Friday, 25 March 2005

News Release: NC State Paleontologist Discovers Soft Tissue in Dinosaur Bones

www.ncsu.edu/news/ press_releases/05_03/075.htm "NC State Paleontologist Discovers Soft Tissue in Dinosaur Bones"
Scientists have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissue inside a Tyrannosaurus Rex bone they found in a sandstone formation in the US.

The find included what appeared to be blood vessels, and possibly even cells.

The material is currently being studied, and if scientists can isolate proteins from the material they may be able to learn new details of how dinosaurs lived, lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University said

“Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex”
Authors: Mary H. Schweitzer and Jennifer L. Wittmeyer, North Carolina State University; John R. Horner, Montana State University; Jan B. Toporski, Carnegie Institution of Washington Geophysical Laboratory
Published: March 25, 2005, in Science

WAL-MARX

WAL-MARX

The weblog of Citizen Cross. Here you will find entries dealing with politics, history, the media, and cultural, social, and economic issue
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
The Politics of Diversion

I was going to write about the current controversy regarding Terri Schiavo. Then I decided against it. But in order not to, I have to write a little something about it anyway. You know, it’s easier if I just begin . . .
Another is the hypocrisy of Our Great Father, who has been talking about a “culture of life” and how in cases such as this, it is “better to err on the side of life.” ...
This is the man who, as Governor of Texas, publicly mocked a woman (Kayla Faye Tucker) he put to death, despite her plea for clemency: "'Please,' Bush whimpered, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'"...
Finally, it is worth asking how her medical care has been paid. It turns out, by Medicare - the very program conservative Republicans are determined to eliminate. And what helped pay for her early treatment and medical bills? A million-dollar settlement from a lawsuit, the very kind of malpractice lawsuit that Republicans are determined to eliminate. Isn't irony just delicious? ...

Sunday, 20 March 2005

Phil Agre's Home Page

Phil Agre's Home Page

Includes links to some of his recent publications, such as:

The practical republic: Social skills and the progress of citizenship, in Andrew Feenberg and Darin Barney, eds, Community in the Digital Age, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004.

Internet research: For and against, in Mia Consalvo et al, eds, Internet Research Annual, Volume 1, Peter Lang, 2004.

Information and institutional change: The case of digital libraries, in Ann P. Bishop, Nancy A. Van House, and Barbara P. Buttenfield, eds, Digital Library Use: Social Practice in Design and Evaluation, MIT Press, 2003.

Peer-to-peer and the promise of Internet equality, Communications of the ACM 46(2), 2003, pages 39-42.

Real-time politics: The Internet and the political process, The Information Society 18(5), 2002, pages 311-331.

The practical logic of computer work, in Matthias Scheutz, ed, Computationalism: New Directions, MIT Press, 2002.

Cyberspace as American culture, Science as Culture 11(2), 2002, pages 171-189.

Changing places: Contexts of awareness in computing, Human-Computer Interaction 16(2-4), 2001, pages 177-192.

Supporting the intellectual life of a democratic society, Ethics and Information Technology 3(4), 2001, pages 289-298.

Your face is not a bar code: Arguments against automatic face recognition in public places, Whole Earth 106, 2001, pages

Tuesday, 1 March 2005

yellowarrow.org

yellowarrow.org
bout

The YellowArrow is a global public art project that merges graffiti and sticker culture with wireless media, creating an interactive forum for people to leave and discover messages pointing out what counts in their environment. Participants place arrows to draw attention to different locations and objects -- a favorite view of the city, an odd fire hydrant, the local bar. Each arrow has a unique code, and by sending a text-message (SMS) from your mobile phone to 1.646.270.5537 in the format "+code your message" you associate a short text with your arrow -- messages can range from literary quotations to personal commentaries to game-like prompts to action. When another person encounters the arrow, he or she sends "?code" to 1.646.270.5537 and immediately receives the message associated with it on their mobile phone. Through this location-based exchange of text-messages, the YellowArrow becomes a symbol for the unique characteristics, personal histories, and hidden secrets that live within our everyday spaces. And it's not just places, it's people: YellowArrow TXTshirts are individually coded just like the stickers. YellowArrow text-messaging is currently compatible with all phones and service providers in the US as well as internationally with those networks under the GSM standard. The website, YellowArrow.org, allows participants to annotate their arrows with photos and maps and is the online gallery of YellowArrows placed throughout the world -- visit to order arrow stickers and tshirts and see announcements about new events and features.

Court: Man can sue over 'surprise' pregnancy

Chicago Sun-TimesCourt: Man can sue over 'surprise' pregnancy
February 25, 2005
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Legal Affairs Reporter

Fef a woman performs oral sex on a man, leaves the room, secretly uses that sperm to impregnate herself, then sues the man for child support, is that "extreme and outrageous" conduct?

Yes it is, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled this week.

The justices said Chicago doctor Richard Phillips can try to convince a jury that his ex-fiancee pulled that trick on him, causing him emotional distress.

The ex-fiancee, Sharon Irons, also a doctor, says Phillips got her pregnant the old-fashioned way -- sexual intercourse -- and concocted the oral sex story as a novel excuse to get out of paying child support for their 5-year-old daughter.
...
The panel, however, tossed the other two counts in Phillips' suit, including the one for conversion because they could not accept that Irons "stole" Phillips' sperm.

"She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift -- an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee," Hartman wrote. "There was no agreement the original deposit would be returned upon request."

Plants In Motion

Plants In Motion
Created for nonprofit educational use
by
Roger P. Hangarter

Indiana University, Department of Biology, 915 E 3rd St, Bloomington, IN 47405

sunflower.bio.indiana.edu/~rhangart/ plantmotion/starthere.html

With few exceptions, plants grow and change on a time scale that is too slow for us to observe in real time. Time-lapse photography is a simple technique that allows us to see the movements of plants and clearly demonstrates that plants are living and capable of some extraordinary things. This is done by capturing a series of images at intervals ranging from minutes to hours apart. The images can then be viewed in rapid succession, much like a flip book. The effect is to compress into a short period, the changes that occurred over a relatively long period of time. We especially hope this site provides material that may captivate the interest of budding plant biologists but even seasoned plant biologists will find interesting material...
* Germination
* Photomorphogenesis
* Tropisms
* Nastic Movements
* Circadian Responses
* General Growth
* Flowers
* Cellular Responses

Teaching / Learning Projects
* Plant Dance
* Making time-lapse movies
* Plant projects

Plants & Art
* Plant Art
* Plants in Hollywood

Note that all of the movies are in QuickTime format. The QuickTime plug-in is available for free at quicktime.apple.com. However, if you want to save movies to your computer for educational use away from an inernet connection, you will need a copy of QuickTime Pro

Trebuchet - not the font/typeface

www.trebuchet.com: Trebuchet.com * Dedicated to the art of hurling *

Now available, these two previously out-of-print books!

Catapult Design, Construction and Competition
AND
The Projectile Throwing Engines of the Ancients

The convertible tabletop trebuchet!: This small trebuchet is fully functional and is based on true trebuchet mechanics.
It can be converted from a hanging counterweight model to a fixed counterweight (and back!) in seconds! Great for hurling missiles across the room!

Be sure to visit our other web site at:
www.mangonel.com
The ancient Roman engine of war, Mangonel, also known as an Onager. This fully functional model is professionally engineered and is as historically accurate as possible. It really works and can throw golfballs, potatoes, eggs, tennis balls and more!