Jesus fails to show at 2nd coming…

Enjoyed the introduction though. I’m a scientific thinker, but I had fun imagining that some real Jesus person would walk onto the stage and say something.

No matter what you believe, if Jesus Christ really did walk onto a stage after a great introduction like that, what  do you think his first line should be? Something funny?

I was thinking, before even speaking, he should pull a miracle. What would be a good opening miracle?  What would leave no doubt about tricks or mass hallucinations?

Leave a comment with your ideas for opening Jesus lines and miracles.

Strange Exits: Coyotes kill Canadian folk singer

Two coyotes have attacked and killed a 19-year-old folk singer in Nova Scotia, eastern Canada, officials say.

Taylor Mitchell, a promising musician from Toronto, died in hospital after the animals pounced as she hiked alone in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Walkers alerted park rangers after hearing her screams. The rangers shot one coyote, but were still searching for the second.

Attacks by coyotes on humans are rare; they usually prey on deer and hares.

Bleeding heavily from multiple bite wounds, the singer-songwriter was airlifted to a Halifax hospital, but died of her injuries on Wednesday morning, authorities said.

‘Phenomenally talented’

“Coyotes are normally afraid of humans. This is a very irregular occurrence,” Brigdit Leger, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told Reuters news agency.

She said the two coyotes were “extremely aggressive” when authorities arrived at the scene. The small wolf-like animals are found from Central America to the United States and Canada. Ms Mitchell – touted as a rising star in the folk music scene – was nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award earlier this year in the youth category.

“Words can’t begin to express the sadness and tragedy of losing such a sweet, compassionate, vibrant, and phenomenally talented young woman,” Lisa Weitz, Ms Mitchell’s manager, said in an e-mail to the Associated Press news agency.

“She just turned 19 two months ago, and was so excited about the future.”

via BBC NEWS | Americas | Coyotes kill Canadian folk singer.

Enjoy some of Taylor Mitchell’s music:

Horrible fate.

Hats off for Taylor Mitchell, an artist who went her own way.

Google opens OneBox music service + free music

Search giant Google has entered the online music market with a new service for finding and buying music online.

OneBox is an alliance with music sites Lala and MySpace-owned iLike.

The US-only service allows people to search using song titles, artists or using snippets of lyrics and will also stream sought-after tracks.

Mark Mulligan, an analyst at research firm Forrester, said the service may offer a compelling alternative to illegal file-sharing.

“Apple can do little about iPod owners downloading from BitTorrent,” he said in a blog post. “But Google on the other hand can.”

BitTorrent software is widely used to trade music and movies.

“Just imagine if when a consumer searches for a song, alongside all of those Torrent results is a heavily integrated Google music offering.”

When users search using OneBox a pop-up widget powered by iLike or Lala offers to play the entire song.

A MySpace box allows people to buy MP3s of the tracks and also highlights music videos and other information, such as upcoming concerts by the artists.

According to Google, the words “music” and “lyrics” are among the top 10 search terms of all time.

via BBC NEWS | Technology | Google opens OneBox music service.

My music is free (left box.net) and there is a lot of other free music out there.  Try iRATE if you like hearing new music every day.

US jails man for sleeping … and bad thoughts … evil thoughts…

An al-Qaeda sleeper agent has been jailed in the US for plotting to provide material support for terrorism.

Ali al-Marri was held two months after the 9/11 attacks. He admitted having regular contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind.

Al-Marri, a dual Saudi-Qatari national, pleaded guilty in May, having spent about six years in US custody. Jailing him for eight years, the judge said he considered it likely al-Marri would attack the US if he could.

US District Judge Michael Mihm said he did not believe al-Marri’s contrition. However, he did not give him the maximum of 15 years in prison, saying he deserved credit for enduring harsh treatment while in custody.

Tearful court appearance

Defence lawyers said al-Marri spent time in isolation, had suffered sensory deprivation and threats to harm his family. Al-Marri wept in court on Thursday as he said he was sorry he had ever helped al-Qaeda. He admitted that he trained in al-Qaeda camps and stayed in al-Qaeda safe houses in Pakistan between 1998 and 2001. He entered the US on 10 September 2001 on a student visa.

While studying, he carried out research into poisons and the location of US dams, waterways and tunnels, prosecutors said. He was arrested in December 2001 and charged with credit card fraud. In 2003 the Bush administration labelled him an “enemy combatant” and held him in a military base in South Carolina. In December 2008 the Supreme Court agreed to review the legality of his detention.

But two months later, after President Barack Obama took office, he was formally charged by a federal court with supporting a foreign terror group.

via BBC NEWS | Americas | US jails al-Qaeda sleeper agent.

Jailing someone who has not harmed another person, based on what you think they might do is itself a crime, and one of extreme arrogance. No judge has the power to read minds. This godlike proclamation of evil intent denies this “sleeper agent” the human right to turn it around and make a good choice. He could use his training to help the US by telling us what to watch out for, for example. I was hoping that fear would stop running the country when Bush left.

Somali man aged 112 marries girl of 17

He is old enough to be her great-great-grandfather. But Ahmed Muhamed Dhore, a Somalian who claims he is 112 years old, said he had realised a “dream” by marrying a 17-year-old bride.

Dhore – who says he was born in 1897, the year that Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee – already has 13 children by five wives, but said he would like more with his newest, Safiya Abdulle.

Hundreds of people attended the extraordinary ceremony this week in Guriceel, in the region of Galguduud. “Today God helped me realise my dream,” Dore said. He and his new wife, who is almost a century his junior, are from the same village in Somalia, he said, adding that he had waited for her to grow up to propose. He says his children and two other wives agreed to the marriage, as did Abdulle’s parents.

“I didn’t force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry,” the groom said. The bride’s family said she was “happy with her new husband”. Somali adolescent girls are often married off to older men.

Dhore has 114 children and grandchildren. His oldest son is 80 and three of his wives have died. This was his first marriage for three quarters of a century.

via Somali man aged 112 marries girl of 17 | World news | The Guardian.

Well, as long as it was God who helped him with this whole 17 year old girl thing, then we must conclude that God is really okay with it and any earthly human things like “laws” or “common sense” should not enter into our thinking.

No bail for U.S. scientist accused of spying

A judge on Thursday ordered a U.S. space exploration scientist accused of attempted espionage to stay behind bars, after prosecutors said he claimed to have passed secrets to Israel.

Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson decided there was too much of a flight risk for Stewart Nozette, 52, to be free while he awaits trial.

Nozette pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted espionage. He is accused of seeking $2 million for selling secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer. The Justice Department could seek the death penalty.

At the hearing, prosecutor Anthony Asuncion said Nozette told the agent he had passed classified information to Israel in the past. Nozette is not charged with doing so.

Nozette was arrested last week. In court papers filed ahead of Thursday’s detention hearing, prosecutors say Nozette asked for $2 million to share what he knew about top-secret government programs.

They also say he kept a stash of gold Krugerrand coins worth tens of thousands of dollars in a safe deposit box in California — more evidence, they say, of his risk of flight.

via No bail for U.S. scientist accused of spying – Security- msnbc.com.

Ha ha ha ..ha ha .. can’t stop laughing ha ha ha … we actually gave him some really bad intelligence in the past. Look at that so called “moon”! HA HA HA HA … okay, you probably don’t know why I’m laughing so hard… See, I happen to know the real shape of the moon, and … ha HA HA HA … that is not it! … but now Israel will think that this is the real shape of the moon … ha ha ha ha ha ha… look at how serious those guys look! Our guys are so great at this counter intelligence stuff.  Brilliant.

Did algae kill the dinosaurs?

… In the past 540 million years, five massive extinctions are thought to have killed off, in each case, some 50 percent to 90 percent of animal species. A new study suggests that toxins from algae played a major role in all five extinctions, including the most recent and most well-known — the death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The idea was presented at the annual Geological Society of America meeting Oct. 19. …

Toxic algae
Algae are simple organisms that get their energy from the sun and lack many features found in plants, such as roots and leaves. Some algae species produce toxins that are harmful to other aquatic organisms and even us. For instance, one group of algae called dinoflagellates can release neurotoxins that act on nerve cells.

When nutrients abound, the algae and other primitive microbes can grow rapidly and can aggregate to form dense populations, known as algae blooms. Such outbreaks of toxic algae can have devastating effects on ecosystems, killing fish, birds, marine mammals and even people.

The most problematic group of toxin-producers are cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae. While cyanobacteria are not technically algae — they were reclassified from algae to bacteria — they can produce their own energy from the sun, and some researchers still place them in the algae group. Also, their “blooms,” which cover the water with a blue-green film, are referred to as algal blooms.

A robot that jumps

Although, at this time, there is not much danger that he will jump over you.

Growing cartilage from stem cells

Damaged knee joints might one day be repaired with cartilage grown from stem cells in a laboratory, based on research by Professor Kyriacos Athanasiou, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and his colleagues.

Using adult stem cells from bone marrow and skin as well as human embryonic stem cells, Athanasiou and his group have already grown cartilage tissue in the lab. Now they are experimenting with various chemical and mechanical stimuli to improve its properties.

Cartilage is one of the very rare tissues that lack the ability to heal themselves. When damaged by injury or osteoarthritis, the effects can be long-lasting and devastating.

“If I cut a tiny line on articular cartilage (the cartilage that covers the surfaces of bones at joints), it will never be erased,” Athanasiou said. “It’s like writing on the moon. If I go back to look at it a year later, it will look exactly the same.”

Work that Athanasiou’s group began in the early 1990s at Rice University has resulted in the only Food and Drug Administration-approved products for treatment of small lesions on articular cartilage. (In total, Athanaisou’s patents have resulted in 15 FDA-approved products.)

“This will be live, biological cartilage that will not only fill defects, but will potentially be able to resurface the entire surface of joints that have been destroyed by osteoarthritis,” Athanasiou said. Now, joint replacements using metal and plastic prosthetics are the only recourse for the one in five adults who will suffer major joint damage from osteoarthritis.

via UC Davis News & Information :: Growing cartilage from stem cells.

Bad drivers? Blame their genes

Good drivers can make the road a friendly place for their fellow drivers and milk great gas mileage (or equally great performance) out of their vehicles.  However, for every good driver on the road, there’s plenty of bad ones.  According to studies, cell phones play a role in the poor overall quality of driving that leads to many accidents across America.  However, a new study shows the problem may be more complex, pointing to a link between genes and bad driving.

Researchers at University of California Irvine found that people with a specific gene variant performed 20 percent worse on a driving test than those without.  The results were confirmed by a subsequent test.  The scary part?  According to expert estimates, 30 percent of Americans have this gene.

Dr. Steven Cramer, neurology associate professor and senior author of the study states, “These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away.”

The neuroscientists discovered a potential cause for the bad behavior.  When active, people with the specific variant get less functioanlity from a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) than people with the wild type (“normal”) version of the gene.  This is not a good thing, as BDNF helps support communication between brain cells and keep them performing at their peak.  Typically it’s secreted in active parts of the brain — but those with the variant just don’t get as much. – dt

People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it – and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant.

“These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away,” said Dr. Steven Cramer, neurology associate professor and senior author of the study published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

This gene variant limits the availability of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor during activity. BDNF keeps memory strong by supporting communication among brain cells and keeping them functioning optimally. When a person is engaged in a particular task, BDNF is secreted in the brain area connected with that activity to help the body respond.

Previous studies have shown that in people with the variant, a smaller portion of the brain is stimulated when doing a task than in those with a normal BDNF gene. People with the variant also don’t recover as well after a stroke. Given these differences, the UCI scientists wondered: Could the variant affect an activity such as driving? – tc

My ex used to joke about bad Asian women drivers … I wonder … how does this play out across genders, ethnic and other groups?

Low serum BDNF has been reported in women with depression or eating disorders such as
anorexia nervosa, particularly when compared with obese patients, but also when women with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa are compared with normal- weight individuals. – link

One thing is for sure, I’m going to feel much less comfortable now driving around  skinny nervous women.  And since these disorders are triggered by childhood abuse, I wonder if we can tie in the high number of road deaths in America as a consequence of molestation and neglect? Ripple effect.