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Questions for Clipdaddies

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:16:54 GMT

clipped by: mona
clipper's remarks: as suggested/requested by arifsali, here's a new thread for comments/questions on Clipmarks 3.0

Clip Source: clipmarks.com

arifsali

I would like people to retire this clip for further comments, common, give it a break, 160 plus comments Create a new one called Questions for Clipdaddys

GIANT Crystals!

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:55:02 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: Uh, yeah, I know, it's a stupid title and I normally have something more cerebral to say, but this is just plain cool.

I wonder what could possibly explain my fascination with these crystals?

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Giant Crystal Cave Comes to Light

In the new issue of the journal Geology, García-Ruiz reports that for millennia the crystals thrived in the cave's extremely rare and stable natural environment. Temperatures hovered consistently around a steamy 136 degrees Fahrenheit (58 degrees Celsius), and the cave was filled with mineral-rich water that drove the crystals' growth.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Tags: giant, crystals, big, huge, enormous, phalus?

Jodie Comes Out

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:03:37 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Guess what conservative America? There are so many gays and lesbians in your own families. In fact, I doubt there's on American family today that doesn't count at least one gay or lesbian member somewhere in its ranks. Count them--and then love them. Isn't it totally un-Christ-like to turn against your own son or daughter, or brother or sister, just because he or she happens to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual? What difference does it make? He may be gay, but he's still your son. She may be a lesbian, but she's still your daughter. Sure, evangelical ministers and conservative politicians will continue to denounce homosexuality from the pulpit and urge parishioners to join them in denying equal rights to gays and lesbians. And some poor misguided souls will blindly agree. But their hate speech will eventually fail, as people realize those attacks are directed against the people they love the most, their family members.

Clip Source: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

After guarding her private life fiercely for 15 years, Hollywood actress Jodie Foster has publicly acknowledged her lesbian partner.

The Oscar-winning actress thanked "my beautiful Cydney" after winning an award at the Women in Entertainment Power 100 breakfast in Los Angeles.

She went on to praise Cydney Bernard, saying the film producer "sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss".

The 44-year-old maintained her silence when, earlier this year, gay American magazine Out put a picture of her on its cover above the words “The glass closet – why the stars won’t come out and play.” Inside, it was argued “the stars aren’t willing to make the jump to being officially labelled queer and all that it represents in the business.”

“Whether or not Jodie comes out is definitely her own decision, but she would provide an excellent positive role model to GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] people everywhere. I think that is why we get excited when someone comes out,” posted another.

Tags: you, go, girl

We need our ClipCast widgets at Wordpress, Matt

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:58:35 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: omega.wordpress.com

As many of you know, on Wednesday, the 12th of December, Clipmarks opened a new phase on information management / sharing with its 3.0 version. There are lots of new things, not just about the look and feel of the site but also the functionality and usage of the clipping tools. Without doubt, the most remarkable of them is the brand new ClipCast. This new feature allows clippers to add almost anything they want at Clipmarks site, to their blogs

It would be great if we could add it to our Wordpress hosted blogs too but as you all know, WP does not allow custom codes on hosted blogs (very reasonable security policy.)

So, if we manage to make our voices heard loudly enough, I’m sure Matt Mullenweg and his colleagues would gladly help us on this, by adding ClipCast to Wordpress widgets gallery for our convenience

“Matt, would you please add a ClipCast widget to Wordpress widgets gallery? We clipper bloggers will appreciate it very much. Thanks in advance.”

Tags: clipmarks, wordpress, blogs, widgets

Thinking Hard Protects Brain in Later Life

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:57:55 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The brain, like every other part of the body, changes with age, and those changes can impede clear thinking and memory. Yet many older people seem to remain sharp as a tack well into their 80s and beyond. Although their pace may have slowed, they continue to work, travel, attend plays and concerts, play cards and board games, study foreign languages, design buildings, work with computers, write books, do puzzles, knit or perform other mentally challenging tasks that can befuddle people much younger.

But when these sharp old folks die, autopsy studies often reveal extensive brain abnormalities like those in patients with Alzheimer’s.

Cognitive reserve, in this theory, refers to the brain’s ability to develop and maintain extra neurons and connections between them via axons and dendrites. Later in life, these connections may help compensate for the rise in dementia-related brain pathology that accompanies normal aging.

Tags: cognitive reserve, ageing

Allegory of the Continents - Great illustrations

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:13:30 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: 16th century illustrations, depicting "the characteristics" of the continents. Awesome scans again, from BibliOdyssey.

Clip Source: bibliodyssey.blogspot.com

Tags: illustrations, art, culture, rare books, scans

Scientists discover the energy source driving the Northern Lights

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:16:32 GMT

clipped by: michellezm

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

The mystery of what causes the Northern Lights, one of Nature's most spectacular displays, to shimmer so brightly has been solved.

New data from a fleet of Nasa satellites shows the lights - also known as the aurora borealis - are formed when solar particles are whisked along temporary "magnetic ropes" linking the Sun to the Earth at astonishing spin what is called a substorm.

The geomagnetic storm powering the auroras raced 400 miles in a minute across the sky

The energy released is the equivalent of a magnitude 5.5 earthquake, scientists say

The satellites monitored their first display in March.

"The substorm behaved quite unexpectedly," said Dr Vassilis Angelopoulos, of the University of California at Los Angeles.

The quintet of Themis satellites that made the discovery

"The auroras surged westward twice as fast as anyone thought possible, crossing 15 degrees of longitude in less than one minute.

"The storm traversed an entire polar time zone, or 400 miles, in 60 seconds flat."

God Is Smiling

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:33:42 GMT

clipped by: vickybaranwal
clipper's remarks: We can feel God by observing Nature.
is not this pic a good example??

Clip Source: www.funnycoolstuff.com

Tags: god, smile

From The Ashes Two Lives Emerged

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:33:52 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

"Isn't he happy?" she says. "Look at the joy coming out of him!"

Bentley knows the boy probably should not be alive. Five years ago, he was left for dead in a cornfield, his tiny body so ravaged by fire that the villagers who found him thought he looked more like a charred log than a 6-week-old baby.

Back then, Bentley was new to China. She had come begrudgingly with her four children, following her husband, John, from Washington state. Together, the couple founded a Christian orphanage for special-needs children -- those most at risk in the Chinese child welfare system, which often lacks the resources to meet the demands of the disabled.

What happened next would test the limits of modern medicine and put Bentley in conflict with local customs, laws, national bureaucracies and even her own family.

Who could have predicted the impact of one small life in China on a bored suburban homemaker from the Pacific Northwest?

Tags: love, changes, everything, doesn't, it

The Truth of Dogma

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:29:50 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Compelling thoughts for the open-minded.

Clip Source: www.managersrealm.com

"Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking."

Many people that bring forth their dogma, are themselves really trapped within a very limited, but safe world where they want to shape the world and their surrounding environment in their own images.

I can't stand that attempt and will fight it with a passion.

W00t Wins Webster's Word of the Year

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:04:03 GMT

clipped by: haraya
clipper's remarks: Yay!

Clip Source: gizmodo.com

W00t, that expression of joy invented by gamers way back when Sonic and Tails were special friends, has been given the accolade of word of the year by Webster's dictionary. The word, which beat the verb "to facebook" has an uncertain providence: while some people think it is an acronym for "We own the other team", others believe it is a mere exhortation of joy, like "Yippee" or, as we say in my crib, "Huzzarahrah." My reaction is after the jump.

In a move of supreme populism, Websters invited people to vote online for a shortlist of 20 words, and it woz w00t wot won it. This was their official statement.

It's like saying "yay." It could be after a triumph or for no reason at all,"

Tags: word, dictionary, award, w00t, yay, entertainment, speech, culture

These spiders are Handsome

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:57:05 GMT

clipped by: vickybaranwal

Clip Source: www.yousaytoo.com

Tags: spider, nature

Body clock 'control switch' found

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:46:12 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Researchers say they have identified the chemical switch that controls the genetic mechanism regulating people's internal body clocks.

Although the process involves complex genes, the whole mechanism is controlled by a single amino acid - a building block of protein - they say.

It is hoped the discovery may lead to more effective drugs to treat sleep disorders and related ailments.

The University of California study appears in the journal Nature.

Lead researcher Professor Paolo Sassone-Corsi said: "Because the triggering action is so specific, it appears to be a perfect target for compounds that could regulate this activity.

"It is always amazing to see how molecular control is so precise in biology."

People's sleep problems tend to be very individual, but we currently have a one-size-fits-all approach

Sensitive mechanism

Tags: biology, clock, body, sleep, science, amino acid

Hearing Voices (of advertisers)

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:33:52 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Serious ethical issues are raised by some of the potential uses of hypersonic sound, because the projected messages are imposed upon people against their will, and could perhaps be used to subtly manipulate behaviour.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Hearing voices (of advertisers)

Here's an article about a sophisticated type of advertising which uses hypersonic sound:

New Yorker Alison Wilson was walking down Prince Street in SoHo last week when she heard a woman's voice right in her ear asking, "Who's there? Who's there?" She looked around to find no one in her immediate surroundings. Then the voice said, "It's not your imagination."

Indeed it isn't. It's an ad for "Paranormal State," a ghost-themed series premiering on A&E this week. The billboard uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an "audio spotlight" from a rooftop speaker so that the sound is contained within your cranium.

The projected sound is "contained within your cranium", as the article says, because the beam actually consists of two separate sound waves, which merge when they hit an object, so that the pressure of the air surrounding the object (i.e. a person) to reproduce the sound.

Tags: advertising, voices, mind, cranium, its not your imagination

The 53 places to go in 2008

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:57:12 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: you can find here all 53 destinations + pics + short descriptions

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The 53 Places To Go in 2008

What’s on your travel itinerary in the new year? From a new luxury hotel in Laos (where you can take in the view of ancient temples from a chaise lounge by the infinity pool) to the waterfront night clubs of Hvar Readers' CommentsWhere do you want to go in 2008?Share Your Thoughts » (the St. Tropez of Croatia) to Death Valley (where recent heavy rains have some flower bloggers speculating on a dazzling spring bloom next year), the travel choices for global nomads have never been more varied.

Death Valley

Lisbon

now the Portuguese capital is also emerging as a cultural force.

Alexandria

The former home of Cleopatra is rising.

It’s on and off (and on again) for Libya

Axel Hotel Buenos Aires

first five-star gay hotel in Latin America (but also “heterofriendly”

Swiss ski village of Verbier

Mozambique

Itacaré, Brazil

Saigon

Vietnam

Barossa Valley, Australia

Tokaj, Hungary

New York

The lights are back on Broadway