A while back I discussed the optics of rainbows and showed you how to make your own; namely, what angle to stand at and how to use a hose.But Republicans out there may not have liked all my hippie talk about reflections and refractions and want to be a little more proactive with their rainbow creation - like how it can involve a gun; luckily Kristi at the Endo Gun Blog has that covered.
In a decision is that is “a vindication of the science-based processes at the Railroad Commission,” according to Barry Smitherman, chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, a federal judge has ordered the EPA to actually investigate wells in Texas before declaring fracking the culprit and penalizing the company they think is involved.The case of U.S. v. Range Production Co., 11:-cv-00116, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas) was withdrawn by the EPA because the government wants to “shift the agency’s focus in this particular case away from litigation” and instead test water wells in the area. Shocking.
Einstein wanted to be cremated and his ashes spread in a secret location to avoid creating a shrine or anything weird.He got the weird instead. Dr. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist on call the evening Einsten died of a burst aortic aneurysm, stole his brain. Why? Who knows why, he was no brain specialist. He got retroactive permission from Einstein's son, Hans Albert, as long as the brain was used for scientific purposes, whatever that was supposed to mean. Einstein’s eye doctor, Henry Adams, got the eyeballs from Harvey and they are sitting in a safe deposit box in New York, presumably also for 'scientific purposes'.
A six-legged calf has defied the odds by thriving despite a vet's prediction at birth that it would not survive - and now the Swiss public has fallen in love with Lilli.Farmer Andreas Knutti from Weissenburg told Blick that a curve in her spine means that Lilli may never become a normal milk cow. Regardless, he couldn't euthanize her because she is just too darn cute.Lilli. Photograph: Peter Schneider/EPA. Link: Guardian
The New York City Department of Education wants to remove words that might upset special interests from standardized tests. Which special interests? Apparently all of them, if you look at the list, even special interests no one knew existed.
In America, we don't eat cats or snails or brains but a lot of food choices are just cultural. So it may be with afterbirth.Placentophagia may offer benefits to human mothers and perhaps to non-mothers and even males, according to a new study in Ecology of Food and Nutrition. Hey, they have devoted a whole issue to Placentophagia so it must be important.
Krafla, in the north of Iceland, is a caldera ten kilometers wide. It is basically a geological cauldron, created when the core of a volcano collapsed in the distant past. The crater Víti (it means “Hell” in Icelandic) is inside Krafla. In 1724 this crater erupted but now scientists want to use the awesome power of Hell for good; so they have drilled a two-kilometre deep well into the crater to see if they can put a geothermal plant there. A geothermal plant in Hell? Who has the last laugh now, Satan?
We'd have to be crazy not to want more solar power - the Sun is limitless energy and, as time and research tackle the science and technology issues, it will get a lot more efficient.In 2005, when President Bush and a Republican Congress (you know, the people who hated both science and clean energy) authorized the solar investment tax credit, solar panel imports were a paltry $21.3 million. The credit was renewed in 2008 and last year imports of solar panels were in the range of $3 billion. Yes, that's a 'b' and not an 'm'.
If the government can make you buy something, why can't it make you buy anything? You may one day need health care so if they can make you buy health insurance now, why can't they make you buy broccoli, since you will need food? If all people do not buy cars, cars may become more expensive for those who do, so should the government make everyone buy a car?“Could you define the market — everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli,” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said during arguments for health care reform called the Affordable Care Act, colloquially called ObamaCare.
It's the biggest news in fast food - Starbucks Frappuccinos have bugs. On purpose.The company has started using cochineal extract to supply its Frappuccinos’ strawberry color - hey, that beats using strawberries. The extract is derived by exploiting developing nation insects, namely grinding up the dried bodies of cochineal bugs found primarily in Mexico and South America. They aren't the first to do so. European colonialists began using cochineal dye as a coloring agent in the 15th century.
