Thursday, May 27, 2004

- Scientists can do anything to mice. They can turn them blue, make them twice their normal size, even make them live four times as long, but they cant seem to apply the same effects to humans. I know, I know...humans are much more complicated than mice, but every time I watch the news and they claim to make some amazing break-through in medical science by experimenting on mice, I always hope that the break-through can be applied to humans. Here is a link to an article that describes how scientists may have discovered why humans age, and how to stop it:
Modified Mice
 
- I hate to admit it, but if the election were held today, I believe John Kerry would win by 1 to 2 percentage points. I give John "I will/wont accept the nomination in Boston" Kerry about 290 electoral votes. However, I still dont believe that John Kerry will win. George Bush has two huge advantages: 1) He should get more of a bounce out of his convention than John Kerry, since the Republican convention is in New York, and will feature super-patriot, 9/11 related speeches. 2) George Bush is the president (duh), and accordingly, he can directly affect what happens in our crazy world. John Kerry has to sit on the sidelines, and hope the events that transpire in the next six months ruin George Bush. Here is an article explaining how, despite his drop in approval ratings, George Bush is doing better in states he lost in 2000:
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040526-085518-9861r.htm
 
- I read the TV Guide website every day for entertainment news. Even though their entertainment news has a slight left-lean to it, TV Guide is owned by News Corp (its virtually impossible to find un-biased entertainment news), so I dont feel quite as dirty after visiting it. On Tuesdays they post an article answering readers' questions about television trivia, and every Thursday they answer readers' questions about movie trivia. If you want to know where I find my goofy tidbits of entertainment knowledge, this is a good place to start:
http://www.tvguide.com/tv/televisionary/ http://www.tvguide.com/movies/flickchick/
 
- Oh sure, I am enjoying the NBA playoffs, like most other basketball fans (if you check-out the archives at www.phxsuns.net you will find that I picked LA and Detroit to meet in the finals before the season started. Libert'e la Kobe! Revenge for 1989!), but I need football dammit! The NFL season should be expanded to 20 games. The college football season should be 14 games (sans bowl games.) I need 8 games shown on regular cable television each Sunday, instead of two or three. Football! Football! Football! Here is a webpage at ESPN that ranks all the NFL teams during the preseason: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/powerranking

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

- The Cicada are here! The Cicada are here! Well, not yet here in Arizona, but they are springing up back east. Arizona Cicada have a two to three year life cycle, and tend to emerge any time from June to August. The Cicada you find in the Eastern United States stay underground for 17 years! This year's batch is expected to be extremely large. Here are two articles describing the Eastern Cicada, and the Arizona Cicada.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2004/may/11/051108416.html http://ag.arizona.edu/urbanipm/insects/cicadas.html
 
- I have a strange fascination with eclipses. I find it important to view each one, and I am disappointed if I miss one. I have no idea why I feel this way. After all, an eclipse is just a coincidence of the Moon either moving in front of Sun (Solar Eclipse), or the earth getting in between the moon and the sun (Lunar eclipse.) Here are two links with maps showing all the total solar eclipses for the next 25 years, and the all the partial solar eclipses for the next 25 years. I am not providing a link for lunar eclipses because they are much more common:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEatlas/SEatlas3/SE2001-25T-2.GIF http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEatlas/SEatlas3/SE2001-25A-2.GIF
 
- Does God exist? According to one physicist, God has a 67% chance of existing. Here is a link to an article discussing his methods for arriving at this number:
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/long022604.html
 
- Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are going to do a Band of Brothers version for the Pacific theater. Here is a link with information about the new series:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/949830/posts/%0D%0D