…and filmed our cat.
Well, except for the very last. She hasn’t done that.
Yet.
[Via Geek Press]
IO9
A new space and SF blog, from Wired refugees.
[Via Alan Boyle]
Lazy
Fred Thompson says that journalists lack fire in the belly.
(Can we please retire that idiotic cliche now?)
Well, it was inevitable that it would come to this, given how badly broken our journalism system is.
Eat Your Salmon
More evidence that Omega-3 is good for you:
Fish oil and its key ingredient, omega-3 fatty acids (found in fatty fish like salmon), have been a mainstay of alternative health practitioners for years and have been endorsed by the American Heart Association to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Fatty acids like DHA are considered “essential” fatty acids because the body cannot make them from other sources and must obtain them through diet. Years of research have shown that DHA is the most abundant essential fatty acid in the brain, Cole said, and that it is critical to fetal and infant brain development. Studies have also linked low levels of DHA in the brain to cognitive impairment and have shown that lower levels may increase oxidative stress in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
Based on the positive results, the National Institutes of Health is currently conducting a large-scale clinical trial with DHA in patients with established Alzheimer’s disease. For those patients, Cole said, it may be too late in the disease’s progression for DHA to have much effect. But he is hopeful that the NIH will conduct a large-scale prevention clinical trial using fish oil at the earliest stages of the disease — particularly because it is unlikely that a pharmaceutical company will do so, since fish oil in pill form is readily available and inexpensive.
There are a lot of other reasons to be consuming Omega-3. This is just one more.
The Need For Bureaucratic Agility
Bill Whittle has a long ode to John Boyd.
A lot of this theory applies to NASA as well. Unfortunately, space isn’t important enough to compel the government to do it well.
A Divider, Not A Uniter
Such is the low esteem of George Bush’s America in the rest of the world that Britain and France are fighting over which of them is our closest ally.
After decades of Anglo-French rivalry, in which France has vehemently deplored the global influence America and Britain have attained and what every president of France since Charles de Gaulle has described as “Anglo-Saxon culture,” Mr. Sarkozy claimed during his visit to Washington last week that France, not Britain, is now America’s best friend and partner.
Mr. Brown, who has been portrayed on both sides of the Atlantic as having distanced himself from America to avoid the charge against his predecessor, Tony Blair, that he was Mr. Bush’s “poodle,” fought back last night, claiming in a speech at a banquet thrown by the lord mayor of the city of London that the French president’s bid to usurp Britain’s traditional place alongside America would not succeed.
I hear the Democrat candidates bloviate on the campaign trail about how they’re going to “repair our relations” with the rest of the world, and wonder on what planet they’re living. Hilarious.
Jenkins On Space
Holman Jenkins endorses space tourism, Bigelow and COTS in his Wall Street Journal Opinion column today as means to speed the time when humanity can survive a big rock hitting us on one of the planets where we live. (I write this from the Yucatan Peninsula which owes its formation to a big rock).
Unless you can avoid a newspaper in 2008, expect to be reading a lot about human extinction. In June arrives the hundredth anniversary of the Tunguska impact, which leveled 800 square miles of Siberia. By happenstance, a rock of similar size may smash into Mars on Jan. 30, affording scientists a close-up view of a planetary disaster….
At times like these, thoughts naturally turn to escape.
Kudos to “consultant Charles Lurio” who is cited and has been beating the drum for rationalizing space policy for years.
Giving The Game Away
Watching Michigan play Florida. They should be up by three touchdowns, and instead they’re tied. If they lose, it will be due to all those turnovers and lost opportunities. Hard to believe that Mike Hart has fumbled twice in this game, given his overall record.
Happy New Year!
…in Baghdad.
Harry and Nancy are (no doubt) very disappointed.
Happy New Year to every one else, who isn’t unhappy to see happiness in Iraq.
Child Abuse
Political correctness is damaging young boys:
Research by Penny Holland, academic leader for early childhood at London Metropolitan University, has also concluded that boys should be allowed to play gun games.
She found boys became dispirited and withdrawn when they are told such play-fighting is wrong.
But you can bet kids will continue to get suspended for as little as drawing pictures of guns.
Remember this the next time someone complains about a Republican war on science. Yet another reason to get the government out of the schools.