Good Morning All,
There are a lot of good articles today. Notably, I'd like to point out three. First, is the article about Powdered Passion Fruit, which is reported to cause a 90% decrease in Asthma symptoms. THAT is awesome!
Second is the story about the young girl scout who sold so many boxes of girl scout cookies that it might be a national record, and her troop gets to go on a 10 day trip to Europe this winter. WOW!
And third (though I don't normally condone fast food chains) is an article about free with purchase food. McDonalds is having a special today nationwide in the US where customers who buy a medium or a large drink will get a free Southern style chicken biscuit or chicken sandwich. I figure, hey, amidst rising food prices, who wouldn't want to know about a bit of free food?
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy today's posts! I'll be back with more for your browsing pleasure tomorrow! :)
Today's Top 5:
1. Seattle Pushes Pedaling to Work (Seattle Times)
2. Michigan Girl Scout Sells 17,328 Boxes of Cookies (Yahoo News)
3. This Little Piggy Went to Market, and was Saved from Extinction! (Times Online)
4. Powdered Passion Fruit May Cure Asthma, Say Scientists (The Scotsman)
5. Strapped Symphony Given $1.175M Gift (Honolulu Advertiser)
Honorable Mentions:
1. Nationwide: Free Southern Chicken Today at McDonald's (Detroit Free Press)
2. Biochips can Detect Cancers Before Symptoms Develop (Science Daily)
3. Prince Charles Urges Rainforest Logging Halt (BBC UK)
4. Leopard Cub Rescued (The Hindu)
5. Galaxy's Youngest Known Supernova is 140 Years Old (Newsweek)
Unpublishable:
Montana Man in Utah Hospital will See (Twin) Daughters' Graduation
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MT_VIRTUAL_GRADUATION_UTOL-?SITE=CODEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
May 14, 2008
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
This article is about a man who suffered severe burns while working to restore power, and is recovering at the University of Utah's burn center, located in Salt Lake City. Since he is not able to attend in person, he will be viewing his daughters' graduation via laptop computer.
Please visit the website above for the full article.
Today's Top 5:
1. Seattle Pushes Pedaling to Work
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/index.html
By Mike Lindblom
Seattle Times transportation reporter
Jo Repanich, 44, occasionally rides for recreation but wants to get in better shape. She expects bicycling to work will be more pleasant and give her more control over her schedule than taking the bus.
THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE are expected to try cycling to work Friday in the Seattle area.
Maps, snacks, coffee and water bottles will be handed out at 33 stops in King County, seven in Snohomish County and two in Kitsap County. Locations are listed at the Cascade Bicycle Club (www.cascade.org) and Community Transit Web sites (www.commtrans.org).
Jo Repanich set out on an urban odyssey, guarded by her helmet and the pothole-fighting springs of her bicycle seat.
Her mission: Ride from downtown to her apartment near Lincoln Park in West Seattle, taking the easiest route possible.
"To me, it's not so important how fast you get there, but the sort of environment you're in," she said.
Repanich is among 8,500 people in Washington state who have pledged to try bike commuting in May, which is National Bike to Work Month. Friday is Bike to Work Day, and locally, 20,000 people are expected to ride.
In Seattle, which sees itself as an ecological leader, an estimated 4,000 to 8,000 people already ride to work every day, depending on the weather. Mayor Greg Nickels has launched a 10-year plan to triple bicycle use by adding trails, signals, signs and 143 miles of bike lanes.
But the velotopian dream will only come true if the ride is fun for newbies, including Repanich.
Nervous about riding near cars, she searched online maps and scouted the eight-mile route in her van. She took a bike-safety class.
"Seattle is an old city that was built with narrow streets, so it's a challenge to find room," Repanich said. "Many of the streets are not set up for bikes. They're not particularly well-maintained."
Across the region, many off-street routes are under way or just completed — a bike lane on the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge; the East Lake Sammamish Trail from Redmond to Issaquah; new Seattle trail segments along Beacon Hill and Shilshole Bay; and the Interurban Trail from South Everett through Shoreline.
Employers are pushing pedals, to improve worker health, reduce parking-lot costs and meet trip-reduction quotas.
Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute, where Repanich is an administrative assistant, gives its workers $50 a month for commuting by bike. Children's bought a fleet of black loaner bikes and soon will give a bike to employees who ride to work at least two days a week. F5 Networks, a computer-network provider, supplies towels, bike jerseys and lockers, plus a $300 monthly stipend to employees who bike, walk, car-pool or use transit.
Companies also see bikes as a vehicle for good publicity — Starbucks, Group Health and Vulcan, among others, have put their names on local bike-month events.
Repanich, 44, occasionally rides for recreation, but wanted to get in better shape. She also expects bicycling to be more pleasant, and give her more control over her schedule, than taking the bus.
"When you're on a bike, you run your own commute," she said. "I love the idea of not waiting for a bus. And it's not crowded."
On her first trip last week, she rode away from her Olive Way office tower, only to become lost at a three-way intersection nearby. She took brief refuge on the sidewalk.
She wound up on Lenora Street and, keeping to the right, teetered between one row of buses stopped along the curb, and another row in the middle lane, waiting at a red light. A bus at the curb began to move, a foot from her right ear.
"I did not realize those buses weren't parked," she said. "That was scary."
On Sixth Avenue, she used the bike lane — and raved about the view of the Space Needle. Then came a calm, tree-lined downhill stretch on Wall Street to reach the waterfront. Alaskan Way perplexed her, because there's no shoulder to ride on, yet she was afraid to "take the lane" by moving out several feet, as many veteran cyclists suggest.
Eventually, she'll ride the whole way on the main bike route, along a bumpy Sodo street dominated by trucks, followed by a trail to the low-rise West Seattle Bridge, then a climb on busy uphill streets.
But until she feels stronger, she'll stop to take the Elliott Bay Water Taxi.
After reaching land in West Seattle, she cruised on the trail around Alki Beach, under a blue sky. "You can't beat this!" she said.
More information:
Group rides: Snohomish County cyclists can gather with community and business leaders at 7:30 a.m. at the county administration building in Everett, the Alderwood REI store or the Marysville Library.
Seattle rally: 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. outside City Hall. Coffee, music and speeches.
Bike maps: A master list of Washington state bicycle maps, including links to maps of Seattle, King County, Snohomish County and Redmond: wsdot.wa.gov/Bike/Maps.htm
Commute help: Bicycle Alliance of Washington offers to find an experienced "Bike Buddy" to accompany new commuters to work: bicyclealliance.org
More commute help: Cascade Bicycle Club's Education Foundation offers classes and tips on commuting at cbcef.org/commute.html
Bike safely: Read the bicycle commute guide on the state Department of Transportation's Web site at wsdot.wa.gov/bike/Commuting.htm
Bike laws: Find a summary of state bike laws at wsdot.wa.gov/Bike/Laws.htm
How not to get hit by cars: An Austin, Texas, cyclist suggests ways to avoid getting hit while riding on the road: bicyclesafe.com
What the future holds: Seattle's Bicycle Master Plan: seattle.gov/transportation/bikemaster.htm
Bike to Work Day events
Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com
2. Michigan Girl Scout Sells 17,328 Boxes of Cookies
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080515/ap_on_fe_st/odd_cookie_super_seller
By MARGARET HARDING, Associated Press Writer
34 minutes ago
DETROIT - A Girl Scout sold 17,328 boxes of the group's signature cookies this year by setting up shop on a street corner, shattering her troop's old mark and probably setting a national record.
Jennifer Sharpe, a 15-year-old from Dearborn, plans to travel to Europe with her troop with the proceeds from her feat.
"It's always been one of those goals I wanted to accomplish," Sharpe said Wednesday.
The two bakeries that make the cookies said Sharpe sold more than anyone this year, according to Dianne Thomas, spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts of Metro Detroit.
Michelle Tompkins, spokeswoman for the New York-based national organization, called the figure "amazing" but said there's no national record on the books.
"We're thrilled for the girls who take it to such a great level, but so far, we don't track it at the national level," she said.
Sharpe sold cookies every day on a street corner with help from her mother and troop leader, Pam Sharpe.
"We were always there; we never closed," Pam Sharpe said. "At one point, Jenny got really sick and we did shut down early, and we heard about it the next day."
Jennifer Sharpe's Troop 813 raised about $21,000 in cookie sales, paying for its 10-day trip to Europe this winter. Troops get only part of the proceeds from their members' sales.
The cookie program has helped push Jennifer out of her shell, Pam Sharpe said.
"It's made her really confident," she said. "I remember when she first started selling, she was very shy and quiet and you had to push her out to talk to customers, but now she's right out there, first to the door."
One thing that hasn't changed, despite selling thousands of boxes for the past few years, is Jennifer Sharpe's feelings about the cookies.
"I love them," she said.
3. Powdered Passion Fruit May Cure Asthma, Say Scientists
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/uk/Powdered-passion-fruit-may-cure.4085180.jp
Published Date: 15 May 2008
By Rhiannon Edwards
A FRUIT commonly found on supermarket shelves might be a cure for the world's 400 million sufferers of asthma, new research reveals.
Scientists are hailing the passion fruit as a potential breakthrough in the battle against the disease, which can lead to potentially fatal attacks.
The peel contains a menu of compounds, chemicals, acids and other ingredients that could provide ADVERTISEMENTrelief to asthmatics everywhere.
It is being lined up as a non-toxic alternative to medicines, or at least a healthy dietary supplement to combat the wheezing and breathlessness suffered by millions because of asthma.
The passion fruit originated in South America, but is now grown worldwide.
Like other dark fruits, from red grapes to blueberries, it seems the purple passion fruit – as opposed to the more yellow-green varieties – is one of nature's "superfoods".
Scientists from the University of Arizona and Mashhad Medical University in Iran, took extracts of peel, turned them into a powder and tested it on groups of asthma sufferers in the United States and Iran over four weeks.
Half the 42 sufferers were given the passion fruit peel (PFP) and half a placebo in the blind tests. Recording the results in the journal Nutrition Research, the researchers noted "the PFP extract significantly improved the symptoms of asthma after only four weeks. Patients experienced less wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath compared with the placebo group".
The skin of the purple passion fruit contains three major chemical compounds and acids that can help to reduce blood pressure and ease hypertension. It is also high in antioxidants, and while this is known to be good for the heart, it may also be part of the reason why passion fruit eases asthma symptoms.
Antioxidants can fight shortage of breath known as "oxidative stress", the kind caused by asthma or pollution in the air.
The fruit's skin is also rich in flavonoids, which act as nature's antihistamine treatment – similar to the most common cures for allergies and hayfever in pills and medicines.
This ties in with tribes in South America who have used passion fruit for centuries to cure what the West would call stress-related ailments – insomnia, anxiety and being short of breath.
Those taking the PFP extract saw their coughing reduce by 76 per cent and up to four in five had their wheezing cured. And while 90 per cent of all sufferers complained of shortage of breath before the start of the tests, only 10 per cent of those on the PFP treatment still had it by the end.
4. This Little Piggy Went to Market...and was Saved from Extinction!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3934427.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093
Rhys Blakely in Bombay
May 15, 2008
Sixteen of the world’s smallest and rarest pigs will take their first tentative steps in the wild today after the species was rescued from the brink of extinction.
The pygmy hog (Porcula salvanius), once common in India, Nepal and Bhutan, was thought extinct in the 1960s after years passed without a sighting of the mammal, which stands up to 30cm high and weighs a maximum of nine kilogrammes (20lb).
In 1971 four were rescued from a market in the state of Assam, in the north of India, a discovery that alerted the world to a further handful surviving in the region's tea gardens. After a 13-year captive breeding programme led by Durrell Wildlife, the Jersey-based conservation centre founded by the author Gerald Durrell, the descendents of those surviving hogs are being reintroduced to their natural habit at the foot of the Himalayas.
For the past couple of days conservationists have been making final preparations for the release of three pig families in the Gelgeli grasslands of Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary in Assam, a move that will boost a wild population that may have sunk as low as 100.
When released the animals will be at the mercy of their natural predators - chiefly pythons and Asiatic wild dogs - for the first time in their lives. By far the greatest danger, however, will come from man. The tall grasses favoured by the pygmy pigs thrive in alluvial rich soils that attract farmers. Human encroachment, livestock grazing and grass burning were the key causes of the species' dramatic decline, conservationists say.
“By far the main threat will be conflicts with the local community,” Andrew Terry, conservation manager for the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, said. “We have been educating the local population on how to live with the hogs - how to manage grass burning where it's necessary and also on how such methods mean short-term gains in return for a long-term problem.”
Early signs bode well for the pigs' prospects. The 16 hogs due to return to the wild - taken from a captive population of only 79 - have been kept in large pre-release enclosures that replicate their natural habitat for the past five months and have become progressively shyer, their keepers say. “Up to release date, the hogs have shown naturalistic behaviour and an aversion to human contact, which is a positive sign that they will fair well when released,” the project said in its latest update.
Those behind the pygmy hogs' rehabilitation say that what is good for the world's smallest pig has implications for much larger animals, including Assam's rhino population. “The pygmy hog is an important indicator for the state of the tallgrass habitat, which is crucial for the survival of a number of other endangered species such as the swamp deer, wild buffalo, hispid hare and Bengal florican,” Mr Terry said.
5. Strapped Symphony Given $1.175M Gift
Thanks to donation, musicians, staffers get 7 weeks of back wages
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080515/NEWS01/805150358/1001
By Kim Fassler
Thursday May 15th, 2008
The Honolulu Symphony's dire financial picture cleared considerably with a $1.175 million donation in the past week from one generous fan.
With the gift, the symphony was able to make up most of the pay musicians and staffers had forgone in recent months as the orchestra struggled with higher expenses and lower ticket sales.
The symphony paid the equivalent of seven weeks of back wages on Friday, said Kristin Jackson, a spokeswoman with the symphony.
Jackson would not identify the donor but said the individual has never given to the symphony before. The symphony likely will announce the donor's identity today, Jackson said.
Other symphony officials declined to comment yesterday, saying they would prefer to wait until after today's announcement.
Jackson said the symphony has been working for the past few weeks to secure the sizable donation.
The symphony had a rough year financially in part because of being displaced from the Blaisdell Concert Hall, its regular venue, by "The Lion King" tour, which ran from September to December.
The move to smaller — often more expensive venues — simultaneously cost the orchestra more money while ticket revenues decreased by at least $500,000. The regular operating budget of $6 million or $7 million rose to about $8 million.
In April, Tom Gulick, executive director of the Honolulu Symphony, said if the organization hadn't caught up on its bills and banked enough money by June 30, "the start of the next season could be in jeopardy."
Before the May 4 Spring Symphony performance at the Blaisdell Concert Hall, announcer Mike Buck said he wanted to assure fans that there would be a 2008-09 season and a 2009-10 season. The announcement was met with cheers from the audience, but Buck gave no further details.
Symphony seasons typically run from September to May, and the base salary for a musician for the nine-month season is $33,000.
Musicians and staff had been forgoing a portion of their paychecks since December. The recent donation allowed the symphony to make up most of the back pay, Jackson said. "It will bring them within four weeks of pay," she said.
Symphony officials said last month that the organization needed $1.5 million to $2 million to pull itself out of debt.
During this past legislative session, the symphony had lobbied state officials for $810,000 in emergency funding, but the proposal failed to win enough support from lawmakers.
Saturday's annual Symphony Ball at the Hawai'i Convention Center is expected to bring in additional funds. Proceeds from the event usually total from $250,000 to $400,000.
Staff writer Loren Moreno contributed to this report. Reach Kim Fassler at fassler@honoluluadvertiser.com or 954-0664.
Reach Kim Fassler at fassler@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Honorable Mentions:
1. Free Southern Chicken Today at McDonald's
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080515/FEATURES01/805150372&GID=f/cno8/GhGbBFIBQoGfK1WijDGDzXqOkVCAdMshPbUs%3D
May 15, 2008
Customers who buy a large or medium drink today at any McDonald's in the United States can get a free, full-size Southern-style chicken biscuit or chicken sandwich. The company expects to give away 8 million sandwiches and biscuits in the sampling event, running from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Visit the restaurant at 26550 Greenfield in Oak Park from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., and you can meet members of the WNBA's Detroit Shock, who'll be handing out tickets, merchandise and autographs.
2. Biochips can Detect Cancers Before Symptoms Develop
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080513130424.htm
ScienceDaily
May 14, 2008
In their fight against cancer, doctors have just gained an impressive new weapon to add to their arsenal. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have developed a chip that can save lives by diagnosing certain cancers even before patients become symptomatic.
The new technology, known as a biochip, consists of a one-centimeter by one centimeter array that comprises anywhere between several dozen and several hundred "dots," or small drops. Each of these drops contains a unique protein, antibody or nucleic acid that will attach to a particular DNA sequence or antigen.
A tumor, even in its earliest asymptomatic phases, can slough off proteins that find their way into a patient's circulatory system. These proteins trigger the immune system to kick into gear, producing antibodies that regulate which proteins belong and which do not.
"Antibodies are the guardians of what goes on in the body," said Tim Barder, president of Eprogen, Inc., which has licensed Argonne's biochip technology to search for new biomarkers that indicate cancer. "If a cancer cell produces aberrant proteins, then it's very likely that the patient will have an antibody profile that differs from that of a healthy person. You can look for similarities and differences in autoantibody profiles to look for clues and markers that provide early indicators of disease."
In their hunt for cancer indicators, Eprogen uses a process called 2-dimesional protein fractionation, which sorts thousands of different proteins from cancer cells by both their electrical charge and their hydrophobicity or "stickiness."
The 2-D fractionation process creates 960 separate protein fractions, which are then arranged in a single biochip containing 96-well grids. Eprogen scientists then probe the microarrays with known serum or plasma "auto-antibodies" produced by the immune systems of cancer patients.
By using cancer patients' own auto-antibodies as a diagnostic tool, doctors could potentially tailor treatments based on their personal autoantibody profile. "This technology is really designed to take advantage of the information contained within the patient's own biology," Barder said. "What makes this technique unique is that scientists can use the actual expression of the patient's disease as a means of obtaining new and better diagnostic information that doctors could use to understand and fight cancer better.
"We're starting to see a way of developing tests and therapies for cancer by bringing the bedside to the laboratory, rather than the other way around," he added.
Biochips have already shown promise in diagnostic medicine, according to Argonne biologist Daniel Schabacker, who developed the technology. In addition to Eprogen, three other companies have licensed biochips, he said. One of these companies, Akonni Biosystems of Frederick, Md., has already produced dozens of assays, which it markets under the TruArray® brand name. Another company, Safeguard Biosystems, licensed biochips for veterinary diagnostic applications.
When a biochip tailored to detect upper respiratory diseases is exposed to a swab taken from a patient's mouth, for instance, the binding patterns of the proteins or nucleic acids in the array cause the dots to "light up" when scanned and analyzed with a computer. Computer algorithms decode the dot pattern produced by the biochip, calculate the statistical likelihood of each possible infection and provide this information to the doctor.
"Suppose someone shows up to the hospital and they're sick with an upper respiratory infection," said Schabacker. "First thing a doctor is going to want to know is whether the infection is viral or bacterial; this is especially true in pediatrics. And ideally, they'd really like to have a single test that they can run very rapidly that will identify exactly which disease you have from a dozen top targets."
The development of products like TruArray will soon revolutionize doctors' ability to quickly diagnose a number of diseases, Schabacker said. For example, while existing rapid strep tests performed by many pediatricians take only a few minutes to process, they yield so many false negatives that doctors routinely send out the samples for subsequent rounds of more thorough, time-consuming and expensive analysis.
"The unique advantage offered by the TruArray platform lies in the fact that we can screen a single sample for multiple viral and bacterial infections at the same time," said Charles Daitch, Akonni's president and CEO. "Soon, doctors will no longer need to order as many expensive and time-consuming tests, and can instead obtain accurate diagnoses that will enable them to quickly provide their patients with targeted treatment strategies."
Though the analysis of a sample on a biochip can take 30 minutes, scientists can have much more confidence in the accuracy of the diagnosis, according to Schabacker. "Biochips give us the ability to run a test that allows your doctor to figure out exactly what you're suffering from during the time that you're in his or her office," he said.
While biochips will allow doctors to more quickly and authoritatively explain your sniffles, they might also be used for patients who exhibit symptoms of much more serious infections. By adding just a few more drops to the chip's array, Schabacker claimed, lab technicians could test for a whole slate of biotoxins and especially virulent diseases from the plague to smallpox to anthrax.
Other infections, such as those caused by Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and the often deadly Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), can be quickly diagnosed with biochips like Akonni's TruArray assay, according to Daitch.
"The most important thing with these types of infections is that you have to be right and get the answer quickly," Schabacker said. "Some of the tests out there, though marginally quicker than ours, are so inaccurate that they're almost useless. Especially when you're talking about anthrax or plague, you have to be confident in your diagnosis or else risk causing a panic."
Adapted from materials provided by DOE/Argonne National Laboratory.
3. Prince Charles Urges Rainforest Logging Halt
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7400911.stm
Page last updated at 08:19 GMT, Thursday, 15 May 2008 09:19 UK
Prince Charles said there needed to be rewards for preserving the rainforest. The halting of logging in the world's rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said. He called for a mechanism to be devised to pay poor countries to prevent them felling their rainforests.
The prince told the BBC's Today programme that the forests provided the earth's "air conditioning system".
He said it was "crazy" the rainforests were worth more "dead than alive" to some of the world's poorest people.
The world's forests store carbon in their wood and in their soils. But they are being felled for timber products, food and now bio fuels. Experts say this carbon is being released into the atmosphere and contributes to global warming.
The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, published in 2006, suggested that the destruction adds about 18% to the CO2 from human sources.
Prince Charles said of the rainforests: "When you think they release 20 billion tonnes of water vapour into the air every day, and also absorb carbon on a gigantic scale, they are incredibly valuable, and they provide the rainfall we all depend on."
He said a way had to be found to ensure people living in the rainforest were adequately rewarded for the "eco-system services that their forest provides the rest of the world".
We're asking for something pretty dreadful unless we really understand the issues now.
He said: "The trouble is the rainforests are home to something like 1.4 billion of the poorest people in the world.
"In order to survive there has to be an effort to produce things which tends to be at the expense of the rainforest. "What we've got to do is try to ensure that those forests are more valuable alive than dead. "At the moment there's more value in them being dead. This is the crazy thing."
The prince called on governments, big business and consumers to demand an end to logging in the rainforest.
He said the time was right to persuade business to play its part because there was increasing concern about global warming.
"Halting deforestation would be the easiest and cheapest way in helping in the battle against climate change," he said.
"Waiting for all the new technologies to come on stream is not going to be soon enough."
Charles said if deforestation did not slow down soon there would be "far more drought and starvation on a grand scale".
He said: "We're asking for something pretty dreadful unless we really understand the issues now, and urgency of those issues.
"It is the easiest way to create a win on the climate change front while all sorts of other things come along later."
The BBC's environment analyst, Roger Harrabin, says that Prince Charles' observation that saving the forests is the cheapest and most effective way of cutting CO2 emissions is "widely acknowledged".
At the recent Bali climate conference, developing countries asked for compensation from rich nations if they agreed to avoid future deforestation.
Talks are continuing, but there are issues over sovereignty – and genuine difficulties over who pays, who collects, and how much money should be offered.
Mike Childs, of Friends of the Earth, said: "The Prince is absolutely right to highlight deforestation as the single greatest cause of climate change, but putting a stop to it much more complex.
"Forests are cut down for many different reasons, such as the growing of food, animal fodder and bio fuels."
4. Leopard Cub Rescued
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/15/stories/2008051558530300.htm
May 15, 2008
BERHAMPUR: A four-week-old leopard cub was rescued by forest officials from the jungle near Danganam village under Phulbani forest division in Kandhamal district.
Dogs accompanying the forest produce collectors of the village had tracked down the cub. Forest officials have decided to take care of the cub as it was in a shocked State. After it recovers, it will be released in the jungle.
5. Galaxy's Youngest Known Supernova is 140 Years Old
http://www.newsweek.com/id/137007
Astronomers discover galaxy's youngest known supernova, still just a baby at 140 years old
By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer AP
May 14, 2008
Astronomers have discovered the youngest known supernova in the Milky Way galaxy, still just a baby at 140 years old. The scientists, who announced their findings Wednesday, used a radio observatory in New Mexico and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in space to identify when the supernova, or stellar, explosion occurred. They put the star-dying event at sometime around 1868.
Before this, the youngest supernova in the Milky Way was thought to have occurred around 1680.
A supernova is the catastrophic explosion of a star that releases an extraordinary amount of energy, enough to outshine an entire galaxy.
This new baby supernova is located near the center of the galaxy and obscured by dense gas and dust, making it virtually impossible to see in optical light.
Two to three supernovae are thought to occur every century in the Milky Way. As a result, there are probably even younger ones out there waiting to be identified, said David Green of the University of Cambridge in England, who led the radio observatory study.
Green and others have been tracking the remnant of this supernova since 1985 via the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array, a radio astronomy observatory. But it wasn't until last year that a team led by North Carolina State University physicist Stephen Reynolds found with help from Chandra how much the remnant had expanded. That indicated the supernova was much younger than initial estimates ranging from 400 to 1,000 years old.
The Very Large Array made new observations in March and helped pinpoint the age at 140 years, possibly less if the expansion has been slowing.
"It's the combination of the radio and the X-ray, the older technique and the new one, that tells us what this object really is. So you get a lot more when you put all of these clues together," said Robert Kirshner, a Harvard University astronomer who is not affiliated with the study.
"It's a little like one of those shows on TV where they investigate a death. This is a stellar death, all right, and the corpse is still warm," Kirshner said during a teleconference with reporters.
Astronomers typically observe supernova remnants that are 10,000 or so years old, not relative infants like this one. Getting the total picture, from the start, is important in figuring out how often supernovae explode in the Milky Way.
In this case, "you're actually getting to see the rock that made the splash, not the wave that's going out into the pond," Kirshner said.
On the Net:
Chandra X-ray Observatory:
http://chandra.nasa.gov
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