Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Scientists are launching a new way of rating snowstorms, a
scale with five categories of intensity that won't be used as a warning tool but
will allow storms to be compared with others.
The
Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale will be used this winter to rate snowstorms
in the Northeast immediately after they strike, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration said Monday.
Like the Saffir-Simpson scale for hurricanes and the Fujita scale for
tornadoes, the new scale has five levels of intensity.
But rather than being based only on weather factors like wind or storm
surge, it also includes the impact on people.
Unlike the hurricane scale, which is used in forecasts to warn specific
areas of the need for evacuation, the purpose of the snowstorm scale is to
assess the impact of the storm right after it occurs.
There are no immediate plans to try and use it as a warning tool, said Jay
Lawrimore of the National Climatic Data Center, which is responsible for
calculating the scale.
The scale ranks storms from 1, Notable; 2, Significant; 3, Major; 4,
Crippling and 5, Extreme.
Developed by Paul Kocin, a winter storms expert at The Weather Channel,
and Louis Uccellini, director of the NOAA National Centers for Environmental
Prediction in Camp Springs, Md., the rating factors in the number of inches of
snow, the land area affected and the number of people affected.
The scale was developed for the Northeast because of the economic and
transportation impact such storms have on the whole country.
Lawrimore said there are plans to extend the scale to other regions, but
that needs further study because winter storms develop in different ways in
various parts of the country.
Two Northeastern storms in recent years fall into the extreme category
under this scale.
One was the storm of March 12-14, 1993 in which nearly 67 million people
were inundated with 10 inches of snow or more, almost 20 million were affected
by 20 inches of snow and 1.8 million suffered 30 inches or more of snow.
The other, Jan. 6-8, 1996, affected a somewhat smaller land area but
dumped 10 inches of snow on 66 million people, 20 inches on nearly 40 million
and 30 inches on 5.1 million people.
On this scale, the infamous Blizzard of 1888 that staggered New York City
on March 11-14 of that year would have ranked in category 4, Crippling, as would
the Blizzard of 1899 that affected coast areas from the Carolinas to Maine in
mid-February.
As I doubt that I will ever quite get used to the way that Americans decide
to do things, I'll continue to rely on my own snowfall gauge, which is
admittedly, not very high tech. It involves looking out the window.
If the car is buried, I'm probably working from home that day.
Posted Tue Jan 31st, 2006 - 7:07am by CPC 
Top of page
by Jeff Sharlet |
Rolling Stone
Who would Jesus vote for?
Meet
Sam Brownback Nobody in this little church just off Times Square in Manhattan
thinks of themselves as political. They're spiritual -- actors and athletes and
pretty young things who believe that every word of the Bible is inerrant
dictation from God. They look down from the balcony of the Morning Star, swaying
and smiling at the screen that tells them how to sing along. Nail-pierced hands,
a wounded side. This is love, this is love! But on this evening in January,
politics and all its worldly machinations have entered their church. Sitting in
the darkness of the front row is Sam Brownback, the Republican senator from
Kansas. And hunched over on the stage in a red leather chair is an old man named
Harald Bredesen, who has come to anoint Brownback as the Christian right's next
candidate for president.
Over the last six decades, Bredesen has prayed with so many presidents and
prime ministers and kings that he can barely remember their names. He's the
spiritual father of Pat Robertson, the man behind the preacher's vast media
empire. He was one of three pastors who laid hands on Ronald Reagan in 1970 and
heard the Pasadena Prophecy: the moment when God told Reagan that he would one
day occupy the White House. And he recently dispatched one of his proteges to
remind George W. Bush of the divine will -- and evangelical power -- behind his
presidency. ...
Read the rest of this article
here
Posted Mon Jan 30th, 2006 - 10:22pm by CPC
Top of page
by Claudine Ebeid |
NPR
When articles in trend-setting publications -- Spin, The New York Times --
focused on the Montreal "music scene," many locals cringed.
Howard Bilerman was one of them. He has produced and recorded a long list
of Canadian bands popular South of the Border -- among them The Dears, Wolf
Parade and 2005's indie darlings, Arcade Fire, who are now up for a Grammy.
But Bilerman scoffs at the notion that a "Montreal sound," has suddenly
developed, and rejects the recent fuss that's been made over his hometown. He
says the media just hasn't been paying attention.
In the early 1990s DJs dominated the music club scene, but as time went on
live bands began replacing them. At that time clubs would charge bands to play
rather than pay them. As an alternative to paying club fees, musicians created
their own spaces in which to perform. One was called the Hotel2Tango, opened by
members of the band God Speed You Black Emperor.
The Hotel2Tango eventually became a recording studio, and most acts have
moved out of underground lofts and into bars and clubs. At Le Divan Orange,
patrons are asked to pay whatever they feel they can afford.
The money goes to musicians such as Katie Moore, a native of Montreal who
has played folk music in the city for the last eight years.
Moore says the club boom and the change in payment policy did give the
music scene a boost and maybe even helped create a bond between artists, which
members of the media have played up.
But Moore says reporting has ignored another fact of life in Montreal:
"I think there's a real separation between the French and English music
here," Moore says, adding that the separation may give English bands a
close-knit, cooperative spirit.
French musicians have their own community. Gourmet Delice runs the
independent label Blow the Fuse Records, home to French punk bands. He's also
the bassist in the French punk band Le Nombre. Delice says the media has been
shallow in its depiction of the Montreal music scene. He points to two articles
that put Montreal on the map in the United States this past year.
"Spin and The New York Times just came to the English bands and completely
forgot the French part," he says. "And there are a lot of French bands here
doing really well and I think they were really narrow-minded in that aspect."
But he acknowledges that there is good reason that the English bands are
getting all the press.
"These bands really were more successful anyway, The Stills and The Dears
and stuff," he says. "Those bands go everywhere right away because they sing in
English. They're in England, in the States, all over Europe -- as opposed to a
French band. To go to the states we have to work really hard to get there."
One of the ways he's working to get there is through a government grant.
Last year the Canadian government invested nearly $14 million in the rock
music industry, with 40 percent of the funding going to French-language music.
The rest is allotted for music produced in other languages, including English.
Arcade Fire, The New Pornographers, Feist, Metric and Broken Social Scene
are all bands that did well commercially at home and abroad in the past year.
All received some form of grant or loan from the Canadian government.
Government funding of rock music may be anathema to U.S. listeners, but
there is something else that sets the Canadian music scene apart. Musicians seem
to have a different attitude toward competition. They're not really into it."
"What's cool in Montreal and Canada is that there is this new measuring of
success," says Tim Fletcher, who sings and plays guitar for The Stills. "We're
sort of doing it on our own. Whenever we're somewhere else, like at a festival,
we all hang out and everyone is like 'Oh the Canadians are so polite'... and
that's just how we go about things."
But lumping together all Canadians -- or even artists from Montreal --
won't fly with some folks.
"It's ridiculous," producer Bilerman says. "There are thousands of bands
in this city." He says the notion that Montreal has its own "sound" came from
reporting "based on five or ten bands all of which live in the same three
blocks."
But Bilerman also admits he's heard his share of "four-chord pop songs" of
late.
"I'm equally happy -- in fact more happy these days -- to have someone
come in and scrape a piece of metal with a screwdriver into a distortion pedal
into an amp," he says.
After all, fame brings a certain price.
"Montreal is a really easy city to be anonymous in and all this media
attention is ruining that a bit," Bilerman says. "There's always been so little
industry here and it's really easy to just do what you want to do and not get
distracted by the trappings of industry. And I really hope it returns that way
soon."
It just may. Music reporters are already pointing to the new "it" place in
music... Portland.
Check out this article and sound clips
here
Posted Sun Jan 29th, 2006 - 8:01am by CPC
Top of page
The
Lyzrd's Stomp features a step by step "how to" article on building a model
of a futuristic space weapon, out of stuff that that you can probably find
around your house.
Nerd-alicious!
Posted Sat Jan 28th, 2006 - 12:00pm by CPC
Top of page
Edmunds.com
1950 GM Futurliner Sells for $4.1 Million
SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — Meet the world's most expensive bus.
This
stunning-looking vehicle has just gone under the hammer at Arizona auction house
Barrett-Jackson for a non-mass-transportation price of $4.1 million.
That's the highest auction price ever paid at a Barrett-Jackson sale,
leaving in the dust the $3 million that the 1954 Oldsmobile F-88 concept car
fetched last year. But this bus is something special. It's a 1950 Futurliner,
one of only 12 ever made, and it was used in General Motors' Parade of Progress
and Motorama events, the road show that took futuristic GM cars around America
before and after World War II.
The auction catalog described the bus, Futurliner number 11, as "a
matchless symbol of the American auto industry at the height of its power and
influence." The bus — restored from a derelict state in 1990 — was designed by
the legendary GM stylist Harley Earl. It and another significant Harley Earl
design, the Pontiac Bonneville Special, went to the same private collector. The
Bonneville Special, which also featured as part of GM's Parade of Progress, was
sold for $2.8 million.
Of the 12 Futurliners, nine are known to survive in some form, but only
two others have been restored to their original condition. One is owned by
Northeast company Peter Pan Bus Lines and is liveried in the company's green
color scheme; the other was recently restored by the National Auto and Truck
Museum of the United States (NATMUS) of Auburn, Indiana.
Posted Fri Jan 27th, 2006 - 8:03am by CPC
Top of page
BBC News
E-mail
cements rather than replaces offline friendships The internet has played an
important role in the life decisions of 60 million Americans, research shows.
Whether it be career advice, helping people through an illness or finding a new
house, 45% of Americans turn to the web for help, a survey by US-based Pew
Internet think-tank has found.
It set out to find out whether the web and e-mail strengthen social ties.
The answer seems to be yes, especially in times of crisis when people use
it to mobilise their social networks. ..
Read the rest
here
Posted Thu Jan 26th, 2006 - 6:33am by CPC
Top of page
By Traci Hukill | AlterNet
An important report on the world's ecosystems says there is time to avert
the worst consequences of global warming, if we start now
The
authors of the world's most overlooked environmental study held a press briefing
last week in Washington to discuss what life on the planet will be like in 2050.
Their upbeat conclusion: fundamental changes, in practice and policy, can
protect us from the worst consequences of overpopulation and climate change.
Good news -- if anybody pays attention.
While it may not be a verifiable fact that the
Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment (MA) is the world's most underappreciated eco-study, it's
definitely the most unevenly appreciated one. When the huge report first emerged
last spring after four years, $24 million and the efforts of more than 1,300
scientists in 95 countries, it made headlines elsewhere. In December it was
awarded a Zayed Prize, something like an environmentalist Nobel. Here in the
United States, though, the media barely registered its existence.
What a dirty shame. The U.N.-backed Millennium Assessment is the most
thorough survey of global ecosystems ever undertaken. It's also the first report
of its kind to link ecosystem health to human well-being, and in so doing
strikes the rich, rich vein of human self-interest. Showing people what's in it
for them is a great way to get something done...
Read the rest
here
See also:
doom
and gloom
Posted Wed Jan 25th, 2006 - 8:49pm by CPC
Top of page
by Bob Jacobson | Corante
Bob
Jacobson, whose mother recently passed away, submitted a post on Corante.com
calling for experience designers to come up with something better than the "Six
Feet Under" travesty he just endured:
"I wanted to remember her as the vital woman she had been. Instead, she
became a prettied-up cadaver in a dark wood casket in a somberly commercial
mortuary setting. The fake candelabras, recorded organ music, and over-the-top,
phony tone of deference by the morticians -- who had the chutzpah to present
bills for my grieving father to pay -- was exceeded in grossness only by the
noise of the leafblowers wielded by gardeners working the outside of the chapel
while the ceremony began..."
Read the rest of Bob's post
here
See previous entry: Cheap Coffin
Posted Tue Jan 24th, 2006 - 7:22am by CPC
Top of page
I
read an article the
other day on the Inquirer site, that got me thinking about how oddly fickle we
all are about the who, what, and why of stuff that annoys us. Naturally, I
am annoyed by Spam, and those that send it (that's kind of what the article is
about) -- but it's about "annoyance by degrees", isn't it? Are you more
annoyed at someone cutting you off in traffic, or by having to put the cap back
on the toothpaste tube for the 10th time this week? I mean, when I ponder the
things (or people behind the things) that really annoy me, I honestly feel a
tinge of guilt. Isn't everyone annoying to someone else? If that
follows, aren't I probably annoying (by degrees) to others? So, rather
than let any thoughts about my own annoyingness develop into a
counter-productive angst, I will strive to be purposefully annoying (to
degrees).
Yes, I am Mr. Annoying Man.
See: Thousands of Ways to Annoy People
Posted Mon Jan 23rd, 2006 - 11:12pm by CPC
Top of page
T-Shirts That I would Wear
Here
are a few t-shirts that I would wear.
I especially like the one that depicts the right to "bear arms".
Posted Sun Jan 22nd, 2006 - 3:10pm by CPC
Top of page
by Stu Hutson |
NewScientist.com
With the most fiercely fought Canadian election in more than a decade
taking place on Monday, the crossfire of political rhetoric between the
incumbent prime minister and his Conservative Party challenger is becoming
heated – but which one is more trustworthy?
According to a new computer algorithm, Prime Minister Paul Martin, of the
Liberal Party, spins the subject matter of his speeches dramatically more than
Conservative Party leader, Stephen Harper, and the New Democratic Party leader,
Jack Layton.
Spin, in this case, is defined as “text or speech where the apparent
meaning is not the true belief of the person saying or writing it”, says the
algorithm’s developer, David Skillicorn at Queen’s University in Ontario,
Canada.
He
and his team analyzed the usage patterns of 88 deception-linked words within the
text of recent campaign speeches from the political leaders. They then
determined the frequency of these patterns in each speech, and averaged that
number over all of that candidate’s speeches. Martin received a ranking of 124,
while Harper and Layton scored 73 and 88, respectively.
“I think it’s expected that any party in power is going to use spin more
than the challenging party,” Skillicorn says. “They have a track record to
defend.”
Tarnished record With a solid run of 14 years as the dominant party in
Canada, the Liberal Party has a long record – one which has been tarnished in
the past year by accusations of illegal donations and kickbacks. Many political
experts expect the conservatives, who have a solid lead in the polls, to oust
the liberal party this election.
“The guy who’s doing the most tap-dancing is the guy who’s under the
spotlight,” said John Wright, senior vice president of the polling company Ipsos
Reid. “The pressure is going to show.”
Conservative parliament members, such as Jason Kenney, point to the
analysis as proof of their leader’s honesty. “People used to think he’s boring,
but now they recognize that he’s a straight shooter without the spin.”
But Liberal Party spokesman Ken Polk disagrees: “If that is what the
algorithm shows, I think it needs quite a bit of work,” he says.
Interrogator tactics The computer algorithm is based on a psychological
model constructed by James Pennebaker at the University of Texas, Austin, US.
While studying the lying and truth-telling of hundreds of test subjects, he
uncovered patterns linked to deception, such as the decreased use of personal
pronouns – such as I, we, me, us – and exception words, such as “however” and
“unless".
The patterns are probably of subconscious origin, he said, much like the
physical cues – such as pupil dilation or changes in breathing – which
interrogators use to tell when a subject is being untruthful.
Skillicorn decided to apply the technique to the presidential speeches
after using it to investigate the text of emails sent between Enron Corporation
executives before the company’s infamous bankruptcy in 2001.
He admits that the algorithm is still a work in progress, but “with this
much of a difference, I think the results are still pretty clear”.
Posted Sat Jan 21st, 2006 - 10:10am by CPC
Top of page
From
Hermes to bonsai kittens
the Economist
AS A pupil at a minor English boarding school, one of the rituals your
correspondent dreaded most was morning chapel: 600 boys and a dozen berobed
“masters” crammed into a cold, dim chamber for ten minutes of dreary hymns and
prayers. Until, that is, one morning, the solemn atmosphere was shattered by
an unforgettable act of comic bravado. Seconds after the headmaster—known as
the Head Horse on account of his equine features—took his seat, a giant white
sheet rolled down over the arched entrance. On it was a caricature of a
grinning horse wearing a mortar-board. Lord, how we laughed.
The perpetrators' identities did not stay secret for long—what schoolboy
could resist boasting of such a jape? The rolled-up sheet had been held in
place by thread that was tied to the switch for the headmaster's reading light
so tautly that when he turned it on, the thread snapped and the caricature was
unfurled. The Head Horse had been forced to humiliate himself. Even he had to
admit it was ingenious.
Abbie Hoffman, a 1960s radical-cum-trickster, said most pranks fell into
one of three categories: “good” pranks were amusingly satirical, “bad” ones
gratuitously vindictive, and “neutral” ones surreal and soft on the victim (if
there was one). An example of the first is the time Mr Hoffman and his fellow
“Yippies” showered the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with dollar bills
in 1967, thereby managing to stop the tickertape for six minutes while traders
scrambled to pick up the notes. For a taste of the second, go to any college
fraternity initiation. Examples of the third are many and delicious. A master
of the art in the early 20th century was Horace de Vere Cole, an inveterate
British prankster. Cole bore a striking resemblance to the then leader of the
Labour Party, Ramsay MacDonald, and one of his favourite japes was to appear
at Labour rallies posing as MacDonald, stride on stage to rapturous applause,
and denounce everything the party stood for.
Priceless or puerile? There's the rub, for one man's brilliant prank is
another's mindless stunt. Most would agree that the best pranks offer more
than just deception, mischievousness or ridicule, and that much of the genre
dished up on television now—the mutant progeny of shows like “Candid
Camera”—falls well short of the mark. But what is that special ingredient?
Elaborateness or simplicity? Satirical bite or surrealism? Irony or bluntness?
Even dictionaries seem unsure how to define “prank” (orig. unk.): it is, by
turns, a malicious trick, a conjuring act performed to deceive or surprise, a
mischievous frolic, and more. ...
read the rest of the article
here
see also: prank.org ; the
Museum of Hoaxes
Posted Fri Jan 20th, 2006 - 3:36pm by CPC
Top of page
This is a one of the best travel
writing web sites that I have ever come across.
Posted Thu Jan 19th, 2006 - 8:55pm by CPC
Top of page
From the
MIT Advertising Lab:
Advertisers
are slowly discovering the potential of Google Maps, and some, like the
Target store shown on the left (more at
Google Sightseeing),
are even enjoying some unexpected windfall.
Poynter Online
talks about realtors tapping into satellite imaging tools. Google Maps Mania is
running a log on map hacks, some of them by businesses.
Scavengeroogle is an
armchair scavenger hunt based on the service - you too can have people looking
for your brand landmark (like, again, the Target stores).
Here's a
how-to on integrating Google Maps into your website.
Posted Wed Jan 18th, 2006 - 12:16pm by CPC
Top of page
The Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute (www.cdfai.org) and The
Dominion Institute (www.dominion.ca), have
put together a series about Canadian ideas and myths regarding our southern
neighbours. This is interesting on a bunch of levels. I wonder how much of
our prejudices are based upon a collective "mistaken self-identity" for who we
Canadian are, and what our nation represents? What shade of coloured glass
do we look at others through?
From the A.M. web site introduction:
Canadians share their continent with the global superpower; naturally, they
are wary. Yet, centuries of interaction have brought Canadians and Americans
to talk, trade, fight as allies, intermarry and immigrate to each other's
territory. As a result, Canadians believe they intuitively understand their
neighbours and proclaim that we "get" the US better than anyone else.
But Canadians nonetheless cherish ideas - even myths - about Americans that
may not be true. Many would agree that Americans are warlike, while Canadians
are the world's peacekeepers; that Canada is a beacon of social welfare
innovation, while America is a regressive and uncaring state; that America's
ethnic melting pot is hidebound and discriminatory, while Canada's is the
enlightened and tolerant nation in North America.
But how appropriate is this conventional wisdom? Do we truly understand
Americans, or have our internal political battles and insecurities led to a
distorted perception of America? How do our myths about the US impact the
relationship between the two nations? Most important of all, how do they
affect our sense of ourselves and our ability to grapple with the challenges
and opportunities Canada faces?
"American Myths" aims to challenge Canadians by provoking a critical study
of their perceptions and preconceptions about their superpower neighbour.
"American Myths" also endeavourers to bring forward a range of ideas and
perspectives about what constitutes Canadian identity and how we can confront
the challenges we face, as opposed to defining Canadian interests and identity
simply in opposition to the US.
Thanks to Dick for sending me this.
Posted Tue Jan 17th, 2006 - 8:02am by CPC
Top of page
This
is cool!
The Edge Annual Question —
2006
From the Word Question
Centre at the Edge:
WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?
The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered
socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and
Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An
idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous
not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?
Check out some of the essays
here.
Posted Mon Jan 16th, 2006 - 7:22pm by CPC
Top of page
Apparently, it's the 100th anniversary of the invention of the electric
toaster this month.
I found the following article at the
Grain Foods Foundation (via Dr. Toast's
Amazing World of Toast).
DENVER,
CO - It's the world's first comfort food, and one of the most enduring simple
pleasures in our nation's history. More than 75 million Americans enjoy a piece
of golden brown toast every day. In fact, our nation's love of toast has
inspired the creation of collectors' conventions, a national toaster museum, web
sites, songs about toast and cookbooks with recipes for nothing but toast.
November is National Bread Month and to celebrate bread and our nation's
love affair with toast, the non-profit Grain Foods Foundation is recognizing the
100 th anniversary of the invention of the first electric toaster.
This is a milestone in the history of America's fascination with
electronic gadgets. Before radios, before blenders, before televisions, before
microwave ovens, before computers and before i-Pods were popular, there was the
toaster - the first electric appliance in history to mass populate American
homes.
While some gadgets come and go, toasters remain a popular item. About 12
million toasters are sold annually, according to Consumer Reports. Approximately
90 percent of homes in America have a toaster. ..
Read the rest
here
See also: Dr. Toast's Amazing
World of Toast
For the record, I prefer my toast with either homemade blueberry jam, or
Lyle's Golden Syrup.
Thanks.
Posted Sun Jan 15th, 2006 - 8:03pm by CPC
Top of page
If I dig a hole deep enough, where on the other side of the world
will my hole emerge?
If you're like me, and have been asking this question since your sandbox days
-- I'm delighted to tell you that there's a
quick answer.
Although this assumes that you are digging a hole that is perfectly straight
down...
see also:
Tailor-Made Cartography with Google Maps @ NPR
See previous entry: Cool Things to Do with Google
Posted Sat Jan 14th, 2006 - 8:45am by CPC
Top of page
This comes as a bit of a surprise -- however, I understand that they will
continue selling the F6 and the FM10. If you had of told me this 5 years
ago, I could have thought you completely nuts.
NEW
YORK (AP) -- Nikon Corp., which helped popularize the 35mm camera five decades
ago, will stop making most of its film cameras to concentrate on digital models.
The Japanese company said it wanted to focus on "business categories that
continue to demonstrate the strongest growth" as film cameras sales keep
shrinking.
Nikon will discontinue seven film-camera models, leaving in production
only the current top-line model, the F6, and a low-end manual-focus model, the
FM10.
It will also stop making most of its manual-focus lenses.
Most of the company's autofocus lenses work with manual-focus bodies,
however. Also, German optical company Carl Zeiss AG is widely reported to be
planning a line of manual-focus lenses for Nikon bodies.
Nikon did not give firm dates for the discontinuation of its products, but
said Wednesday that sales will cease as supplies are depleted.
Major competitor Canon Inc. still makes five models of single-lens reflex
film cameras. At the lower end of the market, Eastman Kodak Co. announced in
2004 that it would stop selling film cameras in the United States and Europe.
Nikon ranks fifth in digital-camera shipments in the United States, behind
Kodak, Canon, Sony Corp. and Fuji Photo Film Co.
Nikon was a major force in establishing the dominance of the 35mm
single-lens reflex camera, the workhorse of professionals and sophisticated
amateurs until the arrival of digital cameras.
Its breakthrough model was the F, released in 1959. It set a standard for
ruggedness and reliability and became a must-have for photojournalists.
Unusually, Nikon has maintained the same lens mount over the years,
meaning most lenses from 1959 will fit today's digital models and vice versa,
albeit with functional restrictions.
Posted Fri Jan 13th, 2006 - 10:56pm by CPC
Top of page
By Chris Hogg |
BBC News,
Hong Kong
Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.
They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs,
theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish
into a normal pig embryo.
The researchers hope the pigs will boost the island's stem cell research,
as well as helping with the study of human disease.
The
researchers, from National Taiwan University's Department of Animal Science and
Technology, say that although the pigs glow, they are otherwise no different
from any others.
Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially
fluorescent pigs before. But the researchers insist the three pigs they have
produced are better.
They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their
heart and internal organs are green, they say.
To create them, DNA from jellyfish was added to about 265 pig embryos
which were implanted in eight different pigs.
Four of the pigs became pregnant and three male piglets were born three
months ago.
In daylight the researchers say the pigs' eyes, teeth and trotters look
green. Their skin has a greenish tinge.
In the dark, shine a blue light on them and they glow torch-light bright.
The scientists will use the transgenic pigs to study human disease.
Because the pig's genetic material is green, it is easy to spot.
So if, for instance, some of its stem cells are injected into another
animal, scientists can track how they develop without the need for a biopsy or
invasive test.
But creating them has not been easy. Many of the altered embryos failed to
develop.
The researchers say they hope the new, green pigs will mate with ordinary
female pigs to create a new generation - much greater numbers of transgenic pigs
for use in research.
By Chris Hogg??! Too Funny!
See also:
Green Eggs and Ham
See also:
No
eggs, but green ham I am
Posted Thu Jan 12th, 2006 - 12:01pm by CPC
Top of page
In his first six months at the UN, John Bolton has offended allies, blocked
crucial negotiations, undermined the secretary of state -- and harmed U.S.
interests. We expected bad; we didn’t expect this bad.
By Mark Leon Goldberg |
The American Prospect
There
is an excellent coffee shop in the basement of the United Nations building in
New York. The espresso is served bitter and strong, Italian style. Sandwiches
can be bought on hard French baguettes, and the pastries are always fresh.
Whenever a meeting lets out in one of the conference rooms adjacent to the shop,
diplomats make a beeline to the cash registers. Others light cigarettes: Though
the United Nations is in Manhattan, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s
anti-smoking crusade has not yet penetrated the complex, which sits on
international land; so, beneath conspicuous no-smoking signs, diplomats
routinely light up, creating a hazy plume that gives the Vienna Café a decidedly
European feel.
The European way of doing things, in the weeks preceding the mid-September
2005 United Nations World Summit, could not be stretched to include the 35-hour
workweek. For days, frantic negotiations on the substance of far-ranging UN
reforms dragged on from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. But the one UN ambassador who generally
arrived earliest and stayed latest always looked more upbeat than his
bleary-eyed counterparts. “All night -- all right!” quipped John Bolton to a
press stakeout.
There was a reason for Bolton’s cheer: He was the man most responsible for
the complexity of these negotiations. A month earlier, the newly minted,
recess-appointed U.S. ambassador had sent negotiations into a tailspin when he
submitted some 750 alterations to a 39-page text known as the “summit outcomes”
document. Bolton’s most eye-popping suggestion at this summit, billed as a
renewal of the UN’s 5-year-old pledge to help poor countries, was that all 14
references in the document to the anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
be deleted. ..
Read the rest of the article
here
See previous entry: Bush Stands by His U.N. Man
Posted Wed Jan 11th, 2006 - 10:35pm by CPC
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A 19-year-old entrepreneur is blowing $100,000 out of his savings on spending
a year at Walt Disney World before going away to college. "Jupelo" is the alias
of a young man who flies to Disney for six days every week, stays in Disney
hotel, and goes to parks and resorts every day, all day.
Link
Hrmm.
Posted Tue Jan 10th, 2006 - 6:52pm by CPC
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from Surfersvillage /
Newswatch India
As traditional news outlets like newspapers magazines and TV stations
grapple with moving online, they must cultivate key audiences including 35- to
44-year-olds, who are the biggest consumers of online sources a study shows.
Some 24 percent of this demographic, which includes members of Generation X and
Baby Boomers, get their news online.
Meanwhile, only 19 percent of these same consumers read newspapers,
according to a report from JupiterResearch. Contrast that with people over 55.
Some 41 percent of them read newspapers intensively. The audience for online
news is often separate and distinct from the audience that consumes news in
print or on television, and the web audience isn’t satisfied with news that’s
merely recycled from a paper or a broadcast.
This explains in part why many major newspapers and magazines aren’t
boosting traffic to their web sites to offset losses in circulation as much as
they would like, the report said. They are increasingly competing with blogs,
portals, and news aggregators that distribute information in a more informal,
conversational, and engaging way, the report said.
“The issue that hangs like a cloud for everybody in this area is ‘How can
I do this without harming my traditional media property?’” said Barry Parr,
Jupiter media analyst and author of the report. “That’s a hard question.” The
Internet has created new habits and consumption patterns as audiences migrate to
the web.
However, print still has its share of loyal fans, primarily the older and
more affluent cross-sections of society. People read newspapers out of habit and
because its form currently makes it more practical to read on a plane, say, than
it would be to surf the Net. But that may change as technologies change...
Read the rest of the article
here
Posted Mon Jan 9th, 2006 - 3:55pm by CPC
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Raymond
Frohlich has scanned and posted 16 photos from a 1979 brochure for an IBM 4331
Processor: "Exceptionally compact, yet more powerful than many larger systems,
the IBM 4331 Processor is designed to provide advanced computing benefits at a
cost comparable to what you're probably paying now for a system with less
application capability."
Part 1 Link,
Part 2 Link
Posted Sat Jan 7th, 2006 - 9:02am by CPC
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Little Christmas or Nollaig Bheag in the
Irish language, is one of the traditional names in
Ireland
and
Italy
for
January 6, more commonly known as the
Epiphany. It is so called because it was, until the adoption of the
Gregorian calendar, the day on which
Christmas Day was celebrated. It is the traditional end of the
Christmas season and the last day of the Christmas holidays for both
Primary and Secondary schools.
It is also known as Nollaig na mBean
(Women's Christmas) It is so called because of the tradition (still
strong in Cork, though only just surviving in the rest of the country)
of Irish men taking on all the household duties on that day and giving
their spouses a day off.
See previous entry: Epiphany!
Posted Fri Jan 6th, 2006 - 7:47am by CPC
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'There
was Irving Layton, and then there was the rest of us' - Leonard Cohen
I met Irving Layton through a classmate at Concordia back in 1981, and I
recall attending a concert with him at the Loyola Chapel Auditorium. I
believe it was Valdy playing.
I had just struggled through "the Collected Poems of" -- and I told him that.
We love in another's soul whatever of ourselves we can deposit in it; the
greater the deposit, the greater the love. ~ Irving Layton
I couldn't be that cynical if I tried on my darkest day.
National Post
story/obit
Wiki entry for Layton
Posted Thu Jan 5th, 2006 - 9:55pm by CPC
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I've
been checking out eBay and elsewhere lately for a decent watch, to replace those
that I have lost, have had stolen, or ones that are otherwise sitting in a
drawer with dead batteries.
If you haven't looked at watches in a while, you may be amazed to see what
some folks consider to be cool.
Check out Wrist Dreams
Posted Wed Jan 4th, 2006 - 8:34am by CPC
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Today's
Worth1000 photoshopping contest asked participants to modify natural landscapes
to make them appear to contain sculptural shapes from everyday life.
Says Cory at BoingBoing: "This tickles exactly the same part of my brain
that shapes-in-clouds or a stucco ceiling triggers: that big pattern-seeking
mechanism that turned us into hominids. Apophenia is both satisfying and
addicting."
Link to Worth100.com
Posted Mon Jan 2nd, 2006 - 10:24am by CPC
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I went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with a
friend this evening.
Awesome!
see previous entry:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Posted Sun Jan 1st, 2006 - 10:47pm by CPC
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