Your Everyday Itsy-Bitsy News

What’s the Deepest Canyon?

elanoy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:05:32 +0000

It all depends on where you’re looking, on Earth or in the entire solar system.

If you’re scouting for the deepest scar on Earth, it might not be where you think. Though the Grand Canyon is known for its majestic landscape, the deepest gorge on the planet is found where the Pacific Plate sinks underneath the Philippine Plate. Called the Mariana Trench, the underwater canyon descends 35,827 feet (10,920 meters) — the Grand Canyon only averages about 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) in depth.

But if you’re looking for the biggest known canyon in the solar system, that’s Mars’ Valles Marineris. It is the widest known canyon — in some places the space between its walls would span the width of the entire continental United States — and keep reach up to 10 times as deep as the Grand Canyon.

What is the Longest-Living Animal?

elanoy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:00:38 +0000

The animal with the most birthdays to date goes to a quahog clam plucked from the cold Icelandic waters in 2007. The tiny mollusk would need quite a lung capacity to extinguish the possible 400 candles on its cake.

Some life-span chart toppers include:

American box turtle — 120 years
Bowhead whale — 60 to 70 years (though bowheads exceeding 200 years have been reported)
Elephant — 70 years
Human — 70 to 80 years

Some animals are born and die in the seeming blink of the eye, including:

Adult housefly — 4 weeks
Worker bee — 5 weeks
Ant (Worker) — ½ year
Opossum — 1 year
Ant (Queen) — 3 years
Rat — 2 to 3 years

Is a Dog’s Mouth Cleaner Than a Human’s?

elanoy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:56:56 +0000

Well, sadly, no. In short, a dog’s mouth is besieged by its own legions of germs, roughly as huge in population as those living in the human mouth and causing a similar array of dental illnesses.

10 Supertechnologies of the future

elanoy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:41:01 +0000

10 – DIGITAL LIBRARIES

You might want to check out Google Book Search, its a very good example. There will come a point in time when any factual based question can be answered online.

9 – GENE THERAPY AND / OR STEM CELLS

A lot of deseases involve inherited conditions – as they are pass through your genes. Good news, scientists are working to change those genes and trick defective cells into growing correctly.

8 – PERVASIVE WIRELESS INTERNET

That implies the possibility of full connectivity between any two random devices. Want to check your burglar alarm from your cell phone? It’ll be easy.

7 – MOBILE ROBOTS

We may see convoys of robot trucks on the highways. Admittedly, they’ll probably have more initial acceptance in warehouses, handling pick-and-pull chores.

6 – BETTER CHEAPER SOLAR CELLS

In less than ten years the cost of solar energy could be at parity with the cost of electricity from the grid, and solar cells could be standard features in new residential construction.

5 – LOCATION BASED COMPUTING

Instead of clicking an icon on a browser screen, you can walk outside, point your cell phone at an actual three-dimensional thing (presumably, a building that houses a business), click the phone, and get information about (or jump to the Web site of) whatever you were pointing at. As well as servers with Internet address, there will be servers with geographic coordinates.

4 – DESKTOP 3-D PRINTING

Instead of going to the store for your next gadget, you might download a design of your choosing and generate it in your desktop 3-D printer. The next step will be to design your own gadgets, post the designs, and sell them, etc. Toys, kitchenware, and decorative household items should be fair game, at least. Cottage industry, here we come!

3 – MOORE’S LAW UPHELD

The law, stated by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore in 1965, implies that available computer power can be expected to double every other year. For at least two decades pundits have been pointing out barriers to the law’s fulfillment, and the chip industry has been smashing those barriers. Currently they can’t agree if the law has a couple of more decades of life left, or 600 years. Either way, in terms of available computing power, it’s clear that we ain’t seen nothing yet.

2 – THERAPEUTIC CLONING

Forget the stories about generating identical copies of a particular sheep or person. The whole idea behind cloning all along has been to grow replacement organs or tissue in a vat, which the body would see no reason to reject. Cancerous or damaged organs could be replaced by new, disease-free clones of themselves.

1 – THE HYDROGEN ECONOMY

Instead of guzzling imported oil (and being at the mercy of oil suppliers) we could turn water into hydrogen and burn that (or use to charge fuel cells.) Meanwhile, the only byproduct of the combustion of hydrogen is … more water! However, hydrogen storage remains a thorny issue, due to its low density, and hydrogen may end up being only one of many interlocking components that replace the current oil economy.

Smoking Causes Hair Loss

elanoy — Sat, 24 May 2008 12:38:12 +0000

Scientists have long speculated cigarette smoke may accelerate hair loss and premature graying. The association was largely attributed to toxins in smoke that can harm hair follicles and damage hormones. According to epidemiological studies, that appears to be the case. A report in the journal BMJ looked at more than 600 men and women, half of them smokers. After controlling for variables, the researchers found a “significant” and “consistent” link between smoking and early graying.

Last year, another team studied the link in a group of 740 men in Taiwan, aged 40 to 91 years, notable because Asian men generally have low rates of hereditary baldness. After controlling for age and family histories, the researchers found a greater rate of hair loss among the smokers, a risk that grew with increasing smoking.

Aspirin More Effective if Taken at Night

elanoy — Sat, 24 May 2008 12:34:15 +0000

The hormones and other chemical that aspirin acts on are most active at night, thats why people who take aspirin to keep their blood pressure down will get more benefit if they take it at bedtime, according to researchers.

Though blood pressure tends to drop at night, that is the time when the body is setting everything in motion for the pressure to go up the next day, during waking hours, said Ramón C. Hermida of the University of Vigo in Spain.

“If you take the aspirin in the morning, it is not going to be effective because aspirin basically has an effect for four hours or so,” Dr. Hermida said.

Top 10 US Disasters

elanoy — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:42:35 +0000

10. Pacific Northwest Megathrust Earthquake

9. New York Hurricane

8. Asteroid Impact

7. Los Angeles Tsunami

6. Supervolcano

5. Midwest Earthquake

4. Heat Waves

3. East Coast Tsunami

2. Gulf Coast Tsunami

1. Total Destruction of Earth

Okay, so nobody is spending too much time worrying about what to do if the planet is annihilated, but at least one person has seriously pondered whether and when it could happen. From being sucked into a black hole to being blown up by an antimatter reaction, there are scientifically plausible risks of an event that would render this whole list moot.

How to help the earthquake victims in China?

elanoy — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:56:57 +0000

These are the major charities accepting donations for the victims of the earthquake in China:

Americares

Medecins Sans Frontieres

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Preparing for the next Big-one (earthquake) in California

elanoy — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:45:58 +0000

Scientists believe that the possibility of a very strong California quake in the next few decades is very real. California quake Scientists imagining the next “Big one” and they considered the section of the San Andreas to be the most primed to break. A team of scientists, government first responders and industries are working to create a realistic crisis and disaster scenario that can be used for preparedness. The “Big One,” as earthquake scientists imagine it in a detailed, first-of-its-kind script.

San Andreas Fault – the 800-mile boundary where the Pacific and North American plates grind against each other.

Scientists chose the parameters of the fictional temblor such as its size and length of rupture and ran computer models to simulate ground movement. Engineers calculated the effects of shaking on freeway buildings pipelines and other infrastructure. Risk Analysts used the data to estimate casualties and damages.

The scenario: The San Andreas Fault Suddenly rumbles to life on November 13, 2008 just after morning rush hour. The quake begins north of the US Mexican border near the Salton Sea and the fault ruptures for about 200 miles on a Northwest direction ending near high desert town Palmdale about 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

Scientist chose the scenario because it wold create intense shaking in the Los Angeles Basin and neighboring countries – a region with nearly 22 million people.

The scenario will be released at a House of Subcommittee on the Energy and Mineral Resources meeting in Washinton.

Here are the major elements:

-10 AM The San Andreas Fault: ruptures sending shock waves racing at 2 miles per second.

-30 seconds later: The agricultural Coachella Valley shakes first sections of the Interstate 10 one of the nation’s major east-west corridors break apart.

-1 minute later: Interstate 15 a key north-south route id severed in places, Rail lines break; a train derails. Tremors hit burgeoning Riverside and San Bernardino counties east of Los Angeles.

-1 minute 30 seconds later: Shock waves advance toward the Los Angeles Basin shaking it violently for 55 seconds.

India – LOVE VERSUS TRADITION

elanoy — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:05:08 +0000

In India, more young couples are challenging tradition nowadays. To conform to tradition and religion, all marriages were arranged by the bride and groom’s parents, now however, a lot of reasons are putting pressure on the orthodox methods. With rigid injunctions against crossing caste borders, arranged marriages restrict them to hereditary occupations by preventing lower castes to conjugate with higher castes. Parents can even advertise in the newspapers to have beneficial and favorable matches for their children, obscured from their knowledge until the process is in progress. The inevitable influence of the western culture is also a factor which emplace men and women to assert their liberty and become more exposed to other cultural influences. Many lucrative opportunities have emerged over the years for the men and women in India, earning enough to defy their parents. Some of these job opportunities require for them to relocate outside their families’ realm. The languishment of tradition has made conjugation more equal but it has also led to higher divorce rates. The society is struggling to cope with the transformation. A research study shows that India is becoming rapidly modernized and a lot of Indian people nowadays are changing their views on marriage. Tales of rebellion are on the rise. My friend’s used-to-be fiancé is now married to a different girl because of arranged marriage. Their three-year relationship has ended early this year because her used-to-be fiance’s parents are against her. With so much love and respect to his parents he agreed on his parents’ wish to marry the girl they have matched for him. Love, as defined by others, conquers all; but in India today, love is vanquished by tradition as tradition remains nearly as puissant.