News Stories

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Finding a lone grain of sand at 2,000 miles away with binoculars is probably about like finding an Earth sized planet in another star system. Space is vast you know and finding something using mainly just light over several light years distance is not easy. Especially when you have a large light source near the objects you are trying to find.

Yes, I'm sure it was technically difficult to achieve, but what's "profound" about the discovery? How does it change our view of the universe? We already suspected that such rocks existed. In fact, we were practically sure of it.

[Ithekro]

It that case, you'd need to find out who exactly called it "profound" if the news is quoting someone. (which would be Geoffrey Marcy, from the University of California Berkeley)

[TooPurePureBoy]

Speaking of news from outer-space. I found this more interesting. I guess god is a big green blob?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/...sci_space_blob

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by TooPurePureBoy

Speaking of news from outer-space. I found this more interesting. I guess god is a big green blob?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/...sci_space_blob

it is Michigan J Frog,

anyone else sees a green blob but when the scientist see it becomes this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HAjhtPZGDY

[MrTerrorist]

Such a nice story.

Italian mayor saves his village by welcoming refugees

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

It that case, you'd need to find out who exactly called it "profound" if the news is quoting someone. (which would be Geoffrey Marcy, from the University of California Berkeley)

... What does who said it have to do with whether it's true or not?

[Ithekro]

Context usually. Something the news tends to ignore for sensationalism.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Japan manga hero sparks wave of gift-giving

Tokyo (Jan 11, Tue): Japan has been enthralled by the mysterious comeback of a 1960s comic-book hero who has sparked a nationwide wave of gift-giving by anonymous donors to underprivileged children.

According to Kyodo News, it all began at the Chuo Child Consultation Centre in the Kanto Plain prefecture of Gunma on Christmas Day. One of the centre's employees found 10 boxes containing school bags left at the entrance of the facility as she arrived for work on that day. A note signed by a "Naoto Date" was left with the boxes.

No one at the facility knew who he was until the incident was discussed at an employee meeting two days later. As one of the senior officials reported the gifts, one of the employees realised that Naoto Date was the real name of the eponymous hero of Tiger Mask, a popular manga series first published in 1968.

The widely reported gift struck a chord with Japanese who fondly remember Tiger Mask — an orphan turned professional wrestler who helped other parentless children — and has sparked more than 70 copycat acts of generosity as of today, said Kyodo News.

The presents — ranging from the initial leather school bags to stationery, toys, robot models, cash and food — were all quietly left by anonymous people at shelters, orphanages and centres for the disabled.

In one case, an envelope with 100,000 yen (US$1,200) was left at a shop selling school supplies, with a note saying: "I'm a copycat. I think Tiger Masks are everywhere across the country. Please use this for children."

Health, Labour and Welfare Minister Ritsuo Hosokawa declared himself "deeply moved" by the snowballing acts of kindness, as TV stations and newspapers kept close tabs on the latest appearances of Tiger Mask.

AFP

[AnimeFan188]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Finding a lone grain of sand at 2,000 miles away with binoculars is probably about like finding an Earth sized planet in another star system. Space is vast you know and finding something using mainly just light over several light years distance is not easy. Especially when you have a large light source near the objects you are trying to find.

There may be another planet much closer to home that hasn't been discovered
yet, due to a lack of light out there:

Giant Stealth Planet May Explain Rain of Comets from Solar System's Edge:

http://www.space.com/9612-giant-stea...stem-edge.html

[flying ^]

Lockheed is scheduled to deliver the last of 187 F-22s in early 2012.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...n-tooling.html

[flying ^]

sales in Glock pistols went up after last week's incident!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...-giffords.html

customers might wanna stock up on extended 30-round clips before democrats attempts to ban it

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/11/132826...-Capacity-Ammo
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MNTS1H6S3A.DTL
great... democrats just gave gun shops an excuse to jack up prices a bit on certain guns/parts

i think this 12 yr old NY Times article sums it up well...
(there's) no business like gun control
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/25/we...n-control.html

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil

According to BBC, China test-flight the first stealth plane



So it can fly.

Wait, didn't they say the 2001 airframe was for ground tests, and they were building another for flight testing? I suppose that could have been false information, but its still odd.

Originally Posted by flying ^

Lockheed is scheduled to deliver the last of 187 F-22s in early 2012.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...n-tooling.html

Maybe not, given the delays in the F-35 and China's new 5th gen jet making its first fight. More F-22s now are certainly a better investment than some F-35s later.

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

There may be another planet much closer to home that hasn't been discovered
yet, due to a lack of light out there:

Giant Stealth Planet May Explain Rain of Comets from Solar System's Edge:

http://www.space.com/9612-giant-stea...stem-edge.html

These claims have been made for a while. If there was something out there that big, it almost certainly would have been detected. I'll believe it when they actually see it.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

There may be another planet much closer to home that hasn't been discovered
yet, due to a lack of light out there:

Giant Stealth Planet May Explain Rain of Comets from Solar System's Edge:

http://www.space.com/9612-giant-stea...stem-edge.html

everyone knows the 10th Planet is call La-Matel

[Ithekro]

They do keep locating more dwarf planets beyond Pluto's orbit. Instead of something huge, what about lots of things not so huge....but bigger than the comets. They got at least three out there past Pluto already, plus other slightly smaller objects. Haumea, Makemake, and Eris (which is bigger than Pluto and the reason Pluto got downgraded from a Planet to a Dwarf Planet) specifically.

[JMvS]

NASA's Fermi Catches Thunderstorms Hurling Antimatter into Space

Scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon never seen before.

[Ithekro]

Hmmm...now how to either collect or use them....of course they are just positively charged electrons...not quite as useful as if they were negatively charged protons. At least from a certain point of view.

[Asuras]

It's as easy (I suppose? ) as separating anti-matter from the large hadron colliders spread out across the globe.

Of course, if anyone starts trying to harvest anti-matter, I will rally Americans to take up arms and destroy the facility.

We don't need an effing anti-matter bomb.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Why many rich people don't feel very rich

By Catherine Rampell
The New York Times

Jan 11 (Tue), 2010

OUR post last week on whether the salary of Mr Robert Gibbs, who is leaving his post as White House press secretary, is "modest" provoked some interesting reader comments.

Several readers chimed in to say that even if Mr Gibbs is comfortably placed in the top 10 per cent of earners, an annual salary of US$172,000 probably didn't feel like a lot of money, given where he lives, similarly educated counterparts in the private sector, and so on. But there seems to be a broader fissure underlying this discussion: Why don't people at the 90th percentile of the income distribution feel particularly rich?

The answer is simple: Because the Americans who are richer than this cohort are so much richer.

At the request of The New York Times, the Tax Policy Center estimated Americans' income percentiles for households across America last year. The numbers were calculated by Ms Rachel Johnson, a research associate at the centre, and were rounded to the nearest US$100. The chart below shows where these income breaks fall:


Source: Rachel Johnson, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center Microsimulation Model (version 0509-7).
Note: Distribution excludes dependents and units with negative income.


Notice what happens on the right side of the graph, around the percentiles in the mid-90s, when the line suddenly kinks upward.

In other words, at least in dollar terms, there is much greater inequality at the very top of the income scale than at the bottom or in the middle. Whether this translates to much greater differences in standards of living at the top is debatable, as an extra US$1,000 for a poor family likely makes a much bigger impact on that family's quality of life than an extra US$1,000 for a wealthy family.

Still, when evaluating their own incomes, most families try to keep up with the Joneses: they envy the wealthier neighbor whose lifestyle they aim to match. And in dollar terms, the rich are falling far shorter of their respective Joneses than the middle-income and lower-income are.

It is perhaps no wonder, then, that so many people who are statistically rich call themselves "upper middle" or even "middle class". They are much, much richer than lots of poor people, but also much, much poorer than some very visibly rich people.

From their perspective, they truly are in the middle.

[ganbaru]

China repeats fighter jet test not connected to Gates' visit
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNew...70B0SK20110112

[Azumanga Davo]

Originally Posted by TooPurePureBoy

Speaking of news from outer-space. I found this more interesting. I guess god is a big green blob?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/...sci_space_blob

Sgt. Keroro?