Clipmarks | arifsali's Pops

Child Dying of Cancer Leaves Notes Behind

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:27:57 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Brooke and Keith Desserich of Cincinnati, Ohio, were told their daughter Elena had 135 days to live. She beat her diagnosis by 121 days.

But during that time, as she fought the cruelest form of pediatric brain cancer, 5-year-old Elena left a powerful legacy.

She began to hide little notes -- hidden in book shelves, CD cases, sock drawers -- for her family to find after she was gone.

"The first time I found a note caught between books, I thought nothing of it," said Keith Desserich, 34, and an entrepreneur. "But then I started to find 20 to 30 notes, and wondered if there was something more to it. One -- 'I love you Mom and Dad' -- was packed in a bag of clothes put away for the winter."

Soon, the family got calls from her grandparents, saying they, too, had colorful hand drawings from Elena. One aunt even found a note written to her chihuahua, which little Elena loved.

Tags: child, cancer, family, love

Newborn Babies Cry in Native Tongue

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:03:45 GMT

clipped by: xpersianx

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

From their very first days, the cries of newborns already bear the mark of the language their parents speak, scientists now find.

French newborns tend to cry with rising melody patterns, slowly increasing in pitch from the beginning to the end, whereas German newborns seem to prefer falling melody patterns, findings that are both consistent with differences between the languages.

This suggests infants begin picking up elements of language in the womb, long before their first babble or coo.

Prenatal exposure

Prenatal exposure to language was known to influence newborns. For instance, past research showed they preferred their mother's voice over those of others.

Still, researchers thought infants did not imitate sounds until much later on. Although three-month-old babies can match vowel sounds that adults make

Imitating Mom

Newborns are probably highly motivated to imitate their mother's behavior in order to attract

her and hence to foster bonding," Wermke said

The researchers conjecture that

Bea Arthur leaves $300K to gay youth

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:31:55 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

The actress, who died in April, included a $300,000 donation to New York's Ali Forney Center, an organization supporting homeless LGBT youth, in her will, leaving center Executive Director Carl Siciliano overwhelmed by her kindness.

He had been struggling to keep the doors of the shelter open. The organization assists more than 1,000 people each year, providing shelter for those who had to leave home "for being who they are," Siciliano said.

"The last year and a half, since the economic crisis started, it's been really hard to keep this program going," Siciliano said. "A lot of the foundation and corporate money that we used to get has dried up, and we've been growing. Every day, we have about 125 kids a night waiting to get into our housing."

But on Tuesday morning, a FedEx carrier delivered a $300,000 check.

Siciliano said he immediately started to cry. Arthur's donation couldn't have come at a better time.

Tags: gay, youth

Albatross chicks ..look what they ate!!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:07:25 GMT

clipped by: kareval
clipper's remarks: This is shocking. What in the world have we done to this planet? It's a disgrace.

Clip Source: www.chrisjordan.com

Midway

Message from the Gyre

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

~cj, October 2009

Want to see Northern Lights?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:36:24 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: quite an interesting place to stay...

Clip Source: www.travelphant.com

Where is the coolest place to stay and see the Northern Lights? Our vote goes to Hotel Igloo Village Kakslauttanen in Finland. The Northern Lights can be seen anywhere above 60 degrees north latitude but this place is special and these pictures show...

Hotel Igloo Village Kakslauttanen, Finland

Imagine yourself sleeping in an Igloo made of Snow. It is totally quiet. Lights inside ice illuminate the Igloo. These make the atmosphere so exciting that never get bored of marvelling it, until you fall to deep, comfortable sleep in your warm down sleeping bag.

Kakslauttanen is a cool place for seeing the Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis, as in the area there are not so many electric lights outside and it is north enough so that the probability of them is very high from late August to late April.

Beginning of Time Discovered

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:59:30 GMT

clipped by: chestnut501
clipper's remarks: Zooming in on the Universe's First Starlight: "Everything Else Came After This"

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Scientists have seen the first starlight ever recorded,

the first star to send light which reached Earth. This light is the earliest, the furthest away, the most red-shifted, and every other factor that could possibly say "Everything else ever came after this."

The bright light is also poignant as it results from a Gamma Ray Burst, GRB 090423, meaning that this first light comes from the death of a star imploding into a neutron star or even an early black hole. The light exhibited a record breaking redshift of 8.2

The event occurred when the universe was only half a billion years old and the light has literally spent all of time to get here.

The starburst was so early it was used to confirm that this kind of thing even happened back then. The signal outshone galaxies, and is now our earliest evidence of anything that happened back then.

Tags: astronomy, physics, time, space, big-bang-theory, first-light

The life of Albert Einstein -

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:40:42 GMT

clipped by: murieleileen
clipper's remarks: He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass-energy equivalence, E = mc2. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

The life of Albert Einstein - part 1

[Video]

Einstein's many contributions to physics include his special theory of relativity, which reconciled mechanics with electromagnetism, and his general theory of relativity, which extended the principle of relativity to non-uniform motion, creating a new theory of gravitation. His other contributions include relativistic cosmology, capillary action, critical opalescence, classical problems of statistical mechanics and their application to quantum theory, an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules, atomic transition probabilities, the quantum theory of a monatomic gas, thermal properties of light with low radiation density (which laid the foundation for the photon theory), a theory of radiation including stimulated emission, the conception of a unified field theory, and the geometrization of physics.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

The life of Albert Einstein - part 2

[Video]

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

The life of Albert Einstein - part 3

[Video]

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

The life of Albert Einstein - part 4

[Video]

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

The life of Albert Einstein - part 5

[Video]

Tags: albert einstein . physics

rings:)

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:14:29 GMT

clipped by: Vizipok

Clip Source: strange.blog.hu

Mediocrity

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:03:25 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: quote.robertgenn.com

Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from. (Jodie Foster)

There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite. (Paul Gauguin)

"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters. (Ayn Rand)

Certainly that sputterless little candleflame of the mediocre mind known as 'common sense' has never produced anything worth celebrating. (Tom Robbins)

Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding. (Francois de La Rochefoucauld)

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike. (Margot Fonteyn)

Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre. (Albert Camus)

Tags: mediocrity

17 Biggest Buddhas on Earth

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:37:20 GMT

clipped by: clip-on-tie

Clip Source: www.environmentalgraffiti.com

Image: David Schroeter

Bigger, better, heavier – that seems to be the motto of Asia’s amazing Buddha statues. Our list features actual statues as well as destroyed and planned ones but all have to be taller than 50 m (165 ft). Where does that leave the most famous and sadly destroyed ones, the Buddhas of Bamyan? At 180 ft, they are some of the shortest! Read on to discover which one tops the list. A hint: it’s a good 500 ft!

Have you ever wondered why some Buddhas are depicted standing, some seated and some even lying down? And why they all pose their hands in unique gestures? Not to forget the sheer number of gigantic statues. Well, according to tradition, Buddha images must be high enough so that their feet are above people’s eye level to avoid any accidental soiling.

Clip Source: www.copytaste.com

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Tags: tallest buddha, tokyo wan kannon, ushiku daibutsu, uttar pradesh

Oldest Preserved Spider Web Dates Back to Dinosaurs

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:26:17 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: The new discovery is the first example of an amber fossil from the early Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs like spinosaurs and psittocosaurs roamed the Earth.

Clip Source: www.wired.com

The world’s oldest known spider web has been discovered on a beach in Sussex, England, trapped inside an ancient chunk of amber.

Scientists found the rare amber fossil in December, and have now confirmed that it contains remnants of spider silk spun roughly 140 million years ago by an ancestor of modern orb-weaving spiders. After slicing the amber into thin sections and examining each piece under a high-powered microscope, the researchers discovered that the ancient silk threads share several features common to modern spider webs, including droplets of sticky glue used to hold the web together and capture prey.

Tags: amber, cretaceous, spider, web, dinosaurs

Shot of the day : Space

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:48:43 GMT

clipped by: xpersianx

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Great nature pictures

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:44:36 GMT

clipped by: shaor

Clip Source: pixdaus.com

hippo smile

camecuaro Lake in Michoacan, Mexico.

Anna Kostenko: Red Time

Milenina Olenka: The Last Marigold

September by ShootOf

Bushkill Falls, NY, by Robert Cannon

Crimson hand-picked troops by Michaela M

Moss Stones by Dirk Eidner

... 9926

Never Before Seen Historic Photos

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:04:51 GMT

clipped by: sahara

Clip Source: acidcow.com

This is how an American soldier is made

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:04:11 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: blogs.denverpost.com

For 27 months, Ian Fisher, his parents and friends, and the U.S. Army allowed Denver Post reporters and a photographer to watch and chronicle his recruitment, induction, training, deployment, and, finally, his return from combat. A selection of photos from Ian’s journey are posted below.

The story was written by Kevin Simpson with Michael Riley, Bruce Finley and Craig F. Walker. It was reported by Riley in Colorado and at Fort Benning, Ga., Finley at Fort Carson and in Iraq, and photographer Craig F. Walker throughout.

The multimedia project, including all the photos, video and special features, can be viewed at www.denverpost.com/americansoldier.