The Top Ten Solutions to the World’s Biggest Problems

Where in the world can we do the most good? Supplying the micronutrients vitamin A and zinc to 80 percent of the 140 million children who lack them in developing countries is ranked as the highest priority by the expert panel at the Copenhagen Consensus 2008 Conference. The cost is $60 million per year, yielding benefits in health and cognitive development of over $1 billion.

Declining Male Birth Rate Baffles Scientists

Once there was a kids’ hockey team on the reservation of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation in Canada just across the border from Michigan.

No longer. There aren’t enough boys.

This community, surrounded by dozens of pollution-spewing chemical plants, is an especially extreme example of a puzzling phenomenon playing out across the world, in countries as diverse as the United States, Sweden and Japan.

Though more boys are being born than girls in most places, their numbers are falling. And no one is sure why.

The change is small, but real. In the U.S., the number of baby boys vs. girls has been declining since 1970, translating into 17 fewer males for every 10,000 births or an estimated 135,000 fewer boys born between 1970 and 2002, according to a study last year in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Some experts suggest the shift is part of a naturally occurring, cyclical pattern in population dynamics. But others think a notable change is under way, driven by factors such as environmental contaminants and various types of stress, such as economic hardship.

Key to All Optical Illusions Discovered, Seeing into the Future

Humans can see into the future, says a cognitive scientist. It’s nothing like the alleged predictive powers of Nostradamus, but we do get a glimpse of events one-tenth of a second before they occur.

And the mechanism behind that can also explain why we are tricked by optical illusions.

Apollo Moon Conversations Show NASA Coverup?

The following are excerpts of conversations from Apollo Astronauts on the Moon to Mission Control – which show that the Astronauts came across some strange and hard-to-explain structures and unusual sightings of unidentified craft – while on the surface of the Moon.

These unusual findings, when added together with the anomalies which Richard Hoagland has shown to exist on Apollo Moon photographs, provide compelling evidence for an ongoing NASA coverup of what the Apollo Astronauts really discovered on the Moon from 1969 to 1972.

The following Apollo Astronaut conversations were mostly taken from the out-of-print book “Our Mysterious Spaceship Moon” by Don Wilson (Dell, 1975):

1) Apollo 16 Mission: April 16 – 27, 1972;
Charles Duke, Thomas Mattingly and John Young land in the Descartes highlands:

Duke: These devices are unbelievable. I’m not taking a gnomon up there. Young: O.K., but man, that’s going to be a steep bridge to climb.

Duke: You got – YOWEE! Man – John, I tell you this is some sight here. Tony, the blocks in Buster are covered – the bottom is covered with blocks, five meters across. Besides the blocks seem to be in a preferred orientation, northeast to southwest. They go all the way up the wall on those two sides and on the other side you can only barely see the out-cropping at about 5 percent. Ninety percent of the bottom is covered with blocks that are 50 centimeters and larger.

Capcom: Good show. Sounds like a secondary …

Duke: Right out here … the blue one that I described from the lunar module window is colored because it is glass coated, but underneath the glass it is crystalline … the same texture as the Genesis Rock … Dead on my mark.

Young: Mark. It’s open.

Duke: I can’t believe it!

Young: And I put that beauty in dry!

Capcom: Dover. Dover. We’ll start EVA-2 immediately.

Duke: You’d better send a couple more guys up here. They’ll have to try (garble).

Capcom: Sounds familiar.

Duke: Boy, I tell you, these EMUs and PLSSs are really super- fantastic!

It is obvious that the astronauts are talking in code – meant to disguise what they are referring to. The big question is why the excited cries? Can this be *merely* due to the collecting of Moon rocks, as they would have us believe? Or did they find something much more substantial, which was not meant for public knowledge?

1) Is there evidence that these conversations took place? 2) If so, what do all these code words mean according to NASA? “ET”, for example, might refer to an “External Tank”, not an ExtraTerrestrial alien.

The Betrayal of Judas

Marvin Meyer was eating breakfast when his cellphone buzzed. Meyer, a professor of religious studies at Chapman University, has a mostly gray beard and an athletic build left over from his basketball days…. The voice on the other end belonged to a representative of the National Geographic Society. They were working on a project and wanted his help….

“Let me see if I understand this,” Meyer said. “You’d like me to agree to do a project with you, but you won’t tell me what that project is. Is that right?”

“Exactly.”

He would have to sign a nondisclosure agreement first — which, in the end, he agreed to do. Not long afterward, Meyer found himself locked in an office in Washington, with a desk, a pile of dictionaries and lexicons, and one of the most sought-after religious texts in recent history, the Gospel of Judas. For a week he worked almost nonstop on the 26-page text, translating the Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language written with Greek letters, into English. As he translated, a startling portrait of Judas Iscariot emerged. This was not the reviled traitor who betrayed Jesus with a kiss. This was the trusted disciple, the close confidant, the friend. This was a revelation.

When the Gospel of Judas was unveiled at a news conference in April 2006, it made headlines around the world — with nearly all of those articles touting the new and improved Judas. “In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal,” read the headline in The New York Times. The British paper The Guardian called it “a radical makeover for one of the worst reputations in history.” A documentary that aired a few days later on National Geographic’s cable channel also pushed the Judas-as-hero theme. The premiere attracted four million viewers, making it the second-highest-rated program in the channel’s history, behind only a documentary on September 11.

Backflipping into jeans

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Crazy accordion skills

Here are some pretty crazy accordion skills from the Russian musician Alexander Dmitriev. You can’t help, but look in marvel at his fingers!

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First multi-player video game ever made!

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Sumo Wrestlers Baby Crying Contest in Tokyo

Babies cry as they are held up by amateur sumo wrestlers during a baby crying contest at Sensoji temple in Tokyo April 27, 2008. Eighty babies born in 2007 took part in the event, which is held to pray for the babies’ health and growth. The winner of the contest is the baby who cries the loudest.


A baby cries as he pushes an amateur sumo wrestler’s chin during a baby crying contest at Sensoji temple in Tokyo

A baby cries as an amateur sumo wrestler tries to scare her during a baby crying contest at Sensoji temple in Tokyo

A baby cries in the arms of an amateur sumo wrestler during a baby crying contest at Sensoji temple in Tokyo
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Live DNA repairs

For the first time a molecule of genetic material was observed in real time, that is able to correct damage in its structure

The repair of a damaged DNA molecules is a mechanism well known in genetics, but so far no one had given testimony in real time. Researchers of the Kavli Institute at the University of Delft, the Netherlands, were able to document at the level of a single molecule of DNA, the homologous recombination, one of the mechanisms of repair frequently put in place by the cells. The work was published in the journal Molecular Cell.

The rupture of the molecule of DNA can be caused, for example, from ultraviolet rays or X-ray, but it can also happen during normal cell division. The type of damage can affect a part of the structure internal molecules, but the cells are equipped with various mechanisms to repair it. If these damages were not immediately corrected, they could lead to changes in functional levels!

The Dutch researchers were able to observe the repai phenomenon through a magnetic field that allows you to push and rotate a single molecule of DNA in the desired position. When the damage is repaired, the position of the molecule changes: in this way, scientists at Delft have managed to observe the repair process in detail.

The possibility to deepen knowledge about these mechanisms is very important especially in the field of oncology, since the formation of a damage to genetic material is a process that can lead to the development of cancer cells. – coolstuff