes left. Neither of them is counting time outs, commercials, or replays.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 11:12 | link | comments (1)

Pentagon

You see, the shape of the building makes for an incredibly efficient space. According to the United States Department of Defense, the building's current tenant, you can walk from any one point in the Pentagon to any other point in seven minutes or less.

Which is a really interesting statistic, especially delivered in a vacuum. How long does it take to get from any point in the Sears Tower to any other point, for instance? Does anyone know? I thought not. Granted, you need an elevator to do it, but still. If pentagonal shapes are the most efficient in the world, why aren't there pentagons on every corner?

No, no, I'm afraid a world-shattering Occult-Masonic-Demonic Conspiracy is the only explanation that holds up to the cold, harsh scrunity of the unwavering rational intellect.

But first, the official story of the U.S. military command center, so you'll at least know what the sinister puppet masters want you to believe.

The Pentagon was built in a big hurry, starting in July 1941 with a proposal written by General Brehon B. Sommervell, who (rather shockingly) does not appear to have been a Freemason, on orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the U.S. who was a 33rd degree intiated Mason inaugurated in 1933 (conspiracy).

Construction of the Pentagon began on, and you'll love this, September 11, 1941, exactly 60 years to the day before you-know-what. Tell me that's not a conspiracy of some sort!

The construction was remarkably swift and efficient for government work (conspiracy), partly because World War II conveniently broke out just three months after construction started (conspiracy). The building was ready for occupancy by April 1942 (although it wasn't quite complete for several months more).

The original five-sided design was allegedly concocted to allow for a pre-existing road on the property selected for the building. But when Roosevelt authorized the construction of the Pentagon, he moved it to another site a mile away while retaining the five-sides (conspiracy).

The new site was, to put it charitably, inconvenient (conspiracy). In fact, it was a submerged swampland. The government had to move 5.5 million tons of earth to the site in order to be able to build anything there in the first place (conspiracy).

Had Roosevelt been thinking ahead, he would have realized that triva like this could fuel scurrilous speculation of Masonic conspiracies (conspiracy) for years to come. But maybe that's what he wanted us to think he was thinking. Wait, I'm getting lost here...

OK, better get back to the facts. The exterior of the building is made of limestone, the interior of concrete. In order to distract Americans from the fact that the entire building is, in the final analysis, devoted to killing people, the Defense Department offers up a dazzling array of numerical trivia points

The Pentagon is a white five-sided building with five floors each made up of five concentric pentagons, separated by five interior courtyards with the fifth being a five-acre courtyard in the middle. It's 77.3 feet tall and 77 million cubic feet in volume, housing about 23,000 employees. It has 131 stairways and 13 elevators. It's covered by 7 acres of glass windows.

As you can plainly see, the building was designed by either some sort of brilliant occult numerologist, or possibly by a demented architect with a fixation on religious symbolism. Either way, it's a lot of fives (sacred pentagons, pentagrams, number associated with Satan) and sevens (number of God), with the ones and threes (symbolic of the trinity) thrown in for good measure. Whether or not it was actually intended to some massive occult-power-control-spooky-demon totem, it sure would be great for that purpose.

The Pentagon served as headquarters for the War Department on its launch in 1942, which was later rechristened the National Military Establishment in 1947, and then the Department of Defense in 1949. (Fortunately, someone stepped in before the no-good peaceniks could rename it the Department of Reluctant Defense As A Last Resort, the Department of You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry, or the Department of Love and Flowers.)

Aside from the prosecution of war, you'd be surprised at how little officially goes on at the Pentagon. Officially. Although, technically, some orders originate from the building, not to mention reams of paperwork , and guys like Donald Rumsfeld do hang their hats inside, the main action is almost always happening somewhere else, be it Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Evil-Doer to-be-announced-later.

Or that's how it was up until September 11, 2001.

It's possible you may have heard about what happened on that day, but in case it slipped your attention, four airliners were hijacked by the al Qaeda terrorist network. Two were crashed into the World Trade Center, one crashed in Pennsylvania after the passengers rose up against the hijackers, and one hit the Pentagon. Or so they say.

Which is as good as jumping-off point for the trip to Crazyland as anything. Now, it can hardly come as any great surprise that a massive pentagram-shaped white stone icon housing the top-secret heart of the military-industrial complex would engender a certain amount of healthy and imaginative theorizing (especially if you've been carefully reading up until now). It's like the pyramid on the dollar bill. Why even put it there unless you want people to talk?

The most popular recent conspiracy theory about the Pentagon has to do with the September 11 attack, which has inspired an entire generation to endlessly dissect the minutia of that day's video barrage, as a defense mechanism against thinking about the actual implications of such a disastrous and successful terrorist attack.

Rather than worry about the wave of militant fundamentalism that is actually sweeping the world with apocalyptic fervor, it's understandably easier to fixate on the small details, especially when those details suggest a massive yet conceptually simple conspiracy that comfortingly obscures the difficult dangers of the real world.

So, for instance, there's a French guy named Thierry Meyssan who has made a cottage industry out of suggesting that a missile hit the Pentagon on September 11, rather than American Airlines Flight 77, which is what They want you to believe.

The major basis for these claims can be summed up thusly: "It's obvious that a crashing 757 wouldn't cause the kind of damage that is clearly visible in pictures of the Pentagon."

The problem with this reasoning is fairly obvious: There is not a large body of data on what happens when you crash a 757 into a large concrete pentagon-shaped building. In fact, there's no data at all concerning what happens when you crash a 757 into a large concrete pentagon-shaped building except, presumably, the very pictures that the author is summarily dismissing.

So let's chalk this one up to "doubtful," and get back to the juicier Masonic stuff. There's still the matter of the giant occult symbol built by Freemasons to protect the heart of the nation's defenses. You'd think this would be less credible than the French conspiracy theory, but that's the way life is, full of curve balls when you least expect them.

As endless Web sites and self-published books will point out to you, there are rather a lot of pentagram-type shapes in the layout of Washington, D.C. Most of the authors will assure you that this is the result of a Masonic conspiracy.

Whether conspiracy or simply a quirk of urban planning, the fact is that you can trace fairly credible pentagram shapes over a map of the D.C. area. Rotten.com leaves it to you to decide the occult significance of this fact, or lack thereof. But consider the following:

Now, the first problem with all this, from an occultist's point of view, is that you have to muck up the geometrically correct occult pentagram in order to make it do anything interesting. The most common way that conspiracy lovers do this is to mush up the pentagram so that it originates over the White House. The effect of this alteration is that the points of the central pentagon can be made to terminate at three Washington circles which each have six streets protruding from them. 6-6-6. Very nifty.

The downside of this is that the resulting pentagram is no longer a geometrically correct Satanic pentagram. Nor is it a particularly good Masonic pentagram. And while the arrow going through the Pentagon then points fairly well to the lower tip of the pentagram when viewing the map, the arrow is actually several thousand feet off when you drop from the orbital satellite point of view to actually look at where it lands on the ground.

Make of this what you will. It's interesting, and the pent shape is pretty visible, even if it doesn't spell out a 6-6-6. And let's face it, the whole damn idea of the Pentagon is pretty creepy anyway. And it all comes back to France, anyway, because the street layout was designed by a French guy named Pierre Charles L'Enfante, a Mason, who was commissioned to design the government center by George Washington, a Mason.

When you mix up the 9/11 theory with the occult symbol theory, you get something a little extra-special creepy. If the Pentagon is an occult powerhouse that holds the nation together, and al Qaeda blew it up on its 60th anniversary (while simultaneously creating the world's biggest enactment of "The Falling Tower" disaster card from the Tarot deck), then maybe Osama bin Laden is actually an evil Masonic sorceror who just killed the secret magickal spell that has held the United States together lo these many years.

Or, um, maybe not.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 10:15 | link | comments (9)

Hollow Earth

Halley, known the world over as "that comet guy", had been troubled by his study of the earth's magnetic fields, detected by compasses, and spent a fair amount of his life trying to come up with an explanation for why those fields were shifting. Eventually, he concluded that there had to be some sort of mechanism within the earth to explain the phenomenon.

Halley wasn't the first person to speculate about vast underground spaces. The mad Jesuit Athanasius Kircher had already proposed vast networks of underground conduits and caves in his Mundus Subterraneus -- a collection of the geological knowledge of his day, compiled a couple of years before Halley's tract.

But Halley took the cave concept a step further and thrust the Hollow Earth into a popular belief. He argued that the earth on which we live was simply a shell, inside of which floated another entire planet.

Halley theorized that the outer shell was coated with a tarry substance that would ooze like caulk into any cracks formed by earthquakes or other unfortunate geological incidents, thus preventing the oceans from emptying into the hollowed-out earth like water running down a drain. He also argued that this theory explained a popular but mistaken view that the Earth had four magnetic poles -- two fixed and two floating. The fixed ones were on the outer shell and the floating ones were inside.

Running through a chain of increasingly shaky logic, Halley theorized that the inside earth was certainly inhabited by life and illuminated by some unspecified mechanism having to do with glowing clouds of air that occasionally escaped the inner shell to light up the night sky as the aurora borealis. (His theory didn't explain why the gas could get out, but the oceans couldn't drain in.)

Halley's theory was almost entirely speculative, and the parts that weren't were based on egregious misconceptions about the actual facts of the world (from the Northern lights to the magnetic poles and beyond). Nevertheless, Halley's brand was sufficiently prestigious to keep the Hollow Earth theory alive for a long, long time -- far beyond the point that every sane person should have known better.

The idea clunked around intellectual circles for the next couple centuries, but never reached any special level of credibility. However, ideas can be popular without being credible, and they can be enduring without being popular.

The Hollow Earth was ushered into the 19th century by a man named John Symmes, who proposed that not only was the earth hollow with another earth inside it, but that the inside earth was also hollow. Variations of theory stipulated two, four and seven shells within. Symmes' theories would have looked more credible if he'd simply published them under his own name, but he transparently attempted to puff himself up by writing treatises about the brilliance of his own theories under assumed names, including one that modestly dubbed the fabulous land of mystery within "Symzonia".

Yet Symmes was a man of conviction (however sane those convictions might be). The hollow earths had openings at the poles, Symmes claimed, and he proposed a polar expedition to prove his theory correct -- and presumably to explore and annex the Hollow Earth in the name of his homeland, the good ol' U.S. of A. The Senate actually seriously considered this plan, and the Russians offered to help underwrite it after the Americans declined, but the stars never aligned.

Symmes' ideas, though dismissed by most rational scientists, nevertheless captured the popular imagination and became the subject of numerous additional crackpot theories and not a few science-fiction novels, including works by Edgar Allen Poe and Jules Verne.

Depending on who you talked to, the interior earth was illuminated by the sun through the ocean floor, by phosphoric fungi, or by an adorable miniature sun inside the innermost earth, however many you thought there might be.

After Symmes' death, an expedition finally was mounted, partly with the motive of finally putting all this Hollow Earth nonsense to rest. But even the footsteps of hundreds of people tromping around the ice floes of the north and the landmass of the south were not proof enough for those who wanted so desperately to believe.

Figures like William Reed, Marshall Gardner -- and who could forget Cyrus Reed Teed -- elaborated increasingly whimsical theories about giants, dwarves, electric sun-gods, Eden and whatever else one might hope to find beneath the surface of the earth. However, the polar expeditions had largely crushed the Hollow Earth crowd's momentum... until one of those implausible things re-ignited the lunacy.

Ray Palmer, editor of Amazing Stories, presented the tale of one Richard Shaver, who claimed to have journeyed to the interior of the earth and encountered all manner of strangeness within. Palmer published a series of accounts of the Hollow Earth which -- despite being published in a science fiction magazine -- were seized on by the usual lunatics. Among them -- the Nazis, some of whom believed in an underground world called Hyperborea from whence Aryan-loving gods could emanate at any moment to seize the world in the name of Adolf Hitler.

As the facts piled up -- expedition after expedition -- against the Hollow Earth, an equal number of maniacs and shysters emerged to claim they'd made the trip. Finally, the unlikliest of sources provided a massive boost to the conspiracy-minded -- satellite imagery. An early satellite image of the north polar region seemed to show a gigantic black hole right where the theories predicted.

The image was produced by an orbiting satellite as a photo-mosaic. Each section of the photo was a single picture taken at a certain point in the orbit, then the individual pictures were assembled like a puzzle. Because of the angle of the orbit, the actual pole was not photographed, and the scientists assembling the montage simply left the area blank.

Simple explanations will not do for some people, who saw the picture as evidence of the biggest cover-up since the week before, at least. Subsequent photos of the poles? Cover-up. Pictures of expeditioners planting flags in Antarctica? Cover-up. Environmentalist whining about endangered polar species? Cover-up. March of the Penguins? Perhaps the most insidious cover-up of all...

With so many options available to the discriminating consumer of paranoia today, one would think that the Hollow Earth would be, well, dead and buried by now. The classics never tarnish, but most Hollow Earthers these days require additional stimulation to get their juices flowing. For instance, the prevailing, um, "wisdom" holds that the inside of the Earth is now used as a launch pad for flying saucers.

You can still find plenty of romantics who believe the Great Indoors contains the Garden of Eden, some iteration of Hyperborea, or Shambala, the Tibetan Buddhist mystical city best known for the profound infatuation it exercises on non-Buddhists who probably wouldn't enjoy a Buddhist paradise that much if they actually thought about it for a few minutes.

Die-hards can actually sign up for new expeditions leaving for the North Pole on a regular basis to scrounge around in hopes of finding the secret door to the Twilight Zone. With beds starting around $19,000 and an itinerary that includes a "monorail trip to City of Eden to visit the Palace of the King of the Inner World", it's hard to imagine a better vacation value. As always, keep an eye on the fine print.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 03:09 | link | comments (7)

I think this is sick:

Padded bras for 7-year-olds?

What happened
Teacher and parent groups in the U.K. blasted British supermarket giant Tesco for selling a padded bra in the department selling clothes for 7 and 8 year olds. "There is already too much pressure on children to appear grown up,” said a spokeswoman for the National Union of Teachers. (London Telegraph) A Tesco spokesman said the bra wasn’t inappropriate, because it was “designed for girls at that self-conscious age when they are just developing.” (Daily Mail)

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 11:14 | link | comments (3)

Scientists: Even Bigger Quake Could Hit Midwest

By Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Senior Editor

posted: 18 April 2008 ET

The magnitude 5.2 earthquake that rocked the Midwest on Friday was felt from Kansas to Georgia, and aftershocks could continue for months at this strange seismic zone at the nation's center and even trigger another big quake, a geophysicist said.

The quake occurred on a northern extension of the New Madrid fault, about 6 miles north of Mt. Carmel, Ill. The New Madrid fault was responsible for devastating quakes in the Mississippi Valley in 1811 and 1812. So the Friday quake and its aftershocks likely are raising the blood pressure of some residents and scientists.

For decades, scientists have debated whether and when the underlying fault could generate another temblor of similar and deadly strength.

"I think we saw a window to this possibility today in the Wabash Valley," said geophysicist Allessandro Forte of the Université du Québec à Montréal, who has studied the region's seismicity. "It's to the north of the New Madrid seismic zone, but given the strength of crust, the stress can be distributed great distances. It's not clear if we could see something in the next few years or even next few months, I would say."

The last earthquake in the region to approach the severity of Friday's temblor was a 5.0 magnitude quake that shook a nearby area in 2002, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

An event actually surpassing today's magnitude last occurred in 1968, a magnitude 5.3 quake that was felt in 23 states, said Forte. The magnitude scale is logarithmic so a change of 0.1 or 0.2 makes a big difference in terms of energy output. The 1968 event was felt in Ontario and Boston.

"The $64,000 question is what this earthquake portends for the future," Forte said. "The answer is I'm afraid it can go either way."

Stress relief or hair trigger?

One scenario predicts that some stress is relieved on the local faults where this earthquake occurred and will cool things down for a few decades. The other scenario is not so happy.

"There is the possibility, and we can only see over next few months what will happen, that the redistribution of stress on neighboring faults might trigger further earthquakes, and we can only guess as to whether they'll be equally large as today's earthquake," Forte said.

Aftershocks from the Friday quake will continue for several weeks, maybe months, he said. Already, there have been many, of magnitudes in the range of 2 and 3, radiating outward from the epicenter.

"If we are seeing a propagation outward of stress changes after today's 5.2, which was a big one, and those stress changes finally come up on a fault which is on a hair trigger and ready to go, those small changes are sufficient to generate another big one on a fault which is locked and ready to go," Forte said.

How much risk?

Recent estimates have downgraded the risk of a large earthquake on the New Madrid fault.

In the 1980s, scientists said there was a 90 percent chance of a magnitude 6 or 7 temblor occurring in this area within the next 50 years.

A 2007 USGS fact sheet, however, said there is only a 25 percent to 40 percent chance of a magnitude 6 or larger there in the next 50 years.

However, a team that includes Michael Ellis of the University of Memphis estimated in 2005 that the odds of another 8.0 event in the region within 50 years are between 7 and 10 percent.

These debates about the New Madrid fault are far from resolved, Forte said, with some saying the accumulated stress in area faults is weakening while others say it is not going to dissipate any time soon. "This is not exactly a well-defined science as yet," he said.

Forte is part of the latter camp, based on his research on an ancient, giant slab of Earth called the Farallon slab that started its descent under the West Coast 70 million years ago and now is causing mayhem and deep mantle flow 360 miles beneath the Mississippi Valley, where it effectively pulls the crust down an entire kilometer (.62 miles).

"The stresses from the sinking Farallon slab are not going to disappear any time soon," he said.

So, apparently, is J. David Rogers in the latter camp. The geological engineer at Missouri University of Science and Technology says Midwestern earthquakes are potentially more powerful than California quakes.

Shakier situation

Unique geology in the Midwest increases the shaking intensity of earthquakes because seismic energy moves through the dense bedrock at very high speeds, then becomes trapped in soft sediments filling river channels and valleys, Rogers said.

Rogers and some of his graduate students have been modeling synthetic seismic events in the New Madrid region. Most of their scenarios are modeled after an 1895 earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 that was centered in Charleston, Mo.

The preliminary results are sobering, said Rogers. Data indicates ground shaking would be magnified about 600 percent within the flood plain of the Missouri River, a development that would cause most of Missouri’s existing long-span bridges to collapse.

"You don't even need a really big earthquake to do significant damage in Missouri," Rogers says. "It could happen tomorrow."

The relative quake risk of the New Madrid seismic zone is a great debate that might be driven in part by competition for grant money, Forte said. Those scientists who work on West Coast quakes have an incentive to claim that the research money should be spent on that region, while the central continent-focused researchers obviously are more invested in funds coming their way.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 23:37 | link | comments (1)

Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions

• 18:00 16 April 2008
• NewScientist.com news service
• Michael Le Page

If you think you understand it, you don't know nearly enough about it

It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking – that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection.

Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. Countless fossil discoveries allow us to trace the evolution of today's organisms from earlier forms. DNA sequencing has confirmed beyond any doubt that all living creatures share a common origin. Innumerable examples of evolution in action can be seen all around us, from the pollution-matching pepper moth to fast-changing viruses such as HIV and H5N1 bird flu. Evolution is as firmly established a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth.

And yet despite an ever-growing mountain of evidence, most people around the world are not taught the truth about evolution, if they are taught about it at all. Even in the UK, the birthplace of Darwin with an educated and increasingly secular population, one recent poll suggests less than half the population accepts evolution.

For those who have never had the opportunity to find out about biology or science, claims made by those who believe in supernatural alternatives to evolutionary theory can appear convincing. Meanwhile, even among those who accept evolution, misconceptions abound.

Most of us are happy to admit that we do not understand, say, the string theory in physics, yet we are all convinced we understand evolution. In fact, as biologists are discovering, its consequences can be stranger than we ever imagined. Evolution must be the best-known yet worst-understood of all scientific theories.

So here is New Scientist's guide to some of the most common myths and misconceptions about evolution.

There are already several good and comprehensive guides out there. But there can't be too many.

Shared misconceptions:

Everything is an adaptation produced by natural selection

Natural selection is the only means of evolution

Natural selection leads to ever-greater complexity

Evolution produces creatures perfectly adapted to their environment

Evolution always promotes the survival of species

It doesn't matter if people do not understand evolution

"Survival of the fittest" justifies "everyone for themselves"

Evolution is limitlessly creative

Evolution cannot explain traits such as homosexuality

Creationism provides a coherent alternative to evolution

Creationist myths:

Evolution must be wrong because the Bible is inerrant

Accepting evolution undermines morality

Evolutionary theory leads to racism and genocide

Religion and evolution are incompatible

Half a wing is no use to anyone

Evolutionary science is not predictive

Evolution cannot be disproved so is not science

Evolution is just so unlikely to produce complex life forms

Evolution is an entirely random process

Mutations can only destroy information, not create it

Darwin is the ultimate authority on evolution

The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex

Yet more creationist misconceptions

Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 03:28 | link | comments

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 19:35 | link | comments

Florida's War on Knowledge
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/essays/article453658.ece
by Elizabeth Bird

As Florida professors watch with dismay what seems to be the systematic dismantling of
our university system, we find ourselves, for once, speechless. Anything we say will
surely sound self-serving; as our esteemed Florida Senate President Ken Pruitt has put it,
we should "suck it up and deal with it."
Dealing with it, in this Legislature's books, cannot possibly mean actually rethinking the
madness of Bright Futures, or the legacy of underfunding that has left our universities so
far behind. Rather, we need to pack more students into our classrooms, move them out as
fast as possible, and try to deliver quality in return for a tuition rate that is up to six times
less than our "peers" in more enlightened states.
The basic issue, of course, is that our legislative leaders aren't particularly interested in
education. What excites them is "work force development," and Pruitt is leading the
charge. He has no time for the liberal arts and social sciences, arguing that the job market
should drive academic course offerings. "How many psychologists do we really need?"
he quips.
At the risk of sounding self-serving, may I point out that his blinkered view misses the
point? Business leaders understand — the nonpartisan Council of 100 strongly supports
the need for a vibrant, truly academic university system, writing last month, "If higher
education in Florida suffers, then our entire economy is at risk." I vividly recall talking
with a leader of a state environmental agency about what kind of graduates he needs in
his work force. Would majors in subjects like anthropology, sociology (or perish the
thought, psychology!) have the right training? His answer: "I don't want the universities
to 'train' my employees — that's what we do when they come on board. I want you to
educate them — teach them to think, write, know what's going on in the world. That's
what makes proactive leaders who can take us where we want to go."
The education students receive in top research universities is distinctive, and hard to
connect directly to the "work force." University faculty have a duty to conduct research,
writing books and articles that change the state of our knowledge. Good students
understand that; they appreciate the fact that their forensics teacher wrote the latest book
on skeletal trauma, or that their medical anthropology professor is conducting cutting
edge research on HIV/AIDS in Africa. I see them in front of the glass case outside my
office, looking at the books written by my faculty. "Wow, I have her for Theory."
Such educators, whether in anthropology, history, philosophy or literature, inspire and
excite. In a great university, undergraduate students conduct original research — and it's
not so much what they research, as how they learn to develop questions, devise ways to
explore them, and reach conclusions. These students are ready to go into law and
medicine, business, social services and education. They become informed, engaged
citizens, who volunteer, vote, support the arts and guard our environment.
There is nothing wrong with trade schools, technical institutes and other honorable
institutions that "train" students for specific job skills. But our state will be immeasurably
impoverished if we buy the lie that this kind of training is a substitute for the intellectual
rigor and enrichment that great universities offer.
Most of us at USF still don't know exactly how things will change this fall, although
department chairs are already cutting back on class offerings and choices. Pruitt advises
us to keep increasing class sizes; after all, if education is simply making sure our students
memorize a job manual, why not do so in a class of 350 rather than 35? At USF, I believe
we do an incredible job with what we have — but at this point, there is nowhere to cut
without diminishing our students' academic experience.
Elizabeth Bird, Ph.D., is chair of the anthropology department at USF. This column
expresses her own views; she is not speaking as a representative of USF.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 09:50 | link | comments (4)

Florida International University Cuts 200 Jobs

April 16th, 2008 | Higher Education, Layoffs

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 09:49 | link | comments (3)

We Floridians are really oh so clever!

Crist Suggests Temporary Gas Tax Cut Or Suspension

Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE - A gallon of gas could get a little bit cheaper if Gov. Charlie Crist goes forward with a proposal to suspend or reduce state gas taxes, but the cut could cost the state tens of millions of dollars at a time when the budget is already tight.

Crist hasn't worked out all the details yet - whether to cut all or some of the state's 15.6 cent per gallon gas tax and for how long - but he said Wednesday that giving drivers a break at the pump during the summer travel season is a good idea. If the full tax were suspended, a driver could save $2.34 on a 15-gallon fill-up.

Crist said the lost revenue would be worth it.

"I know the frustration of people paying for gas at the pump. It's outrageous how expensive this is. And our dependence on foreign oil is ridiculous," Crist said. "Any way we can try to relieve that economic pressure for our fellow Floridians, we need to do it."

Crist suggested cutting the tax the day after Republican Presidential candidate John McCain called for a suspension of national gas taxes during the summer months. Crist endorsed McCain before Florida's primary and has campaigned with him around the country. The federal tax, which is on top of the state tax, is 18.4 cents.

Florida has tried cutting its own gas tax before. The state passed a similar cut in 2004, when lawmakers said people needed relief when gas hovered around $2 a gallon. Lawmakers cut the then 14.3 cent per gallon tax by 8 cents for a month, a move that cost the state an estimated $60 million.

A gallon of regular gas now averages $3.42 in Florida, compared to $2.91 a year ago.

Cutting the gas tax, however, could be difficult as lawmakers are already making about $5 billion in cuts to the state's approximately $70 billion budget. Areas being cut include money for the environment, education, health care, prisons and much more.

Asked if the state could afford losing tens of millions of dollars to give people a tax break that amounts to a few dollars per driver, Crist said, "Sure we can. And families need the help, more importantly."

House Speaker Marco Rubio was cautious about the idea, which would need the approval of the Legislature, saying there were problems the last time the state temporarily cut the gas tax. People bought less gas just before the tax break kicked in, then hoarded it just before it ended, he said.

"I'm not against the idea, but there have been some pitfalls in the past when we've tried to do it that have raised caution flags," said Rubio, R-West Miami.

He also said there is a concern on whether the full tax savings would be passed on to consumers, though a AAA report after the 2004 cut found that the savings were passed on.

Pat Moricca, president of the Gasoline Retailers Association of Florida, said that nearly all retailers would give any cut to consumers.

"The ones who do not pass it are going to sell less gasoline," he said. "People will go to the station that's the lowest."

And Also:

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 09:44 | link | comments (1)

London, Thursday 17.04.08

Vitamins A, C and E are 'a waste of time and may even shorten your life'

Last updated at 00:52am on 17.04.08

 Add your view

 

 

Claims: Are vitamins and supplements doing more harm than good? (Posed by a model)

Vitamins taken by around a third of the population do not extend life and may even cause premature death, according to a respected group of international scientists.

 

 

After reviewing 67 studies involving more than 230,000 men and women, the experts say there is no convincing evidence that taking supplements of the antioxidant vitamins A, C and E can make you healthier.

The alarming findings, published today, will shock Britons who spend £333million a year on supplements.

Forty per cent of women and 30 per cent of men take a vitamin pill each day.

The review involved trials on beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E and selenium.

It says in-depth analysis of the different trials does not support the idea that vitamins extend lifespan.

'Even more, beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E seem to increase mortality,' says the review.

Vitamin A was linked to a 16 per cent increase in mortality, beta-carotene - the pigment found in carrots, tomatoes and broccoli which the body converts into vitamin A - to a 7 per cent increase and vitamin E to a 4 per cent increase. However, there was no significant detrimental effect caused by vitamin C.

'There was no evidence to support either healthy people using antioxidants to prevent disease or for sick people to take them to get better,' said the review.

It said more research was needed on vitamin C and selenium.

Antioxidants are used by the body as protection against free radicals, which are molecules produced during normal metabolism.

These can damage the body if they flourish in an uncontrolled way as a result of illness, overexposure to toxins or ageing.

It is thought antioxidants such as vitamin C confer health benefits by 'grabbing' or neutralising free radicals, and many people take them as health 'insurance'.

The theory behind using antioxidants is to combat oxidation - the chemical reaction that causes metals to rust - which in cells can damage DNA, thus raising the risk of cancer, other diseases and the changes associated with ageing.

Previous human and animal laboratory research suggested that boosting antioxidant levels in the body might extend life, but other studies produced neutral or even harmful results.

Scroll down for more...

 

The review is published by the Cochrane Library, a publication of the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organisation which evaluates healthcare research.

Altogether 47 trials involving 180,938 people were classified as having a low risk of bias which showed 'antioxidant supplements significantly increased mortality'.

Goran Bjelakovic, who led the review at the Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, said: 'We could find no evidence to support taking antioxidant supplements to reduce the risk of dying earlier in healthy people or patients with various diseases.

'The findings of our review show that if anything, people in trial groups given the antioxidants beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E showed increased rates of mortality.

'There was no indication that vitamin C and selenium may have positive or negative effects. So, regarding these antioxidants, we need more data from randomised trials.

'The bottom line is that current evidence does not support the use of antioxidant supplements in the general healthy population or in patients with certain diseases.'

The review does not offer any biological explanation as to why supplements can cause harm, although it has been suggested that betacarotene, for example, might interfere with the body's use of fats.

There is no suggestion from the review that a healthy diet including plenty of vegetables and fruit - natural sources of antioxidants - is harmful.

The latest scare has infuriated many in the vitamins industry and nutritionists such as Patrick Holford who believe there is a campaign by the medical establishment to discredit their products and their role in optimising health.

Mr Holford said the review was 'a stitch-up' because all the studies were chosen strictly for reducing mortality, and not for the many advantages reported in other studies.

He said: 'The only way this review could produce the negative results was by finding reasons to exclude most of the positive studies, including all the positive ones on selenium.'

Although the authors claimed to be assessing antioxidant supplements for the prevention of mortality, they excluded all studies - 405 of them - which reported no deaths.

Mr Holford said: 'Antioxidants are not meant to be magic bullets and should not be expected to undo a lifetime of unhealthy habits.

'But when used properly, in combination with eating a healthy diet full of fruit and vegetables, getting plenty of exercise and not smoking, antioxidant supplements can play an important role in maintaining and promoting overall health.

'I take, and will continue to take an all-round antioxidant supplementing containing these nutrients as well as CoQ10, lipoic acid and resveratrol - the "red wine" factor - and also eat a diet high in fruit and vegetables.'

Pamela Mason, of the industry-backed Health Supplements Information Service, said: 'Antioxidant vitamins, like any other vitamins, were never intended for the prevention of chronic disease and mortality.

'They are intended for health maintenance on the basis of their various physiological roles in the body and in the case of antioxidant vitamins, this does, in appropriate amounts, include a protective antioxidant effect in the body's tissues.

'These vitamins are essential for health and many people in the UK do not have an adequate intake.

'A vitamin supplement taken in recommended amounts can be beneficial for health, especially for those people whose intakes are poor.'

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 08:39 | link | comments (1)

Robert Bruce Merrifield

My new hero, I'm going after his footsteps.

 

  

Robert Bruce Merrifield

Robert Bruce Merrifield (July 15, 1921 – May 14, 2006) was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1984 for the invention of solid phase peptide synthesis.^[1]

 Early life

He was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on 15 July, 1921, the only son of George E. Merrifield and Lorene née Lucas. In 1923 the family moved to California where he attended nine grade schools and two high schools before graduating from Montebello High School in 1939. It was there that he developed an interest both in chemistry and in astronomy.

After two years at Pasadena Junior College he transferred to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). After graduation in chemistry he worked for a year at the Philip R. Park Research Foundation taking care of an animal colony and assisting with growth experiments on synthetic amino acid diets. One of these was the experiment by Geiger that first demonstrated that the essential amino acids must be present simultaneously for growth to occur.

He returned to graduate school at the UCLA chemistry department with professor of biochemistry M.S. Dunn to develop microbiological methods for the quantitation of the pyrimidines. The day after graduating on 19 June, 1949, he married Elizabeth Furlong and the next day left for New York City and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

 Career

At the Institute, later Rockefeller University, he worked as an Assistant for Dr. D.W. Woolley on a dinucleotide growth factor he discovered in graduate school and on peptide growth factors that Woolley had discovered earlier. These studies led to the need for peptide synthesis and, eventually, to the idea for solid phase peptide synthesis in 1959. In 1963, he was sole author of a classic paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in which he reported a method he called solid phase peptide synthesis, which is the fifth most cited paper in the journal's history.

In the mid-60s Dr. Merrifield's laboratory first synthesized bradykinin, angiotensin, desamino-oxytocin and insulin. In 1969, he and his colleague Bernd Gutte announced the first synthesis of the enzyme, ribonuclease A. This work proved the chemical nature of enzymes.

Dr. Merrifield's method greatly stimulated progress in biochemistry, pharmacology and medicine, making possible the systematic exploration of the structural bases of the activities of enzymes, hormones and antibodies. The development and applications of the technique continued to occupy his laboratory, where he remained active at the bench until recently. In 1993, he published his autobiography, "Life during a Golden Age of Peptide Chemistry." He received the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities Award for outstanding contributions to Biomolecular Technologies in 

 Personal life

After raising their six children, James, Nancy, Betsy, Cathy, Laurie and Sally, his wife Elizabeth (Libby), a biologist by training, joined the Merrifield laboratory at Rockefeller University where she worked for over 23 years.

After a long illness R. Bruce Merrifield died on May 14, 2006 at the age of 84 in his home in Cresskill, New Jersey. He is survived by his wife, children and 16 grandchildren.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 21:53 | link | comments (1)

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 18:41 | link | comments

Carbohydrate

 

Lactose is a disaccharide found in milk. It is composed of a molecule of D-galactose and a molecule of D-glucose bonded by a β-1-4 glycosidic linkage.

Carbohydrates (from 'hydrates of carbon') or saccharides (Greek σάκχαρον meaning "sugar") are the most abundant of the four major classes of biomolecules, which also include proteins, lipids and nucleic acids. They fill numerous roles in living things, such as the storage and transport of energy (starch, glycogen) and structural components (cellulose in plants, chitin in animals). Additionally, carbohydrates and their derivatives play major roles in the working process of the immune system, fertilization, pathogenesis, blood clotting, and development.

Chemically, carbohydrates are simple organic compounds that are aldehydes or ketones with many hydroxyl groups added, usually one on each carbon atom that is not part of the aldehyde or ketone functional group. The basic carbohydrate units are called monosaccharides, such as glucose, galactose, and fructose. The general stoichiometric formula of an unmodified monosaccharide is (C·H₂O)_n, where n is any number of three or greater; however, many molecules with formulae that differ slightly from this are still called carbohydrates and other compounds that possess formulae that agree with this general rule may not be in fact carbohydrates (eg formaldehyde). Despite the inexactness of the term, "carbohydrate" remains a useful descriptive name and with a little experience even a novice will soon become aware of what is, and is not, a carbohydrate. Monosaccharides can be linked together in almost limitless ways. Many carbohydrates contain one or more modified monosaccharide units that have had one or more groups replaced or removed. For example, deoxyribose, a component of DNA, is a modified version of ribose; chitin is composed of repeating units of N-acetylglucosamine, a nitrogen-containing form of glucose. The names of carbohydrates often end in the suffix -ose.

 Monosaccharides

D-glucose is an aldohexose with the formula (C·H₂O)₆. The red atoms highlight the aldehyde group, and the blue atoms highlight the asymmetric center furthest from the aldehyde; because this -OH is on the right of the Fischer projection, this is a D sugar.

Monosaccharides are the simplest carbohydrates in that they cannot be hydrolyzed to smaller carbohydrates. The general chemical formula of an unmodified monosaccharide is (C•H₂O)_n, where n is any number of three or greater.

 Conformation

Pyran and furan, after which the pyranose and furanose rings forms of monosaccharides are named.

The aldehyde or ketone group of a straight-chain monosaccharide will react reversibly with a hydroxyl group on a different carbon atom to form a hemiacetal or hemiketal, forming a heterocyclic ring with an oxygen bridge between two carbon atoms. Rings with five and six atoms are called furanose and pyranose forms, respectively, and exist in equilibrium with the straight-chain form.

During the conversion from straight-chain form to cyclic form, the carbon atom containing the carbonyl oxygen, called the anomeric carbon, becomes a chiral center with two possible configurations: the oxygen atom may take a position either above or below the plane of the ring. The resulting possible pair of stereoisomers are called anomers. In the α anomer, the -OH substituent on the anomeric carbon rests on the opposite side (trans) of the ring from the CH₂OH side branch. The alternative form, in which the CH₂OH substituent and the anomeric hydroxyl are on the same side (cis) of the plane of the ring, is called the β anomer. Because the ring and straight-chain forms readily interconvert, both anomers exist in equilibrium.

 Use in living organisms

Monosaccharides are the major source of fuel for metabolism, being used both as an energy source (glucose being the most important in nature) and in biosynthesis. When monosaccharides are not needed by cells they are quickly converted into another form, such as polysaccharides.

 Disaccharides

Sucrose, also known as table sugar, is a common disaccharide. It is composed of two monosaccharides: D-glucose (left) and D-fructose (right).

Main article: Disaccharide

Two joined monosaccharides are called disaccharides and represent the simplest polysaccharides. Examples include sucrose and lactose. They are composed of two monosaccharide units bound together by a covalent bond known as a glycosidic linkage formed via a dehydration reaction, resulting in the loss of a hydrogen atom from one monosaccharide and a hydroxyl group from the other. The formula of unmodified disaccharides is C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁. Although there are numerous kinds of disaccharides, a handful of disaccharides are particularly notable.

Sucrose, pictured to the right, is the most abundant disaccharide and the main form in which carbohydrates are transported in plants. It is composed of one D-glucose molecule and one D-fructose molecule. The systematic name for sucrose, O-α-D-glucopyranosyl-(1→2)-D-fructofuranoside, indicates four things:

• Its monosaccharides: glucose and fructose
• Their ring types: glucose is a pyranose, and fructose is a furanose
• How they are linked together: the oxygen on carbon number 1 (C1) of α-D-glucose is linked to the C2 of D-fructose.
• The -oside suffix indicates that the anomeric carbon of both monosaccharides participates in the glycosidic bond.

Lactose, a disaccharide composed of one D-galactose molecule and one D-glucose molecule, occurs naturally in milk. The systematic name for lactose is O-β-D-galactopyranosyl-(1→4)-D-glucopyranose. Other notable disaccharides include maltose (two D-glucoses linked α-1,4) and cellobiose (two D-glucoses linked β-1,4).

 Oligosaccharides and polysaccharides

Amylose is a linear polymer of glucose mainly linked with α(1→4) bonds. It can be made of several thousands of glucose units. It is one of the two components of starch, the other being amylopectin.

Main articles: Oligosaccharide and Polysaccharide

Oligosaccharides and polysaccharides are composed of longer chains of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic bonds. The distinction between the two is based upon the number of monosaccharide units present in the chain. Oligosaccharides typically contain between two and nine monosaccharide units, and polysaccharides contain greater than ten monosaccharide units. Definitions of how large a carbohydrate must be to fall into each category vary according to personal opinion. Examples of oligosaccharides include the disaccharides mentioned above, the trisaccharide raffinose and the tetrasaccharide stachyose.

Oligosaccharides are found as a common form of protein posttranslational modification. Such posttranslational modifications include the Lewis and ABO oligosaccharides responsible for blood group incompatibilities, the alpha-Gal epitope responsible for hyperacute rejection in xenotransplanation, and O-GlcNAc modifications.

Polysaccharides represent an important class of biological polymers. Their function in living organisms is usually either structure or storage related. Starch is used as a storage polysaccharide in plants, being found in the form of both amylose and the branched amylopectin. In animals, the structurally similar but more densely branched glycogen is used instead. Glycogen's properties allow it to be metabolized more quickly, which suits the active lives of locomotive animals.

Cellulose and chitin are examples of structural polysaccharides. Cellulose is used in the cell walls of plants and other organisms, and is claimed to be the most abundant organic molecule on earth.^[2] It has a variety of uses including in the paper and textile industry and as a feedstock for the production of rayon (in the viscose process), cellulose acetate, celluloid and nitrocellulose. Chitin has a similar structure to cellulose but has nitrogen containing side branches, increasing its strength. It is found in arthropod exoskeletons and in the cell walls of some fungi. It has a variety of uses, for example in surgical threads.

Other polysaccharides include callose or laminarin, xylan, mannan, fucoidan, and galactomannan.

 

Grain products are rich sources of complex carbohydrates

Carbohydrates require less water to digest than proteins or fats and are the most common source of energy. Proteins and fat are vital building components for body tissue and cells and are also a source of energy for the body.

Carbohydrates are not essential nutrients: the body can obtain all its energy from protein and fats ^{[3] [4]}. The brain cannot burn fat and needs glucose for energy, but the body can make this glucose from protein. Carbohydrates and proteins contain 4 kilocalories per gram while fats contain 9 kilocalories and alcohol contains 7 kilocalories per gram.^{[citation needed]}

Foods that are high in carbohydrates include breads, pastas, beans, potatoes, bran, rice and cereals.

Based on evidence for risk of heart disease and obesity, the Institute of Medicine recommends that American and Canadian adults get between 40-65% of dietary energy from carbohydrates.^[5] The Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization jointly recommend that national dietary guidelines set a goal of 55-75% of total energy from carbohydrates, but only 10% should be from Free sugars (their definition of simple carbohydrates).^[6]

The distinction between "good carbs" and "bad carbs" is an important attribute of low-carbohydrate diets, which promote a reduction in the consumption of grains and starches in favor of protein. The result is a reduction in insulin levels used to metabolize sugars, and an increase in the use of fat for energy through ketosis.

 Classification

Dietitians and nutritionists commonly classify carbohydrates as simple (monosaccharides and disaccharides) or complex (oligosaccharides and polysaccharides). The term complex carbohydrate was first used in the Senate Select Committee publication Dietary Goals for the United States (1977), where it denoted "fruit, vegetables and whole-grains".^[7] Dietary guidelines generally recommend that complex carbohydrates and nutrient-rich simple carbohydrates such as fruit and dairy products make up the bulk of carbohydrate consumption. The USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 dispenses with the simple/complex distinction, instead recommending fiber-rich foods and whole grains.^[8]

The glycemic index and glycemic load systems are popular alternative classification methods which rank carbohydrate-rich foods based on their effect on blood glucose levels. The insulin index is a similar, more recent classification method which ranks foods based on their effects on blood insulin levels. This system assumes that high glycemic index foods and low glycemic index foods can be mixed to make the intake of high glycemic foods more acceptable.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 08:15 | link | comments (2)

These jokes are aimed at the people that usually read my posts. In no way do I intend on harming anyone, but I thought they were cute.

Florida: Ask Us About Our Grandkids

Dumb Florida Laws

C - Can
H - Help
A - All 
D - Democrats

JokesHawaii: Haka Tiki Mou Sha'ami Leeki Toru (Death To Mainland Scum, But Leave Your Money) 

The Road to Hawaii 

A man was walking along the beach and found a bottle. He looked around and didn't see anyone so he opened it. 

A genie appeared and thanked the man for letting him out. The genie said, "For your kindness I will grant you one wish, but only one." 

The man thought for a minute and said, "I have always wanted to go to Hawaii but have never been able to because I'm afraid of flying and ships make me claustrophobic and ill. So I wish for a road to be built from here to Hawaii." 

The genie thought for a few minutes and said, "No, I don't think I can do that. Just think of all the work involved with the pilings needed to hold up the highway and how deep they would have to be to reach the bottom of the ocean. Think of all the pavement that would be needed. No, that is just too much to ask." 

The man thought for a minute and then told the genie, "There is one other thing that I have always wanted. I would like to be able to understand women. What makes them laugh and cry, why are they emperamental, why are they so difficult to get along with? Basically, what makes them tick?" 

The genie considered for a few minutes and said, "So, do you want two lanes or four?" 

A short story...

Fire investigators on Maui have determined the cause of ablaze that destroyed a $127,000 home last month - a short in the homeowner's newly installed fire prevention alarm system. "This is even worse than last year," said the distraught homeowner, "when someone broke in and stole my new security system..." 

You Know Someone Is From Hawaii If...

They have a separate circuit breaker for their rice cooker. 

Only NOW they know that cilantro is the same as Chinese parsley. 

They measure the water for the rice by the knuckle of their index finger. 

They know which market sells poi on which days. 

They know that Char Sung Hut is closed on Tuesday. 

They can handle shoyu with green mango, li hing mui gummy bears, raw egg on hot rice, and pearl tea (carnation milk in hot water with sugar) with creme crackers. 

Their refrigerator has half-empty jar of mango chutney from the '95 Punahou Carnival. 

The condiments at the table are shoyu, ketchup, chili peppah watah, and kimchee. Also, takuwan, Hawaiian salt, slice onion, and pickle onion. 

They go to Maui and their luggage home includes potato chips, manju, cream puffs, and guri guri for omiyage. 

They think the four food groups are starch (rice), Spam, fried food, and fruit punch. 

A balanced meal has three starches: rice, macaroni, and bread. 

They know 101 ways to fix their rubber slippers -- 50 using tape, 50 using glue, and one using a stick to poke the strap back in. 

They sometimes use their open car door for a dressing room. 

They wear two different color slippers together and they don't mind. 

Nice clothes means a T-shirt without puka. 

They are barefoot in most of their elementary school pictures. 

They have a slipper tan. 

Their only suit is a bathing suit. 

They drive barefoot. 

They have at least five Hawaiian bracelets. 

They never ever, under any circumstances, wear socks with slippers, or an aloha shirt that matches their wife's muumuu. 

They still call the Blaisedell Center the HIC and it's Sandy's, not Sandy Beach. 

They say "I going go for lawnmower da grass" when they mean "I'm going to mow the lawn." 

They can understand every word Bu Lai'a says and they know what his name means. 

They have a sister, cousin, auntie, or mom named "Honey Girl" or..... 

Someone in the family named Boy, Tita, Bruddah, Sonny, Bachan, Taitai, Popo, or Vovo. 

They still chant "Hanaokolele" when a friend or co-worker goofs up. 

They say "Shtraight," "Shtreet," and "Shtress." 

They say "Da Kine" and the other person says "Da Kine" and they both know what is "Da Kine." 

The "Shaka" and the "Stink Eye" are worth a thousand words. 

They're shopping at Epcot Center at Disneyworld and they may say something to their sister and a complete stranger says, "You're from Hawai'i, aren't you?" 

They feel guilty leaving a get-together without helping clean up. 

The idea of taking something from a heiau is unthinkable. 

They call everyone older than themselves "Aunty" or "Uncle" and they kiss everyone in greeting and farewell. 

They let other cars ahead of them on the freeway and they give shaka to everyone who lets them in. (And get mad if someone they let in doesn't say thanks.) 

Their philosophy is "Bumbai." 

They would rather drag out the compressor and fill that leaking tire every single morning than have it fixed. 

The only time they honk their horn is once a year during the safety check. 

If a child needs a home, they give him one. She/He becomes "Hanai." 

They can live and let live with a smile in their heart. 

Their male best friend's name is either Wade, Max, Nathan, or Melvin. 

Owns two types of slippers: da "good slippas" and da "buss-up/stay home slippas." 

Does not understand the concept of North, South, East, and West, but instead gives directions as Mauka, Makai, Diamond Head, Ewa, and uses landmarks instead of street names. 

The first thing they look for in the Sunday paper is the Long's ad. 

They take off their slippahs before going into the house. 

You ask what year they grad and where they grad from, and then you say "eh you know so and so..." 

When it's done, they say "pau!" 

Dumb Hawaii Laws
All residents may be fined as a result of not owning a boat. 
Coins are not allowed to be placed in one's ears. 
Honolulu 
Within the limits of any public park, it is unlawful to annoy any bird. (SEC. 10-1.2) 

STATE OF KENTUCKY RESIDENCY APPLICATION
 Name: ________________  (_) Billy-Bob
           (last)        (_) Billy-Joe
                         (_) Billy-Ray
                         (_) Billy-Sue
                         (_) Billy-Mae
                         (_) Billy-Jack
                         (Check appropriate box)

  Age: ____
  Sex: ____ M _____ F _____ N/A
  Shoe Size ____ Left ____ Right

  
Occupation:
  (_) Farmer
  (_) Mechanic
  (_) Hair Dresser
  (_) Un-employed

  
Spouse's Name: __________________________

  Relationship with spouse:
  (_) Sister
  (_) Brother
  (_) Aunt
  (_) Uncle
  (_) Cousin
  (_) Mother
  (_) Father
  (_) Son
  (_) Daughter
  (_) Pet

  
Number of children living in household: ___

Number that are yours: ___
  
Mother's Name: _______________________

Father's Name: _______________________ (If not sure, leave blank)

  
Education: 1 2 3 4 (Circle highest grade completed)

Do you (_)own or (_)rent your mobile home?  (Check appropriate box)
 
 __ Total number of vehicles you own
 __ Number of vehicles that still crank
 __ Number of vehicles in front yard
 __ Number of vehicles in back yard
 __ Number of vehicles on cement blocks

  
Firearms you own and where you keep them:
  ____ truck
  ____ bedroom
  ____ bathroom
  ____ kitchen
  ____ shed

  
Model and year of your pickup: _____________ 194_

  
Do you have a gun rack?
  (_) Yes (_) No; please explain:

  
Newspapers/magazines you subscribe to:
  (_) The National Enquirer
  (_) The Globe
  (_) TV Guide
  (_) Soap Opera Digest
  (_) Rifle and Shotgun

  
___ Number of times you've seen a UFO
  
___ Number of times you've seen Elvis
  
___ Number of times you've seen Elvis in a UFO

  
How often do you bathe:
  (_)Weekly
  (_)Monthly
  (_)Not Applicable

  
Color of teeth:
  (_)Yellow
  (_)Brownish-Yellow
  (_)Brown
  (_)Black
  (_)N/A

  
Brand of chewing tobacco you prefer:
  (_)Red-Man

  
How far is your home from a paved road?
  (_)1 mile
  (_)2 miles
  (_)don't know

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 22:55 | link | comments (4)

Erich von Däniken

There are few characters as weird as Däniken in the history of fake science. His career started when he dropped out of pre-junior-seminary school. This was a wise move on his part, since the Vatican tends to frown on heresy.

A junior-junior-seminary school dropout in his native Switzerland, Däniken realized he wasn't cut out for the priesthood around the time that he decided the Bible's many descriptions of angels and other heavenly manifestations were actually historical records of UFO landings.

von Däniken wandered the world in search of archaeological evidence that could be construed as evidence of extraterrestrial visitation -- by a sufficiently motivated observer. All this research led to the publication of his first book, Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, in 1967.

von Däniken's early wanderings were underwritten by the Swiss hotel where he worked as a young man. Unfortunately, he hadn't bothered to inform the hotel it was underwriting his book, and management didn't take kindly to it when they found out, or so the story goes. The same year that Chariots of the Gods? hit the bookstands, Däniken was convicted of fraud and embezzlement and sentenced to more than three years in prison. (von Däniken claims the charges were "rubbish" and were later overturned.)

While Däniken enjoyed a sabbatical penning his follow-up book in the Swiss prison system, Chariots of the Gods? was levitating its way up the bestseller lists, possibly through the use of alien electromagnetic antigravity technology.

One year earlier, Time Magazine had famously proposed that God was dead. In the wake of that obituary, Däniken offered up a pseudoscientific explanation to fill the void. It didn't hurt that the UFO craze had shifted into high gear a few years earlier, after a wave of sightings and the infamous tale of Barney and Betty Hill, who claimed to have been abducted by aliens in New Hampshire in 1961.

von Däniken's work tapped into a developing global zeitgeist in which radical ideas beat at the doors of academia. Unfortunately, Däniken differed from many of these radical thinkers in some key respects -- including logic and honesty. His main points can be summarized thusly:

• Ancient people were stupid and lazy.
• Therefore they were unable to construct such artifacts as Stonehenge and the Pyramids on their own initiative.
• Therefore aliens must have helped them.
• One way they helped was by inducing mutations in cavemen to make them smarter.
• Therefore nearly any religious image or reference in the entire history of the human race is evidence that aliens visited ancient Earth.
• Furthermore, extraterrerstrial visitors and their high-tech gizmos are obviously the subject of any primitive artwork not obviously depicting bison. And we're not sure about some of those bison pictures either.
• Furtherfurthermore, anything written more than 300 years ago stands a good chance of describing aliens, from the Bible to the Rig Vedas to the Oresteia to the Magna Carta. OK, maybe not the Magna Carta.
• Aliens are primarily interested in using their mind-blowing technological advancements to help ape-men make large piles of rocks, such as Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Egypt and Mesoamerica.
• They also like having runways for their flying saucers to land on (despite the fact that flying saucers would not seem to require runways, since they tend to rise straight into the air, if you believe the hype).

You would think that a book based on blatant and admitted lies would quietly vanish from the bestseller lists in shame. But that's the sort of wrongheaded notion that belongs to a rational and just world. In the real world where we actually live, Däniken shrugged off the fraud as a momentary inconvenience. Today, there are something like 65 million copies of Däniken's various tomes in circulation worldwide.

But that's just the tip of the merchandising iceberg. There are also the movies, the TV specials (aired with tedious predictability on The Learning Channel during sweeps) and, of course, the theme park.

Yes, theme park. As Däniken approached his 70s, he realized his legacy to the world was incomplete. He rustled up about $70 million or $80 million in funding to build a lasting monument to his wacky theories.

Like it or not, and many people don't, Erich von Däniken and his ideas are probably with us to stay. Although Däniken himself is a dodgy character, the idea of ancient astronauts has a wide appeal among the same people who gravitate toward Scientology (which also preaches of ancient astronauts).

This demographic includes fairly bright people who have become disenchanted with religion but still want to believe in something -- anything! PLEASE! Däniken and his ilk paint a whisper of pseudoscience on top of the same old Biblical stories, giving them a fresh gloss for a new generation. After all, it's a pretty fine distinction between a belief in mysterious, wise, caring extraterrestrials and a mysterious, wise, caring God.

Needless to say, there are many other options for the discriminating consumer of metaphysical weirdness.

But none of the alternatives have their own theme park. Well, almost none.

In between his pottery-forging projects and meetings of the amusement park board, the 70-year-old Däniken continues to find time to write on an astonishing array of topics, such as Gods from Outer Space, The Gold of the Gods, In Search of Ancient Gods, Miracles of the Gods, Signs of the Gods?, Pathways to the Gods, The Gods and Their Grand Design, I Love the Whole World, , The Day at the Gods Came, We All Are Children of the Gods, The Return of the Gods, The Arrival of the Gods, Odyssey of the Gods and The Gods Were Astronauts. What a Renaissance man!

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 10:41 | link | comments

Sacred Geometry

Sacred geometry is the art, or perhaps the science, of imposing structure onto something that is inherently intangible. Since people first learned to scrawl in the dirt with sticks, they have been drawing shapes and calling those shapes "God."

Primitive

The spiral is the simplest and most common geometric shape shape in nature, both visibly and invisibly. From conch shells to weather patterns to DNA to galaxies to hallucinogenic visions, spirals are omnipresent in nature. Whether the cave artists were driven by mystical inspiration or simple observation, the emergence of the spiral in animistic, shamanistic and nature-worshipping cultures is not surprising.

After the spiral, things moved for a while along fairly predictable lines of increasing geometric complexity. Sun and moon icons brought circles into the realm of sacred geometry, predictably, as primitive pantheons expanded to include sun and sky gods.

It took longer for the concept of "geometry" as inherently "sacred" to develop, but not as long as you would think. Pre "civilized" people were understandably obsessed with the sky. After all, the sky was the source of rain and sun, lightning, hail and the changing seasons, all of which qualified as life-and-death issues for people who lived off the land, hadn't invented GPS (or even compasses) and hadn't started building houses in which to seek shelter from all of the abovementioned sky-based death-bombs.

The more you understood about what happened in the sky, the better your odds of survival. Which leads you to math. To really exploit the sky for all it's worth, you need math. You need to be able to count. You need to be able to calculate cycles. You need to plot movements for navigation using the stars.

Thus, geometry. Post-spiral, almost all of the earliest examples of sacred geometry are somehow tied to navigation and the calculation of the seasons. Early edifices like Stonehenge are essentially giant calendars, with rocks and markings situated to indicate seasonal passages based on where the sun casts its shadows. Other paleolithic monuments might frame a star or the sun or moon as if through a gun sight.

As the paleolithic era ended, people started applying the new math to their construction projects. The pyramids are the most notable of these efforts, even today. Aside from the sheer muscle-power required to actually build the damn things, the mathematical discipline in creating the shapes was pretty remarkable.

The pyramids were build along strict lines and proportions, oriented to compass points and astronomical coordinates (which allowed them at times to function as giant calendars in the same way Stonehenge did).

The major Egyptian pyramids were built about 5,000 years ago. They are generally thought to have been massive tombs for Egyptian royalty, designed to shepherd their occupants into the afterlife with style. This included the kind of fabulous wealth that made the pyramids more than a tourist attraction. As the original civilization that built the pyramids mutated into something else, the monuments remained, eventually gaining considerable mystique.

Today, there is wild and rampant speculation about what the pyramids mean, and what their geometric patterns are meant to achieve. In the 1970s, a brief pyramid craze erupted as New Age believers adopted the view that the shape itself was responsible for the preservation of mummies (in reality, the Egyptian's elaborate enbalming techniques deserved the credit).

The pyramids also provoked the people of the 20th century to wonder about extraterrestrial intervention in the early history of humanity, for a number of reasons. For one thing, the edifices were mathematically pristine, and modern people tend to labor under the impression that any society without Must-See-TV can barely call itself civilized, let alone count or multiply.

For another thing, the pyramids were... well, they're just so damn big. Their actual construction is still something of a mystery, although the brutal exploitation of thousands of slaves may have had something to do with it.

Then there were the other pyramids. Starting around 800 B.C. or so, the Aztec and Mayan civilizations in Central and South America were building pyramids of their own. While stylistically different, there were striking similarities in both style of construction and geometry. There is no credible theory at the moment which would explain the movement of architectural information between the Egyptians and the Aztecs.

There are three possible explanations for the similarities: 1) People had pyramids somehow hardwired into their brains (there is no scientific evidence to support this notion), 2) Pyramids were first built by an original unified prehistoric human civilization that later dispersed over the world, spreading its architecture with it (there is no scientific evidence to support this notion), or 3) Aliens told people to build pyramids (there is no scientific evidence to support this notion, but there are some rather funky Mayan pictograms that look like people flying rocket ships).

Intermediate

The Mayans developed an inconceivably complicated calendar system. The Mayan calendar, depicted as an elaborate chart of pictograms, covered every significant and predictable astronomical event over a 10,000 year period. The cycle represented the current aeon of existence, and the calendar simply ends on Dec. 21, 2012, at which point the entire universe could simply come to an end.

Around 350 B.C., Plato discovered the Platonic solids, which was no coincidence. The platonic solids numbered five, cubes, tetrahedrons, octohedrons, icosahedrons and dodecahedrons. That's a lot of hedrons! The Platonic solids were associated with the "elements," as they were known to early man, earth, air, fire and water, which later took on spiritual significance.

In the Far East, math structures were also becoming part and parcel of spirituality. Between the first and second millennia B.C., the Chinese developed the I-Ching, a mathematical divination system that involved 64 hexagrams (each constructed from eight trigrams) made of solid and broken lines. The I-Ching was not intended to predict the future, but to offer counsel on the process of change occurring through time.

A few hundred years after that, in southern and southeastern Asia, the mandala was invented somewhere in between Buddhism and Hinduism. The I-Ching and the mandala represented a major step forward in the concept of "Sacred Geometry," because they were efforts to depict abstract concepts such as time, higher dimensions and higher states of consciousness, rather than the simple charting of physical phenomena found in earlier efforts.

Mandalas were used in meditative practice, their structure and optical illusion qualities helping to bring practitioners of yoga into a deep trance states, another new development. The use of diagrams and structures in achieving states of consciousness and other effects would begin to dominate sacred geometry from the first millennium B.C. onward.

This concept became further developed as the kabala was first defined around the time of Christ. A branch of Jewish mysticism, kabala was a metaphysical system for understanding the universe that extended from deep mathematical roots, related to the numerical values of the Hebrew alphabet. The kabala developed into a complex system of correspondences, magic numbers and charts. Medieval occultists used the diagrams and concepts of the kabala to create elaborate magic rituals.

Similar charts would pervade Magic practice, Witchcraft and other metaphysical systems for the next several hundred years, ranging from the pentagrams used by witches and occultists to vevers used in Voudoun to invoke loas.

Advanced

The higher dimensional math underlying the structure of the mandala turned out to be reflective of the higher dimensional math innovated by Albert Einstein and subsequently explored by quantum physicists.

The kabalistic Tree of Life, with its ten "sephiroth" and one hidden sephiroth could be drawn as a correspondence to the 11-dimensional universe postulated in string theory, while other kabalistic treatises on the nature of spirit and body turned out to be pretty direct parables about the relationship between energy and matter laid out in the theory of relativity. Voudoun vevers also reflect those numerical schemes.

Even the simple spiral on the cave wall found itself elevated. Humans had never lost their fascination with the spiral, and mathematicians such as Fermat and Fibonacci postulated various theories in the Middle Ages that extended the influence of the spiral far and wide. Fibonacci developed the theory of the Golden Ratio, a proportion that he claimed was at the heart of all nature and which could be used to build elaborate spirals found in nature.

After an initial run of popularity in what passed for medieval "science" (simply another word for metaphysics), the cosmic importance of the Golden ratio was left in the dust along with notions like the "flat earth," as real science slowly emerged, but it staged an unlikely comeback. The more people learned about the universe, the more spirals they found, in places ancient people couldn't have imagined — the structures of galaxies, the event horizons of black holes, even the molecular components of life.

The new spirals were often organized by a different principle. In the 19th century, mathematicians had begun to dream up theories about irrational numbers, which are numbers and equations which can't be solved to a single simple answer in the manner of 2+2=4. They speculated that these irrational numbers, called fractals, could be charted to reveal massively complex structures, but they lacked a way to create these complicated diagrams.

It wasn't until the 1970s that anyone could see what these fractals looked like. When a mathemetician named Benoit Mandelbrot developed an extensive theory around fractals, he used newfangled computers to graph the complex systems. The results were stunning.

Fractals are graphs that produce amazingly organic shapes of infinite complexity, clearly corresponding to natural processes including how embryos develop, the growth of plants, weather systems, the structure of space and time, and just about everything else too. The study of these complex systems and the relationship between math and life and time soon became a credible school of study, known as chaos theory.

Between chaos theory and the near-magical world of quantum physics, it was beginning to look like the early sacred geometrists were actually on to something. Concepts such as time travel and miraculous transformations akin to alchemy were suddenly very real. Furthermore, the combination of chaos theory and quantum physics offered a nearly plausible explanation for how magic, witchcraft and psychic phenomena could actually work, at least in theory.

Some aggressively speculative thinkers like Terence McKenna have developed elaborate explanations for how the I-Ching works with fractal time and the Mayan calendar, but we're veering away from the consensus reality definition of "science" at this point, so let's get back on topic.

Chaos theory offers tantalizing clues to where all these sacred geometry concepts might have come from in the first place. The brain is clearly a complex system, literally grown from a fractal DNA root, and there is an emerging scientific school of thought that believes the abstract construct we refer to as consciousness is also fractal.

What all this means, simply put, is that our bodies, minds, souls and even our DNA contain the unified blueprint for everything in the universe. If consciousness itself is fractal, with a mathematical base, then it stands to reason that these shapes and structures are literally hardwired into whatever it is that makes people people, whether they surface in dreams, visions or simply as a product of thinking about stuff too much.

Of course, the flipside of this notion is that — in theory — if someone managed to solve the probably very simple equation that underlies all this mathematical complication, they could in theory create a computer model of everything — including your brain and all its dirty little secrets and every lousy thing you ever did or might ever do. And once John Ashcroft gets a copy of that, well, you can kiss your fractal ass goodbye...

None of this answers why the hell an Illuminati pyramid is on the back of the dollar bill, but then that's a whole different kettle of fish.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 07:45 | link | comments (2)

Peace to all who read my posts, as well as to all living beings scattered through the heavens. I love you all. Without you I could never be "me."

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 22:39 | link | comments (3)

Nazca Lines

The Nazca Indians lived in Peru during the first millennium of the Christian Era. The Nazca had a reasonable sophisticated society, with fairly advanced craft skills. They were subsumed after a series of conquests by neighboring tribes, all of whom are now virtually extinct.

The Nazca left no great literature. They built no fabulous palaces. They were not hiding weapons of mass destruction. They didn't memorably slaughter any other culture. In short, there is only one reason that the Nazca have been elevated above the level of historical footnote -- the Nazca Lines, gigantic illustrations etched into the ground which can only be viewed from high in the air.

The Nazca Lines are a form of art called geoglyphs, which scientists tell us means "giant pictures drawn on the ground." From the ground, the Nazca lines basically look like footpaths. The lines were made by scraping away the dark surface dirt to reveal the lighter colored dirt underneath.

For centuries, the lines were seen simply as sacred paths used by the surviving remnants of the Nazca and other Indians in the region. In 1927, a local archaeologist named Mejia Xespe "discovered" the lines for modern audiences. When viewed from the air, he found that the apparent paths didn't really lead anywhere and speculated that they were used for pointless "walking around in circles" ceremonies by the Nazca.

A dozen years later, an American historian named Paul Kosok tried to map out one of the Nazca Line sets and discovered that it kind of looked like a bird. He speculated that the lines functioned as a positional calendar, similar to Stonehenge. But as Kosok and his research assistant Maria Reiche (who took over the project in the '40s) continued to map the lines, they discovered more and more pictures.

To the astonishment of the scientific community, aerial photography documented that the lines were massive pictures drawn across more than 200 square miles. In all, more than 110 pictures and simple geometric structures have been mapped in the region. About 70 of the Nazca diagrams depicted people or animals, including hummingbirds, pelicans and dogs.

There were several reasons why this discovery was astonishing. For one thing, the first millennium C.E. was notoriously short on airplanes, which meant that (in theory) the Nazca could not possibly have viewed the pictures themselves. For another thing, the lines were just scratched into the ground, yet they had endured for several centuries. For another thing, the whole idea was freaky-weird and seemed to demand a freaky-weird explanation.

Worried about the freaky-weird cheering section, scientists rushed to present a rational explanation, which we must admit is probably also the correct explanation. With virtually no historical record to work from, they argued the designs were almost certainly religious in their purpose, for the simple reason that no one would go to so much trouble except for religion.

While the Nazca themselves couldn't see the pictures, their gods would theoretically have a nice vantage point to enjoy the artwork. In principle, there was no reason that a careful planner couldn't chart out instructions for drawing the actual lines. And the lack of water and wind erosion in the Peruvian desert accounted for the lines' longevity.

With all these reasonable arguments nicely articulated, the scientists sat back, clinked their brandy snifters together and fired up some celebratory cigars. Unfortunately, they had failed to account for the powerful human drive to make everything more freaky-weird than it has to be, regardless of whether or not scientists have managed to concoct a sensible explanation.

Starting in the 1950s, the lunatic fringe seized hold of the Nazca lines, and they never let go. UFO enthusiasts began to promulgate a theory that the Nazca Lines were landing strips in a giant runway for aliens who visited the idiot Nazca tribe and helped them build the Nazca Lines, which were so clearly beyond the ability of simple natives to construct. The theory continued to gain popular momentum until it was enshrined in the Lunatic Ideas Hall of Fame by Erich von Daniken in his 1968 epic of pseudoscience, Chariots of the Gods.

The fallacies behind the "alien landing strip" theory are so extensive that it is impossible to enumerate all of them. However, there are a few which stand out from the crowd:

• If primitive 21st century earth humans are already capable of creating vehicles which do not require landing strips, then why would super-advanced interstellar aliens need them?
• If you put all this aside, and grant for the sake of argument that aliens need landing strips, why would the landing strips look like monkeys, spiders and hummingbirds? Landing strips as we know them are straight -- for rather obvious and practical reasons.
• If the Nazca were trying to impress aliens, wouldn't they draw pictures of the aliens? Why would aliens want to look at a gigantic picture of a pelican? Or were the aliens pelican-people?
• If the Nazcas needed alien help to build the landing strips, but the aliens need the landing strips in order to land, how could the aliens have landed in the first place in order to teach the Nazca how to build the landing strips?
• If you're reading a book like Chariots of the Gods, and the book is full of demonstrably fraudulent evidence (such as faked pottery with fake pictures of fake flying saucers), why would you give credence to any of the book's most extreme claims?

It's a simple fact that you don't need aliens -- or technology of any kind -- to draw pictures like the Nazca Lines. All you need is a lot of determination and intelligence. And despite the preconceptions of many modern folks, being primitive is not the same as being stupid.

Assuming, for the moment, the Nazca hadn't invented a simple hot air balloon, there remains an intriguing mystery. Exactly why would the Nazca draw massive pictures that they could never view themselves?

While the answer is still unknown, there are many rows to hoe before resorting to extraterrestrial intervention -- anything from mental imbalance to religious fervor to illustrating an existential point about the meaninglessness of human endeavor.

Or there could simply be no point to the lines at all. If you have to invoke UFOs every time you need to explain seemingly irrational human behavior, you'll end up blaming aliens for everything from Crystal Pepsi to Dan Quayle to Suddenly Susan. You'd think aliens would have better things to do.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 06:00 | link | comments (2)

'Regional' Nuclear War Would Cause Worldwide Destruction

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 07:48 | link | comments

Explanation: Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Of course, this cosmic elephant's trunk is over 20 light-years long. The false-color view was recorded through narrow band filters that transmit the light from hydrogen (in green), sulfur (in red), and oxygen (in blue) atoms in the region. The resulting composite highlights the bright swept-back ridges that outline pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas. Such embedded, dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within the obscuring cosmic dust. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a large region on the sky, spanning about 5 degrees. This dramatic close-up covers a 1/2 degree wide field, about the size of the Full Moon.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 10:24 | link | comments

Chess

When a nagging child is overheard arguing his case for mom or dad to buy him a new video game, one particularly desperate talking point comes up again and again: this will totally improve my hand-eye coordination. If you're a parent who feels like enrolling your gifted child into some kind of chess club because it seems like a rewarding alternative to video games, consider the observations of Reuben Fine, psychoanalyst and author of The Psychology of the Chess Player originally published in 1956:

"The profuse phallic symbolism of chess provides some fantasy gratification of the homosexual wish, particularly the desire for mutual masturbation."

Chess is a hopelessly trivial human enterprise, which can't help your child think "several moves in advance" about difficult scenarios in the real world. It certainly won't get him off the Internet long enough to get laid. Playing chess for hours at a time only helps you play better chess for hours at a time -- and that's all it will ever do. Most people genuinely believe that chess is a perfect, flawless game incapable of creating controversy -- a hobbyist pursuit so ultimately pure and clean that no evil thoughts could ever rise from the board. In truth, most of us are in it for the money.

On busy urban avenues like Market Street in San Francisco, gentlemen (and the occasional lady) engage themselves in a form of betting chess known as slash and trash. A group of these individuals runs the full gamut from Soviet-bloc and Asian immigrants to fresh-faced college students, homeless people and manic depressives. The betting chess environment is very much a pay to play operation: anywhere from one to five dollars buys you a seat at the table.

If you fancy yourself a slash player, you'll need the right tools. For God sakes, throw your plastic Simpsons chess set with multicolored Bart pawns in the trash. Nobody likes to push weirdly-weighted ivory carvings around a miniature marblized re-telling of Alien vs. Predator. Even shiny wooden fold-out boards and elegant pieces sculpted from oak or walnut feel a little absurd. When pieces roll off the table and fall three feet to the concrete sidewalk, you don't want to start crying when your horsey's head snaps off. You will forever be referred to as a fish, an unpleasant nickname for a prison pussy punk who has no idea what he's gotten himself into.

Instead, consider your environment: you're typically outdoors in windy weather or inside a smoky coffee shop in the University district. You want a set of chess pieces which can be endlessly gang banged around like a woman -- grabbed by the hair and slammed down real hard on a particular square. Like semi-decent sex, traditional blitz games need last no longer than two minutes. The slamming rhythm is very important to the street hustlers known as sharks. The more aggressively a shark can bang a piece down on a square, the more directly he's insinuating that the game already belongs to him. The opposite technique can be equally effective: pawn pushers delight in using their forefingers to nudge a piece slllllowly about the board -- in excruciatingly small, pixel-sized increments. Both the shark and the pawn pusher are engaged in a school of chess strategy which delights in playing the man, not the board.

Get a standard, regulation chess mat in one of the two classic Apple monochrome monitor color schemes: green or amber. This soft, rubbery rectangle has lowercase letters spanning from a to h along one edge, and numbers running from 1 to 8 across the ranks. It's best kept rolled in a tightly-bound tube which sticks up out of your backpack so everyone on the bus can see it -- or awkwardly folded with haphazard crinkles and creases so it bends and peaks all over the place during game play. Your chess mat should also be dirty -- filthy dirty in fact, totally banged up, and visibly battle-scarred. Slash players take a special pride in extinguishing their cigarettes directly on the square you were just checkmated, so after a few games your chess mat becomes a living, breathing document of your many failures.

You will also need a two-dial chess clock. Yes, it will cost you about sixty dollars -- but this instrument is mandatory, as it limits a game a predetermined amount of time and prevents your opponent from dawdling. You don't want a game to last forever.

Perhaps nobody's been more scammified by chess -- mentally or physically -- than former World Champion Bobby Fischer, arguably the most brilliant player in history. Here's a guy who started in 1949, as a six-year-old hanging out at the Brooklyn Chess Club. As a child, he appeared so completely "into" the game that his mom eventually hauled him off to the Children's Psychiatric Division of the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital. The doctor told mom to chillax. Leave him alone, let the boy play already. At age 14, he became Champion of the United States.

Bobby would grow increasingly paranoid over the years, fearful of untrustworthy adults and other individuals who might trick him into giving away his secrets. At the height of the Cold War, Henry Kissinger personally pleaded with Fischer to try defeating the Soviets in chess during a season of high-stakes tournament games more politically charged than the Olympics. His opponent, Boris Spassky, grew visibly annoyed when Fischer objected to nearly every aspect of the gaming environment. The thermostat in the auditorium, Fischer claimed, was deliberately cold in an attempt to hinder his performance. The lights were too bright, the cameras too loud and way too close. The size of the audience was intended to throw him off game. The amount of the prize money wasn't nearly worth his trouble. The color of the chess board was off-putting. The KGB is spraying poison on my chair, onto my food, etcetera. Despite these tactics -- or perhaps because of them -- Fischer later emerged from that tournament victorious.

Fischer ultimately become famous for other things, including a blue streak of outspoken anti-Semitism which likely cost him more than a few worldwide fans and allies. "There are too many Jews in chess", Fischer would say in 1962. "They seem to have taken away the class from the game. They don't seem to dress so nicely, you know. That's what I don't like". In 1972, he remarked that America was totally under the control of the Jews.

On September 11, 2001, Fischer praised the terrorist attacks in New York as "wonderful", and hoped it would encourage America to imprison the Jews. Then he called for their execution by the hundreds of thousands. When Fischer tried to leave Japan with an invalid U.S. passport, he landed himself in a Japanese prison for nine months.

If only we could have a civilized, family-friendly discussion about chess without having to bring up allegations of child molestation. On February 7, 2006, 51-year-old Senior Master Robert M. Snyder was ordered to stand trial on charges he molested three of his prized male pupils, each under the age of 15. One of the boys alleged that after attending a weekend chess camp in June of 2005, he'd slept in Snyder's bedroom without pajama bottoms. Another boy claimed that Snyder "touched him inappropriately", according to the Rocky Mountain News -- and "tickled him before they went out to lunch". Two of the boys insinuated that Snyder performed oral sex on them, while a third suggested that Snyder put his hands down his pants.

Snyder, the founder of Chess for Juniors, has taken his students to every National Junior High School Championship since 1986, and every National Elementary School Championship since 1989. He received the 1998 National Chess Educator of the Year Award at the All America Cup National Scholastic Championships.

He's also the chess mentor of actor/rapper Will Smith, who started taking lessons in March 1998 while filming Enemy of the State. Actor Nicolas Cage, who believes chess is a good activity for kids, enrolled his son Weston in Snyder's class in 1999. Snyder was acquitted of similar child molestation charges more than twenty years ago in California. Possibly he opened with the Sicilian Nambla gambit, who knows.

Chess scams are everywhere -- even on the Internet, thanks to the hundreds of spammers headquartered safely in Nigeria. Fraudulent emails are frequently pitched from the "Nigerian Chess Trainers Committee" directly to individuals on bulk email lists who have demonstrated an interest in the game at least once. Haven't you heard? Nigeria is actively recruiting chess teachers:

"The welfare of the chess trainers would be catered for by NCTC and their flight tickets to Nigeria would be arranged by the Nigerian Embassy. The trainers would be lodged in Sheraton hotels Lagos for their two week stay and would each be paid $8000. After this two weeks, any trainer who decides he wants to stay would still be catered for by NCTC. He or she would be moved to his or her own apartment, paid $12000 monthly and given citizenship."

Interested? Great. They need $980.00 to file your paperwork. There's no such thing as the NCTC, but the World Chess Federation (WCF) and the Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) are the same thing: a singular, authoritative entity governing the premiere list of the world's top-rated professional competitors and ranked master players.

Even the official point-assignment method which ranks and rates professional players competing in tournaments has always felt like kind of scam, because it's essentially a mathematical averaging system based on paired comparisons. One person alone cannot ever say how strong he is, unless he's played many different people -- all of whom, ostensibly, have competed against an adequate sampling of other players -- and so on, and so forth. The system which most closely approaches universal approval was developed in 1959 by Arpad Emre Elo, a physics professor at the University of Chicago.

In an article for the 1962 issue of Chess Life, professor Elo came up with analogy meant to describe why measuring the "strength" of a chess player is so tedious and arbitrary. "Often people who are not familiar with the nature and limitations of statistical methods tend to expect too much of the rating system. Ratings provide merely a comparison of performances, no more and no less. The measurement of the performance of an individual is always made relative to the performance of his competitors -- and both the performance of the player and of his opponents are subject to much the same random fluctuations. The measurement of the rating of an individual might well be compared with the measurement of the position of a cork bobbing up and down on the surface of agitated water with a yard stick tied to a rope and which is swaying in the wind."

Nevertheless, players whose averages hover around 2200 can be considered Candidate Masters. With an average between 2400 and 2499, you can be an International Master. 2500 and above will earn you the status of International Grandmaster -- the second-highest title awarded to competitive chess players, and a title which you get to keep for life. The only thing higher than an International Grandmaster is of course a World Champion.

Every so often, Hollywood happily shits out another movie featuring chess as one of its lesser themes. Chess boards are commonly invoked when hacky scriptwriters can't architect more visually appealing metaphors for two opposing forces of good and evil led by individuals with colliding intellects. Snippets of dialog between characters engaged in a "battle of wills" are often as trite as they are terse, with characters delivering stinging quips followed by the word "check". Examples include Independence Day, Se7en, CopyCat, Hackers, Mr. Holland's Opus, Phenomenon, The Interpreter, Dawn of the Dead, Pearl Harbor, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Seventh Seal, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and the scatterbrained last season of Twin Peaks, to name but a few. Other times, a more intimate cinematic portrait will focus on the journey of an Emotionally Sensitive Young Person as he or she begins to demonstrate an Extraordinary Level of Skill with the game -- leading inevitably to a study of whatever Dramatic Narrative Consequences accompany such a gift. Searching for Bobby Fischer and Little Man Tate are two such examples.

If that sounds like exactly the kind of nonsense you've learned to avoid at the movies, consider renting instead the brilliant Fresh starring Sean Nelson, directed by Boaz Yakin in 1994. It's a violent, exciting ghetto thriller which slowly and quietly unfolds into a plot of astounding complexity -- and the only "chess film" ever made which follows a child drug dealer and his prostitute sister on their rounds through the hood. Rated 'R' for Intense Realistic Depiction of Urban Violence, Drug Content, Pervasive Language and Sexuality.

Or, instead of wasting your whole life caring about chess, consider saving the game as a hobby for when you're old and feeble. In the old folks home, daily chess games with Grandpa Simpson will help keep what's left of your mental condition in tip-top shape as you age, reducing the risk of brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinsons. The mental decline which goes along with old age can be traced to "altered connections" between brain cells, according to Elizabeth Edgerly, a brain expert at the Alzheimer's Association. Chess is only one option for senior citizens -- experts are now saying that activities which involve a significant mental challenge are better for the brain than those which are routine. Memorizing a complicated set of dance steps, for instance, instead of just zoning out your stationary bike.

Successful agers are typically mentally active people. Playing chess accomplishes a number of tasks vital to restoring pathways in the brain. During game play, monitoring the direction and placement of 32 individual pieces on a checkerboard grid sharpens short-term memory. Developing strategies for capturing your opponent's pieces -- however half-assed -- strengthens long-term memory. The act of putting yourself in your opponents' position to consider how he might react to your strategies is also key. Role reversal serves to reinforce important realities about boundaries. It may sound like mutual masturbation, but the concept of where self begins and others end is an important skill which erodes during the onset of Alzheimer's. It's also a characteristic which continues to elude increasingly obsessive human players as they grow old and die without much to show for themselves.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 08:39 | link | comments (4)

Physical organic chemistry is the study of the interrelationships between structure and reactivity in organic molecules. It can be seen as the study of organic chemistry using tools of physical chemistry such as chemical equilibrium, chemical kinetics, thermochemistry, and quantum chemistry. The term "physical organic chemistry" is commonly attributed to Louis Hammett, who used it as a title for a book in 1940^.

The two main themes in physical organic chemistry are structure and reactivity. The study of structure starts from chemical bonding, with special emphasis on the stability of organic molecules due to factors such as steric strain and aromaticity. Other topics in structure include stereochemistry and conformational analysis. Supramolecular structure is also considered in terms of intermolecular forces including hydrogen bonding. Finally, the acid-base chemistry of the molecules is studied in terms of structure, based on resonance and inductive effects and through the use of linear free-energy relations.

The study of reactivity focuses on the mechanisms of organic reactions. It uses chemical kinetics, spectroscopy, isotope effects, and quantum chemistry to determine the sequence of elementary steps involved in a reaction. These elementary steps can be classified in a few major classes: addition, elimination, substitution, and pericyclic reactions. The mechanisms are commonly expressed in terms of "electron pushing" and potential energy surfaces. Other major topics are photochemistry, the effect of light on the reactivity of organic molecules, and solvent effects on organic reactions.

Structure and reactivity are both involved in the study of reaction intermediates—the transient species involved in reaction mechanisms. The main types of intermediates of interest are carbocations, carbanions, free radicals, and carbenes. Usually, these intermediates are not isolated, but their presence is inferred from stereochemical evidence, spectroscopy, or through the use of chemical traps. In some cases, however, it is possible to isolate these types of molecules at very low temperatures (cryochemistry) or via matrix isolation. It is also possible to create specific derivatives that are stabilized through chemical means such as resonance, as in the case of the triphenylmethyl radical.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 10:41 | link | comments (2)

Prepare for the Worst, Because Solar Storms Are About to Get Ugly

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 08:33 | link | comments (1)

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 10:35 | link | comments (1)

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 20:26 | link | comments