] A new global study concludes that 90 percent of all large
] fishes have disappeared from the world's oceans in the
] past half century, the devastating result of industrial
] fishing.
]
] The study, which took 10 years to complete and was
] published in the international journal Nature this week,
] paints a grim picture of the Earth's current populations
] of such species as sharks, swordfish, tuna and marlin.
]
] The authors used data going back 47 years from nine
] oceanic and four continental shelf systems, ranging from
] the tropics to the Antarctic. Whether off the coast of
] Newfoundland, Canada, or in the Gulf of Thailand, the
] findings were dire, according to the authors.
]
] "I think the point is there is nowhere left in the ocean
] not overfished," said Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist
] at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Hrm....disturbing, ecologically - Nano

CNN.com - Study: Only 10 percent of big ocean fish remain - May. 14, 2003

] Diagnoses of autism have nearly doubled in the last four
] years among children in California, state officials
] reported yesterday. They said they could not explain the
] increase.

Wired had a thing about this awhile ago ... all the hackers must
be breeding, finally.

[Bahahahaha....I love bucy's commment. This is actually interesting....I haven't done much research into autism, but it is interesting that the rise in California cases is significant enough to be news worthy - Nano]

Autism Diagnoses Double in California

Jeremy wrote:
] On Monday morning, about six in ten college graduates will
] be without a long-term plan.
]
] ... the Peace Corps has become more selective.
]
] "I think it's definitely temporary. ... two or three years,
] and everything will be back to normal."
]
] "I finally have an interview, kind of. It's an exploratory
] interview. I don't know what that means."
]
] "Right now, it almost doesn't matter what you're doing. If
] you have a job, people look at you like, 'You're so
] lucky.'"
]
] Sucks to be graduating now ...

Ha...thanks Jeremy;) -Nano (graduated May 10th 2003)
Just kidding...I agree with you. I am glad I have a spot in a good graduate program and don't have to deal with the job market right now.

RE: Graduates Face Difficult Job Market

] In a step toward electronic newspapers and wearable
] computer screens, scientists have created an ultra-thin
] screen that can be bent, twisted and even rolled up and
] still display crisp text.
]
] The material, only as thick as three human hairs,
] displays black text on a whitish-gray background with a
] resolution similar to that of a typical laptop computer
] screen.
]
] The screen is so flexible it can be rolled into a
] cylinder about a half-inch wide without losing its image
] quality.
]
] Although it's not quite the dream of single-sheet,
] electronic newspapers or books that can display hundreds
] of pages of text, its creators said it's the first
] flexible computer screen of its kind.

Cool! Where do I get one?

[Hey, if anyone gets their hands on the Nature article about this, let me know - Nano]

Paper-thin screen created

Total lunar eclipses happen when the earth gets between the sun and the moon. Because of the relatively low amount of particulates in the air it should look chocolate and brown.

MMmmm.... chocolate.

The eclipse starts tomorrow (thursday the 15th) at 10pm EDT and ends around 1am.

Total Lunar Eclipse: May 15-16, 2003

Get a real time map of traffic jams and accidents in metro atlanta.

Georgia Traffic

,----
| VANCOUVER - A top White House drug policy official is threatening
| retaliation from the U.S. if Canada relaxes its laws against marijuana
| possession.
|
| David Murray, right-hand man to U.S. "drug czar" John Walters, says he
| doesn't want to tread on another country's sovereignty, but warned
| there would be consequences if Canada proceeds with a plan to
| decriminalize the possession of marijuana.
`----

I mentioned this earlier. Changing attitudes in liberal Canada toward pot are going to generate political responses from the US, which will slow the pace of trade. As Canada is our largest trading partner, the drag on the economy could be significant. This may be an important forward looking economic risk. Of course, its going to be a big game of chicken. Are Canada's liberal attitudes more willful then America's interest in controlling pot? Are either of these wills stronger then their respective domestic business interests? If this continues to develop there, at the least, will be a lot to learn about the character of these societies. At the most we could prolong our economic slowdown.

(BTW, the American's arguements are a little silly. Pot creates crime because its illegal. If you are engaged in an illegal economic activity you must also engage in (essentially) violent crime because you have to provide for the security of your own property. It all goes with the territory. Once you have people who are willing to deal drugs and willing to provide the security needed to do so, you are going to generate people who are willing to commit other crimes as well. Gangs are a response to a security vaccum. Government is supposed to have a monopoly the use of force. If we were serious about that in poor communities, where one finds drugs and associated crime, we'd have it. Its not like we can't afford it. We just don't really care.)

CBC News: U.S. warns Canada against easing pot laws

] The molecular biology of the coronavirus that causes
] severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) comes into
] clearer focus this week, with the online publication, on
] Science Express, of two papers that provide initial
] analysis and characterization of the SARS virus genome.
] Science is making these important papers, along with an
] accompanying editorial, free to all visitors.

Science is giving free access to some parts of their SARS issue.
And in other SARS news, if you missed southpark last night, you missed a good one. The whole town of southpark contracted SARS:)

Science Magazine: Progress on SARS

oOo.....a page devoted to scientific biography.....this rocks.

Eric Weisstein's World of Biography

Third consecutive day of just general science/math goodness links... wolfram.com are the people who write and sell the world renown computational algebra system Mathematica (http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica). Most of the people who work on mathematica started out as either physicists or mathematicians.

Mathworld is a great place to poke around and learn math in a very "quick reference" way. Think of mathworld as a nice starting point). It also has nice general (and not so general) explination/definitions of physics terms and overviews historical physics experiments.

Did I also mention it has lots and lots of perdy Mathematica rendered eyecandy?

[Math is beautiful - Nano]

MathWorld