Mother Nature… Bringing Sexy Back

Ever since Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, we knew plants could get it on.

Many years later, Mother Nature is showing a definite urge to bring her sexy back.

Inevitably some people will always tend to take their love for Mother Nature’s sexy offspring too far.

Various people throughout time have had sexual fetishes that include the use of fruit and vegetables. Some choose to avoid having real relationships with people that involve eventual let down and pain, while others are just really into mother nature.

Loving nature can have some dangers though and some countries have even decided to put warning labels on certain fruits and vegetables to limit the number of hospital visits they are receiving.

Among the list of unsavory produce on the Government’s hit list are courgettes, cucumbers, bananas, carrots and squashes, which will have to carry a Goverment Health warning that: ‘improper use is liable to corrupt and deprave, and may lead to surgical intervention’.

The banana and cucumber are so popular and enjoyed, that they even made those into vibrators.

Can’t decide between a fruit or a vegetable?

(link)

Hibernation Method Tested for Space Travel

Irene Klotz, Discovery News

April 4, 2008 -- No matter how much you like your crewmates, a three-year mission to Mars would test the even the best of relationships.

And that's not even the primary reason why future long-duration space travelers may spend part of the journey in suspended animation.

There's the tremendous expense of carrying food, oxygen and carbon dioxide scrubbers to keep astronauts alive, not to mention the hassle of processing their urine and feces.

"Wouldn't it be neat if you could just put them out?" said Warren Zapol, the head of anesthesiology at Harvard University's Massachusetts General Hospital.

One option would be to cool the crew cabin into a big chill. But body temperatures below 30 Celsius (86 degrees F) can disturb the heart's rhythm. Another possibility would be to have the astronauts breathe swamp gas.

Zapol and colleagues report in this month's Anesthesiology journal about how hydrogen sulfide -- the same stuff produced by rotten eggs and swamp gas -- slows mouse metabolism without cutting blood flow to the brain.

"The mice aren't asleep," Zapol told Discovery News. "If you pinch their tails, they respond.

"I don't know what it's like," he added, "probably some slow-motion world."

There are many questions and years of research before healthy people like astronauts would be put into hibernated states, but the procedure could find an earlier application in cases of traumatic injury when life itself is at risk.

"Sixty percent of people in war are dead right there on the field," Zapol said. "They are instantly hurt, and because there is no blood and no fluids in the field, by the time they get to a hospital they are cold and dead and there is nothing to fix.

"During this early period after trauma, if we could freeze you down or shut you down, we could restart you after we fix the aorta, or whatever has been damaged," Zapol said.

Emergency medical workers have tried cooling victims, but the amount of cold water needed to reach effective temperatures makes the technique impractical, particularly in battlefield situations.

"Corpsmen aren't walking around with 150 pounds of cold water," Zapol said. "But what if you could just fog them with hydrogen sulfide?"

During Zapol's experiment, metabolic measurements of the mice, such as their consumption of oxygen and production of carbon dioxide, dropped as early as 10 minutes after they began inhaling hydrogen sulfide.

They remained low as long as the gas was administered. The mice returned to normal within 30 minutes after normal air started to flow.

The animals' heart rate dropped nearly 50 percent while they were breathing the gas, with no significant change in blood pressure or the strength of the heart beat. Respiration rates decreased, but there were no changes in blood oxygen levels, suggesting that vital organs were not at risk of oxygen starvation, the researchers report.

Zapol plans additional experiments on larger mammals, probably sheep.

"Before you use it on astronauts, you want to make sure it's very, very safe," he said.

---

Related Links:

Irene Klotz's blog: Space Diary

Warren Zapol

NASA Vision for Space Exploration

How Stuff Works: Hibernation

Charlton Heston Passes away at the age of 84

Statement by the Family of Charlton Heston
Saturday April 5, 11:24 pm ET

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., April 5, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Legendary actor, civil rights leader and political activist Charlton Heston passed away today, at the age of 84. He died at his home with Lydia, his wife of 64 years, at his side. Mr. Heston was loved by his two children, Fraser Clarke Heston and Holly Heston Rochell, and his three grandchildren, Jack Alexander Heston, Ridley Rochell and Charlie Rochell.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080405/CLSA013 )

Source: Mercury Group
· Charlton Heston. · Click Here to Download Image

The Heston family issued the following statement:

"To his loving friends, colleagues and fans, we appreciate your heartfelt prayers and support. Charlton Heston was seen by the world as larger than life. He was known for his chiseled jaw, broad shoulders and resonating voice, and, of course, for the roles he played. Indeed, he committed himself to every role with passion, and pursued every cause with unmatched enthusiasm and integrity.

We knew him as an adoring husband, a kind and devoted father, and a gentle grandfather, with an infectious sense of humor. He served these far greater roles with tremendous faith, courage and dignity. He loved deeply, and he was deeply loved.

No one could ask for a fuller life than his. No man could have given more to his family, to his profession, and to his country. In his own words, "I have lived such a wonderful life! I've lived enough for two people."

A private memorial service will be held. The family has requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Motion Picture and Television Fund:

    MPTF
  22212 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 300
  Woodland Hills, CA  91364

a great collection of photos of Charlton are here

I’ve found God, says man who cracked the genome

From The Sunday Times

June 11, 2006

Steven Swinford

THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.

Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”.

His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. “One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war,” said Collins, 56.

“I don’t see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years.”

For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.

“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.

“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”

Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”

Although Einstein revolutionised our thinking about time, gravity and the conversion of matter to energy, he believed the universe had a creator. “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details,” he said. However Galileo was famously questioned by the inquisition and put on trial in 1633 for the “heresy” of claiming that the earth moved around the sun.

Among Collins’s most controversial beliefs is that of “theistic evolution”, which claims natural selection is the tool that God chose to create man. In his version of the theory, he argues that man will not evolve further.

“I see God’s hand at work through the mechanism of evolution. If God chose to create human beings in his image and decided that the mechanism of evolution was an elegant way to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that is not the way,” he says.

“Scientifically, the forces of evolution by natural selection have been profoundly affected for humankind by the changes in culture and environment and the expansion of the human species to 6 billion members. So what you see is pretty much what you get.”

Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients.

“They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting, puzzling and unsettling.”

He decided to visit a Methodist minister and was given a copy of C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which argues that God is a rational possibility. The book transformed his life. “It was an argument I was not prepared to hear,” he said. “I was very happy with the idea that God didn’t exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could not turn away.”

His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.”

Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence of God because it is confined to the “natural” world. In this light he believes miracles are a real possibility. “If one is willing to accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he says.

Marksman 100% Accurate

Tank Chair - Five is Alive for the Handicapped

Tank Chair is an off-road wheelchair that can go almost anywhere. Tank Chair can go through streams, mud, snow, sand, and gravel, allowing you to get back into nature.

read more |

Top 5 Recreational Drug Experiments

By Aaron Rowe April 05, 2008 | 11:46:38 AM

Recreational drugs are a ridiculously fun topic for scientific research. They could also be the inspiration for powerful new medications. We are often amazed by the fascinating, and sometimes hilarious, stories that make their way into peer-reviewed journals. Here are some of our very favorites:

5. Harvard Scientists Build a Device to Smoke Weed During a Brain Scan
To better understand addiction, and how to treat it, scientists need to get a better look at the human brain as it is under the influence of weed. Unfortunately, smoking weed inside the narrow chamber of a functional MRI is not easy. To prevent smoke damage and allow their research subjects to puff without moving around too much, Blaise Frederick and his team at Harvard built what amounts to a giant bong.

4. Stanford Chemists make THC from Scratch
Since 1965, chemists have been trying to make the active ingredient of marijuana [pdf]from scratch. Back then, the researchers could only make tetrahydrocannabinol along with its enantiomers -- impurities that have the same chemical composition, but a different shape. Then, in 2006, a pair of chemists from Stanford University used a Molybdenum catalyst and other sophisticated techniques to produce the coveted molecule in its pure form. Despite their discovery, mother nature is still the best chemist and closets with high-intensity lamps will outperform the most sophisticated laboratories.

3. Researchers Learn How Salvia Works
Diviner's sage contains a powerful hallucinogen that may someday inspire a new class of depression, pain, and addiction medications. In at least one instance, a woman has used the substance to rid herself of depression. Tests on animals have shown that the Oxaccan plant, a relative of the culinary herb, can also control pain.

Last year, Catherine Willmore and her colleagues at Ohio Northern University ended a controversy about how the drug works. In the Sep. 2007 issue of Neruopharmacology, she explained that the active chemical, Salvinorin A, binds to signal-carrying proteins called kappa opioid receptors.

Willmore and her team trained rats to recognize the sensations caused by a well-understood drug that also targets kappa opioid receptors. It is impossible to know exactly how the rats felt during the test, but they could not tell the difference between the active chemical in sage and the one they had been trained to identify. Since the drugs feel the same, both of them must activate the same target.

2. British Army Tests LSD on Soldiers

1. Researchers Combine Chemicals from Sea Urchin Eggs and Weed to Make Powerful Painkillers
Scientists at organix, a small research and development firm, made hybrid molecules which resemble the euphoria-causing compounds THC and anandamide. In the Dec. 2007 issue of Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry they explained that both drugs have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. Anandamide starts working faster than its marijuana-derived counterpart, but it is more quickly destroyed by the body. A fusion of the two chemicals may last longer while maintaining an equal or stronger effect.

Although the researchers at Organix did not comment on the recreational potential of their new chemicals, their data makes it very clear that the new drugs push the same pleasure buttons as THC and anandamide.

Image Credit: Blaise Frederick / Harvard

Learn How To Hijack A Drive Thru Frequency

How To Hijack A Drive Thru

Posted 3/20/2008
Runtime: 9:11

Dudes explain how you too can prank your local fast food joint's drive thru.

How Hallucinogens Play Their Mind-Bending Games

Researchers isolate cells affected by LSD & Mescaline, potentially leading to more treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders.

read more | digg story

Rich Boys Toys - Cobra Helicopter

If you have the money you too could own one of these..

Charles Manson Releases Record Under Creative Commons

Celebrity endorsements aren't always a good thing. Take, for example, Lawrence Lessing's opensource copyright organization, Creative Commons. Sure everyone was excited when Trent Reznor moved a trillion copies of the new Nine Inch Nails record using the license, but the same doesn't seem to apply to Charles Manson.

Perhaps it's the whole brainwashing/cult/murder thing that trips people up. But people seem to forget that before Chuck was carving swastikas into his forehead, he was keeping himself busy as an struggling songwriter--even managing at one point to land a composition on a Beach Boys album.

Thanks in part to an abundance of spare time, Manson has managed to record another record, this time out bearing the typically ominous title, One Mind. The album is licensed under Creative Commons, meaning that anyone can share and remix the thing for non-commercial purposes.

The full record is available for free download via Limewire for the morbidly curious.

52 Girls Removed From Secretive Ranch of Polygamist Leader

Nearly 200 Taken From Texas Compound

Nearly 200 Now Removed From Polygamist Compound Where Officials Sought 50-Year-Old, Teen Wife

By MICHELLE ROBERTS

The Associated Press

Officials escort two buses Friday April 4, 2008 from the retreat built by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,...

Officials escort two buses Friday April 4, 2008 from the retreat built by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, located near El Dorado, Texas. Child welfare officials and state troopers removed at least one busload of children from the secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs following a complaint to state authorities. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

(AP)

ELDORADO, Texas

Child welfare officials have now removed nearly 200 women and children from a secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, authorities said Saturday.

The investigation began after a 16-year-old living there complained of physical abuse. A search warrant authorized state troopers to enter the retreat run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and look for evidence of a marriage between the girl and a 50-year-old man.

The warrant said the girl had a baby eight months ago, when she was 15.

State Child Protective Services on Friday removed 52 girls from the compound. Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that another 131 residents were removed overnight and that by Saturday afternoon 137 children and 46 women were being housed and interviewed.

"They seem to be doing fine," Meisner said. Four investigators remained inside the polygamist compound looking for additional children.

The whereabouts of the young mother who sparked the investigation are unknown, Meisner said.

State troopers who raided the religious retreat were looking for the girl, her baby girl and 50-year-old Dale Barlow. Under Texas law, girls younger than 16 cannot marry, even with parental approval.

Barlow had not been found by Friday night, officials said then. They declined to comment Saturday, saying a state judge had issued a gag order.

The search warrant instructed officers to look for marriage records or other evidence linking the girl to Barlow and the baby. The warrant authorized the seizure of computer drives, CDs, DVDs or photos.

Those inside the retreat did not respond to requests for comment.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.

State law enforcers declined to comment Saturday, saying a judge had issued a gag order, and the local sheriff did not return calls.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.

The compound sits down a narrow paved road and behind a hill that shields it almost entirely from view in town. Only the 80-foot-high gleaming white temple can be seen on the horizon. Authorities blocked access to the gate, keeping onlookers miles away.

The 1,700-acre property had been an exotic game ranch. It is surrounded by dusty, wind-swept land where sheep are raised and mohair produced.

Eldorado (pronounced el-dor-AY'-do) is a two-stoplight town of fewer than 2,000 people nearly 200 miles northwest of San Antonio. It consists of a cluster of government buildings, a couple of churches and a few blocks of houses.

State officials said they did not know how many people lived at the retreat, although local officials estimated about 150 two years ago.

The group, known by the acronym FLDS, has been led by Jeffs since his father died in 2002. In November, Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage in 2001.

In Arizona, Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives. He is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial.

The San Angelo Standard-Times reported that children were being kept at a community center and a Baptist church in Eldorado.

The owner of the Sutton County Steak House in nearby Sonora fed the children dinner on Friday and breakfast on Saturday, owner Linda Love told The San Angelo Standard-Times.

"They're singing songs. So happy and sweet and precious. It's heart-breaking," Love said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

The Ultimate Hotel Room Finder!

A Google Maps mashup called the Map Channels Hotels Directory shows you all hotels with availability listed in order of price. Just punch in the city, the check-in date and the number of nights you'll be staying, and it will lay out all your options. (Stay in New York City for $16 per night! Wow!)

read more | digg story

How to find and get free WIFI access ?

Wi-Fi a short name for Wireless Fidelity, is the popularly used wireless technology to connect to Internet in homes, colleges, hotels, Airports, coffee shops etc. To read more about how wifi works, read here. People who travel a lot often find it very difficult to locate and access the wireless access points or hot spots in the cities where they stay or travel. There are few free tools and web applications available in the internet to solve this problem and you can locate and access the WIFI hot spots around your place with ease.

JiWire

JiWire is a leading Wi-Fi advertising network, delivering premium, location-driven Ads for Access at premier Wi-Fi locations. You can use JiWire service online as a web application and performing a web search or you can find the hot spot near you place by using JiWire Hotspot Bot for skype. JiWire is a hotspot finder which has a database of more than 2 lakh hotspots in more than 135 countries. Using JiWire one can find both free and paid hotspots. Using JiWire you can locate yourselves in the map and also you can find the free and paid hot spots around you.

JiWire is able to locate you based on your IP address and may not be accurate at time but still it works good with major cities of the world. Also Jiwire helps you to register a hotspot by a single click if you find one and also it provides some free wifi tools to test your wifi security too. The installation and usage of JiWire is so easy. After installing just open the Skype BOT from the menu and start using the tool. You can download the JiWire skype bot here.

Easy Wifi Radar

You can use Easy WiFi Radar to find and connect to open wireless access points around you with a single mouse click. It’s really just WiFi for Dummies. If you feel very lazy to to scan, search and connect to a open Wifi Access then you can use this tool. Easy Wifi Radar scans the network around you and look for open WIFI hot spots and automatically connects to it and then opens a web page automatically to check the connection. To see a demo about Easy Wifi Radar please see the Youtube video below,

Digg users unite!!! Let's Rickroll the NY Mets all year!!!

choose other on the ballot, write in the entry, and all year the Mets and their fans get rickrolled during the 8th inning. DO IT!!!Click Other: then type Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick AstleyThis is chance to see the power of the Internet, the power of DIGG, and of course the chance to RickRoll entire City!!!!

read more | digg story

Perfectly Timed Pictures

Some of these are repeats, but they are so Perfect!!! I love the age of Digital Photography

GOLD VS DOLLAR

Human Touch Zero-Gravity Massage Chair

World's first zero-gravity massage chair!

• Combines incredibly realistic and therapeutic Human Touch® massage with zero-gravity ergonomics.
• As you rotate into the zero-gravity position, the pivoting "Z" shape cradles your spine in a stress-free position; elevates your legs above your heart for improved circulation; eases tense muscles; and increases oxygen intake by expanding lung capacity.
• Human Touch® robotic massage mechanism that feels like real hands; it emulates the techniques used by physical therapists and chiropractic professionals — Rolling, Kneading, Percussion and therapeutic Compression.
• Foot & Calf Massager in the footrest uses a patented technology that works your lower extremities an upward, wavelike fashion — therapeutically moving blood away from the feet and toward your body's core.
• Wired controller puts all therapies at your fingertips — including eight automatic programmed massage sessions.
• Two lumbar heat modules warm the lower back muscles, gradually reducing tightness and preparing them for a more restorative message and faster healing.
• Plugs into standard outlet.
• Select black or chocolate.

$3,995.00 click here to Purchase: Sharper Image

Le Trippin’ (Short)