Clipmarks |

"WILL THE BANANA BECOME EXTINCT?"

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:42:45 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: Eat a banana now, while you still can.

Adios, Banana: Why Future Generations Will Likely Never Taste One of Our Favorite Fruits

It’s less sensational news than skyrocketing food and oil prices, but the beloved yellow banana may soon disappear forever. Bananas are even more heavily consumed in many parts of the world than rice or potatoes, but now a fungus called Panama Disease is turning them brick-red and inedible. Here’s the worst part: There is no cure for Panama Disease and it is spreading very quickly. Experts surmise that within the next three decades, the sweet and creamy food staple will be nonexistent.

“The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world – and where they are leading us.”

Thanks to bad corporate behaviour and physical limits, we seem to be at a dead end. The only possible glimmer of hope is a genetically modified banana that can resist Panama Disease. But that is a distant prospect, and it is resisted by many people:

20 Funniest Newspaper Headlines ever

Tue, 27 May 2008 14:33:52 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.oddee.com

20 Funniest Newspaper Headlines ever

Clip Source: pagead2.googlesyndication.com

Physicist Claims First Real Demonstration of Cold Fusion

Tue, 27 May 2008 23:05:06 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: "Arata and Zhang demonstrated very successfully the generation of continuous excess energy [heat] from ZrO2-nano-Pd sample powders under D2 gas charging and generation of helium-4," Takahashi told New Energy Times. "The demonstrated live data looked just like data they reported in their published papers [J. High Temp. Soc. Jpn, Feb. and March issues, 2008]. This demonstration showed that the method is highly reproducible."

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

To many people, cold fusion sounds too good to be true. The idea is that, by creating nuclear fusion at room temperature, researchers can generate a nearly unlimited source of power that uses water as fuel and produces almost zero waste. Essentially, cold fusion would make oil obsolete.

However, many experts debate whether money should be spent on cold fusion research or applied to more realistic alternative energy solutions.

Now, esteemed Physics Professor Yoshiaki Arata of Osaka University in Japan claims to have made the first successful demonstration of cold fusion.

Last Thursday, May 22, Arata and his colleague Yue-Chang Zhang of Shianghai Jiotong University presented the cold fusion demonstration to 60 onlookers

Evidence for the occurrence of this fusion came from measuring the temperature inside the cell. When Arata first injected the deuterium gas, the temperature rose to about 70° C (158° F), which Arata explained was due to nuclear and chemical reactions.

Tags: energy, clean energy, cold fusion

Add a Clipmarks (or Google Reader) sidebar

Tue, 27 May 2008 16:55:58 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes
clipper's remarks: And this also works for clipmarks.

Just bookmark http://m.clipmarks.com/ and check the box "Load this bookmark in the sidebar".
Upon clicking the bookmark, it will open clipmarks mobile in your firefox sidebar, which fits perfectly.

You can also add other clipmarks-mobile sidebars like users / tags / search / folders(clipcasts) / ... . You just have to browse to the page you want to use in your sidebar & bookmark it using the described procedure.

A little example (replace my name with your user name to personalize):

(my) Personal page
http://m.clipmarks.com/clipper/Djiezes/

(my) Clippers Mix
http://m.clipmarks.com/clipper/Djiezes/clippers/mix/

Folders / Clipcasts:
http://m.clipmarks.com/clipper/Djiezes/clipcast/Literature
http://m.clipmarks.com/clipper/Djiezes/clipcast/Scientology

Tags:
http://m.clipmarks.com/tag/linux

Search:
http://m.clipmarks.com/search/linux

...

Have fun !

Clip Source: mozillalinks.org

Add a Google Reader sidebar

This is good news even if you don’t have an iPhone. Like other web apps designed for the iPhone interface, it fits very well in Firefox (and other browsers) sidebar.

And it’s pretty simple:

Open the Bookmarks Manager (Bookmarks/Organize Bookmarks…)
In Firefox 2, in the File menu, select New bookmark… In Firefox 3, press Organize in the toolbar and select New bookmark…
Enter a name, http://www.google.com/reader/i/ for location, and ensure to check Load this bookmark in the sidebar.
Press Save Changes and now you can select the bookmark to load Google Reader in the sidebar.

Tags: firefox, sidebar, mobile, clipmarks, google, google reader, howto, help

Myanmar's fascist junta extends Suu Kyi house arrest

Tue, 27 May 2008 21:38:47 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Those who showed their incompetence to aid the cyclone victims, proving their determinism to oppress Myanmar people. If this knave, filthy junta still holds the power and dares to extend Suu Kyi's arrest arrogantly, only one thing can be said: Shame on the world.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, a move that dismayed some of the Western nations who promised millions of dollars in aid after Cyclone Nargis.

Officials drove to the Nobel laureate's lakeside Yangon home to read out an extension order in person, said a government official, who asked not to be identified.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who just returned to New York from a weeklong aid mission in Myanmar, expressed disappointment but refrained from sharp criticism.

"I regret the decision of the government of Myanmar to extend for a second consecutive year the detention and the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi," Ban said.

The 62-year-old Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won a 1990 election by a landslide only to be denied power by the army, has now spent nearly 13 of the last 18 years under some form of arrest.

Tags: myanmar, aung san suu kyi, fascism, asia, junta

40+ Extremely Beautiful Icon

Wed, 28 May 2008 17:03:34 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: www.noupe.com

40+ Extremely Beautiful Icon Sets Hand-picked from deviantART

The web is rich with creative and amazing icon sets, and one of the most unusual source of amazing Icons Sets are those you can find on deviantART icons gallery. Today we would like to present 40 incredible icon sets which you can use for your web designs or your desktop. Let’s take a close look at some of the most beautiful icon sets we’ve found on deviantART. Some amazing Icon Sets are missing? Let us know!

Realistic Icons -

2) Onibari light - Formats are Png’s,Ico’s and Icns’s…

3) Leopar’d IconPackager - An IconPackage for Apple’s new Leopard theme.

4) Adobe CS 2.0 Grande Icon Set- This is the large set of Adobe Creative Suite Icons.

5) Glossy Member Icons - Glossy Member Icons…4 PNG Files…Easy to change colors…

Oxygen- Are as light

iPhone Pack- iPhone

isabi -

9) Helix icons

10) Prostor_icons

11) Shopping Basket Icons 3D

TextEdit -

Paper Clip -

14) Icon for Transformers

15) Aeon

was William Shakespeare a Jewish Woman ???

Wed, 28 May 2008 08:58:04 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: "The theory rests largely on the circumstances of Bassano's life, which Hudson contends match, much better than William Shakespeare's did, the content of "Shakespeare's" work."

"He is so convinced of Bassano's authorship that he formed a theater company, The Dark Lady Players, to bring out, through performance, the true meanings of the plays as, he argues, Bassano intended them."
(For more details, visit www.darkladyplayers.com.)

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Was William Shakespeare a Jewish woman in disguise?

Amateur Shakespearologist John Hudson is not the first to question whether the actor William Shakespeare was actually the author of the body of work we've come to know as his, but Hudson is the first to suggest that the true author was a Jewish woman named Amelia Bassano Lanier.

Of Italian descent, Bassano lived in England as a Marrano and has heretofore been known only as the first woman to publish a book of poetry ("Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum" in 1611) and as a candidate for "the dark lady" referred to in the sonnets.

Hudson is the first to argue that she's the true author of those sonnets.

Hudson has spent most of his career as a cognitive scientist, restructuring the communications industry and inventing new industry models - exactly what he is now doing with Shakespeare. So prepare to rethink everything you learned in your high-school English classes.

Clip Source: www.marysidney.com

Clip Source: img.dailymail.co.uk

Tags: shakespeare, woman, shaken, theory

The hippo who ditched his muddy waters to catch some sun and surf

Wed, 28 May 2008 08:20:07 GMT

clipped by: michellezm
clipper's remarks: 'Hippos don't take well to darting' Mr van Schoor explains, 'they die of stress and this one would drown if we darted her in the water, and if we tried to dart her on the beach, she would run into the water for safety and again drown when the drug takes effect.'
Hippos are usually captured using passive methods such as monitoring paths that they use regularly and setting up enclosures to lure them into.

But Mr Van Schoor says that this hippo's only hope is to stop moving South.

He added: 'If the hippo moves any further south there is huge risk, he is moving into residential areas and towards Durban where food for the hippo will become a problem'.

Hippos are considered to be one of the most dangerous and aggressive of all animals and with this one coming into contact with humans and domestic animals, it could soon become a problem.

Sadly If the hippo does not retrace his own steps and move back north, KZN says there is little hope for him.

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

They are better known for wallowing in swamps rather than their surfing skills but this hippo clearly had a whale of a time splashing around in the ocean.

Spotted in the water near the holiday town of Ballito, near Durban in South Africa, the rare sighting of a hippo catching some waves fascinated residents and wildlife experts alike.

The hippo was spotted swimming in the sea in the South African holiday town of Ballito

The hippo even strayed onto the sand to catch a few rays on the beach at Thompson's Bay and then moved into the water for the afternoon.

Lionel van Schoor from KZN Wildlife says that they have been observing this hippo further north, in Richards Bay and he says it has been moving south for the past two months.

It is thought that the lone young male hippo has wandered from its habitat in Richards Bay

'The animal walks along the beach foraging for food and when he comes across a rocky outcrop he simply goes for a swim in the sea' says Mr Van Schoor.

Four words you don’t want to hear in space

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:07:38 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: Oh shit

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Four words you don’t want to hear in space:

“The toilet is broken.”

The crew aboard the International Space Station is working on a problem with the system for collecting solid and liquid waste, which is a trickier proposition without gravity than it is on the Earth. Space toilets use jets of fan-propelled air to guide waste into the proper container.

A NASA status report noted that last week, while using the toilet system in the Russian-built service module, “the crew heard a loud noise and the fan stopped working.” No fan, no vacuum; the solid waste collector is functioning properly, but the system for collecting liquid waste was not.

As so often happens when there’s a plumbing problem, house guests are on the way: the space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to launch on Saturday, with seven astronauts aboard. The shuttle, however, has its own toilet.

Of all the technological achievements of space travel, none has captured the popular imagination as much as bathroom physics.

Tags: science

Look who else wants to talk to Hamas.

Tue, 27 May 2008 19:44:03 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: The Israelis! You know the people who have to live with the current situation and not the blow hards no-nothings from AIPAC and the GOP.

Clip Source: haaretz.com

Poll: Most Israelis back direct talks with Hamas on Shalit

Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Less than one-third (28 percent) still opposes such talks.

The figures were obtained in a Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted Tuesday under the supervision of Professor Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University.

An increasing number of public figures, including senior officers in the Israel Defense Forces' reserves, have expressed similar positions on talks with Hamas.

In Kadima, 55 percent are for talks, while among Labor voters, the number jumps to 72 percent.

The survey also showed that Likud voters are much more moderate than their Knesset representatives. About half (48 percent) support talks with Hamas.

Tags: israel, fact, poll, news, hamas, conflict, palestine

Monument to homosexual victims of Nazis unveiled

Wed, 28 May 2008 04:04:11 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: In Berlin. Indeed, the persecution of every group of fellow humans needs to be part of our collective memory.

Clip Source: www.democraticunderground.com

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany unveiled a monument to the tens of thousands of homosexuals persecuted under the Nazis, whose laws were used to prosecute gay men for a generation after World War Two.

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, who is openly gay, hailed the grey, concrete memorial as a long overdue acknowledgement of the repression of homosexuals, 50,000 of whom were convicted by Nazi courts during Adolf Hitler's 12-year dictatorship.

"The monument consecrated today is a reminder to us of the horrors of the past and draws our attention to the degree of discrimination that currently exists," Wowereit said.

Tags: gay, nazi

Basic Form of Love

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:49:12 GMT

clipped by: Sheroug

Clip Source: honeymoons.about.com

"Attention is the most basic form of love; through it we bless and are blessed." - John Tarrant

Robots will surpass human intelligence by 2030, scientists say

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:16:13 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Immortal silicon bodies? I am taking one (or two) and off to the stars !!

Clip Source: memebox.com

Personal robots have been a long time coming, but scientists now say we can expect revolutionary machines that surpass human physical and intellectual abilities within 22 years.

Today’s robots are mostly industrial types found in factories. An example would be an arm that inserts a product into a box and places it on a conveyor belt.

Robo-pets like Sony’s Aibo and NEC’s PaPeRo, priced from $2,000 to $5,000, are pleasing children and providing companionship for handicapped and elderly people around the globe.

Available soon in the $10,000 to $30,000 range will be human-like robots such as Sony Qrio, Honda Asimo, and Toyota Personal Robot.

These realistic marvels can speak and understand crude language, recognize family members by sight, and perform many butler, chef, and maid services.

Could we evolve into a human-cyber being? Absolutely, say futurists. By mid-2030s, we could be swapping frail biological bodies for powerful, immortal silicon versions.

Tags: robotics, futurism

Talismans, Charms and Amulets - A Kind of Magic

Tue, 27 May 2008 20:17:20 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Lots of great info at the source

Clip Source: www.britishmuseum.org

People have used talismans, charms and amulets to protect themselves from harm and to promote good fortune since the earliest times.

The objects in this tour illustrate the many ways in which magical or powerful objects have been used. Some were worn by the living to avoid common ailments or as charms for good luck or a general sense of well-being. Others were placed in graves and in tombs to protect the dead. There are also objects that were used to protect whole buildings rather than individuals.

Clip Source: www.britishmuseum.org

back

Faience wedjat eye (EA 26300)

Clip Source: www.britishmuseum.org

Coin-sword

Coin-swords were a form of talisman used in southern China to ward off evil influences, especially those causing fever. They were made by tying together 'cash' (the pidgin term for Chinese coins with a square hole in the middle) on to an iron rod

Clip Source: www.britishmuseum.org