In a Nutshell

The heaviest anti-particle ever created, anti-helium, came from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The STAR experiment is uniquely capable of finding antihelium-4,” says the STAR experiment’s spokesperson, Nu Xu, of the Nuclear Science Division (NSD) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). “STAR already holds the record for massive antiparticles, last year having identified the anti-hypertriton, which contains three constituent antiparticles. With four antinucleons, antihelium-4 is produced at a rate a thousand times lower yet. To identify the 18 examples required sifting through the debris of a billion gold-gold collisions.”

Childcare or babysitting with language training included is becoming popular.

(New York Times, Aug 18, 2010) When Maureen Mazumder enrolled her daughter, Sabrina, in a Spanish singalong class a year ago, she hoped it would be the first step in helping her learn a second language. But the class did not seem to do the trick, so Ms. Mazumder decided to hire a baby sitter, one who would not only care for her daughter but also speak to her exclusively in Spanish.

Regardless of the problems some marriages have with lack of attention, marriage itself is now getting lots of attention. With all the political fuss about Proposition 8 in California, an explanation for supporters appears very simple: The husband-wife relationship deserves to have a name specific to itself. What simplicity! It requires no hatred toward any individual, whether labeled “gay” or not, for it simply shows respect for the ancient institution on which all human societies are based. After all, if it weren’t for traditional marriage, there would not now be any “gays,” or anyone else, for that matter, for countless generations of husband-wife families have created our present human life.

How is traditional marriage threatened by redefining “marriage?” How can it not be harmed? How else could anyone destroy traditional marriage, without first taking away from our language any specific reference to the husband-wife relationship? Without Proposition 8, in California there would no longer be any word specifically for traditional marriage. Don’t we already have enough challenges in our marriages without changing our language to remove any specific reference to it?

An early-twentieth-century British entomologist (biologist specializing in insects), Evelyn Cheesman, wrote about her experiences in New Guinea. Published in 1935, The Two Roads of Papua includes several pages about the author’s investigation of strange lights seen near the top of a mountain ridge, on the jungle mainland of what is now the independent nation Papua New Guinea. She never learned what caused the lights.

In late 2006, only about three mountain ranges south of Cheesman’s observation location, Paul Nation (a cryptozoologist from Texas) videotaped two strange lights that the local natives call “indava.” They resembles the ropen lights of Umboi Island, where he had previously explored. Like the ropen, the indava is said to be a large nocturnal flying creature. The two are thought by some cryptozoologists to be at least related to each other and to be giant bioluminescent Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs. How Cheesman would have been shocked!

See British Biologist Observes Strange Lights (later reported to be a bioluminescent flying creature)

When a man wearing a motor cycle helmet walked into the Farmers & Merchants bank in Long Beach, California, on March 5, 2010, a bank customer, David Jones, knew something was wrong. He told the bank manager about his suspicion of an imminent robbery and a silent alarm was set off.

The suspect pulled out a revolver and screamed for people to give him money. One brave bank customer grabbed the gunman and slammed him into the floor, where they struggled for half a minute. Many shots were fired, wounding the hero and one other customer; the suspect apparently accidentally also shot himself during the struggle. Jones came to assist the hero and three men eventually brought the suspect under control.