Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has indicated that detainees released in the U.S. would likely receive government assistance to help them return to society ? one theyve never been a part of.  "If we are to release them in the United States, we need some sort of assistance for them to start a new life," Blair said last month. "You cant just put them on the street."

If we extrapolate from the first one hundred days, by the end of Obama?s first term America?s debt will be higher than the GDP of the world, every rogue state will have nuclear missiles, we?ll all have swine flu, and Obama?s approval ratings will finally fall below 50% (though he?ll still be personally popular).

On the bright side, since the Democrats now have a filibuster proof majority, it?s not like there?s anything we can do about it so we might as well sit back and relax. Just make sure you?re prepared to drive around a barren wasteland fighting gangs for gasoline.

Barack Obamas 100 days of un-American activities are being appropriately marked by the latest hostile initiative against the United States that his partisan rancour has made possible. Notorious Spanish fruit-cake Judge Balthasar Garzon has issued a 10-page writ opening an investigation into officials of the Bush government as "possible material authors" of torture, accomplices and those who gave orders for torture.

Garzon is requesting the US Government to send the documents to him. His gratitude to Obama is patent: his previous attempt to indict six specific Bush administration officials, headed by Alberto Gonzalez, former US Attorney General, finally collapsed on April 17 when Spanish prosecutors said it should be heard in America. But this is a different situation: thanks to President Pantywaists eagerness to undermine US government officials, there is now documentary evidence to support a prosecution in Garzons kangaroo court.

Today, hundreds of students visit the monastery which houses the temple bearing the prints in which the soles of the monk?s feet have become embedded in the floor. There is little to say, as the message of uninterrupted belief couldn?t be very much clearer.

Chi is also a doctor in traditional medicine and says he likes doing good and making people feel better, but one can only wonder when he finds the time to practice.

What a way to cap off 100 days in office, huh?

Using military resources for a cheap photo-op. Scaring the pants off the public. Exploiting 9/11 imagery for self-aggrandizement. Keeping secrets and causing mass panic.

Um, can you imagine if a GOP administration did this?

Can you imagine?!

Police in Denmark hug bicyclists without helmets, then give them helmets

Video of police in Denmark stopping bicyclists, hugging them, and giving them helmets. Happiness all around.

One last point, MSNBC is owned by General Electric. GE is already making money off the issue with their Carbon Credit Master Card (link from ?Treehugger?, no less). Here?s CNN?s story on the new credit card.

Interesting note: In the fourth quarter of 2008 as GE/NBC stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying ? that?s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying.? Reviewing their lobbying filings, GE?s specific lobbying issues included the ?Climate Stewardship Act,? ?Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,? ?Global Warming Reduction Act,? ?Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,? ?Low Carbon Economy Act,? and ?Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.? Do you think this ?big business? is just concerned about the environment?

Read it all here.

Arlen Specter to join the Wu-Tang Clan

This afternoon Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) announced he is joining the Wu-Tang Clan, a prominent, loosely organized group of hardcore rappers that first formed in the early 90s.
At a press conference with all 9 original members, including the RZA, GZA (pronounced "Rizza" and "Jizza") and Method Man, a visibly disoriented Specter read from a prepared statement:

Their camera snaps images less than a half a billionth of a second long, capturing over six million of them in a second continuously.

It works by using a fast laser pulse dispersed in space and then stretched in time and detected electronically.

The approach will be instrumental in analysing, for example, flowing blood samples in a search for diseased cells.

What is more, the camera works with just one detector, rather than the millions in a typical digital camera.

A cane toad expert says he is "astonished" at how quickly the pests are invading parts of western Queensland.

Professor Rick Shine, a biologist from the University of Sydney, has been researching toads and their impact on the environment for many years.

He says cane toads are not only surviving in semi-arid desert regions, they are thriving.

"Theyre moving into places that are much more arid than we every thought they could and so we need to worry about what impact they might have."

Professor Shine says there is concern about their invasion into parts of the Lake Eyre Basin.

"Im absolutely astonished ... this is basically a giant frog from the Brazilian rain forest ... to imagine that it is capable of not only surviving but thriving in this semi-arid landscape is just extraordinary ... the toad is a remarkable survival machine and its clear that its capable of far more than we ever guessed," he said.

A

Billboards criticizing US aid to Israel taken down under pressure

But theres another way to look at those statistics. You might observe, for example, that they mean that even during the worst ravages of the 1918 flu, 97.5 per cent of those infected survived and recovered. Or that 72 per cent of the population -- even in the absence of the sophisticated public health planning and infrastructure that Canada and the U.S. have since built -- was not infected during the pandemic.

So, even if we had a repeat of the 1918 flu, the chances were seven out of 10 that you wouldnt catch it and if you did, the odds were better than nine out of 10 that youd survive.

That was during the worst pandemic of the modern era and one which occurred in the days before the instantaneous communications of radio, television and the Web enabled quick public health responses.

Swine Flu Fun Facts

Why Its Called "Swine Flu"
By now, youve probably heard about the fact that this particular strain is basically a genetic tossed salad of pig, bird and human flu virus. So why is the pig part getting all the "glory"? According to Andrew Pekosz, over at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, its because the two genes most important to determining whether humans are immune and what level of protection they have (thatd be the "H" and the "N" in H1N1, by the way) happen to be ones that came from porcine flu strains. We call this chimera "Swine Flu" because thats where it got the genes that really matter most to our health.
On a related note, the AP is reporting that an Israeli Deputy Health Minister is vehemently opposed to the name, because he finds the pig reference religiously offensive. Yeah,I dunno, either.

Baby Nicholas, the newborn dumped at a Sydney tip just over two months ago, has been buried at the citys Rookwood Cemetery.

About two dozen members of the public turned out to farewell baby Nicholas.

He has been buried in a tiny, baby blue coffin, adorned with flowers and teddy bears.

It was a far different scene to the paupers funeral he seemed destined for until members of the public and the state coroner intervened to give him a proper burial.

The funeral was attended by about 30-40 people who never knew baby Nicholas. (AAP: Dean Lewins)

Baby Nicholass body was discovered at a waste facility in Sydneys south-west in February.

Police tried but failed to find the babys mother.

Several officers touched by the emotional case attended todays funeral.

During his sermon, Chaplain Peter Kilkeary expressed concern for the babys mother and urged her to contact the state coroner.

A Queensland sheep and cattle farmer is winning the fight against wild dogs on his property by using an Italian-bred stock-guarding dog to protect his animals.

Farmer Ninian Stewart-Moore says a range of measures are needed and he is encouraging more landowners to consider using maremmas, which are known for bonding with sheep and goats.

The size of wild dogs in Queensland is continuing to increase. They have grown bigger by the year, with a mighty appetite for sheep and cattle.

In 2002, he started working 24 maremmas on his property to reduce the destruction from wild dogs.

After three years of running the maremmas, Mr Stewart-Moores annual stock losses dropped from more than 15 per cent to 3 per cent.

"Theyre a livestock guard dog and hes doing it very sensibly. All his dogs are de-sexed, he bonds them properly with the livestock.

A Chinese-made toy helicopter landed in Indias heavily-fortified national parliament on Wednesday, sparking a scare and a high security alert, police said.

The remotely-operated toy whizzed over the high walls of the parliament building in New Delhi and landed in its forecourt, setting off security alarms, police officials said.

Police and federal officers launched a man-hunt around the complex as the battery-operated machine had a flying range of about 150 metres the officials said.

"The helicopter came in from the direction of the Talkatora Stadium and it was spotted by a sentry who sounded the alarm after it landed inside," a parliament security official said.

"Its a Chinese-made toy and easily available," he added.

An attack on the complex by Islamic gunmen in 2001 left 12 people dead. The raid led to a deadly stand-off between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

Parliament was not in session when the toy landed.

MANY cereals marketed to children contain excessive amounts of sugar and salt and only two varieties are suitable for everyday consumption, a new survey has found.

Consumer group Choice examined 152 breakfast cereals from major Australian supermarkets to determine which are healthy choices for adults and kids alike.

Of 42 cereals containing chocolate or obviously marketed to young people, Choice found only Sanitariums Weet-Bix Kids and Uncle Tobys VitaBrits Weeties could be recommended as everyday cereals.

The other 40 contained either too much sugar or salt, while some including Kelloggs Nutri-Grain, Coco Pops Chex and Crispix Honey scored highly in both categories.

When it came to the nations best-selling cereals, Sanitariums Weet-Bix was the only brand to also make it into Choices top 10 healthiest list, while Kelloggs Sultana Bran was classed as OK given its high quantity of fibre and mainly fruit-based sugar content.

Its hard to upstage a bride on her big day ? but not when the groom has a grizzly bear for a best man.

Brutus rather stole the limelight from actress Missi Pyle when Casey Anderson invited his half-tonne best friend to take part in his nuptials.

Having hand-reared the bear from a cub, Mr Anderson has forged a close relationship with the 2.3m (7ft 8in) animal and could think of no one better to be at his side for his wedding.

Brutus was not charged with looking after the couples rings but he did join them at the reception in Montana to tuck into some wedding cake in front of 85 guests.

I take him for walks. I swim with him and Ive even started teaching him how to fish, said Mr Anderson.

I feel like his father in a way ? but in reality, Im more his friend. Brutus engages with humans in a way that other bears dont because he is very intelligent and emotional.

Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.

In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration?s James Johnston said the agency was aware of ?the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes? in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor?s office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.

?To say that it should not be made public knowing that it might scare people it?s just confounding,? Sen. Charles Schumer said. ?It?s what gives Washington and government a bad name. It?s sheer stupidity.?

?It was a mistake. It will never happen again,? President Obama said.

In this issue of Resurgence Satish Kumar asks ?Can we not design a lifestyle of elegant simplicity which is just, fair and sustainable??

The May/June issue also includes a special feature on Conscious Parenting ? the need to redress the impact of nature deprivation and remote-controlled living; a report on the fashion industry, and an exploration of willow art.

Read more...

Elegant Simplicity

Ireland: culture & religion, 1912-49

And NorthCom has been running preparedness drills in the event of a flu pandemic for at least the past three years.

Human landscapes from above

10 Alien-Looking Places on Earth

Dry Valleys (Antartica)

Socotra Island (Indian Ocean)

Rio Tinto (Spain)

Kliluk, the Spotted Lake (Canada)

Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia)

Vale da Lua (Brazil)

Blood Pond Hot Spring (Japan)

The Stone Forest (China)

The Richat Structure (Mauritania)

Eisriesenwelt Ice Caves (Austria)

Elise Tan-Roberts was five months when she spoke her first word, calling her father "Dada". She was walking three months later and running two months after that.

Before her first birthday should could recognise her written name and by 16 months she could count to 10. She is now able to do the same in Spanish.

After Elise completed a 45-minute IQ test, Prof Freeman concluded in a written report that Elise was "more than very bright and capable - she is gifted."

Only those with an IQ of 148 and above, the top two per cent, qualify for Mensa. The average IQ is 100. For a child her age, Elise is in the top 0.2 per cent.

ENTER THE MUSES Naomi Campbell in a 1990 Geoffrey Beene shoot for Vogue.

?WHAT would ?Dovima With Elephants? have been without Dovima?? the curator Kohle Yohannan said last week, referring to a celebrated Richard Avedon photograph of 1955 that depicted the attenuated mannequin Dovima (nee Dorothy Virginia Margaret Juba) wearing a Christian Dior sheath and sandwiched between monumental pachyderms.

One could just as easily ask what ?Dovima With Elephants? would have been without the elephants, of course, but then three-ton pachyderms don?t rate the cultural attention devoted to beautiful clothes-hangers who weigh 100 pounds.

Kate Moss modeling a dress by Helmut Lang for Harper?s Bazaar in 1996.

MODEL MODELS David Hemmings and Veruschka from the 1966 film ?Blow-Up.?

A man urinates on April 25, 2009 in the toilets of the Sodoma bar in central Reykjavik where photographs of the former bankers who left their country after the financial crash have been stuck on the urinals. AFP PHOTO OLIVIER MORIN.

On March 5th, 2009 the Terrafugia Transition^® achieved first flight at Plattsburgh International Airport. Watch videos of the first flight or Dr. Dietrichs interviews on CBS and FOX.

Introducing the Transition^®. Simply land at the airport, fold your wings up and drive home.
Learn more about this amazing vehicle.

Take a closer look at the company that is bringing you this revolutionary new vehicle.

1. You are driving down the road in your car on a wild, stormy night, when you pass by a bus stop and you see three people waiting for the bus

 Knowing that there can only be one passenger in your car, whom would you choose?

To be honest the first thought came through my mind was c -  The perfect partner (If it ever existed)  but as always in such puzzles the answer to that question isnt so simple:

To lure more, she is planting other native species and letting dandelions and violets grow in the grass.

TEMPTING A Korean spicebush attracts some pollinators, but not as many as the native plants at the author?s farm.

MY native black cherry tree is covered with little white flowers, and if the bees and other pollinators do their job, I?ll have plenty of sweet black cherries by midsummer.

My Korean spicebushes (Viburnum carlesii) are also in full bloom, their clusters of pinkish-white flowers filling the air with the heady scent of cinnamon and honey. But it?s striking how few bees are sipping nectar from these Asian shrubs compared with my native redbud and sassafras trees, which are literally vibrating with pollinators.

It bears out the research that Gordon Frankie, an entomologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has begun in gardens around that city, where he and his students have surveyed 1,000 different plants, both native and nonnative.

Opinion | Bloggingheads

Reihan Salam, left, of The American Scene and Reza Aslan, author of "How to Win a Cosmic War," debate whether America should abandon the idea of a "war on terror."

?

Debut for worlds fastest camera

The fastest imaging system ever devised has been demonstrated by researchers reporting in the journal Nature.

Their cameras "shutter speed" is just a half a billionth of a second, and it can capture over six million images in a second continuously.

Its "flashbulb" is a fast laser pulse dispersed in space and then stretched in time and detected electronically.

Dubbed Serial Time-Encoded Amplified imaging, or Steam, the technique depends on carefully manipulating so-called "supercontinuum" laser pulses.

These pulses, less than a millionth of a millionth of a second long, contain an enormously broad range of colours.

?We have invented a new type of imaging technology that overcomes the fundamental limitation between sensitivity and speed,? said Keisuke Goda, an optoelectronic specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles. ?It?s the world?s fastest camera.?

In the following video we see proof of why we cannot allow more Muslims to come to America. Here we see "moderate" Muslims ransacking a French Supermarket of Israeli-made products to prevent customers from buying them.

Now I have no problem with boycotts as long as the protesters do not interfere with my right to ignore their boycott. Certainly if France did not have so many Muslims, the owner of the Supermarket would have called the police. But because France has too many Muslims the police will not come; what for? To be humiliated at their impotence against the Muslim hordes?

The video was initially released by Euro-Palestine, a terror organization that seeks to force an anti-Israel policy upon France through acts of physical violence or threats of violence.

The photo at the top of the post displays companies that support or do business with Israel. The website IslamWorld.in asks readers to boycott all these companies. Here is the text:

Islam World, Boycott israeli Products Campaign

Grand Mufti: No Proof Needed For Virginity

In a move that will stun the Muslim world, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt and one of the highest-ranking Sunni authorities, has said that hymen reconstruction surgery for women who have lost their virginity before marriage is halal (permissible) and that a man has no right to demand proof of a womans virginity if he cannot provide proof of his own. In addition, the fatwa states that a woman who has had sex before marriage but has sincerely repented is under no obligation to inform her husband of her sexual status. 

A nearly 150-year-old treaty between the United States and a number of Indian tribes requires the U.S. government pay for the treatment and other losses of a Sioux woman sexually assaulted by an Army recruiter, a federal judge ruled.

Judge Francis Allegra said in a ruling Tuesday in Washington that Lavetta Elk, 26, was entitled to more than $590,000 in damages under treaty language that requires reimbursement to members of Sioux tribes injured by "bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States."

The ruling marked the first time that the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 was found to cover noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering, said Elks lawyer, Adam Horowitz.

He said it opened the door for other tribes with similar treaty language to file claims for pain and suffering if they have been intentionally injured by a federal employee.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Los Angeles police believe a 72-year-old man charged with two cold-case killings is tied to two waves of Southern California serial killings involving as many as 25 victims.

LAPD Detective Richard Bengston says DNA matching former insurance adjuster John Floyd Thomas Jr. was found at five crime scenes spanning the killing-and-rape rampages in west Los Angeles in the 1970s and Claremont in the 1980s.

Police plan to reveal details of the case at a press conference Thursday.

Thomas was charged April 2 with murdering a 68-year-old woman in 1972 and a 67-year-old woman in 1976. Hes being held in a county jail and couldnt immediately be reached for comment. Officers reached by phone Thursday morning had no information on an attorney for Floyd.

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com

Global health authorities warned Wednesday that swine flu was threatening to bloom into a pandemic, and the virus spread farther in Europe even as the outbreak appeared to stabilize at its epicenter. A toddler who succumbed in Texas became the first death outside Mexico.

A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.

Only 7 swine flu deaths, not 152, says WHO

Vivienne Allan, from WHOs patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease.

"Unfortunately that [150-plus deaths] is incorrect information and it does happen, but thats not information thats come from the World Health Organisation," Ms Allan told ABC Radio today.

"That figure is not a figure thats come from the World Health Organisation and, I repeat, the death toll is seven and they are all from Mexico."

Ms Allan said WHO had confirmed 40 cases of swine flu in the Americas, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada, two in Spain, two in Britain and three in New Zealand.

Ms Allan said it was difficult to measure how fast the virus was spreading.

Indeed, there aren?t clear answers. Édgar lives in La Gloria, Mexico, where many residents got sick in late March or early April. He ran a high fever and complained of headache and pains, but he recovered, the WSJ reports. When the CDC tested samples from La Gloria, they came back negative, except for the one that belonged to Édgar.

What?s more newsworthy: President Obama?s decision to declassify C.I.A. documents on torture, or the actual contents of those documents? The U.S. media chose the former, and in doing so, has once again failed the public in providing clarity and context on a complex issue ? failing to ask hard-hitting, provocative questions, and failing to hold our political leaders accountable.

Rather than investigate what these memos reveal about the harsh interrogation techniques implemented under the Bush administration and who can be implicated for using torture, our media has focused their debate on political posturing and gossip surrounding Obama?s decision to release the memos.

A report by Link TV compares U.S. coverage of the torture memos to the international press coverage in countries like Chile, Iran, and France. If we?re ashamed as a nation about torture, we should also be embarrassed about how our press coverage of torture stacks up.

By Mary Landesman, About.com

1. Phishing scams

2. Greeting Card Scams

3. Nigerian 419 Scams

4. Pump and Dump Stock Scams

6. Lottery Winning Scams

7. Fraudulent Link Scams

8. Rogue Antispyware / Fake Antivirus

I just returned home from this morning?s ?First 100 Daze? Protest protest staged by members of The St. Louis Tea Party Coalition and other radical right-wingers to greet President Barack Obama when he arrived at Fox High School in Arnold, Mo., southwest of St. Louis.  Incredibly, Obama supporters were outnumbered at least 10 to 1 by members of the coalition ? people who were against big government spending, ever-increasing tax burdens and overall poor stewardship of the nation.

A shot of a woman and child at a Spanish refugee camp in France, taken by Robert Capa in March 1939. More Photos »

When the three weathered cardboard boxes ? known collectively, and cinematically, as the Mexican suitcase ? arrived at the International Center of Photography more than a year ago, one of the first things a conservator did was bend down and sniff the film coiled inside, fearful of a telltale acrid odor, a sign of nitrate decay.

But the rolls turned out to be in remarkably good shape despite being almost untouched for 70 years. And so began a painstaking process of unfurling, scanning and trying to make sense of some 4,300 negatives taken by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour during the Spanish Civil War, groundbreaking work that was long thought to be lost but resurfaced several years ago in Mexico City.

Gallery: Pusung the Orang-utan

Sumatran Orang-utan Pusung when he arrived at Adelaide Zoo in October 2000

Pusung showing off his artistic skills at Adelaide Zoo in 2004.

One of Pusungs prized paintings, which he painted at Adelaide Zoo in 2004.

Pusung doing what comes naturally while at Adelaide Zoo in 2003.

A close-up of beloved Orang-utan Pusung at Adelaide Zoo.

Pusung, Adelaide Zoos beloved Orang-utan in his enclosure in 2003.

Eco-fuzzy math: Debunking a cap-and-trade debunking

The Weekly Standard?s John McCormack busted their fuzzy math:

Tea Party protesters get results in Rhode Island

Politicians in both parties underestimate the Tea Party movement at their own peril.

Invisibility cloak edges closer

Scientists have rendered objects invisible to near-infrared light.

Unlike previous such "cloaks", the new work does not employ metals, which introduce losses of light and result in imperfect cloaking.

Because the approach can be scaled down further in size, researchers say this is a major step towards a cloak that would work for visible light.

One of the research teams describes its miniature "carpet cloak" in the journal Nature Materials.

This "carpet" design was based on a theory first described by John Pendry, from Imperial College London, in 2008.

Michal Lipson and her team at Cornell University demonstrated a cloak based on the concept.

Xiang Zhang, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, led the other team.

Gossip Girl 2.24 Valley Girls - Photos

Google Becomes the First 100 Billion Dollar Brand In the World

Google was officially recognized as the first 100 billion dollar brand in the world, surpassing other world famous brands such as Microsoft, Coca Cola and McDonalds. With its value of approximately $100.039 billion the number one search engine became 25 percent more valuable than the software giant Microsoft. The bronze went to Coca Cola.

50+ Promising Collection Of Resources And Inspirations For Designers To Discover The Best Of The Web In April

You are welcome to share if you know more best of the web in the month of April which our readers/viewers may like.  Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well.

40+ Cartoon Character Illustration Tutorials

30+ Most Wanted Photo Manipulation Tutorials in Photoshop Part I

25 Photoshop Tutorials for Working with Textures

Image: Patrick Emerson

Remember spotting a rainbow as a child and feeling the sudden urge to jump up and down, point and shout: ?Look, a rainbow!? Well, the following pictures of semicircular, double or sunset rainbows might make you do just that. In any case, if this were a rainbow beauty pageant, they?d all be perfect tens. So heed this warning that extreme beauty will follow and scroll with care!

A double sunset rainbow in McFall, Missouri, spanning a lone tree:

Image: Carl S.

Silicon Valley is rarely as beautiful as it is with this sunset rainbow:

Image: Steve Jurvetson

An island in the Maldives spanned by an almost semicircular rainbow:

Image: muha

A perfectly clear primary rainbow, reflected in the water, with a secondary rainbow above as photographed in Kansas:

Image: Patrick Emerson

An illuminated rainbow in Serrieres in the canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland. The picture looks a bit unreal because it was taken with HDR technique:

Image: Tambako the Jaguar

No. 1: Vienna, Austria

No. 2: Zurich, Switzerland

Adding small amounts of metal to spider silk ? a material already stronger and lighter than steel ? makes it up to 10 times tougher, German researchers report.

The scientists devised a way to incorporate zinc, titanium and aluminium ions into natural spider silk. They say the method could one day prove useful for creating super-strong textiles, surgical thread or even synthetic bones.

Nature has already taken advantage of the strength metal ions can provide. Tiny amounts can be found in jaws, stingers, claws, and other composite materials that need to be hard or resilient.

The German team ? whose research is reported in the U.S. journal Science today ? achieved a similar effect in spider silk. They added metal to the silk fibres by modifying a method called atomic layer deposition (ALD).

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

Edible Architecture 2

Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World

Being social is good for you. Your emotional and even physical health depends on social interaction. Social relationships can help you deal with everything from depression, to stress, and just plain old loneliness.  

Here?s a charming video of two highly unlikely friends, set to the music of Louis Armstrong, exemplifying the beauty of overcoming differences in order to form rewarding bonds.

NASA image acquired on March 31, 2009.

Shelley Rickey plays "Tonight, You Belong to Me" on her handmade cigar-box ukulele

Photo of Sarkozy voodoo doll by Associated Press

Giant Microbes

An interactive version of the illusion may be found here. This version allows viewers to adjust the color, saturation, and timing of the disks.

Scientists in Spain say they have developed a wheelchair that can be controlled by the mind.

It could allow disabled people to get around merely by thinking about where they want to go, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The wheelchair uses a laser scanner to create a three-dimensional picture of the area around it, which is displayed on a screen.

The user simply concentrates on the part of the display where they want to go and the chair responds accordingly.

A skullcap fitted with electrodes is used to detect brain activity of the users - and work out their desired destination.

Dr Javier Minguez, who developed the chair at the University of Zaragoza in Spain, said the volunteers took just 45 minutes to learn how to use the chair.

He told New Scientist magazine: "The purpose of this work was to demonstrate the usability of the wheelchair.

"All the subjects successfully solved all the navigation tasks and learned how to deal with the device in a similar way."

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Thousands of Kenyan women vowed Wednesday to begin a weeklong sex strike to try to protest their countrys bickering leadership, which they say threatens to revive the bloody chaos that convulsed the African country last year.

Leaders from Kenyas largest and oldest group dedicated to womens rights, the Womens Development Organization, said they hope the boycott will persuade men to pressure the government to make peace.

Eleven womens groups are participating in the strike. The groups have also called on the wives of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to abstain. It was not clear how either wife responded to the request.

"We have looked at all issues which can bring people to talk and we have seen that sex is the answer," said Rukia Subow, chairman of the Womens Development Organization. "It does not know tribe, it does not have a (political) party and it happens in the lowest households."

Atheists have become the latest group to cash in on Britains booming summer camp industry by creating the countrys first-ever retreat for irreligious children. Billed as a "godless alternative" to traditional religious summer camps, the five-day retreat is being hosted by Camp Quest, an American organisation which uses the advertising slogan "Beyond Belief" and has a growing following in the States.

Camp Quest was founded in 1996 as an alternative to the Boy Scouts of America, which insists on members signing a "Declaration of Religious Belief". In response Camp Quest set up an alternative summer camp for the children of "atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers and all those who embrace a naturalistic rather than supernatural world view".

Reduction seen in abuse sites

The number of sites hosting such images dropped by 10% in 2008, reveal figures from the Internet Watch Foundation.

The watchdog warned that the fall in numbers masked a rise in the severity of images seen on the remaining sites.

Of the 1,536 unique domains known to the IWF as hosting images of child abuse, 74% were run for profit. The remaining sites were places abusers shared or swapped images.

Underage detainees in Israeli prisons facing abuse, medical negligence

image

Dress Up

monument is clad in a costume.

Manneken Pis (Dutch for lowercase micturition man), also famous in land as the petit Julien, is a rattling famous Brussels landmark. It is a diminutive discolour flowing carve portrayal a unclothed lowercase pupil urinating into the fountain?s basin.
On some occasions, the monument is clad in a costume.