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POPS Penguins Have Adopted Another Chick This is a great day for these two zoos. Normally I don't like zoos but, when they can help save an endangered animal like this I guess it seems worthwhile. This particular breed is in danger because of oil spills and loss of food source (also related to humans). One weak chick saved is hardly a comeback, but the spirit of the operation is honorable.
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POPS Skunk's head freed from jar Lucky officer I'd say. He had a no spray day. Also I'd like to add that people really should be more careful with their garbage. Where I live we have to secure it from the wretched East Wind. If there are any animals around, that's a good reason too.
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POPS NASA Goes Hip-Hop The Firmi LAT 1FGL Source catalog was supposed to light up when you run your mouse over it, but, I guess that factor is lost in the clipping process. I found this a very funny article, because it is extremely complicated material yet, they punctuated it with a rap to try and help us star dummies out here understand what a particle accelerator does. I'm getting old I guess because I'd rather read text than try to sift out meaning over the noisy music. Nice try though NASA.
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POPSScientists crack opium poppy's genetic code Codeine can be extracted directly from the opium plant, but mostly it is synthesized from the much more abundant morphine found in the opium poppy. Most morphine produced for pharmaceutical use around the world is converted into codeine. Once ingested, codeine is converted by an enzyme in the liver to morphine, which is the active painkiller and a naturally occurring compound in humans. This will be a great advancement in painkilling medicine. Not only it will it be cheaper (hopefully) but, codeine is not quite as addictive as base morphine, and it is easier to come off of it, with reduced side effects of withdrawal. Kudos to these scientists. "With this discovery, we can potentially create plants that will stop production at codeine," said Facchini.
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POPS Woman Fights For Health Care In D.C. In Washington, House Democratic leaders worked to rally their rank-and-file members around last-minute agreements on insurance taxes and prescription drug coverage that could make the overhaul a reality. All I have to say about all of this is "Git 'er done"! Although some issues remained unresolved -- including a divisive battle over restricting taxpayer funding of abortion -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said: "We have enough to move forward."
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POPS A SUN HALO This looks so alien, and distant, yet it is right here on Earth. The text says it is the effect comes from ice crystals, and it does look icy cold. I wonder how far the photographer actually had to climb to get this shot.
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POPS Living Rubber Bridges It is incredible to see the bridges in Cherrapunji grow on their own, instead of being built. They are called ‘Living Bridges’ of Cherrapunji. Cherrapunji, in Meghalaya, India, is famous for the highest amount of rainfall in the world. It is not only the maximum rainfall that you witness here, but the place is adorned with amazing plants also, which leave you astonished. A local tribe in Meghalaya, called War-Khasis, realized the utility of the plant ‘Ficus elastica’ (a rubber tree that produces secondary roots from higher up in the trunk, steeping into the river beds or perching around the boulders), to grow bridges naturally.
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POPS A Dust Storm on Mars Another pretty picture from APOD. What is so wonderful is that it was taken from a land based telescope in Europe.
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POPS Trouble from a Pencil What you're looking at is real and deadly. My 11th grade grandson told me about this man's books and I had to see it for myself. Forget the metal detectors at the High School doors, this little baby is quite literally "Death on a Stick", and made from only the finest of school supplies. I recently viewed a segment of "Myth Busters" where they made a paper maché crossbow to see if a prison death may have been committed by a certain individual and there were varied results. This little doosey may just have done the trick. However I don't know the true firing range of the projectile, it could, as Mom used to say "...can put your eye out with that thing"!
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POPS Fog Bow I have heard of these, but I never thought I'd ever see one!
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POPSNASA Still Likes Killing Those Cute Little Animals I was alerted by PeTA in a newsletter, that these sorts of things were still going on at NASA. I was curious so I went to the NASA website and simply typed in "testing on monkeys" and page after page rolled in front of my eyes. It's hard for me to grasp the full extent of all of these tests, surely it's going to take a lot of time to investigate all of these look-ups. I guess my point is, I thought we had gone beyond all of this crap. A terrible waste of life and taxpayers money. I did my taxes yesterday and this is the first time I have ever had to pay such a large amount. Mind you, I have recently retired, and I have much less than before. I don't want my tax money to go to such ridiculous endeavors! Do You?
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POPS M51 Hubble Remix 2009 December 26 This looks so vascular, and it reminds me of a reproductive system. How glorious and strangely beautiful. How many adjectives can you come up with to describe these nebulae?
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POPSThe mysterious sailing stones of Death Valley 
It is one big mystery that a stone that weighs more or less like a man can move on its own. This has become quite a puzzle for the past decade. The mysterious sailing stones of Death Valley have been discovered to slide over valleys that people do not live in. These valleys are filled with dry cracking muddy ground during summer and ice during winter. Many geologists have gone to all the places in Racetrack Playa and its surrounding. The mysterious sailing stones of Death Valley slide on very smooth ground and leave a trail behind. Some geologists came up with the conclusion that the mysterious sailing stones of death valley move through the smooth ground when the mud is wet and the stones have little ice droplets on them with the help of the wind. This is however not entirely true because the stones move during the summer when the temperature is too high and even dries the stones themselves. I saw this 50 years ago on some old TV show It's not new, I mean.
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POPS"Alien" Jellyfish Found in Arctic Deep Jellies are among the least understood groups of animals on Earth, Raskoff added. "They seem about as alien as animals get." Scientists plan to research more of the unexplored Arctic waters before warming and ice melt drastically transforms the ocean environment, according to NOAA's Web site. Biologists are realizing that jellyfish are more common predators in the oceans than thought.
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POPS Jetpacks Go Mainstream ! Pretty amazing stuff. This is a huge step forward in flight tech. Actually it is not a true jet engine. It is a propeller type motor.
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POPS PETA's ad is Banned by NBC In response to Socratoad's clip I present you with this ad sent to me by PETA as an Xgiving Day reminder of how these birds are treated before they get to your table. On a brighter note I used to live on a Kosher veal farm. Very small. Very different. The owner's brother ran a Kosher turkey ranch, Same premise. Kindness in treatment before slaughter. It can be done intelligently and painlessly, with care and consideration for the beasts.
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POPS The Sun Does a Flip Earth’s magnetic field also flips, but with less regularity. Consecutive reversals are spaced 5 thousand years to 50 million years apart. The last reversal happened 740,000 years ago. Some researchers think our planet is overdue for another one, but nobody knows exactly when the next reversal might occur..The Sun's magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun's southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle -- like clockwork. Fear not 2012 !! It's a normal thing.
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POPS What's Taking So Long? To gain a better insight on these goings on of the US Courts please click on the link. I'd rather have 1,000 words to clip, than 1K characters, but, oh well.Read on, if you please.
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POPS $1.25 mil in the Drink Yeah right it's the bird's fault, not the man for bending down under the dash. Now, if the bird had dropped some poop down on his head then maybe...no it's still the man's fault. I was stung by a bee inside my blouse one day while driving, and I had the common sense to pull over. Even burning cigarettes are not an excuse. But a cell phone just is not a good cause. If I'm not mistaken I believe that it is illegal to use a cell phone while driving in Texas. If not not should be. It should be illegal in all 50 states !
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POPS Just Space Junk? What's in Space? Much more than you realize. Since the start of the space age there have been some 4,500 space launches worldwide, & today there are 860 active satellites in orbit, The United States owns and operates roughly half of those satellites. This space activity has resulted in millions of pieces of orbiting debris There are two main sources of orbital debris: (1) Routine space activity and the accidental breakup of satellites and stages placed in orbit by such activity; (2) The testing or use of destructive anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons that physically collide with satellites at high speed . The destruction of a single large satellite such as a U.S. spy satellite could by itself double the total amount of large debris currently in low earth orbit (LEO), where nearly half of current satellites reside. There are currently no international restrictions on the testing or use of military systems intended to destroy satellites.
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POPSHold on There! That's My VW Bus! I think... My goodness. Not only is this a great story, I'd like to know what they used for a title before this happened. But, the funniest thing to me is that stinky Spokane WA ever had a World's fair hosted there. That is the biggest laugh, 1974 someone was pretty stoned to think that one up eh?
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POPS Mystical Martian Moon Phobos Can you imagine id the man & his wife who discovered this moon could see the wonderful pictures today? Also can we imagine that in another 122 years what they will tell about these magnificent moons?
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POPS God & Freedom of Speech If you hate this country and what it stands for so much, why use the freedoms that is gives to you so freely? I don't want anyone to tell me what God is, or thinks about.
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POPS Hey... Want a Baby? The expression "life is cheap" seems to be true these days. Why in the hell are people like this even allowed to be parents? I guess they didn't think to place an ad in the newspaper. They could've got a lot more from prospective baby seekers. Don't attack me for that statement. It's more a reality than you might know. Anyway...I'm just glad they don't have it any more (the baby that is). But knowing how things things go in our wonderful courts these days, it's possible they can get custody restored. That is if they want the poor thing.
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POPS What Junk I love this stuff. It takes a master's eye to be able to see something great out of a pile of junk. Just collecting the stuff is a tremendous endeavor! Then storing it, Wow!
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POPS What's This? A Martian Tatoo? Amazing new pics from Mars Orbiter. To our human visual conceptions of what things look like and/or what things should look like out of any real context this picture resembles rolls of fleshly look-alikes and the bluish scribbles appear to some of us, as something Earthly. If you want more on the dust devils the links that are not from Wikipedia, and are from NASA are pretty informative. There are also picture of rising columns here on Earth.
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POPS More Reason's to Love my Microscope Can you see the duallities here? The first one looks like blackberries. So many of them look like popular fruits like oranges and strawberries, etc. There is one that looks like a waterfall landscape and some look like flower gardens. Fascinating and beautiful. To think that some of these common slime molds may hold the keys to cures for the most horrific diseases that plague the human race, is the scientific side of it. The sheer beauty is the aesthetic side. All of it is wonderous to me.
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POPSThe Door to Hell Well...so much for resource conservation You'd think some one of those Russian scientists would be able to figure out a way to extinguish the darn thing, but maybe they just don't care. 35 years burning endlessly is an awful waste I must say. Any combustible gas can be converted into a useful resource.
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POPS Pot Head and I thought losing your reading glasses on the top of your head was funny. OOPS !!
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POPSThey Still Don't Get It Heartless morons in Illinois. Just had to ruin the driver's day, with a load of BS. I hope those folks never have to deal with the reality of any kind of Cancer in their family. Plus I'd like to know just who turned him in.
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POPS Illusions Just click on the links. I had to have it proved to me more than once. But, it's true.
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