Some interesting news tidbits
by Fazia Rizvi
8 October 2003, 12:21 PM
Nobel
Winner Critical of U.S. China's
Great Leap Upward Sonar 'may
cause whale deaths' Muslim
doll offers modest alternative to Barbie
France 35-hour week under review Move over Baby Boomers, Teenage
generation is biggest ever Beetle
Find Is One of the Oldest Colored Fossils
One of the two Americans who won this year's Nobel prize for chemistry
said on Wednesday he may use some of his prize money to help defend
academic freedoms against restrictions imposed on scientists as part of
the U.S. war on terrorism.
After 11 years of planning, China's first manned space flight could
come down to this: one man, a two-pound sack of seeds and a single
90-minute loop around the planet. Giving the firmest signs yet that China
is about to blast a "taikonaut" into orbit, news reports Wednesday said
it would take place Oct. 15 and be shown live on television.
Many unexplained strandings and deaths of marine mammals could be
caused by soundwaves from underwater military sonar equipment, zoologists
believe. They think the sonar signals may cause bubbles in the animals'
tissue, in much the same way as divers can suffer decompression sickness
known as "the bends". Writing in the journal Nature, scientists describe
how 14 whales died during a naval exercise in the Canary Islands. They say
sonar use may need to be regulated to protect the mammals.
See also, NewScientist's
article on this.
At first glance, this new girl on the block doesn't give Barbie much of a
run for her money. After all, Barbie is everything Razanne is not --
curvaceous, flashy and loaded with sex appeal. But that's exactly why many
Muslim Americans prefer Razanne, with her long-sleeved dresses, head scarf
and, by her creator Ammar Saadeh's own admission, a not-so-buxom bustline.
For Saadeh, the doll not only fills a marketing void but also offers
Muslim girls someone they can relate to.
The French government has ordered an impact study of the country's
35-hour work week -- a first step toward possibly revamping one of
France's boldest workplace experiments. Ruling party lawmakers said they
would set up a parliamentary commission to review the effect of the
reduced workweek on businesses, on the economy and on government
finances.
Today's teenage generation is now the biggest the world has ever seen,
according to a UN report released Wednesday. One in five people on Earth
are adolescents between 10 and 19, and about half the world's population
is under 25.
Paleontologists are used to drab brown and gray fossils. Sediments
that seep in to cast the shape of ancient organisms in stone, determine
the color. Instead, long-gone beasts and the ancient worlds they
inhabited, spring to life in the depths of these scientists' imaginations.
Now under exceptional circumstances, scientists have uncovered and
explained a 50-million-year-old beetle fossil that still retains the
bright blue metallic hue it sported in life. This beetle and others from
the same site, are very rare examples of fossils that retain any original
color, and are the oldest colored fossils ever found.
*THUD*
by Fazia Rizvi
8 October 2003, 8:58 AM
That is the sound of my jaw hitting the floor. Arnold Schwarzenegger
won in California? Did the whole freakin' state go nuts? Okay, so I've viewed this thing from afar and don't know all the details.
Hell, it wasn't until today that I had a good look at the list of
candidates. My *gods* this was an utter circus! So, maybe there's
something here that I'm not seeing. Certainly I don't know what was going
on in the minds of the majority of Californian voters. But I can't help
thinking that there should be many more people FREAKING OUT right now. No,
seriously. Why aren't more people (other than my good freinds) just
seriously freaked out at the state of politics in our country? I'm not talking about Republicans versus Democrats or conservative versus
liberal policies, since that's an eternal struggle. What I'm talking about
is the bizarre twist of the last presidential election (all the recounts
in Florida and elsewhere) and this monstrous list of people who ran in a
not-normally-scheduled election that ended up electing and inexperienced
actor who just exudes testosterone. This is the kind of weird shit that
happens in unstable third-world democracies. It's not supposed to be
headline news here. I don't have anything against actors/actresses in politics. Many people
do, in fact, have multiple talents in disparate areas. There are truly
Renaissance individuals out there stuck in a binary, narrow-minded world.
But most of the successful and meaningful actor/actress turned politician
stories include massive amounts of experience gained as they climbed up a
political leadership ladder. Schwarzenegger has NO such experience that I
can see and now he's been elected Governor of one of the largest and
richest states in the U.S. The recall election happened supposedly because
Gray Davis was doing poorly and now someone with no tangible experience is
in charge? Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. On-top of that I'm shocked as heck that Californians elected a Republican.
Even a middle-of-the-road moderate pro-choice Republican as he's claimed
to be. I had the impression that California was about to cede from the
U.S. because of the antics of our current Republican president and his
entourage. You know - it's supposed to be the last bastion of tolerance,
diversity and forward liberal thinking? But then, I know of California
through the eyes of my very liberal, science-oriented, rational friends
that I have from that state, and they may not be in the majority.
After-all, California did elect Ronald Reagan in the 1970's, and we (me
and my freinds) were stunned that Bush won the last election. maybe we ARE
an endangered species. Like I said, viewing from afar and all that. Even so, I'm totally stunned
and shaking my head. What were they thinking?!?