Communicating Astronomy with the Public journal (CAPjournal) #9 is up and focused on cultural astronomy and how historical or cultural aspects to science pieces can help communicators to engage with a wider audience.  

During IYA2009, many countries ran projects that can be classed as “Cultural Astronomy”. The activities described focused on indigenous astronomy,  the history of astronomy and the inclusive nature of astronomy — as a hobby that can be enjoyed by anyone, anywhere. Activities included public events that combined telescope observing with storytelling, new learning modules for school  children, theatre productions and cultural astronomy exhibitions.

Forget booze, women and drugs, modern gangsters know where the big money is; government health care.

73 people have been charged with the most lucrative mafia scheme ever- setting up 118 phantom clinics in 25 states to cheat Medicare out of $163 million.   That's bold, people.

How did they get caught?  Goofy paperwork, like eye doctors doing bladder tests and ear, nose and throat specialists doing pregnancy ultrasounds while obstetricians were testing for skin allergies and dermatologists were billing for heart exams.

But not before they got away with $35 million.

From Babbage at The Economist:

"IT'S 'Out of Africa' meets 'Pretty Woman'", says a screenwriter pitching her script to a studio exec in the legendary eight-minute tracking shot that opens Robert Altman's "The Player".

Tech start-ups are like films. There are only a few basic plots; all the rest is "X meets Y". I was reminded of this on Tuesday at the New York Tech Meetup. NYTM, as its 15,000 members call it, is the grand-daddy event of the city's start-up scene. It's like "The Player" meets Silicon Alley.

Want to chase insurers out of your business?    Interpret rules so that families can buy a policy for a child only when the child gets sick, meaning costs will skyrocket for everyone else which ... would not be allowed.  A guaranteed money loser for companies and so large insurers announced they would no longer issue child-only policies.

As a result of the confusion in rushing through health care reform, the Obama administration now says insurers can charge more for sick kids.  Just like they do now.  Only with the government taking a chunk of taxpayer revenue to manage it.

Rotting fish experiments have helped to create picture of our early ancestors, says a study from the University of Leicester.

fossils from the early phase of vertebrate evolution are very rare because being completely soft-bodied they normally rotted away completely after death leaving nothing behind. But very occasionally their remains became preserved as fossils giving us a tantalising glimpse of our early vertebrate relatives.

Anyone who has seen "Back To The Future" (and who on a science site hasn't?) knows that Michael J. Fox owns the role of Marty McFly but older fans ... or recent devoted ones ... know he was not the first choice.  Instead, they were a few weeks into shooting and Robert Zemeckis felt it wasn't going to be funny enough with his current actor.

Back then, Stoltz was regarded as an up-and-coming, quality actor whereas Fox was a guy on a TV show, so it wasn't without risk to make that change.  But executive producer Steven Spielberg agreed and Zemeckis got the studio to let him reshoot five weeks worth of footage.

For the first time, people who purchase the 25th anniversary DVD will get to see footage of Stoltz as Marty McFly.  Check out some clips below:

Science projects ain't what they used to be.

Forget the potato clock and papier-mache volcano. From "smart rockets" to LEGO robots, and plastic-eating microbes to nuclear detectors, here are nine recent science fair winners that’ll make you say "wow."

Fox News has the scoop.

I'll be honest, this article came as a surprise to me.   Not that Linux was making inroads against Microsoft, but that anyone actually used Microsoft to run a server.   I never have.  I never would.  It seems absolutely maddening to even try.

The NY Times has the scoop and says there is a cost issue:

Researchers from Office of Naval Research Global (ONR Global), MERSTech, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, say they have designed a switch that can recycle electric power. The switch called the Magnetic Energy Recovery Switch, can save 39% of electricity at peak power, according to recent tests.