globeandmail.com: Major recall of Thomas the Tank Engine trains due to lead fears
Topic: Health and Wellness
12:19 pm EDT, Jun 14, 2007
WASHINGTON — A massive toy recall could have millions of parents taking their children's favourite toys away.
On Wednesday, RC2 Corp. recalled about 1.5 million Thomas the Tank Engine wooden railway toys in Canada and the United States, due to concerns that the paint used on them may contain lead.
First the pet food... now lead paint. Factory terrorism is plausibly deniable.
Back when we wrote about Cramer earlier this year, he was struggling to come up with a measly $20,000 to fund a high-risk experiment that would demonstrate, as he puts it, "signaling, or communication, in reverse time." Cramer could be wrong, but he ain't no crackpot; he's a physics professor at University of Washington who seems sincere in proving (or disproving) this testable idea with a simple experiment. Turns out, a lot of people really sympathized with the guy, and ponied up their own money. And why not? After all, it's going for university research (and this article even tells you how to donate).
If this will work, wouldn't he have messaged himself by now???
Plants are able to recognise their siblings, according to a study appearing today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but they’re accommodating when potted with their siblings.
I'll have to remember this for when the Triffids attack.
How long do you think before someone builds a large scale version of this capable of lighting the ocean on fire? I wonder how useful it would be to use a bunch of devices like that for flood protection.
Scotsman.com News - Sci-Tech - Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip
Topic: Technology
10:56 am EDT, Jun 13, 2007
AN EXTRAORDINARY "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.
The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.
Gizmodo UK : Gigantic 3000-foot Pyramid Proposed for Tokyo Bay
Topic: Society
10:53 am EDT, Jun 13, 2007
Here's an eight-minute video that shows you a grandiose idea somebody dreamed up: building a 3000-foot-tall pyramid in Tokyo Bay. This megacity would be so tall, and would have such tremendous volume that 24 80-story skyscrapers could be suspended within, and people would travel inside it via the tubes that are also supporting the enormous structure. It's extreme engineering, indeed.
So, the Japanese have decided the next 9-11 will be third impact...
Blair: media is feral beast obsessed with impact | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics
Topic: Society
10:47 am EDT, Jun 13, 2007
British newspapers will and should be subject to some form of new external regulation, the outgoing prime minister, Tony Blair, said yesterday in a broadside that attacked the media for behaving like feral beasts and eschewing balance or proportion.
No good surveillance society should be without its ministry of truth.
Ironically if she succeeds in banning the books for their "religious influence" she sets a precedent which might make it easier to strip away the Christian influence in our schools as well. Harry Potter is less Wiccan than intelligent design is Christian. Praying isn't so different than uttering spells. Children should be able to pick a religion, but they should be prevented from exposure to them at all costs.
Adobe Photoshop was, for a time, the killer app for the Macintosh. During the mid-nineties, publishing and graphic design had supplanted consumers as the most important market to target, at least in the eyes of former Apple CEOs Gil Amelio and Michael Spindler. Consumer Macs languished as Apple poured resources into multi-processor Macs and ill-conceived operating system replacements for the Mac OS. Even after Apple emerged from its crisis of the mid '90s, Photoshop is still immensely popular and has even been adopted as a verb for retouching or modifying images much to the consternation of Adobe.
