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Weird water

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:14:32 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Discovery challenges long-held beliefs about water's special properties

Beyond its role as the elixir of all life, water is a very unusual substance: Scientists have long marveled over counter-intuitive properties that set water apart from other solids and liquids commonly found in nature.

The simple fact that water expands when it freezes -- an effect known to anyone whose plumbing has burst in winter -- is just the beginning of a long list of special characteristics. (Most liquids contract when they freeze.)

That is why chemical engineer Pablo Debenedetti and collaborators at three other institutions were surprised to find a highly simplified model molecule that behaves in much the same way as water, a discovery that upends long-held beliefs about what makes water so special.

“The conventional wisdom is that water is unique,” said Debenedetti, the Class of 1950 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science.

It forces you to rethink what is unique about water.”

While their water imitator is hypothetica

Tags: water

Pathologising Human Unhappiness

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:10:13 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: It is the last sentence that expresses my anger. I work with the severely mentally ill and I am sick and tired of resources being diverted to privileged, spoilt, articulate miseries. Sure, the latter need help but not from doctors.

Clip Source: www.spiked-online.com

Humanity, thou art sick

Shyness is now ‘social phobia’, and dissent is ‘Oppositional Defiant Disorder’. How did everyday emotions come to be seen as illnesses?

‘In my mother’s generation, shy people were seen as introverted and perhaps a bit awkward, but never mentally ill.’

So writes the Chicago-based research professor, Christopher Lane, in his fascinating new book Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became a Sickness.

the introverted individual morphed into the mildly psychotic person whose symptoms included being aloof, being dull, and simply “being alone”

The sad consequence of this state of affairs is that the range of ‘healthy behaviour’ is being increasingly narrowed. ‘Our quirks and eccentricities - the normal emotional range of adolescence and adulthood – have become problems we fear and expect drugs to fix’,

those who really do need help – who suffer from real emotional or behavioural disorders – are increasingly losing out

Tags: mental illness

7 Ingredients of Maturity

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:13:36 GMT

clipped by: egsnyder

Clip Source: www.dumblittleman.com

Welcome to Dumb Little Man. Each week we provide a handful of tips that will save you money, increase your productivity, or simply keep you sane.

Do You Recognize the 7 Ingredients of Maturity?

Maturity is the ability to control anger and settle differences without violence or destruction.

Maturity is patience.

Maturity is the capacity to face unpleasantness and frustration, discomfort and defeat, without complaint or collapse.

Maturity is humility.

Maturity is the ability to make a decision and follow through.

Maturity means dependability and coming through in a crisis.

Maturity is the art of living in peace.

Maturity is a trait that can change our lives in untold ways. What impression will you leave upon others?

Tags: maturity, personal development

Why can't the U.S. be more like Varese?

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:34:26 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: If this town in Italy can be 100% dependent on renewable power, why can't towns/cities in the U.S. do the same?

It really makes me angry to live in a country that holds itself out as a world leader, yet we need to look at small towns in Italy to see examples of the Power Revolution. It frightens me that Big Oil stands in the way of the U.S. leading the Revolution.

Clip Source: www.metaefficient.com

Italian Town Runs On 100% Renewable Power

Varese became the first municipality in Europe to get 100% of its power from renewable energy sources six years ago. It now generates three times more electricity than the people living in Varese need and there are plans in the pipeline for even more renewables.

Tags: alternative energy, renewable energy, oil, power, varese, wind, solar

Well, I ain't taking my clothes off!

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:19:03 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn
clipper's remarks: The writer Quentin Crisp spent the war years as an artist’s model at Derby School of Art. He described the job as “like being a civil servant, except that you are naked”.

Cherie Blair sat for the painter Euan Uglow while she was a trainee barrister. When she and her husband moved into public life, Uglow judiciously decided to avoid exhibiting Striding Nude, Blue Dress. It reappeared in 2006, six years after his death. Her profile is distinguishable but the painting remains unfinished.

Kate Moss was depicted reclining naked on a bed in Lucien Freud’s Naked Portrait 2002 while she was pregnant. The sitting was arranged after the model revealed in an interview that posing for Freud was one of her few remaining ambitions.

A retired art teacher was shocked in 2003 when she found a sketch she had made decades earlier and realised it was Sean Connery, aged 22 and in a loincloth. “When he modelled there were always lots of girls in the classes,” she said.

Source: Times database (ed

Clip Source: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

Doing nothing for a living is not as easy as it looks. That was the militant message from Italy yesterday where artists’ nude models climbed back into their clothes and went on strike for better pay and conditions

The protesters — male and female — said that they wanted “professional recognition” and full-time contracts

Antonella Migliorini, 42, said that it was “a tough, cold job” posing in the nude, often for eight hours a day. “We are not porn stars,”

However, there will always be people willing to do it, despite the poor pay. “It can be rewarding to be immortalised as great art,” said Rachel Campbell-Johnston

But it can also be extremely physically demanding

The professional life model emerged with the rise of formal art schools and photography in the 19th and 20th centuries

It took a nude protest in the 1970s to secure full-time contracts

“We need to get to the bottom of this,”

Nando Dalla Chiesa, an education ministry official, said

Tags: artist's models, posing naked

Angry Squirrel attacks Huckabee

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:29:53 GMT

clipped by: kkcapricorn
clipper's remarks: Laugh. It's funny.

Clip Source: www.unconfirmedsources.com

The Mike Huckabee campaign is said to be re-examining its southern strategy after the candidate was assaulted by a disgruntled squirrel

The rodent was observed scurrying around light fixtures within the gym at Clemson University and then apparently leapt to attack Huckabee

they were relatively certain that revenge was not a motive in that it was not of a species that Huckabee has admitted to eating in the past.

The squirrel was captured, and wrestled to the ground

suffered a number of scratches to the head and bites to his ears

Security was very tight and we are at a loss to explain how the squirrel was able to get in... he had to have help anyway you figure it

DNC Chairman Howard Dean was contacted for a quote on the incident, and had this to say: "I don't profess to know much about squirrels and their behavior, but they're certainly into survival... and Mike Huckabee is arguably one of the biggest nuts there is."

Tags: satire, unconfirmed sources

The Art Of The "To" Line In An Email Message

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:24:23 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Bcc: Use it! I'm confident that Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver and Hedges is delighted that their new associate, Susan Estrich, has expressed such expert competence in her announcement of her new position. I wonder if she sends forwarded jokes this way, too.

Clip Source: gawker.com

People, use the bcc field of an email window so recipients can't see everybody else's address. Unless, like Susan Estrich, one of Fox News' token liberal commentators, you need to display connections. She just sent out a personal press release to about 200 friends, TV pundits, celebrities, and neglected to hide their email addresses.

Internet Maps Get Streetwise

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:58:17 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Start-up earthmine inc challenges Google and Microsoft with new maps that provide 360-degree panoramic views of city streets

Google took Internet maps to the streets when it launched itsStreet View feature in Google Maps. Rather than relying on satellite photos, Street View, which debuted in May, enables users to view and navigate 360-degree street-level digital images of 21 U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Denver, Las Vegas, Miami and the Big Apple.

Earthmine is using this Space Age technology for the more down-to-Earth purpose of creating maps designed to help travelers find their way in unfamiliar urban settings, government agencies create visual property catalogues for tax-assessment and other purposes, and real estate agents provide prospective buyers with true-to-life images of properties and neighborhoods

Our mission at earthmine is to index reality,"

"We get down to a level of detail so it looks like you're standing on the street."

Tags: earthmine, maps