Pig that survived crash surfaces in swimming pool

An 800-pound hog that survived on its own for a week after a truck flipped while on its way to a slaughterhouse has surfaced in a swimming pool at a home near the crash site. LeAnn Baldy, whose house is only yards from Interstate 430, said Monday she noticed her pool was suddenly overflowing and then saw the immersed pig, which was having a drink in the pool.

About 90 hogs were in the trailer when it overturned where I-430 meets I-40, and about 60 survived. Officials said they thought the last of them had been caught.

Baldy said she found a farmer to take in the pig. A spokesman for Odom’s Tennessee Pride said it can’t use the hog in its sausage products because no one knows what the hog had been eating in its week on the lam

- via Yahoo

I stopped eating pigs when I learned that they are smarter than dogs.  One type of intelligence rating, which was invented by Humans, says that the intelligence ratings of animals is Humans first, then chimps, then dolphins, then  elephants, then pigs.

U.S. Iraq commander loses cool over troop numbers

War is over. I’ll believe it when I see it.

2,252 days since major combat operation were declared over in Iraq, major combat operations have officially ended in Iraq. Mission Accomplished – fark

Tuesday was a day of celebration in Iraq as U.S. forces handed control of the cities to Iraqi authorities, but the top U.S. commander was less than joyous when pressed on how many of his troops would remain.

Speaking via satellite from Baghdad, U.S. Army General Ray Odierno lost his cool at a briefing for Pentagon reporters when he was repeatedly questioned about the number of U.S. troops that would remain in the cities as advisers to Iraqi forces.

Asked why he could not give a figure, he became visibly irritated, raised his voice and replied: “Because it would be inaccurate! Because I don’t know exactly how many are in the cities. It varies day-to-day based on the mission.”

Pressed to give a rough figure, he snapped: “How many times you want me to say that? I don’t know.”

Odierno, one of the most formidable figures in the U.S. military, apologized for his outburst at the end of the briefing.

“Sorry I lost my temper a little bit on the number,” he said, to some laughter from reporters.

via U.S. Iraq commander loses cool over troop numbers | Reuters.

Hundreds of Dolphins Are Surrounding New York As We Speak

Holy hell: Long Island Sound is literally packed full of dolphins right now. There are 150 to 200 of them out there, according to Newsday, so many that if you waded into the surf you might just come face to face with one of their slimy, smiley faces. They came all together in a group and were hanging around Cold Spring Harbor last week, but now they’ve split into two groups, says the paper, and are branching out: “One group headed for City Island in the Bronx while the others were seen in the Long Island Sound near Bayville.”

Charles Bowman, president of The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, said the dolphins are hunting and appeared normal. He said they likely have split into multiple groups to continue looking for herring.

Sure. They “appear” normal. They “look” like they are hunting for “herring.” But let’s face it: Dolphins may seem dumb, with those faces they’ve got and that high-pitched “eep eep” thing they do, but we all know these are smart, cunning creatures. All of that jumping through rings and flipping in unison stuff they do? Have you ever wondered why they know how to do that? We’ll tell you: training. Make no mistake. These creatures are sophisticated, and we wouldn’t be surprised if this two-pronged strategic maneuver they are implementing to surround New York were part of some larger, complex plan to hunt something else. Like people. We’re not suggesting the city go ahead and gas them or anything. They’re mammals, just like us! But we’re going to have to all keep an eye out for these buggers. Ever been hit in the eye with a squirt from a blowhole? Neither have we, but we’re sure it isn’t pretty.

via Hundreds of Dolphins Are Surrounding New York As We Speak — Daily Intel — New York News Blog — New York Magazine.

NASA reacquires original Moon landing footage

NASA has seemingly confirmed that the original taped recordings of the first Moon landing have turned up in Australia – almost three years after the agency admitted it had carelessly mislaid them.

The Parkes Observatory in Australia captured the 1969 live images straight from the lunar surface to magnetic tape. What the US public saw, though was a compressed feed “downsized” to local TV resolutions, while NASA itself grabbed a 16mm copy from a TV monitor.

The Parkes Observatory tapes were apparently shipped to the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland a year after the landing, but in 2006 NASA confirmed that despite an extensive search, their whereabouts was unknown.

However, the Sunday Express now claims the footage was actually gathering dust in a storage facility in Perth among other tapes containing Moon dust data – presumably the same material which Oz scientists hoped to run through a vintage IBM 729 Mark V tape drive earlier this year.

A NASA spokesman confirmed the Apollo 11 landing recordings are the real deal, and said: “We’re talking about the same tapes.”

He added: “At this point, I’m not prepared to discuss what has or has not been found. The research team is preparing its final report and we’ll release those findings publicly in the coming weeks.”

The Sunday Express notes that “if the visual data can be retrieved, NASA is set to reveal them to the world as a key plank of celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the landings next month”.

Whether the world will finally enjoy high-quality pics of Aldrin and Armstrong strolling the Moon’s surface remains to be seen. When NASA coughed to having lost the original tapes, John Sarkissian of the Parkes Observatory noted that even if a machine could be found to replay them, they would be “so old and fragile, it’s not certain they could even be played”

via NASA reacquires original Moon landing footage • The Register.

Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the brain

HAVE you ever experienced that eerie feeling of a thought popping into your head as if from nowhere, with no clue as to why you had that particular idea at that particular time? You may think that such fleeting thoughts, however random they seem, must be the product of predictable and rational processes. After all, the brain cannot be random, can it? Surely it processes information using ordered, logical operations, like a powerful computer?

Actually, no. In reality, your brain operates on the edge of chaos. Though much of the time it runs in an orderly and stable way, every now and again it suddenly and unpredictably lurches into a blizzard of noise.

Neuroscientists have long suspected as much. Only recently, however, have they come up with proof that brains work this way. Now they are trying to work out why. Some believe that near-chaotic states may be crucial to memory, and could explain why some people are smarter than others.

In technical terms, systems on the edge of chaos are said to be in a state of “self-organised criticality”. These systems are right on the boundary between stable, orderly behaviour – such as a swinging pendulum – and the unpredictable world of chaos, as exemplified by turbulence.

The quintessential example of self-organised criticality is a growing sand pile. As grains build up, the pile grows in a predictable way until, suddenly and without warning, it hits a critical point and collapses. These “sand avalanches” occur spontaneously and are almost impossible to predict, so the system is said to be both critical and self-organising. Earthquakes, avalanches and wildfires are also thought to behave like this, with periods of stability followed by catastrophic periods of instability that rearrange the system into a new, temporarily stable state.

via Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the brain – life – 29 June 2009 – New Scientist.

Daily sex ‘best for good sperm’

Having sex every day improves sperm quality and could boost the chances of getting pregnant, research suggests.

In a study of men with fertility problems, daily ejaculation for a week cut the amount of DNA damage seen in sperm samples.

Speaking at a fertility conference, the Australian researcher said general advice for couples had been to have sex every two or three days.

Early results from the trial had already shown promising results.

But 118 men have now been tested and the benefits for sperm have become clearer.

Dr David Greening, from Sydney IVF, told delegates at the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting that eight in ten men taking part showed a 12% drop in sperm DNA damage after the seven days.

Although there was a big drop in sperm numbers from 180 million to 70 million over the week, men were still within the normal “fertile” range.

Sperm also became more active over the seven days with a small rise in motility, he added.

Damage

The theory is the longer sperm hang around in the testes the more likely they are to accumulate DNA damage and the warm environment could also make them more sluggish after a while.

Sperm come under attack by free radicals – small reactive molecules which can damage DNA and cause cell death – in the tube that stores and carries sperm away from the testes.

Further work is needed to work out if daily sex for men without fertility problems has the same benefits but Dr Greening believes it is likely to be the case.

He warns that having daily sex for too long – say a fortnight – would probably cut sperm numbers too much.

via BBC NEWS | Health | Daily sex ‘best for good sperm’.

Acid-reducing meds may lead to dependency + Understand homeostasis and live longer!

Treatment with proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) for eight weeks induces acid-related symptoms like heartburn, acid regurgitation and dyspepsia once treatment is withdrawn in healthy individuals, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.

“The observation that more than 40 percent of healthy volunteers, who have never been bothered by heartburn, acid regurgitation or dyspepsia, develop such symptoms in the weeks after cessation of PPIs is remarkable and has potentially important clinical and economic implications,” said Christina Reimer, MD, of Copenhagen University and lead author of the study. “This study indicates unrecognized aspects of PPI withdrawal and is a very strong indication of a clinically significant acid rebound phenomenon that needs to be investigated in proper patient populations.”

The use of PPIs for acid-related symptoms and disorders is extensive and rapidly escalating. While the incidence of new patients being treated with PPIs remains stable, the prevalence of long-term treatment is rising, the reasons for which are not fully known. Studies have shown that up to 33 percent of patients who initiate PPI treatment continue to refill their prescriptions without an obvious indication for maintenance therapy. Rebound acid hypersecretion, defined as an increase in gastric acid secretion above pre-treatment levels following antisecretory therapy, is observed within two weeks after withdrawal of treatment and could theoretically lead to acid-related symptoms such as heartburn, acid regurgitation or dyspepsia that might result in resumption of therapy.

In a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial, researchers aimed to determine the clinical relevance of rebound acid hypersecretion in order to establish if long-term treatment with a PPI creates a need for continuous treatment. A total of 120 healthy participants were randomized to 12 weeks of placebo or eight weeks of esomeprazole (40 mg per day) followed by four weeks with placebo. The Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale (GSRS) was filled out weekly. …

“We find it highly likely that the symptoms observed in this trial are caused by rebound acid hypersecretion and that this phenomenon is equally relevant in patients treated long term with PPIs. If rebound acid hypersecretion induces acid-related symptoms, this might lead to PPI dependency. Our results justify the speculation that PPI dependency could be one of the explanations for the rapidly and continuously increasing use of PPIs,” Dr. Reimer added.

via Acid-reducing medicines may lead to dependency.

I was right again. I was put on a PPI and decided after a while that it was doing more damage than good. I listened to my body and stopped it.

One of the most important things you can know about your body is that it has sensors and it adjusts to maintain different types of levels. This concept is known as homeostasis.  Knowing this, to cure my stomach  acid, I increased my intake of acid (in the form of vitamin C.) This is this (along with loosening my belt, sleeping with my head elevated, and cutting out sugar) is what cured my stomach acid problem years ago. I’ve been fine for over 5 years. I still take 3 grams of powdered vitamin C each morning.

My thinking was, if the sensors in your stomach detect acid, they produce less acid. If they detect reduced acid, they produce more acid.

I could be wrong about the Vitamin C doing the job, perhaps cutting the sugar did it, but the important thing for me is that I got long lasting positive results where my doctor and the drug companies could not.

People sometimes seek the truth, but most prefer like-minded views

We swim in a sea of information, but filter out most of what we see and hear. A new analysis of data from dozens of studies sheds new light on how we choose what we do and do not hear. The study found that while people tend to avoid information that contradicts what they already think or believe, certain factors can cause them to seek out, or at least consider, other points of view.

The analysis, reported this month in Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association, was led by researchers at the University of Illinois and the University of Florida, and included data from 91 studies involving nearly 8,000 participants. It puts to rest a longstanding debate over whether people actively avoid information that contradicts what they believe, or whether they are simply exposed more often to ideas that conform to their own because they tend to be surrounded by like-minded people.

“We wanted to see exactly across the board to what extent people are willing to seek out the truth versus just stay comfortable with what they know,” said University of Illinois psychology professor Dolores Albarracín, who led the study with University of Florida researcher William Hart. The team also included researchers from Northwestern University and Ohio University.

The studies they reviewed generally asked participants about their views on a given topic and then allowed them to choose whether they wanted to view or read information supporting their own or an opposing point of view.

The researchers found that people are about twice as likely to select information that supports their own point of view (67 percent) as to consider an opposing idea (33 percent). Certain individuals, those with close-minded personalities, are even more reluctant to expose themselves to differing perspectives, Albarracín said. They will opt for the information that corresponds to their views nearly 75 percent of the time.

The researchers also found, not surprisingly, that people are more resistant to new points of view when their own ideas are associated with political, religious or ethical values.

“If you are really committed to your own attitude – for example, if you are a very committed Democrat – you are more likely to seek congenial information, that is, information that corresponds with your views,” Albarracín said. “If the issues concern moral values or politics, about 70 percent of the time you will choose congenial information, versus about 60 percent of the time if the issues are not related to values.”

Perhaps more surprisingly, people who have little confidence in their own beliefs are less likely to expose themselves to contrary views than people who are very confident in their own ideas, Albarracín said.

Certain factors can also induce people to seek out opposing points of view, she said. Those who may have to publicly defend their ideas, such as politicians, for example, are more motivated to learn about the views of those who oppose them. In the process, she said, they sometimes find that their own ideas evolve.

People are also more likely to expose themselves to opposing ideas when it is useful to them in some way, Albarracín said.

“If you’re going to buy a house and you really like the house, you’re still going to have it inspected,” she said. Similarly, no matter how much you like your surgeon, you may seek out a second opinion before scheduling a major operation, she said.

“For the most part it seems that people tend to stay with their own beliefs and attitudes because changing those might prevent them from living the lives they’re living,” Albarracín said. “But it’s good news that one out of three times, or close to that, they are willing to seek out the other side.”

via People sometimes seek the truth, but most prefer like-minded views.

Largest ever survey of very distant galaxy clusters completed

An international team of researchers led by a UC Riverside astronomer has completed the largest ever survey designed to find very distant clusters of galaxies.

Named the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey, “SpARCS” detects galaxy clusters using deep ground-based optical observations from the CTIO 4m and CFHT 3.6m telescopes, combined with Spitzer Space Telescope infrared observations.

In a universe which astronomers believe to be 13.7 billion years old, SpARCS is designed to find clusters, snapped as they appeared long ago in time, when the universe was 6 billion years old or younger.

Clusters of galaxies are rare regions of the universe consisting of hundreds of galaxies containing trillions of stars, plus hot gas and mysterious dark matter. Most of the mass in clusters is actually in the form of invisible dark matter which astronomers are convinced exists because of its influence on the orbits of the visible galaxies.

An example of one of the most massive clusters found in the SpARCS survey is shown in the accompanying image. Seen when the universe was a mere 4.8 billion years old, this is also one of the most distant clusters ever discovered. Many similar-color red cluster galaxies can be seen in the image (the green blobs are stars in our own galaxy, The Milky Way).

“We are looking at massive structures very early in the universe’s history,” said Gillian Wilson, an associate professor of physics and astronomy who leads the SpARCS project.

The SpARCS survey has discovered about 200 new cluster candidates.

“It is very exciting to have discovered such a large sample of these rare objects,” Wilson said. “Although we are catching these clusters at early times, we can tell by their red colors that many of the galaxies we are seeing are already quite old. We will be following up this new sample for years to come, to better understand how clusters and their galaxies form and evolve in the early universe.”

via Largest ever survey of very distant galaxy clusters completed.

Norm Coleman Concedes Minnesota Senate Race

Republican Norm Coleman conceded to Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota’s contested Senate race on Tuesday, ending a nearly eight-month recount and court fight over an election decided by only a few hundred votes. (June 30)