Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Fascinating
David L. Bassett was an expert in anatomy and dissection at the University of Washington. For more than 17 years, he was engaged in creating what has been called the most painstaking and detailed set of images of the human body, inside and out, ever produced.
In 3-D.
Working closely with William Gruber, the inventor of the View-Master, the three-dimensional viewing system that GAF Corporation popularized as a toy in the 1960s, Dr. Bassett created the 25-volume “Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy” in 1962.
It included some 1,500 pairs of slides, along with line drawings that made the details more discernible.
The paired slides could be examined with a View-Master, making the chest cavity look cavernous, and making details of structure and tissue stand out unforgettably.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Did Syphilis start as a skin ailment?
New research suggests that Syphilis was intelligent enough to evolve as a disease -- from a skin ailment to a sexually transmitted virus, more likely to be passed among humans in Europe's frigid climate (where skin contact was rare.)16th century accounts of Syphilis describe it as causing painful, oozing boils - not the kind of thing you'd get laid with, and therefore not beneficial to Syphilis's survival. So, it evolved into the infertility- and insanity-causing Syphilis of today.
This is not right
People, if you can't afford to tip, DON'T EAT OUT. or get your hair cut or nails done, or whatever. That's the reality of a bad economy.Read "Tip-dependent workers feeling the slump: The economic downturn has cash-strapped customers leaving less."
Meet my mother's new kitties
Thanks to the folks at Kitty Connection for making the love connection!
Emptying the breadbasket
Wheat's fall from favor, little noticed when it was cheap, has been long coming. Though still an iconic symbol of American abundance -- engraved on currency and praised in song -- the nation's amber waves of wheat have been increasingly shoved aside by other crops. The "breadbasket of the world," which had alleviated hunger and famine since World War I, now generally supplies only a quarter of world wheat exports.
Food stamps can buy fruit, veggies for first time
For the first time in its 35-year history, the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Supplemental Nutrition Program -- which provides food vouchers to millions of households nationwide -- will, starting October 2009, allow participants to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and soy-based products.
It's about time.
EU warns of end to cheap food and looming global crisis
EU development commissioner Louis Michel has warned that the days of "cheap food are over" and that the world faces a major food crisis unless there is a global response to higher prices.
Speaking during the European Parliament debate on food prices in Strasbourg earlier this week, Michel said that there was a global crisis brewing.
"It might be less visible than the energy crisis but it could have devastating economic and humanitarian effects, especially in Africa," Michel said.
Speaking during the European Parliament debate on food prices in Strasbourg earlier this week, Michel said that there was a global crisis brewing.
"It might be less visible than the energy crisis but it could have devastating economic and humanitarian effects, especially in Africa," Michel said.
Cheri Oteri's father stabbed to death
The AP reports:
The father of former "Saturday Night Live" star Cheri Oteri was stabbed to death in Nashville, and a country songwriter has been arrested. Richard William Fagan, 61, had been charged with criminal homicide in the Saturday death of 69-year-old Gaetano Thomas Oteri, police said yesterday. They said Fagan and the victim were roommates.
The father of former "Saturday Night Live" star Cheri Oteri was stabbed to death in Nashville, and a country songwriter has been arrested. Richard William Fagan, 61, had been charged with criminal homicide in the Saturday death of 69-year-old Gaetano Thomas Oteri, police said yesterday. They said Fagan and the victim were roommates.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Draining the basin that it Mexico City
The metropolis, situated in a giant natural bowl, suffers flooding and backup with every rainy season.The enormous expanse of concrete and asphalt known as Mexico City was once a lake. And each year, starting about this time, it seems hell-bent on becoming one again.
Since the days of the Aztecs, inhabitants have labored to manage the waters of the basin cradling modern-day Mexico City. Now they're trying again, with a much-touted, $1.3-billion government effort to revamp the massive but overwhelmed sewer system.
This would never, ever fly in Massachusetts....
...Where the most affluent communities complain the MOST about lack of state aid for schools.Thousands of California teachers face layoffs and school districts statewide are scrambling for survival under the governor's threat of a $4.8-billion cut in education spending.
But not in Laguna Beach.
That's because the four schools in the 2,900-student district are funded primarily by property taxes collected from the affluent community, essentially insulating it from the state's economic emergency.
Districts become basic aid districts automatically under a formula based on their revenue; the status can fluctuate from year to year depending on property values. "Revenue limit" schools, conversely, receive state aid in addition to local property taxes.
Vandals rip up 18 new trees in Roxbury
Vandals tore up 18 new trees that had been planted last week in a playground in an industrial corner of Roxbury. A dog walker found the red maples and white swamp oaks this morning lying on the ground at the Clifford Playground. The 4- to 8-foot tall saplings were in a grove of 50 trees planted Wednesday by volunteers from the Home Depot Foundation. It was part of the city’s effort to plant 100,000 new trees in Boston by 2020.
My worst nightmare
In a county with one of the nation’s highest foreclosure rates, empty houses have attracted a new type of nonpaying tenant: bees.
Tens of thousands of honeybees, building nests in garages, rafters, even furniture left behind.
Rocket Scandal!
Roger Clemens had a decade-long relationship with country star Mindy McCready that began when she was a 15-year-old aspiring singer and the pitcher was a Boston Red Sox ace, the Daily News reported.
Clemens' lawyer, Rusty Hardin, confirmed a long-term relationship but told the newspaper it was not sexual.
(PS: that doesn't exist, but nice try)
I want to sponsor this guy
(Thanks to Daily Candy)Nestled among 165-acres of woodland near Union, Missouri, the Humane Society of Missouri's Longmeadow Rescue Ranch is haven for hundreds of abused and neglected horses, cows, goats, pigs, ducks and other farm animals.
You can sponsor, adopt or donate for the care of recovering animals.
"Men will be just toward men when they are charitable toward animals."
-Henry Bergh
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Through Weegee's lens
BACK in the 1970s, a gutsy blonde named Jill Freedman armed with a battered Leica M4 and an eye for the offbeat trained her lens on the spirited characters and gritty sidewalks of a now-extinct city. Her New York was a blemished and fallen apple strewn with piles of garbage. Prostitutes and bag ladies walked the streets, junkies staked out abandoned tenements, and children played in vacant lots.
Brokers taking on a younger look
An aging industry scrambles to draw Generation X agents who speak the tech-savvy language of today's home buyers.Young brokers such as Lisa Johnson, right, are in great need. The real estate industry is getting older - the median age of brokers is 52 - while customers are young (the median age of first-time buyers in Massachusetts is 32.)
Traditional approaches don't work on this younger set, who prefer to do most of the legwork themselves.
So the industry is now scrambling to recruit young agents such as Johnson, those in their 20s and 30s who have established online identities, are fluent in IM and text messaging, and regulars on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
A drive to save Tempelhof Airport, base of the Berlin airlift
Soviet authorities suddenly imposed a blockade on West Berlin in 1948, cutting off all road, train and boat access and leaving 2.2 million Berliners stranded on an island of the new Cold War.
In what is now considered one of the greatest operations in aviation history, U.S. and British pilots began flying in the first of what would be more than 5,000 tons of supplies daily to Tempelhof Airport, whose grand passenger hall once was considered a temple to Adolf Hitler's dream of a grand Germania.
Today, Berlin residents will go to the polls to vote in a referendum on plans to close Tempelhof, which stands as a majestic relic near the center of a now-united Berlin.
The New Economics of Hunger
The globe's worst food crisis in a generation emerged as a blip on the big boards and computer screens of America's great grain exchanges. At first, it seemed like little more than a bout of bad weather.For the 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, the world's worst food crisis in a generation is a matter of survival. See a slideshow of food crises around the world.
Friday, April 25, 2008
My water bottle is safe....
Is yours?
There's no need to risk dehydration. Here are 10 options for those who are thirsty for BPA-free alternatives.
Tax rebates coming sooner than planned
President Bush said tax rebates will start going out Monday, earlier than previously announced, and should help Americans cope with rising gasoline and food prices, as well as aid a slumping economy.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
On his weekends, Chinese Samaritan saves lives
The woman was still wearing her kitchen apron when Chen Si spotted her on the other side of the Nanjing Bridge.
By the time Chen raced across four lanes of screaming traffic that recent Sunday morning, the woman had already started climbing the narrow railing separating her from the surging waters below.
"After I yanked her back, all she did was cry," said Chen, who is all too familiar with such scenes: The burly 39-year-old has spent practically every weekend of the last four years patrolling this stretch of roadway above the mighty Yangtze River, looking for signs of human despair.
Chen is a self-appointed lifeguard on the so-called Chinese bridge of death. His record so far, he says: 144 lives saved.
Not bad for a one-man crusade. But it hardly makes a dent in the suicide epidemic sweeping this land of mind-numbing change, where the social safety net of the early communist era has given way to the stress of a market-driven economy. By official estimates, as many as 280,000 Chinese kill themselves each year, twice the rate in the United States.
Wrong turn on Moody Street
These are awkward times for Moody Street, the main thoroughfare that just a decade ago was hailed as the face of Waltham's rebirth from factory town to hipster suburb.On April 12, the Construction Site, a children's store that served as one of the street's retail destination points, closed. The past year has also seen the departure of Maxima Gift Center, Harry's Shoe Store, Brickman's Furniture, and Lexington Music Center.
Note to self: buy rice today
Sam's Club is limiting how much rice customers can buy because of what it calls "recent supply and demand trends," the company said Wednesday. The broader chain of Wal-Mart stores has no plans to limit food purchases, however.
Sam's Club said it will limit customers to four bags at a time of Jasmine, Basmati and long grain white rice. Rice prices have been hitting record highs recently on worries about tight supplies as part of broader global inflation in food costs.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Dowd: Is Obama scared of Hillary because she's... scary?
The Democrats are eager to move on to an Obama-McCain race. But they can’t because no one seems to be able to show Hillary the door.Despite all his incandescent gifts, Obama has missed several opportunities to smash the ball over the net and end the game.
Again and again, he has seemed stuck at deuce.
He complains about the politics of scoring points, but to win, you’ve got to score points.
Washington Paper Ousts Top Editor
The Washington Post announced Tuesday that Susan B. Glasser, considered an up-and-coming star at the paper, had been removed from her job as an assistant managing editor in charge of national news. According to several people at The Post, it did so because of complaints and poor morale among Ms. Glasser’s subordinates.
Cosby in Atlantic Monthly
As Cosby sees it, the antidote to racism is not rallies, protests, or pleas, but strong families and communities. Instead of focusing on some abstract notion of equality, he argues, blacks need to cleanse their culture, embrace personal responsibility, and reclaim the traditions that fortified them in the past.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A really grand old Canyon?
Just last month, a team of scientists announced evidence that the Grand Canyon is 17 million years old, or 11 million years older than previous estimates. Now, scientists at the University of Colorado and the California Institute of Technology say they have mineralogical evidence that suggests the canyon started forming more than 55 million years ago and possibly existed 65 million years ago when dinosaurs still roamed.
In elephant news
The Javan elephant, long thought to be extinct, may not be extinct after all. It may just have been living on another island, Borneo.Borneo pygmy elephants live at the northern tip of Borneo and don't look or act like other Asian elephants. Local stories indicated the elephants had been brought to Borneo by the sultan of Sulu. (Sulu is now part of the Philippines.) And in turn, the Sulu elephants are thought to have originated in Java.
A new paper shows no evidence that elephants have lived in Borneo for a long time, supporting this theory. Thus, the gifting of elephants between rulers may have saved this species from extinction, at least for now. There are only 1,000 left in the wild.
Edible offenders
About a thir
d of greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming result from food production. Your meal may travel a long and complex path to arrive at your plate, using various forms of energy along the way. Here are some of the worst offenders, listed alongside the amount, in grams, of carbon dioxide emissions generated per six-ounce portion.
d of greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming result from food production. Your meal may travel a long and complex path to arrive at your plate, using various forms of energy along the way. Here are some of the worst offenders, listed alongside the amount, in grams, of carbon dioxide emissions generated per six-ounce portion.
Housing slump may exceed Depression
An influential economist who long predicted the housing market bubble cautioned Tuesday that the slump in the U.S. housing market could cause prices to fall more than they did in the Great Depression and bailouts will be needed so millions don't lose their homes.
Clueless in America
New York Times:
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread.
A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900. Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out.
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread.
A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900. Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out.
Life Expectancy Drops for Some U.S. Women
For the first time since the Spanish influenza of 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women.
Note to news producers: Don't try to abuse your position
The general manager of WHDH Channel 7 was arrested after an allegedly drunken, obscenity laced tirade at Logan International Airport in which she threatened to call a news crew and put a State Trooper "on TV and ruin [his] life," according to a police report published by the Boston Globe."I'm a bigshot in Boston and I'll have you're [expletive] jobs," Goldklank told the troopers, according to the report. "You think your a [expletive] tough guy, just you watch and see what the [expletive] happens to you when I get out of here."
Monday, April 21, 2008
Sarah Francomano, a publicist in Boston, planned to work within a week of her delivery. She miscalculated and went into labor during a business meeting.Call it the American way of maternity. Eighty percent of pregnant women who work remained on the job until one month or less before their child's birth, according to newly released Census data for 2003. In 1965 that figure was 35 percent.
Most women work until close to their due date for two reasons: They need the income and they want to use their maternity leav
Friday, April 18, 2008
Surprisingly good recipes found...
Found on Glamour.com:White Bean Tuna Salad
- 1/2 yellow, red or green bell pepper, sliced
- 2 cups lettuce or spinach
- 1/2 cup canned white beans (rinsed)
- 4 oz. tuna (canned in water, drained)
- Chopped scallions or green onions, to taste
- 2 tbsp. lemon balsamic vinaigrette (any low-fat vinaigrette will do)
What to do
Combine veggies and beans in a salad bowl, pile tuna on top, garnish with scallions and top with vinaigrette.
Makes one serving.
Calories per serving: 390
Simple Stir-Fry
- 4 oz. shrimp, peeled and rinsed (thawed under warm water if frozen)
- 2 cups of your favorite veggies, such as asparagus, snap peas, carrots, peppers and mushrooms (chopped)
- 1/4 onion
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp. hoisin sauce
- 1/4 cup low-fat chicken broth
- 1/2 cup brown rice, prepared
What to do
Combine shrimp, veggies, onion and garlic in a skillet or wok; drizzle hoisin sauce and chicken broth over the top; saute until veggies are tender and shrimp turns pink. Serve with half a cup of brown rice on the side.
Makes one serving.
Calories per serving: 360
Chicken and Grapefruit Salad
- 2 cups chopped butter lettuce
- 1/2 grapefruit, peeled and sectioned
- 1/4 avocado, sliced
- 1/2 oz. almonds
- 4 oz. chicken, grilled and sliced
- 2 tbsp low-fat poppy seed dressing
What to do
Place the lettuce in a salad bowl, top with grapefruit, avocado, almonds and sliced chicken. Drizzle with dressing and enjoy!
Makes one serving.
Calories per serving: 395
Chicken With Apricot Sauce
- 2 tbsp. apricot jam
- 1 tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
- 1/2 cup wild rice, cooked
- 1 cup steamed green beans
What to do
Broil or grill the chicken breast; mix jam, soy sauce and mustard in a saucepan over low heat until warm, then spoon over chicken. Serve with wild rice and steamed green beans.
Makes one serving.
Calories per serving: 360
Global food shortages cause trash-digging in Haiti
Protests in Haiti and elsewhere are putting renewed pressure on already fragile governments, although experts say there are few quick fixes to a crisis tied to so many factors, from strong demand for food from emerging economies.
Global food pricing are spiraling out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.
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