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Baby with two faces worshipped as Hindu god

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:36:19 GMT

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clipper's remarks: This is freaky

A baby girl born with two faces in a north Indian village is being worshipped as the reincarnation of the Hindu god, Lord Ganesha.

The three-week-old unnamed baby from Saini village in Uttar Pradesh state, 30 miles north-east of the capital New Delhi, is being hailed as a "miracle" child.

Hundreds of locals are flocking to seek her "blessing" and, in keeping with Indian traditional, showering her parents with money.

"At first I was a little afraid," Vinod Kumar Singh, the 24-year-old father said of his first child born last month. "But then I accepted whatever God gives."

To the largely illiterate villagers from the agricultural community the little girl is a reincarnation of Lord Ganesh, the half person and half elephant, and one of the most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon.

He is a highly benevolent god revered as the remover of obstacles and creating new beginnings.

"It's a gift from God. Some people say she is like a goddess," schoolmaster Harsharan Singh gushed.

Tags: babies, hindu, god, bizarre, odd

Bill Foster

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:24:27 GMT

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Clip Source: www.nature.com

At the age of 19, Bill Foster started a theatrical lighting company that now provides equipment for rock concerts and Super Bowl shows. A PhD at Harvard led him to Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, where he built electronics for a quark detector. In an election win last month, he entered Congress as a Democratic representative for Illinois. Eric Hand caught up with him.

Tags: science, politics

Matter-Antimatter Split Hints at Physics Breakdown

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:22:50 GMT

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Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Nature may have handed scientists a new clue in a longstanding mystery: how matter beat out antimatter for dominance of the universe. Early data from twin experiments at the Tevatron, the world's reigning particle accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill., suggest an unexpected chink in the hugely successful standard model of particle physics.

MATTER AND ANTIMATTER annihilate each other on contact. Experiments hint at a subtle difference between them that may explain why antimatter is so rare.

The twist comes from odd behavior in a particle called the B_S, which flips back and forth between its matter and antimatter forms three trillions times per second. Researchers believe that such a breakdown, known as CP violation, is required to explain why matter is so abundant.

Tags: science, physics

Aztec Math Used Hearts and Arrows

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:21:36 GMT

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Clip Source: www.sciam.com

The Aztecs had more numbers than we do, or at least symbols denoting numerical concepts. When it came to measuring land—critical for levying the proper tax or tribute—these medieval Mesoamericans used arrows, hearts, hands and other units representing fractions, according to a new study in Science.

To figure this out, mathematician Maria del Carmen Jorge y Jorge of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (U.N.A.M) channeled the mind of an Aztec land surveyor. That meant retraining herself to use a different numerical system and combing through the Codex Vergara, one of two remaining books that record Aztec land surveying.

Tags: math, symbols, aztec