The Science Of Origami / Mathematicians And Artists Use Algorithms To Make Complicated Paper Sculptures

September 1, 2008 — Mathematicians design new figures in a traditional art form called origami, using modern techniques. Innovations developed in pursuit of the art find application in multiple fields, including applied mathematics and engineering. One application is the use of folding algorithms to pack air bags.

Can a piece of paper save your life? You probably don't know one modern invention was derived from the science of origami, the ancient art of paper folding.
"What first got me as a kid was the idea that you can create all these different shapes from such a simple starting material -- an uncut sheet of paper," says origami artist and engineer Robert Lang, Ph.D.

Origami is the traditional technique of Japanese paper folding. Modern science agrees there's a lot they couldn't do with out this ancient art form.

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Toddler Caught After 40-Foot Fall From Window

LAWRENCE, Mass. - Two men were being hailed as heroes by police on Monday for catching a toddler who fell 40 feet from a home's third-story window.

Robert Lemire told the North-Andover (Mass.) Eagle-Tribune newspaper that he was talking on his cell phone Sunday evening outside a pizza shop in Lawrence, about 25 miles north of Boston, when he saw the toddler dangling from a window across the street.

The 45-year-old father of two bolted across a busy street, where he met 23-year-old Alex Day, who had been inside the home at a Bible study meeting. Together, they caught the 18-month-old before she hit the ground.

"I've only seen something like that on TV," Lemire told the Eagle-Tribune.

"She's lucky. Everybody is lucky," he told the newspaper.

Day said the event was "absolutely incredible."

"She was so small, she would have really been hurt. ... It was pretty amazing when I look back on the whole thing," the Eagle-Tribune quoted him as saying.

The child's father was caring for a newborn at the time.

"These guys are heroes, no question about it," Police Chief John Romero said.

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Why Some People Shake Off The Flu In A Couple Of Days, While Others Suffer Longer, Or Die

ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2009) — For some people it is a certainty: as soon as the annual flu season gets underway, they are sure to go down with it. It is little comfort to know that there are other people who are apparently resistant to flu or overcome the illness after just a couple of days. It is this phenomenon that is now being investigated by researchers at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, using various strains of mice.

"Where there are many scientific works dealing solely with the flu virus, we have investigated how the host reacts to an infection," says Klaus Schughart, head of the Experimental Mouse Genetics research group. In infection experiments the researchers have now discovered that an excessive immune response is responsible for the fatal outcome of the disease in mice. This overreaction has genetic roots.

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Trafficking Of Milk / May Be The Most Briskly Traded Underground Commodity In America

It's early Saturday morning, and the Brooklyn street is almost empty. Except at one half-open store, where about 30 people are lined up in the narrow aisle clutching empty backpacks, shopping bags and suitcases. At the door, a man checks each entrant, asking "Are you here for the...pickup?"

Someone shouts "The van's coming!" and the place burst into action. People run into the street and come back hauling heavy cartons and cooler chests. Then the store empties as quickly as it filled, as everyone lugs their contraband purchase home.

And "lug" is the word. What's being distributed at this store -- and in countless offices, backyards, homes, churches and parking lots across the country -- is milk. Raw milk.

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KILLER KOMODOS

Imagine being on a tropical island fishing. You get hungry, so you climb a fruit tree. You fall. Dazed, you sit for a moment to gather your wits … and are attacked by two of the world's largest lizards.
That was the fate of an Indonesian man recently, who became the latest in an increasing (though still rare) number of attacks on humans by Komodo dragons. Komodos can reach 10 feet long and weigh 300 pounds.

Muhamad Anwar died from loss of blood. Had he survived his wounds, he likely would have suffered the next most dangerous threat after a Komodo attack: infection from the 50 kinds of bacteria in a Komodo mouth.

Here's more of what search reveals about Komodo dragons:

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Injections Of Licorice Ingredient Show Promise As Treatment For Cocaine Addiction

ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2009) — An ingredient in licorice shows promise as an antidote for the toxic effects of cocaine abuse, including deadly overdoses of the highly addictive drug, researchers in Korea and Pennsylvania are reporting.

In the new study, Meeyul Hwang, Chae Ha Yang, and colleagues note that there is currently no effective medicine for treating cocaine abuse or addiction. Recent animal studies conducted by the researchers show that a licorice ingredient called isoliquiritigenin (ISL) can block the nervous system’s production of dopamine. That neurotransmitter is involved in emotion, movement, and other brain activities.

Cocaine and other addictive drugs stimulate dopamine and help produce the pleasurable and addictive effects. Drugs that block dopamine block this response. The scientists used rats as model animals to show that rats injected with ISL just prior to cocaine-administration showed 50 percent less of the behavioral effects associated with the illicit drug.

They also showed that ISL injections protected nerve cells in the brain from cocaine-associated damage

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Japanese Man Is A True Survivor

TOKYO - A 93-year-old Japanese man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II, officials said Tuesday.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified "hibakusha," or radiation survivor, of the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki, but has now been confirmed as surviving the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier as well, city officials said.

Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city officials said.

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TV's All-Time Best Series Finales

During the next few weeks, we're going to say goodbye to several well-known television shows. Some will leave us with tear-soaked eyes ("The West Wing"), whereas others can't have the door slammed on them fast enough ("Joey"), and several long-forgotten friends will request one final visit ("Malcolm in the Middle," "Alias," "That '70s Show," "Will & Grace"). As we prepare to bid adieu, we thought that now is a good time to look back at the most fabulous finale episodes in TV history.

There'll be no "Seinfeld," "Sex and the City" or "Friends" here, three examples of high-profile send-offs that did little more than remind audiences that the magic was gone. As you'll see, some finale episodes came under the stress of cancellation, whereas others were a home run knocked out of the park by a successfully retiring classic. Either way, each diverse selection presents audiences with a powerful final impression of a classic TV show.

Each is worth rediscovering on DVD or, if it isn't available yet, should at least deserve an onslaught of angry fan letters to the lazy people who own the rights to them.

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Lance Fractures Collarbone, Tour Up In The Air

BALTANAS, Spain (AP) - Lance Armstrong fractured his collarbone Monday during a race in Spain, leaving in question his participation in the Tour de France in July.


The seven-time Tour champion said he will fly to the United States and meet with medical experts to decide whether he needs surgery.

"We'll go from there," he said. "I think for the Tour it's a very big problem."

Armstrong was knocked off his bike during a pileup in the first stage of the Vuelta of Castilla and Leon race and was taken to a hospital by ambulance. The American, who crashed about 12.5 miles from the stage's finish, was grimacing and trying to hold his right arm as he entered the ambulance.

"The collarbone is broken, and I have a little bit of road-rash abrasions," Armstrong said as he left Valladolid University Hospital. "I've never had this happen before; it's pretty painful. I feel really miserable."

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FAA / 17 Die In Montana Plane Crash

BUTTE, Mont. - A small plane crashed Sunday as it approached an airport in Montana, killing 17 people, including several children, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.

The single engine turboprop plane crashed about 500 feet (152 meters) from the airport in Butte while attempting to land, said spokesman Mike Fergus. The Montana Standard reported in an online story that it crashed in Butte's Holy Cross Cemetery.

The aircraft had departed from Oroville, California, and the pilot had filed a flight plan showing a destination of Bozeman, about 85 miles (136 kilometers) southeast of Butte. But the pilot canceled his flight plan at some point and headed for Butte, Fergus said.

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Gunman Kills 3 Officers, Wounds 4th In Oakland

OAKLAND, Calif. - A police officer was battling for his life and three more were dead after a parolee with an "extensive criminal history" opened fire at a routine traffic stop and hours later gunned down members of a SWAT team searching for him.

The gunman was also killed Saturday, capping a day of violence that the Oakland Police Department said was the worst in its history. Never before had three police officers died in the line of duty on the same day.
"It's in these moments that words are extraordinarily inadequate," said Mayor Ron Dellums at a somber news conference Saturday night.

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Box Office Preview / The Haunting In Connecticut

Based on a true story, The Haunting in Connecticut charts one family's real-life encounter with the dark forces of the supernatural. When the Campbell family moves to upstate Connecticut, they soon learn that their charming Victorian home has a disturbing history: not only was the house a transformed funeral parlor where inconceivable acts occurred, but the owner's clairvoyant son Jonah served as a demonic messenger, providing a gateway for spiritual entities to crossover. Now unspeakable terror awaits when Jonah, the boy who communicated with the dead, returns to unleash horror on the innocent and unsuspecting family.

The true story of a family forced to relocate near a clinic where their teenage son was being treated for cancer. The family begins experiencing violent, supernatural events that the parents first blame on stress from the illness, but they later discover that their new home is a former mortuary with a dark past.

''PLEASE HELP ME'' / Taliban Hostage Begs For Her Life

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – "I am Khadija Abdul Qahaar. I am a convert to Islam. I have been advised to make this video. I am going to be killed at anytime." So began a chilling video released on Wednesday by Taliban militants who are holding Qahaar, a Canadian woman, hostage somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Qahaar, whose former name is Beverly Giesbrecht, converted to Islam after 9/11. A 55-year-old journalist from Vancouver, she tried to travel into North Waziristan – one of the most dangerous areas in the world – last November with two Pakistani reporting assistants.

She wanted to interview survivors of the first ever U.S. drone attack in Bannu, a town in the Northwest Frontier Province, and then travel on to Miranshah, the main city of North Waziristan.

But Taliban militants, who patrol the Bannu-Miranshah road, intercepted Qahaar's taxi and dragged her and her two Pakistani companions out of their vehicle at gunpoint.

The video released Wednesday shows Qahaar sitting in a dark room with a dagger pointing at her as she makes a desperate plea for help.

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Texas High School Held Cage Fights, Records Say

DALLAS - A Dallas high school staged "gladiator-style" cage fights among troubled students, making them settle their differences with bare-knuckled brawls inside a boys locker room, according to school district documents.

The principal and other employees at South Oak Cliff High School "knew of the practice, allowed it to go on for a time, and failed to report it," according to a 2008 report revealed Thursday. The fights, unleashed inside a steel utility cage, happened between 2003 and 2005, the report said.

The Dallas Morning News obtained the documents for a story in its Thursday editions.

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Nice Guys Can Finish First And So Can Their Teams

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Ever thought the other guy was a loser for giving his all for the team even if others weren’t pulling their weight?

A new study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, says that person can influence a group to become more efficient in achieving its goals by making cooperative, collective behaviour seem acceptable and appropriate, and thereby encouraging others to act similarly.

The study, authored by a professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and his collaborator at Northwestern University, calls such individuals “consistent contributors” – people who contribute all the time, regardless of others’ choices.

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Happy St.Patricks Day /10 Classic Irish Bars Across the U.S.

What originally started as a day of mourning for Ireland's patron saint on March 17 in 461 A.D. has long since turned into a celebration of everything Irish. If you can't travel to the Emerald Isle to toss back a pint, you'll be sure to find the same festive, jovial spirit among the revelers at these top 10 Irish pubs and bars in the U.S. And since merrymaking is certainly not just limited to St. Patrick's Day, these picks are prime places to enjoy an Irish beer any time of the year.

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Volcano Alert / Alaska's Mount Redoubt Rumbles Once Again

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The official alert level has been raised as Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano rumbles again.

Geologists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory say a significant eruption does not appear imminent, but they raised the alert to orange, the stage just before eruption. They cautioned yesterday that conditions could evolve rapidly.

The 10,200-foot Redoubt Volcano is about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage.

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Hoard Of Hundreds Of Antique Gold Coins Uncovered In Walls Around Jerusalem National Park

ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2009) — A hoard of more than 250 gold coins -- believed to be 1,300-year-old Chanukah money -- was exposed December 11 in Jerusalem as part of excavations that the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting in the Giv ‘ati car park in the City of David, in the walls Around Jerusalem National Park.

The excavations at the site are being carried out on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority and are underwritten by the ‘Ir David Foundation.

“This is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem – certainly the largest and most important of its period,” archaeologists said.

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9 Bodies Partially Buried On Outskirts Of Mexican Border City

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Police acting on a tip found nine bodies partially buried in the desert on the outskirts of the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, and authorities announced the arrest of a suspected leader of a drug cartel hit squad.

Investigators searched the desert site south of the city on Saturday to see whether there are any more bodies.

An official with the state prosecutor's office who declined to be named in line with department policy says a police officer's badge was found at the site. Authorities were working to identify the bodies.

State security official Enrique Torres Valadez said a total of nine bodies, seven male and two female, have been found so far.

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North Korea Gives Notice Of April Rocket Launch

SEOUL, Mar. 12, 2009 (Reuters) — North Korea has given global agencies notice of its plans to launch a satellite from April 4-8, an official said on Thursday in a move Washington has called "provocative" and views as a disguised test of a missile.

The United States said on Wednesday it could pursue a range of options against the state if it launches the long-range missile, including squeezing it harder with U.N. sanctions imposed after separate missile and nuclear tests in 2006.

The latest development adds to mounting tension on the divided Korean peninsula with North Korea saying it was on the edge of war, though many analysts doubt Pyongyang would send its poorly equipped military into a direct attack on the South.

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