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"Holding hands — and that's how they died,

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:15:28 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: an amazing story of couple married and living together for 75 golden years...quite moving...

Clip Source: www.wfaa.com

Couple, married 75 years, pass away hours apart

By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA-TV

On Tuesday afternoon, 100-year-old J.C. Cox and his and 96-year-old wife Josie were buried together.

The couple — married for 75 years — died within five hours of each other.

Their story begins on Christmas Day in 1932.

"They stayed together the whole time," Williamson said, pointing out the bed they had shared.

Mrs. Cox insisted on being the sole person to care for J.C., even up until the moment they entered a nursing home last month.

"She was still ironing his clothes three weeks ago," Williamson said.

"She was going to make sure — even though he never went anywhere — his clothes were going to be starched," Grimm said.

Persistence never left them. They kept their wedding vows for 75 years, through the deaths of their own children, the lives of three new generations and the inevitable changes in each other.

"Holding hands — and that's how they died," Williamson said, with tears in her eyes. "Pa died holding onto Granny."

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:43:10 GMT

clipped by: chestnut501
clipper's remarks: We have entered a new phase of evolution. "At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information."

But what distinguishes us from our cave man ancestors is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last ten thousand years, and particularly, Hawking points out, over the last three hundred.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

In the last ten thousand years the human species has been in what Hawking calls, "an external transmission phase," where the internal record of information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not changed significantly. "But the external record, in books, and other long lasting forms of storage," Hawking says, "has grown enormously.

we are now entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls "self designed evolution," in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. "At first," he continues "these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy.

I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression."

If the human race manages to redesign itself, to reduce or eliminate the risk of self-destruction, we will probably reach out to the stars and colonize other planets.

Tags: science, evolution, internal, external, neuroscience, biology, stephen-hawking

Whose to blame for skyrocketing oil prices? Speculators!

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:40:37 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: At what point in time will the financial industry be regulated so they're not making money at the expense of everyone else?

Clip Source: www.rollingstone.com

Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed.

Tags: finance, oil, speculators

Clipmarks 4.0 Now Available - supports Firefox 3.5

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:32:35 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: Our upgraded version of Clipmarks is now available. If you click the source link of this clip you'll be able to get it. Anyone having problems, please comment below and we'll try to work them out.

If you wouldn't mind, please pop this clip so others are made aware.

Clip Source: addons.mozilla.org

Clipmarks 4.0.0

Tags: clipmarks, firefox

How close was that?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:04:22 GMT

clipped by: clip-on-tie
clipper's remarks: And he casually takes a photo after.....

Clip Source: tinypic.com

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Tags: near death experience

Why you aren’t nearly as unique as you think?

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:37:49 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "Since 1994, photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek have been trekking the globe together, recording Exactitudes — “exact attitudes” captu(red) in people’s peculiar dress code as an attempt to differentiate themselves from others or identify with a group."

Clip Source: www.brainpickings.org

Why you aren’t nearly as unique as you think, or what 12 Japanese school children have to do with 12 homeless people in Rotterdam.

Each “exactitude” consists of twelve distinct portraits structured in a grid. Think of it as street fashion meets cultural anthropology meets data visualization — a visceral exploration of subcultures, group identity and individualism.

The series is also an ethnographic and temporal portrait of our collectively individual identity across time and space — the big bags of 2008, New York’s yupster girls, the tracksuits of Japanese schoolkids, the soccer jersey fetish of European teenage boys, even “street style” at its rawest in the face of the homeless.

We see the Rotterdam-based duo’s work as a collage of contradictions — between individuality and uniformity, between street style and studio setting, between self and group — that make you question our cultural givens and our self-conception as unique personas.

Biological 'Fountain Of Youth' Found In New World Bat Caves

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:51:32 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly
clipper's remarks: more (at source): Asish and colleagues made their discovery by extracting proteins from the livers of two long-lived bat species (Tadarida brasiliensis and Myotis velifer) and young adult mice and exposed them to chemicals known to cause protein misfolding. After examining the proteins, the scientists found that the bat proteins exhibited less damage than those of the mice, indicating that bats have a mechanism for maintaining proper structure under extreme stress.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2009) — Scientists from Texas are batty over a new discovery which could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history—significantly longer lifespans. The discovery, featured on the cover of the July 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal, shows that proper protein folding over time in long-lived bats explains why they live significantly longer than other mammals of comparable size, such as mice.

"Ultimately we are trying to discover what underlying mechanisms allow for some animal species to live a very long time with the hope that we might be able to develop therapies that allow people to age more slowly," said Asish Chaudhuri, Professor of Biochemistry, VA Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas and the senior researcher involved in the work.

Tags: bats, 'fountain of youth'

STATUE OF LIBERTY PICTURES: Rare Views, Inside and Out

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:43:02 GMT

clipped by: clip-on-tie
clipper's remarks: The torch has been off-limits to visitors since the "Black Tom" explosion of July 30, 1916. Debris from the attack on U.S. ammunition supplies on nearby—and long since subsumed by landfill—Black Tom Island, New Jersey, pierced the statue.

Another attack—the terrorist assault on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001—prompted the full closure of Liberty Island, which was reopened a hundred days later. The Statue of Liberty would reopen in 2004, and the reopening of the crown will complete the process on the Fourth of July, 2009.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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July 2, 2009--Photographed from a rare vantage point, several of the Statue of Liberty's 25 observation windows look out over New York Harbor in an undated picture.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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Now with safer, higher railings, a refurbished spiral staircase

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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As seen in 1984, strap-iron armature holds the statue's copper skin in place.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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Circa-1930 tourists peer out of the Statue of Liberty's crown

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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Before crowds ascend again on the Fourth of July, 2009, Statue of Liberty park ranger Lance Williams quietly takes in the view

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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The circa-1886 Statue of Liberty's angular steel skeleton meets its elegantly undulating copper toga in this 1984 picture.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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Invisible to tourists, the Statue of Liberty's 25-foot-long (7.6-meter-long) left foot, pictured in 1984

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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the replacement of the torch.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

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ladder is the only way to the torch, the Statue of Liberty's highest point.

Tags: historic american engineering record, library of congress

Women Are Better Than Men with a Hammer

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:30:52 GMT

clipped by: chestnut501
clipper's remarks: Research presented at the Experimental Biology annual meeting reveals that women may be more accurate than men at using a hammer.

Clip Source: www.scientificamerican.com

We might think women are not as adept as men at wielding heavy tools, like say, hammers, according to popular stereotypes.

Scientists measured the accuracy and force of men and women’s blows to a metal plate.

Indeed they found that men struck twice as hard as the women. But women were 25 percent more accurate than men

The researchers theorize that maybe men and women inherently use different strategies, putting more emphasis on either force or accuracy, respectively. But these are preliminary results. They intend to do further studies with larger sample sizes in different conditions.

But for now that old stereotype might need to be retooled.

Tags: hammer, accuracy, force, men, women, eye-to-hand-coordination, biology

Understanding does not diminish Awe

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:52:50 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "The religious experience is, at best, a stunted variety of this feeling. Awe without understanding, or at least the desire for understanding, degenerates into mysticism: viewing a mystery not as a challenge to be solved, but something to be worshipped for its own sake. Mysticism states that ignorance is a desirable condition, a state we should glory in. This attitude only keeps us frightened and ignorant, and worst of all, robs us of the deeper and more genuine awe that comes with comprehension. I say, let us explore. There may be problems too high or too deep for us, mysteries we cannot penetrate - but so far, we haven't found any, and if there are any, they will not need to be protected from our investigations."

Clip Source: www.daylightatheism.org

Moving Beyond Awe

The nineteenth-century German theologian Rudolf Otto, in his book The Idea of the Holy, popularized the term "numinous", an adjective describing the sense of mystery and wonder that purportedly stems from the presence of a deity. According to Otto, the sense of the numinous had two main characteristics: the mysterium tremendum, the sense of fear and trembling that comes from the presence of that which is wholly other, and the mysterium fascinas, the sense of fascination and curiosity that such an experience evokes.

Otto's theology concisely sums up the categories of religious experience. But the problem with his conception of the numinous is that it lacks one very important quality - understanding.

For Otto, as for many theists, the numinous is not something we should seek to comprehend.

there is no mention of penetrating the mystery

pulling back the curtain of our ignorance

what humanity has been doing throughout its history: piercing the mysteries that surround us

Tags: atheism, religion, understanding, awe

Ant Mega-Colony Takes Over World

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:44:58 GMT

clipped by: chestnut501
clipper's remarks: The enormous extent of this population is paralleled only by human society

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.

Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same interrelated colony, and will refuse to fight one another.

Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica.

While ants are usually highly territorial, those living within each super-colony are tolerant of one another, even if they live tens or hundreds of kilometres apart. Each super-colony, however, was thought to be quite distinct.

But it now appears that billions of Argentine ants around the world all actually belong to one single global mega-colony.

the irony is that it is us who likely created the ant mega-colony by initially transporting the insects around the world, and by continually introducing ants from the three continents to each other, ensuring the mega-colony continues to mingle.

Tags: science, entomology, ants, argentine-ants, ant-colony, mega-colony, dominant

Egypt: Land of the Pharaohs. Part 1

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:10:28 GMT

clipped by: perellicippo

Clip Source: amolife.com

Egypt: Land of the Pharaohs. Part 1

"The best and shortest road towards knowledge of truth is Nature."

~ Ancient Egyptian Proverb

Pyramids of Giza (Photography by Richard Nowitz)

Sphinx

Caravan at the Pyramids of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza

Abu Simbel

Cairo (10 Interesting Places to Visit Before You Die)

Cairo Mosques

Nile River from Cairo Tower

Montaza Beacon

Countryside

Cairo (10 Interesting Places to Visit Before You Die)

Spicy

Girl with Red Scarf

ILE ELEPHANTINE

Through the Palms (Taken in the town of Mut, Dakhla Oasis, Egypt)

Dune Patterns (Natures artwork on the sand dunes in Bahariya, Egypt)

Colossi of Memnon

Hatshepsut (Queen Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple, which is built into the cliffs on the westbank of the Nile near Luxor)

Harvest Scene (This is a small portion of a harvest scene from the tomb of Menna, scribe to Tuthmosis IV)

Roofs of Cairo

The Store (The variety is the real spice of life that gives it its flavor.)

Side View of River Nile (Cairo)

Philae

Ballpoint pen artist Shohel Otomo

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:37:55 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly
clipper's remarks: plus a 'Transformer' for girls

Clip Source: www.pinktentacle.com

Ballpoint pen artist Shohei Otomo mashes up old and new in bold illustrations spiked with heavy doses of manga-style gore and perversion.

Sunglassed Geisha

Boss Batter

Onsen Ping Pong Geisha

Gurgling Heart

Extermination of Giant Carp

Portrait of a Far East Hoodlum - #1

Okiku Doll

SM Geisha

Clip Source: www.pinktentacle.com

Just in time for the 30th anniversary festivities comes this girlie Gundam, a jewel-encrusted RX-78-2 (apparently created by a Taiwanese fan) looking pretty in pink and lace.

Tags: ballpoint, shohei otomo, manga, art

All-purpose tanuki testicles (prints by Kuniyoshi)

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:33:57 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly
clipper's remarks: Recently finished reading Tom Robbins' "Villa Incognito" (recommended) in which, one of the main protagonists, is a Tanuki (or rather 'The' Tanuki). So I found these prints even more amusing.

Clip Source: www.pinktentacle.com

In the mid-1840s, ukiyo-e master Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) created a number of woodblock prints showing legendary tanuki (raccoon dogs) using their humorously large scrota in creative ways.

River fishing

Shelter from evening showers

Rokurokubi (long-necked monster) disguise

Net fishing

Making dashi (soup stock)

Weightlifting

Catfish mallet

Coming and going

Making mochi

Visiting Konpira, the guardian deity of seafaring

Boy’s festival

Cause of chronic abdominal pain

Shichifukujin (the Seven Lucky Gods) disguise

Fortune-telling tent

Shop signs

River crossing

Towboat

Seine fishing

See more of Kuniyoshi’s tanuki images at Kuniyoshi Project (1, 2).

Tags: testicles, tanuki, kuniyoshi

Fire to ice

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:29:13 GMT

clipped by: zadoz
clipper's remarks: Almost four months after fires devastated the Kinglake region, snow has fallen

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

Gallery: Fire to ice

A frosty memorial for a family in Bald Spur Road, Kinglake.

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

Shannon Deas, 12, and sister Crystal, 9, build a snowman after falls in the Kinglake region. Almost four months after fires devastated the Kinglake region, snow has fallen on the mountain bringing an early winter for local residents. Picture: Aaron Francis

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

Twins Coby and Beau Scott, 4, (front) and brother Lachlan, play in Mt Kitchener Ave where their house was destroyed.

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

An Australian flag weighed down by overnight snowfall in Marysville

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

Dan Walsh, who lost his wife Marie, 73, in the Marysville fires, walks in his back yard

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

Several months after her family home in Kinglake was lost, Elana Watson

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

What remained of this Kinglake home

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

Snow on a mountain near the Kinglake area, which was devastated by bushfires four months