] A survey has lifted the veil on an unexpected secret -
] many scientists believe in ghosts.
]
] The survey of 18 scientists at Waikato University and
] Britain's Leicester University found that most were not
] willing to rule out the possibility that "some houses are
] haunted by ghosts".
]
] Many also believed it was possible that "wearing
] jewellery made out of certain crystals can help to keep
] you healthy", and that "in the past aliens from some
] other planet have landed on Earth".
]
] But most said astrology and palmistry were "almost
] certainly untrue", and all agreed there was almost
] certainly no truth in the ideas that breaking mirrors or
] "black Fridays" brought bad luck.
]
] A Waikato University researcher and joint author of the
] survey, Dr Richard Coll, said the scientists gave much
] more credence to "superstitions" than he had expected.
] "You might reasonably have expected them to say these
] things are complete nonsense," he said.
]
] "They didn't. The ones they were more likely to believe
] were aliens and ghosts. The aliens one didn't surprise me
] greatly, but the ghosts one did."
]
] The research was inspired by other surveys that found
] widespread superstitious beliefs among the public, high
] school students and science teachers.
]
] The research was inspired by other surveys that found
] widespread superstitious beliefs among the public, high
] school students and science teachers.
]
] The result: The scientists were certainly more sceptical
] than both high school students and science teachers.
] "There was only one person who was totally sceptical
] about all the propositions. She happened to be a
] biologist who was a strong atheist."
]
] There were no differences between the Waikato and
] Leicester samples.

booooooooooooo....and stuff

New Zealand News - NZ - Ghosts lurking in scientist minds

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

] 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

] Doctors at Chimkent Children's Hospital in Kazakhstan
] originally believed Mourat Zhanaidarov was suffering from
] a cyst.
]
] But during surgery, they discovered he was in fact
] carrying the dead foetus of his twin brother.
]
] The foetus had developed into a tumour but was found to
] have hair, nails and bones.

] Valentina Vostrikova, chief surgeon at Chimkent
] Children's Hospital, told the newspaper: "It was
] remarkable. For seven years it lived like a parasite
] inside the boy's body."

umm....what? And um....yeah....how?

BBC NEWS | Health | Boy 'pregnant' with twin brother

] A few dozen life scientists are racing to fine-tune these
] microbes physiologically, chemically, and genetically to
] produce hydrogen in a cost-effective manner with
] next-to-zero pollutants. The reward is enormous. Not only
] could it prevent further global warming, slash energy
] pollution, and strengthen the economy, but the winner of
] this race would own the intellectual property rights to
] the technology that could be at the foundation of a
] multitrillion dollar industry. In other words, the gold
] rush is on.

The Scientist :: Biologically Derived Hydrogen--Future Fuel?, Apr. 21, 2003

Remember science? Thought it was cool right? Well read what all the *current* research in hard science is doing *right* now...

Arxiv.org used to be xxx.lanl.gov, the official science pre-print server. Every physicist submits his article here *before* it's published. Makes for realtime science.

I will be posting recomendations, with my full analysis, on individual articles from arxiv soon. But for right now come bath in the healing light.

Read more about arxiv here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000CAEA3-72CB-1E90-8EA5809EC5880000&catID=2

[werd - Nano]

arXiv.org e-Print archive

Well you can put that big heavy copy of the CRC (http://www.crcpress.com/corphistory.asp) down. !Webbook is here, it's great! Research all your favorite chemicals, play w/ neat and interesting graph data for almost any chemical you can think of.

[Sweet. This makes me happy. The CRC books are freakin HUGE, so it will be nice to have on the internet.

Chemical Formula Search

] Bioethicists and scientists contemplating the future fear
] that genetic engineering and other technologies are going
] to divide human beings into classes that may one day try
] to destroy one another.

Wired News: Will Genetic Engineering Kill Us?

] "One possibility is that black holes may allow us to
] travel to very remote places in the universe, or another
] universe entirely," said Burko in a telephone interview
] from his office in Salt Lake City. "It depends on the
] topology of the universe, which we do not know very
] well.... I'm not arguing it's a practical thing to do,
] but maybe in 1,000 years from now, maybe it would be
] simpler."

Wired News: Black Holes and Space Travel