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Rutgers Study - Forcing DEI Programs On People Increases Hostility

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Minnesota Trial Lawyers Want To Ban Neonics - Here Is Why That Is A Mistake

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Hank CampbellRSS Feed of this column.

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Read More »

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You may not know the name Hammer Films, but if you have watched movies at all you have probably heard of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.    In 1957 they appeared in a British 'horror' movie called THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and it put both of them, and the studio, on the cultural map.
If you're like me, not only do you want to be buried, you want to be buried with your treasure in a vast underground labyrinth dug from the stone, behind a series of traps and secret doors, and your treasure will be in the very last room with my undead Lich guarding it.

Want your inheritance, descendants?  Bring a sword.

Lich

But other people have long been more environmentally responsible and made the 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' route a little more direct than a decomposing coffin much less a concrete, subterranean bunker.   They get cremated.
A few days back, it being the Halloween season (at least in America - do other cultures indulge in pagan madness of this sort?) I saw, on some social network or another, a neat carved pumpkin that looked like, I kid you not, R2-D2 from "Star Wars."

It looked quite neat and I have never been a pumpkin carving guy, outside the stuff I do with the kids, but it seemed like a fun idea and a way to do something with the kids.
The worst thing government has done is get into the recycling business but even worse than that is over-doing it.   Where I live, the local government recently started 'separating' garbage, declared more things recyclable, then made the recycling collectible only every two weeks.  Result:  Government employees are getting paid to come by and empty garbage containers that are 20% full and the recycling one is stuffed after 10 days.  Meanwhile, the delay in recycling is so huge it is basically a landfill anyway.
49 light years away from Earth in the constellation Lyra is a binary star that may cause a rethink on how gas giant planets were created.  
If you are in the Washington, D.C. and only have 48 hours to kill, I have bad news - the USA Science&Engineering Festival has likely packed an entire month of good stuff into this weekend, so you will need Solomon-like wisdom to choose what you want to see.

Larry Bock, head visionary of the event, is a master of logistics, planning and science enthusiasm and we've gushed over his achievements before - but just being able to get an event on the National Mall is more work than most of us would do and adding 1500 activities and 75 stage shows is downright amazing.