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That's my mum!!

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 13:45:34 GMT

clipped by: coconutshell
clipper's remarks: My mum's (was) in the paper! I'm so proud! She even mentioned me!!! Happy Mother's Day!!!!

Clip Source: www.gulfnews.com

Biking glory

Friday

People

The first time motorbikes really caught my fancy was after I watched the movie, Easy Rider, says Elena de Quiroz.

Biking glory

By Preethi Janice D'Sa, Staff Writer
Published: February 15, 2008, 00:30

Elena de Quiroz, co-founder of the Abu Dhabi-based Exiles Motorcycle Club (Exiles MC)

Biking seems to be a shared familial passion.

My daughter, Christine, 25, started learning to ride a while back, but doesn't have enough time to practise due to her work schedule. My son, Joel, 28, who is a nursing graduate in Chicago, also loves to bike.

We do charity runs, ride through the seven emirates, organise social events for our members and other motorcycle clubs around the UAE ...

Don't go by our tough looks – leather clothes, ponytails and steel-toed boots. We are a bunch of softies!

Tags: my, mum, mother, coconutshell

Twenty science fiction novels that may change your life

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:32:17 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Cryptonomicon (2000), by Neal Stephenson
The Mount (2002), by Carol Emschwiller
Perdido Street Station (2002), by China Mieville
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003), by Cory Doctorow
Pattern Recognition (2003), by William Gibson
Newton's Wake (2004), by Ken MacLeod
Glasshouse (2006), by Charles Stross

Clip Source: io9.com

there's no better way to get ready for the seasonal change than to dig into some great science fiction books

this list of twenty science fiction novels

could change the way you see the world

and maybe even change your life

Whether it's because they've altered the course of science fiction writing, or simply provide a genuinely alien perspective on ordinary life, these are novels that will rearrange how you think.

These are in chronological order by publication date, not in order of importance.

Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley

The Time Machine (1895), by H.G. Wells

At the Mountains of Madness (1931), by H.P. Lovecraft

I, Robot (1955), by Isaac Asimov

The Dispossessed (1974), by Ursula LeGuin

Kindred (1979), by Octavia Butler

Wizard (1979), by John Varley

Consider Phlebas (1987), by Iain M. Banks

He, She, and It (1991), by Marge Pierc

Sarah Canary (1991), by Karen Joy Fowler

A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), by Vernor Vinge

The Bohr Maker (1995), by Linda Nagata

The Sparrow (1996), by Mary Doria Russell

Tags: books

Visual Math / Fractals

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 02:11:14 GMT

clipped by: CrazyRedHead
clipper's remarks: An introduction to the fascinating patterns of Visual Math - many more drawings and diagrams at the site.

Clip Source: www.miqel.com

Sierpinski Triangle

honeycomb fractal branching structure

The Apollony fractal

Dodecahedral Fractal

Clip Source: www.miqel.com

Naturally Occurring Fractals

Clip Source: www.miqel.com

Minimal Surfaces and Geodesic Forms

Clip Source: www.miqel.com

The Golden Ratio

Phi and the MANDELBROT SET

Clip Source: www.miqel.com

the Mandelbrot set, perhaps the most famous Fractal

View of some of the Interior Relationships in the Mandelbrot Set

Clip Source: www.miqel.com

Reflective Spheres of Infinity: Wada Basin Fractals

the infinite series of inter-reflections when mirrored spheres
(such as christmas ornaments) are packed together.

Clip Source: www.miqel.com

Platonic / Vectoral Geometry

fascinating patterns can be created by simple repetition,
such as decreasing the scale while twisting the angle -
to create this cubical vortex or the hexagonal regress below

Tags: science, mathematics, fractals, art

A New Way to Kill Viruses: Shake Them to Death

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:38:19 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken

Clip Source: articles.mercola.com

A New Way to Kill Viruses: Shake Them to Death

Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses by mathematically determining the frequencies at which they can be shaken to death.

All objects have resonant frequencies at which they naturally vibrate. But too much vibration can destroy the object. Recent experiments have shown that laser pulses tuned to the right frequency can kill certain viruses. However, at present, locating these resonant frequencies is a trial and error task.

Researchers are hard at work developing methods to calculate the vibrational motion of every atom in a virus shell. From this, they can determine the lowest resonant frequencies. For example, the satellite tobacco necrosis virus resonates strongly around 60 Gigahertz (60 billion cycles per second).

It is unlikely that viruses will be able to develop resistance to mechanical shaking, as they do to drugs.

Famed Geneticist Creating Life Form That Turns CO2 to Fuel

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:51:44 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks:

Scientists put "suicide genes" into their living creations so that if they escape the lab, they can be triggered to kill themselves.

Venter said he is also working on organisms that make vaccines for the flu and other illnesses.

Suicide genes and vaccines mentioned in the same breath, sort of creeps me out a little.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel

A scientist who mapped his genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans said Thursday he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.

Geneticist Craig Venter disclosed his potentially world-changing "fourth-generation fuel" project at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California.

"We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry and becoming a major source of energy," Venter told an audience that included global warming fighter Al Gore and Google co-founder Larry Page.

"We think we will have fourth-generation fuels in about 18 months, with CO2 as the fuel stock."

Simple organisms can be genetically re-engineered to produce vaccines or octane-based fuels as waste, according to Venter.

The limiting part of the equation isn't designing an organism, it's the difficulty of extracting high concentrations of CO2 from the air

20 Beautiful HDR Pictures

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:05:48 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: via del.icio.us

Clip Source: abduzeedo.com

Tags: pictures

Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza: Disturbing Parallels

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:56:50 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks:

It was after the Jews in the ghetto had been largely killed or transported that the world stood up and felt guilty in not acting sooner.

I question when the world will stand up and say: Enough is enough, there is not going to be a repeat of the Warsaw Ghetto and particularly when its perpetrators are those who suffered the most by its conduct.

Clip Source: www.uruknet.info

Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza: Disturbing Parallels

contemplate

the plight of the Palestinians

The Warsaw Ghetto

was a place of oppression and the pathway to the ultimate death of thousands

Zionist idealism is the parallel set of conditions that they are now imposing on the Arab people of Palestine.

The Nazis rounded up the Jews of Poland and quartered them in a small area

The Nazis deprived the ghetto inhabitants of food and essential supplies.

The Nazis reduced the average calorie intake of the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto

The Nazis restricted the inhabitants from adequate health care.

The Nazis restricted public utilities such as water and electricity.

The Nazis destroyed the structure of the ghetto

The Nazis applied whatever was at their means to break the will of the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto.

The Nazis killed the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto indiscriminately.

So too has the Israeli government.

Israelis do the same thing

whatever is at their means to break the will of the Palestinians.

Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:49:13 GMT

clipped by: sahara

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

A university professor allegedly caught in a Saudi-style honey trap has been sentenced to 180 lashes and eight months in jail — for having coffee with a girl.

The man, a prominent and well-respected Saudi teacher of psychology at Umm al-Qra University in the holy city of Mecca, was framed by the religious police after he angered some of their members at a training course, his lawyer said.

The academic has not been named by the local media, which have given his case wide coverage, but one senior Saudi journalist told The Times he was Dr. Abu Ruzaiz, a married man in his late 50s with children.

“He is highly respected and above-board. Nobody believes the religious police’s version of what happened. The whole of Jeddah (the main city near Mecca) is in uproar about this. Everyone believes he is innocent and was set up,” the journalist said.

The professor is said to have taped a later conversation with the girl in which she admitted that she had been sent to the cafe by the religious police.

Tags: world, news, religion, law

World Bank VP: Iraq war cause of sub-prime loan crisis

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 00:58:27 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Has cost 50-60 times more than Bush predicted; banks responded to cash drain with cheap credit; A week's war bill could end worldwide illiteracy

Clip Source: www.theaustralian.news.com.au

THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said.

The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.

"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said.

That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.

The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world, he said.

Tags: iraq