Clipmarks | arifsali's clips

Landed on top!

Sat, 17 May 2008 03:20:17 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: These are just machines!

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

A light aircraft lands on top of another plane near Dallas, Texas.

Tags: plane

'Giant microscope' that peers into the heart of a structure

Sat, 17 May 2008 01:19:43 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Isis is helping scientists understand everything from oil pipe blockages to the lungs of newborns

In a field in Oxfordshire is a colossal steel and concrete bunker that scientists call the monolith. At the centre of this 6,000-tonne shell is a lump of metal the size of a packet of biscuits that produces 20,000 million million neutrons per second.

The monolith is the heart of one of the most extraordinary machines ever built. The beams of neutrons it produces allow scientists to penetrate deep inside objects to understand the most intimate molecular details of their internal structure.

"Essentially Isis is a giant microscope. It enables us to see where atoms are and what they are doing. If you know where the atoms are and how they are joined together, we can essentially understand the material."

Tags: machine, science, microscope

The Untold Story of Corruption in Iraq

Sat, 17 May 2008 01:13:07 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.chicagopublicradio.org

The Bush Administration says its makes strong efforts to fight corruption in Iraq — but according to my next guest — they’re making a strong effort to cover up corruption in Iraq.

Arthur Brennan is a retired Superior Court Judge from New Hampshire. He has experience helping Cambodia establish its court system. Judge Brennan is also a veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division and served in the Reserves for 20 years.

Justice Brennan testified at a Senate hearing this week and said the work of these organizations was ignored and demeaned by the State Department, the Justice Department and the Iraqi government.

Justice Brennan only spent a few weeks in Iraq before his wife was diagnosed with cancer and he had to resign — but what he saw amazed him.

In his Senate testimony, Judge Brennan testified that the State Department had “negligently, recklessly and sometimes intentionally misled Congress, the American people and the people of Iraq.”

Tags: iraq, corruption, united states

Soldier Refuses Tour, Citing "Stomach-Churning Horrors"

Fri, 16 May 2008 23:47:54 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.ipsnews.net

A U.S. Army soldier who served as a military journalist in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Philippines announced Thursday his intent to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq.

"As an Army journalist whose job it was to collect and filter service members' stories, I heard many stomach-churning testimonies of the horrors of the crimes taking place in Iraq," said Sergeant Matthis Chiroux, 24, in an announcement under the rotunda of the House of Representative's Cannon Office Building.

"For fear of retaliation from the military, I failed to report these crimes, but never again will I allow fear to silence me. Never again will I fail to stand," he said.

Chirioux said he's aware he will likely face prosecution for refusing the deployment, but said, "I choose to remain in the United States to defend myself from charges brought by the Army if they are willing to pursue them. I refuse to participate in the occupation of Iraq."

Tags: iraq, soldiers

US agrees to help Saudi Arabia develop civilian nuclear program

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:57:26 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Ah, the word "civilian"!

Clip Source: www.jpost.com

President George W. Bush and King Abdullah formalized new cooperation on Friday between the kingdom and the United States on a range of topics, including the development of civilian nuclear energy in Saudi Arabia and US protection of Saudi oil fields.

The White House says the president's visit is intended, in part, to celebrate 75 years of formal US-Saudi relations. But the rising price of oil commanded attention.

Tags: united states, saudi arabia, nuclear, politics

On tap in space: Urine

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:42:09 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

Astronauts living on the International Space Station soon will take recycling to new extremes: They'll get some of their drinking water from the toilet.

NASA has spent decades perfecting a system to transform urine into water that can be used in space for drinking, food preparation and washing. Agency officials say the water from the system will be cleaner than U.S. tap water.

The new $250 million machine was being unpacked Wednesday at the space shuttle's Florida launch site. Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to take it to the station this fall. If all goes well, the so-called toilet-to-tap system will be fully operational in six months.

Russia developed a similar system in the 1980s but it never flew in space because of concerns over crew squeamishness, says former station astronaut Leroy Chiao, now a space consultant. He says station crews expect hardships and aren't likely to object.

Tags: space, astronomy, recycle

Giant Pythons Invade Florida

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:24:56 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Giant pythons capable of swallowing a dog and even an alligator are rapidly making south Florida their home, potentially threatening other southeastern states, a study said.

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

"Pythons are likely to colonize anywhere alligators live, including north Florida, Georgia and Louisiana," said Frank Mazzotti, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences professor, in his two-year study.

The pythons thriving in Florida are mostly Burmese pythons from Myanmar that were brought over as pets and then turned loose in the wild.

From 2002-2005, 201 of the beasts were caught by state authorities, but in the last two years the number has more than doubled to 418

The largest python caught so far in Florida measured 16.4 feet and weighed 154 pounds.

Highly adaptable, pythons prey on cats, dogs, hares, foxes, squirrels, raccoons and even alligators

Tags: florida, python

Scientists identified earthquake faults in Sichuan, China

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:08:21 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.eurekalert.org

Only last summer research published by earth scientists in the international journal Tectonics concluded that geological faults in the Sichuan Basin, China “are sufficiently long to sustain a strong ground-shaking earthquake, making them potentially serious sources of regional seismic hazard."

An international team of scientists

from research institutes in Chengdu, carefully mapped and analysed a series of geologically young faults that cross Sichuan Province like recently healed scars.

The team mapped the densely populated Sichuan Basin and adjacent mountains using what is known as ‘tectonic geomorphology’. This technique can demonstrate significant changes in ground movement over time, such as observations of offset river channels, disrupted floodplains, abnormally shaped valleys and uplifted landscape features.

Tags: china, earthquake, science

Definition of premature ejaculation by International Society for Sexual Medicine

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:06:31 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.eurekalert.org

Despite the fact that it has long been a major concern for men, an evidence-based definition for premature ejaculation has not existed until now. In October 2007, the International Society for Sexual Medicine (ISSM) gathered the world’s leading sexual health experts to develop an evidence-based definition of premature ejaculation. Experts presented the definition to reporters in a special press conference on May 19th

at the 103rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association

The ISSM has defined premature ejaculation as “a male sexual dysfunction characterized by ejaculation which always or nearly always occurs prior to or within about one minute of vaginal penetration; and, inability to delay ejaculation on all or nearly all vaginal penetrations;

“For something that has such a profound effect on men young and old, there needs to be a definitive measure to diagnose premature ejaculation,”

said Ira D. Sharlip, M.D.,

Tags: health, sex, male

The Neurological Roots of Sexual Pleasure

Fri, 16 May 2008 20:19:40 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: This is long, looks interesting.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Achieving sexual climax requires a complex conspiracy of sensory and psychological signals—and the eventual silencing of critical brain areas

Principles of Pleasure

Sexual desire and orgasm are subject to various influences on the brain and nervous system, which controls the sex glands and genitals.

The ingredients of desire may differ for men and women, but researchers have revealed some surprising similarities. For example, visual stimuli spur sexual stirrings in women, as they do in men.

Achieving orgasm, brain imaging studies show, involves more than heightened arousal. It requires a release of inhibitions engineered by shutdown of the brain’s center of vigilance in both sexes and a widespread neural power failure in females.

Tags: science, sex

Recordings of world leaders in historic policy meetings

Fri, 16 May 2008 20:08:24 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.princeton.edu

Off-the-record remarks by heads of state and prominent diplomats can be heard in sound recordings of meetings held by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that are now available to researchers online through the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library. The digital audio from the meetings can be accessed via an electronic finding aid on the library's website.

The meetings span 1953 to 1989, and open records are available immediately. Records of the CFR are closed for 25 years from the date of creation, and audio files that currently are restricted will be opened on a yearly basis.

Given the off-the-record nature of the meetings, these recordings present insights into the opinions and ideas of these influential leaders.

Tags: history, audio, politics, library

Most Popular Wallpapers ...

Fri, 16 May 2008 05:27:47 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: at VladStudio.com

Not bad, I'd bookmark them.

Clip Source: www.vladstudio.com

Tags: wallpaper, desktop