] Semen makes you happy. That's the remarkable conclusion
] of a study comparing women whose partners wear condoms
] with those whose partners don't.
]
] The study, which is bound to provoke controversy, showed
] that the women who were directly exposed to semen were
] less depressed. The researchers think this is because
] mood-altering hormones in semen are absorbed through the
] vagina. They say they have ruled out other explanations.
]
] "I want to make it clear that we are not advocating that
] people abstain from using condoms," says Gordon Gallup,
] the psychologist at the State University of New York who
] led the team. "Clearly an unwanted pregnancy or a
] sexually transmitted disease would more than offset any
] advantageous psychological effects of semen."

This could explain a lot.

Semen acts as an anti-depressant

] Astronomers announced Friday that a white dwarf star
] they've been studying is a chunk of crystallized carbon
] that weighs 5 million trillion trillion pounds. That's
] the same as a diamond that is approximately 10 billion
] trillion trillion carats, or a one followed by 34 zeros.
]
] "It's the mother of all diamonds," said astronomer Travis
] Metcalfe, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
] "Bill Gates and Donald Trump together couldn't begin to
] afford it."
]
] The object, a burned out corpse of a star named BPM
] 37093, is about 50 light-years from in the constellation
] Centaurus. It is a mere 2,500 miles wide. It's coated
] with a thin layer of hydrogen and helium. Astronomers had
] long suspected the interiors of white dwarfs
] crystallized, but only recently did they determine it to
] be so. The star pulsates like a giant gong, and the
] researchers studied those pulsations -- like seismic
] waves inside Earth -- to figure out the carbon interior
] was solidified.

USATODAY.com - Diamond at heart of star outweighs any on Earth

Europe's Mars orbiter has detected evidence of water on the planet.

Scientists Say They Have Discovered Ice on Mars

] 0452 GMT (11:52 p.m. EST)
] SPIRIT IS ALIVE ON MARS! A "very strong signal" is now
] being received from the Spirit rover from the Gusev
] Crater on the surface of the Red Planet!

Excellent! Go NASA!

It will be a few days before the rover comes out. All the hardware in question is designed to be operational for 90 days. Hopefully everything is in good working order and it came to a rest somewhere interesting.

] 0603 GMT (1:03 a.m. EST)
] Peter Theisinger, the Mars Exploration Rover project
] manager, says there is a "good" chance that we will
] get the first pictures from Spirit tonight.
]
] "I would stick around if I were you," he just told a
] press conference at JPL.

Very cool!

Spaceflight Now | Spirit Mission Status Center

] Explanation: In 1787, astronomer William Herschel
] discovered the Eskimo Nebula. From the ground, NGC 2392
] resembles a person's head surrounded by a parka hood. In
] 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the Eskimo
] Nebula. From space, the nebula displays gas clouds so
] complex they are not fully understood. The Eskimo Nebula
] is clearly a planetary nebula, and the gas seen above
] composed the outer layers of a Sun-like star only 10,000
] years ago. The inner filaments visible above are being
] ejected by strong wind of particles from the central
] star. The outer disk contains unusual light-year long
] orange filaments.

WOW!

LB

The Eskimo Nebula from Hubble

] View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the
] Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in
] successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak
] tree just outside the buildings of the National High
] Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After
] that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a
] microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell
] nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic
] universe of electrons and protons.

Really puts the size of outer AND inner space into perspective!

Powers of Ten

Museum security guards stood by nervously Thursday as curators -- joking they hoped the gem's storied curse wouldn't rub off -- allowed a reporter and photographer to hold the diamond briefly after it was removed from its case for scientific study.

What does it feel like to hold such a priceless gem, one of the most famed in the world?

The first thought that comes to mind is "Wow!"

It's like holding a bit of ancient India, the French Revolution, Georgian England and Gilded Age America in one magnificent moment.
You cradle the 45.5-carat stone -- heavier than its translucence makes it appear -- turning it from side to side as the light flashes from its facets, knowing it's the hardest natural material yet fearful of dropping it.

Once part of the French crown jewels, the fabled gem is now the star of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. It normally resides in a special protective display case in a secure room.

For the testing it was taken to a museum laboratory, reachable down winding corridors and through three locked doors. It was only the second time in 20 years the Hope has been removed from its necklace setting, where it is surrounded by bright clear diamonds that intensify its blue color.

National Gem Collection Curator Jeffrey Post ordered the lights turned off and focused an ultraviolet beam on the Hope Diamond. Then he switched off the beam and, in pitch dark, the diamond glowed bright orange-amber.

It's that strong color, which lasts for several seconds after the diamond is exposed to ultraviolet light, that intrigues scientists. What causes the gem to fluoresce remains a mystery. Post speculates it's related to chemical impurities that give it that blue color.

But the Hope Diamond has inspired legends over the years and some may prefer those to sheer science.

Some say, for instance, that the glowing color reflects the blood of royalty spilled in the French Revolution and the trail of bad luck said to have followed the stone over many years -- including the bankruptcy of the Hope family for whom it is named and the death of the young son of later owner Evalyn McLean.

Hope Diamond glows with mystery

] To gather new strains, Sulakvelidze need only drop a
] bucket into Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The waters of the
] Chesapeake Bay, of which the harbor is an inlet, have
] enough exchange with the Atlantic that he can find a
] phage for almost any species of bacteria, he says. If one
] doesn't work, he simply refills his bucket and looks for
] another that does.
]
] "This upgradability is one of the unique qualities of
] phages," Sulakvelidze adds. "Developing a new antibiotic
] takes 10 years and God knows how many millions of
] dollars."
]
] As he puts it, "Mother Nature runs the best genetic
] engineering lab out there. No institution or company can
] match it."

Wired 11.10: How Ravenous Soviet Viruses Will Save the World

] A cheap way to produce human proteins for therapeutic use
] may finally be possible thanks to a genetically modified
] yeast. The "humanised" yeast should lead to greater
] availability of treatments relying on, for example,
] antibodies and human growth hormone, as well as new
] treatments.

Cool :)

Now when does this translate into me getting cheap human growth hormone and IGF-I?

New Scientist - Modified yeast produces fully human proteins

] Armed with inexpensive, mass-produced gems, two startups
] are launching an assault on the De Beers cartel.
]
] Next up: the computing industry.
]
] By Joshua Davis
]
] Aron Weingarten brings the yellow diamond up to the
] stainless steel jeweler's loupe he holds against his eye.
] We are in Antwerp, Belgium, in Weingarten's marbled and
] gilded living room on the edge of the city's gem
] district, the center of the diamond universe. Nearly 80
] percent of the world's rough and polished diamonds move
] through the hands of Belgian gem traders like Weingarten,
] a dealer who wears the thick beard and black suit of the
] Hasidim.
]
] "This is very rare stone," he says, almost to himself, in
] thickly accented English. "Yellow diamonds of this color
] are very hard to find. It is probably worth 10, maybe 15
] thousand dollars."
]
] "I have two more exactly like it in my pocket," I tell
] him.
]
] He puts the diamond down and looks at me seriously for
] the first time. I place the other two stones on the
] table. They are all the same color and size. To find
] three nearly identical yellow diamonds is like flipping a
] coin 10,000 times and never seeing tails.
]
] "These are cubic zirconium?" Weingarten says without much
] hope.
]
] "No, they're real," I tell him. "But they were made by a machine
] in Florida for less than a hundred dollars."

Wired 11.09: The New Diamond Age