Monday, March 25, 2002

By Sharon Waxman Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 25, 2002 HOLLYWOOD, March 24 A film about a math genius suffering from mental illness and an epic fantasy adventure set in an imaginary Middle Earth took top honors tonight at the 74th Academy Awards. "A Beautiful Mind," about Nobel laureate John Nash's struggle with mental illness, won Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay, while "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," a fantasy based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien, won four Oscars, mainly for technical achievement. search10:09:46 AM    comment

Monday, March 18, 2002

2020hindsight.org Gorgeous, gorgeous Males n Females X Ys n XXs Fight-or-flight n Tend-and-befriend Over the weekend, Dave W commented on differences between men n women. 'Tis interesting in light of an article I was sent by email (and my Google followup): All those ol' studies on coping with stress that emphasized the human tendency toward fight-or-flight were done on males. When a coupla researchers conducted a stress study on females, lo, they uncovered a different set of behaviors: tend-and-befriend. 3:35:32 PM    comment National Space Biomedical Research Institute News Release "Star Wars" like technology closer than galaxies far away A portable, ultrasound device is being developed that could one day be used to find and treat ailments using non-invasive surgical treatments. HOUSTON - Technology introduced by members of a galaxy far away, a long time ago, is now one step closer to reality. And, it's with funding from a space medicine research institute that this breakthrough device will one day kill tumors and stop internal bleeding without knives, scalpels or stitches - basically without surgery as we know it. 1:19:56 PM    comment

Friday, March 15, 2002

CNN.com Twin probes set for mission to map Earth gravity March 15, 2002 Twin probes will use a microwave beam, depicted by red lines, to track each other. By Kate Tobin CNN Sci-Tech (CNN) -- Barring any last-minute snags, NASA and the German Space Agency will launch two satellites into orbit Saturday on a five-year mission to study Earth's gravity field. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, aims to map variations in the Earth's gravity field as it changes over time in response to shifts in sea levels, the ebb and flow of glaciers, the seasonal melting and freezing of ice sheets, and other such fluctuations. Further Information GRACE-short for the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment CNN NASA satellite pair to tackle weighty task 11:54:22 AM    comment BBC News - AFRICA Zimbabwe enacts media curbs Journalists will need government accreditation A new law curbing the activities of independent and foreign news media in Zimbabwe has been enacted by the government. Local journalists will have to be accredited by a government-appointed panel, and foreign correspondents will be officially barred from working full-time inside Zimbabwe. 9:49:12 AM    comment FOXNews.com Florida Man Fights to Keep 'ATHEIST' Licence Plate GAINESVILLE, Fla. — State officials want to take back a license plate reading "ATHEIST" more than 16 years after issuing it to the vice president of Atheists of Florida. Steven Miles tools around Gainesville with the vanity license plate and says it is a form of self-expression. 9:19:24 AM    comment FOXNews.com Much of U.S. in Grip of Dangerous Drought NEW YORK — Gripped by drought, states from the Atlantic Ocean nearly to the Pacific have become a veritable tinderbox ready for the spark and there's no relief in sight, weather forecasters said Thursday. The nationwide drought is more than a simple dry spell. The entire state of Wyoming has been declared a drought disaster area, and vast stretches of the Southeast and the West are ripe for wildfires. Further Information CNN.Com — Drought 'sleeping giant' in U.S. U.S. Drought monitor maps, updated each Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. 8:48:50 AM    comment

Thursday, March 14, 2002

BBC News ENGLAND Dolphins face extinction, MPs told Hundreds of dolphins have been washed ashore The common dolphin could vanish from waters between England and France, MPs have been warned. Torbay MP Adrian Sanders said during a Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday, record numbers of dolphins and porpoises had been found washed up on beaches in England and France since January. 7:16:46 PM    comment Yahoo! News Russian Co. Presents 'Space Plane' By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press Writer ZHUKOVSKY, Russia (AP) - Eager to open up a space tourism market, a Russian aerospace company presented a mock-up Thursday of a "space plane" that would give an adventurer willing to pay nearly $100,000 the chance to experience three minutes in zero gravity on the edge of space. Further Information BBC News - Russia unveils tourists' spaceship 1:26:55 PM    comment The American Experience Race for the Superbomb Nuclear Blast Mapper Map a Blast Would you survive a nuclear blast? Nuclear Blast Mapper will show you how terribly destructive thermonuclear weapons are. Step 1: Choose a Weapon... 1 Megaton Surface Blast: Pressure Damage Map The fission bomb detonated over Hiroshima had the explosive blast equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT. Blast Mapper's hydrogen bomb, hypothetically detonated on the earth's surface at any location you choose, has about 80 times the blast power of that 1945 explosion. Further Information DOE Nevada Photo Library - Atmospheric Nuclear testing images 1:06:14 PM    comment CNN.com Future looks bright for new comet Comet Ikeya-Zhang might have last passed this way 341 years ago. Richard Stenger (CNN) -- An unexpected visitor to the inner solar system is brightening rapidly and could put on quite a celestial show as it approaches our planet, astronomers said. Discovered in early February, Comet Ikeya-Zhang has brightened more quickly than expected and is now visible to the naked eye, according to comet experts. 7:59:16 AM    comment BBC News SCI/TECH Russia unveils tourists's spaceship By Caroline Wyatt BBC Moscow correspondent A Russian company has unveiled the prototype of the world's first reusable spaceship, aimed at space tourists. C21 is fully automatic, and the idea is that even with very little training, one of the passengers could sit at the controls. 7:33:53 AM    comment ABCNEWS.com Wildlife Official Battled Hijackers Hero of Flight 93 Wildlife Official Took On Terrorists The Associated Press P O R T L A N D, Ore., March 14 — A former Oregon wildlife manager's law enforcement credentials, found near the wreckage of the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93, suggest he was involved in the fight to retake the plane from terrorists on Sept. 11. 7:09:47 AM    comment

Wednesday, March 13, 2002

BBC Online News Blue jet streaks high The lights move into the upper atmosphere at a rapid rate By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Lightning-like flashes called blue jets may link the electrical energy of thunderstorms and the charged layer of the upper atmosphere. Writing in the journal Nature Victor Pasko at Pennsylvania State University, US, and colleagues used high-speed low-light cameras to capture an image of a fleeting blue jet that extended from the top of a thunderstorm 70 kilometres up into the ionosphere. 6:01:27 PM    comment BBC News SCI/TECH Locking out the hackers Broadband users worried that their PC is vulnerable will soon be able to buy a "black box" that watches over their net link to stop viruses and hack attacks. At the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover, anti-virus firm Trend Micro has unveiled its Gatelock device, which it hopes will prove popular with worried surfers. 2:40:12 PM    comment Yahoo! News Thriving Peru Coca Hampers Drug War By MONTE HAYES Associated Press Writer TINGO MARIA, Peru (AP) - The jungle-draped mountains that loom over this town in the Huallaga valley conceal a truth that anti-narcotics officials have been loath to admit. After years of declining prices and production, coca crops are on the rise again in Peru. Even more worrisome to U.S. counternarcotics officials, Colombian drug traffickers are promoting poppy plants, the raw material of heroin. 2:13:48 PM    comment ABCNEWS.com—Researchers Chewing Gum May Make People Smarter: By Jeremy Laurence LONDON (Reuters) - The often-maligned act of chewing gum could in fact make us smarter, according to British research. A joint study carried out by the University of Northumbria and the Cognitive Research Unit, Reading, has found that chewing gum has a positive effect on cognitive tasks such as thinking and memory. 10:03:10 AM    comment CNN.com Smart Mars rovers to think, work as team March 13, 2002 Two autonomous rovers approached, gripped and carried this beam more than 164 feet (50 m) in a recent test. From Allard Beutel NASA is working on a new breed of rovers whose sole purpose is to work together on Mars. They are robots that basically act like synchronized swimmers for construction work. The space agency envisions a martian building crew consisting of multiple rovers. Prototypes can now lift and move an eight-foot metal beam. 9:21:32 AM    comment New Scientist Satellites spot city subsidence NewScientist.com Subsidence near two London tunnels constructed in the last decade is revealed in new images produced from satellite data. The ground movement appears near London Underground's Jubilee line extension and a London Electricity tunnel. 7:37:48 AM    comment

© Copyright 2002 Jack Foster Mancilla . Last update: 2/1/02; 14:44:46 .